Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack. Edmond Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ finished the book, she held it primly in her lap, tapping impatiently on it with her fingers.

      There’s a lot of things funny about this boy, she thought. I’ve got to get more information about him. I’ve got a suspicion he’s going to be in for a few surprises.

      (It was less than an hour before the aliens would cut off the larger transmitter.)

      When I first located him for sure, she thought, he was traveling much too fast; faster and higher than any experimental rocket I’ve ever heard of.

      I’ve got to check on the old flying saucer reports, she thought. They’re the only things I can remember reading about that were supposed to move that fast.

      “This is him waiting up here,” Julia said to the driver. “Just pull over to the curb.”

      A moment later, opening the door, she said, “Get in. I’m Julia.”

      “I’m Walt Johnson,” he said, flexing his hands. “Let’s go someplace where we can be alone.”

      “Well,” she said. “It’s good to see you, Walt.” She extended her hand.

      He had sealed off his thoughts. His hand was moist in hers; it responded uncertainly to her warm pressure. She drew him inside. She caught a wisp of thought that he was not quite able to conceal. “Back to the hotel,” she told the driver.

      Now I’m sure, she thought, that he really tried to teleport me out of my hotel room. I wonder why he wanted to? Why should he want to kill me?

      I’ll have to keep an eye on him. But he’s such a baby. He can’t even control his emotions.

      “Your clothing,” she said, studying him with professional concern, “is all wrong. We’ll just have to get some more. Some to fit your personality better. I’ll do that tomorrow.”

      Anger crossed his face. He rubbed his hand over his knee and looked down at his trousers. “I like them,” he said in a surly voice.

      She was not afraid of him. She had no need to be. He was such an innocent!

      Why, she thought, he doesn’t seem to have any information to draw on hardly at all; he’ll be harmless as long as I wish him so.

      “I’m a Lyrian traitor, too,” he said.

      “You are?”

      His accent. She could not remember any accent on Earth like that. He had not learned his English from an earthman. A Lyrian had taught him?

      “What are you doing here?” he said.

      Boy! she thought. Is his conversation naive! Keep him talking, girl!

      She studied his face. She thought: Get ‘em young and raise ‘em to suit yourself, Julia.

      *

      She added up the facts she had already discovered. He was, like herself, a human mutant. (I must check, she thought, to see if there were any human babies missing during the last flying saucer scare twenty-four years ago, the year I was born.) The mutants had been collected at birth, but the collectors had overlooked her. Walt had traveled here from (where? Mars? Luna?) in order to rectify this oversight by putting her out of the way. Why? Obviously he owed allegiance to the collectors (Lyrians?) from whom he had probably learned—among other things—his atrocious accent. He was—

      She had ignored his question, so he asked another one. “Where is the war?”

      “War?” Julia repeated. She frowned delicately. “There’s no war. Not right now. The international situation is getting better, I think.” War? she asked herself. He’s got a lot of misinformation about us.

      She kept trying to see into the physical structure of his brain. Ah, she thought, yes. Right there—

      A bridge there, all right.

      It’s probably an easy mutation, she thought. Probably latent in everyone’s genes. The next development of man? (But how many centuries will it take for it to come out again?) How did the collectors produce the mutation in the first place—assuming they did produce (as well as harvest) it?

      Could, she thought, a surgeon—operate, as it were—on an adult brain to produce the bridge? . . . I’ll have to take up surgery. A few months to learn technique. I think I could. It’s easy to heal, because of the subconscious pattern (the cellular pattern?) but to—operate—to change—to build into a different structure, so that would require experiments and study, perhaps actual knife work . . . .

      “There has to be a war,” Walt said. “Forential told us there was.”

      “There isn’t. Not now.” Forential? A non-human? An alien?

      “He told us,” Walt said.

      “He lied,” Julia said.

      “He doesn’t lie.”

      Julia shrugged. Walt is a loyal follower, she thought. “There’s no war. Maybe he meant there would be one shortly; maybe it was a premature announcement.” Lord! do these aliens have some way of prodding the Russian bear? she thought. Or how the devil are they—Forentials, wherever they are—thinking of starting a war?

      Walt refused to consider her denial. He did not look her in the face. “I like you,” he said. He was desperate to change the subject. “Your smile. You’re so . . . so . . .” nice. He thought the last word; he took the risk that she might peep his other thoughts. He was almost certain she could not; he hoped to peep hers if she thought a reply. Forential couldn’t be a liar!

      Julia knew they were both incorrect: his statement and his conviction. But she liked to hear him say he liked her. I guess, she thought, he’s trying to lull my suspicions. Maybe I better lull his, too . . . .

      She smiled sweetly.

      “You see, I’ve never seen a Lyrian female before,” Walt said. “ . . . except one on the ship just the other day; but just one, before.”

      Is Lyria supposed to be a planet? she thought to herself. “You’ve never been to Lyria, then, have you?”

      “ . . . we were very young when we left.”

      He doesn’t even know he’s a native of Earth! Julia thought. “You know,” she said, “I’ll bet I know more about you than you think I do.”

      That brought a fear reaction from Walt.

      You don’t need to be afraid of me, Julia thought soothingly.

      (She had scarcely half an hour left before the aliens shut off the big transmitter.)

      “How soon . . . . When will we get to the hotel?”

      “Soon, now,” Julia said.

      “We’ll be alone?” Walt said.

      “We’ll СКАЧАТЬ