"Campbell, John W Jr - Who Goes There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

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Chapter 11
"Is Blair loose?" someone asked.
"Blair is not loose. Or he flew in. If there's any doubt about where our gentle helper came from -this may clear it up." Van Wall held a foot-long, thin-bladed
knife in a cloth. The wooden handle was half-burnt, charred with the peculiar pattern of the top of the galley stove.


Clark stared at it. "I did that this afternoon. I forgot the damn thing and left it on the stove."
Van Wall nodded. "I smelled it, if you remember. I knew the knife came from the galley."
"I wonder," said Benning, looking around the party warily, "how many more monsters have we? If somebody could slip out of his place, go back of the screen to the
galley and then down to the Cosmos House and back -he did come back, didn't he? Yes -everybody's here. Well, if one of the gang could do that -"


"Maybe a monster did it," Garry suggested quietly. "There's that possibility."
"The monster, as you pointed out today, has only men left to imitate. Would he decrease his -supply, shall we say?" Van Wall pointed out. "No, we just have a
plain, ordinary louse, a murderer to deal with. Ordinarily we'd call him an 'inhuman murderer' I suppose, but we have to distinguish now. We have inhuman
murderers, and now we have human murderers. Or one at least."


"There's one less human," Norris said softly. "Maybe the monster have the balance of power now."


"Never mind that," McReady sighed and turned to Barclay. "Bar, will you get your electric gadget? I'm going to make certain -"
Barclay turned down the corridor to get the pronged electrocuter, while McReady and Van Wall went back toward Cosmos House. Barclay followed them in some thirty
seconds.


The corridor to Cosmos House twisted, as did nearly all corridors in Big Magnet, and Norris stood at the entrance again. But they heard, rather muffled, McReady's
sudden shout. There was a savage scurry of blows, dull "ch-thunk, shluff" sounds. "Bar -Bar -". And a curious, savage mewing scream, silenced before even quick-moving
Norris had reached the bend.


Kinner -or what had been Kinner -lay on the floor, cut half in two by the great knife McReady had had. The meteorologist stood against the wall, the knife
dripping red in his hand. Van Wall was stirring vaguely on the floor, moaning, his hand half-consciously rubbing at his jaw. Barclay, an unutterably savage gleam in
his eyes, was methodically leaning on the pronged weapon in his hand, jabbing, jabbing, jabbing.


Kinner's arms had developed a queer, scaly fur, and the flesh had twisted. The fingers had shortened, the hand rounded, the fingernails become three-inch long
things of dull red horn, keened to steel-hard razor-sharp talons.


McReady raised his head, looked at the knife in his hand and dropped it. "Well, whoever did it can speak up now. He was an inhuman murderer at that -in that he
murdered an inhuman. I swear by all that's holy, Kinner was a lifeless corpse on the floor here when we arrived. But when It found we were going to jab it with the
power -It changed."


Norris stared uneasily. "Oh, Lord, those things can act. Ye gods -sitting in here for hours, mouthing prayers to a God it hated! Shouting hymns in a cracked voice -
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