"Gordon R. Dickson - The Dreamsman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

THE DREAMSMAN

by Gordon R. Dickson

from Star Science Fiction #6 (Ballantine Books, 1959)

Every profession has its fringe benefits, and Gordy Dickson is one of science fiction's. A big
rangy ex-Canadian from the tall beer country of Minnesota, he turns up, not quite often
enough, at conventions and conferences with his guitar over one shoulder and a sort of shining
shield of great good humor over the other. One of these days a bright song pub-lisher will
introduce nonconvention-goers to the Dickson-Cogswell-Anderson science-fantasy ballads and
blues. Mean-time, novels like his explosive Dorsai! in ASF last year, and short stories like this
one fill the gap moderately well.

Mr. Wilier is shaving. He uses an old-fashioned straight-edged razor and the mirror above his bathroom
washbasin reflects a morning face that not even the fluffy icing of the lather can make very palatable.
Above the lather his skin is dark and wrinkled. His eyes are somewhat yellow where they ought to show
white and his sloping forehead is em-barrassingly short of hair. No matter. Mr. Wilier poises the razor for
its first stroke—and instantly freezes in posi-tion. For a second he stands immobile. Then his false teeth
clack once and he starts to pivot slowly toward the north-west, razor still in hand, quivering like a
directional an-tenna seeking its exact target. This is as it should be. Mr. Wilier, wrinkles, false teeth and
all, is a directional antenna. Mr. Wilier turns back to the mirror and goes ahead with his shaving. He
shaves skilfully and rapidly, beaming up at a sign over the mirror which proclaims that a stitch in time
saves nine. Four minutes later, stitchless and in need of none, he moves out of the bathroom, into his
bedroom. Here he dresses rapidly and efficiently, at the last adjusting his four-in-hand before a dresser
mirror which has inlaid about its frame the message Handsome is as handsome does. Fully dressed, Mr.
Wilier selects a shiny malacca cane from the collection in his hall closet and goes out behind his little
house to the garage.

His car, a 1937 model sedan painted a sensible gray, is waiting for him. Mr. Wilier gets in, starts the
motor and carefully warms it up for two minutes. He then backs out into the May sunshine. He points the
hood ornament of the sedan toward Buena Vista and drives off.

Two hours later he can be seen approaching a small yellow-and-white rambler in Buena Vista's new
develop-ment section, at a considerate speed two miles under the local limit. It is 10:30 in the morning.
He pulls up in front of the house, sets the handbrake, locks his car and goes up to ring the doorbell
beside the yellow front door.

The door opens and a face looks out. It is a very pretty face with blue eyes and marigold-yellow hair
above a blue apron not quite the same shade as the eyes. The young lady to which it belongs cannot be
much more than in her very early twenties.

"Yes?" says the young lady.

"Mr. Wilier, Mrs. Conalt," says Mr. Wilier, raising his hat and producing a card. "The Liberty Mutual
Insurance agent, to see your husband."

"Oh!" says the pretty face, somewhat flustered, opening the door and stepping back. "Please come in."
Mr. Wilier enters. Still holding the card, Mrs. Conalt turns and calls across the untenanted small living
room toward the bed-room section at the rear of the house, "Hank!"