"Frank Herbert - Whipping Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

must know I would not have called unless it were important."

A more or less standard opening.

"How the hell do I know whether your call's important?" McKie demanded. "Stop
babbling and get on with it!"

This was an unusual extension of anger even for the volatile McKie. "Did I
interrupt something important?" Furuneo ventured.

"I was just standing here in a telicourt getting a divorce!" McKie said.
"Can't you imagine what a great time everyone here's having, watching me
mubble-dubble to myself in a sniggertrance? Get to the business!"

"A Caleban Beachball washed ashore last night below Division City here on
Cordiality," Furuneo said. "In view of all the deaths and insanity and the
max-alert message from the Bureau, I thought I'd better call you at once.
It's still your case, isn't it?"

"Is this your idea of a joke?" McKie demanded.

In lieu of red tape, Furuneo cautioned himself, thinking of the Bureau maxim.
It was a private thought, but McKie no doubt was catching the mood of it.

"Well?" McKie demanded.
Was McKie deliberately trying to unnerve him? Furuneo wondered. How could the
Bureau's prime function -- to slow the processes of government -- remain
operative on an internal matter such as this call? Agents were duty bound to
encourage anger in government because it exposed the unstable, temperamental
types, the ones who lacked the necessary personal control and ability to think
under psychic stress, but why carry this duty over to a call from a fellow
agent?

Some of these thoughts obviously bled through the Taprisiot transmitter
because McKie reflected them, enveloping Furuneo in a mental sneer.

"You lotsa time unthink yourself," McKie said.

Furuneo shuddered, recovered his sense of self. Ahhh, that had been close.
He'd almost lost his ego! Only the veiled warning in McKie's words had
alerted him, allowing recovery. Furuneo began casting about in his mind for
another interpretation of McKie's reaction. Interrupting the divorce could
not account for it. If the stories were true, the ugly little agent had been
married fifty or more times.

"Are you still interested in the Beachball?" Furuneo ventured.

"Is there a Caleban in it?"

"Presumably."