"Michael Kandel - Strange Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kandel Michael)

She downed it with her coffee, not even blowing on the coffee to cool it off.
"Excuse me," I said to the refrigerator, and to the room in general. "If you could limit yourselves,
with this communicating, to one object, such as a television set, it would be a lot easier on us, especially
on Lucille here, who isn't as accustomed as I am to hearing and seeing things."
"We like to keep moving," said the refrigerator.
I gave that some thought.
"In order that whoever it is you're afraid of won't get a fix on you?"
The refrigerator nodded. "If we stay on one channel, we leave what you might think of as footprints."
The newspaper on the table between us unfolded by itself. The lead article read:
Not that we're doing anything to be ashamed of, you understand. On the contrary. It's a question of
jurisdiction.
"And the spaceship was in your backyard?" Lucille asked in a whisper, going over to the window.
I explained to her how it descended, assumed the form of a feeder complete with birds, and
vanished. After vanishing, it could have assumed, of course, some other form. It could have become one
of the trees out back.
"How many trees do you have?" she asked, looking out the window.
"Five or six."
"Which is it? Five or six?"
I wasn't sure. Who counts the trees in his backyard?
"Your friends from outer space," she told me, "like your psychological profile. They call it favorable.
The only problem with you, according to them (I read this, God help me, off a cigarette billboard on the
expressway), is that you are a little too self-centered."
"Self-centeredness," a voice gurgled from the sink, "is not a good quality in a guardian. A guardian
should be devoted to his species."
Lucille said she needed to lie down. I took her upstairs, made her comfortable, kept my fingers
crossed that she wouldn't be bothered by any more communicating, then went outside to see which of the
trees, if any, was a spaceship. They all had the feel of trees. Bark. I encountered no force field. My
neighbor, Mr. Tribovich, called out to me from his yard, over the fence. "How you?"
"Fine," I shouted.
"Time again to rake the leaves," he called happily, gesturing. Mr. Tribovich was always happy.
"Right."
"And plant the garden."
Actually, the landlord, old Mr. Forbes, had said no to gardens. But Mr. Tribovich took me for the
owner.
"Everybody should have a garden," Mr. Tribovich called. "You get married, you have a garden. Eat
better." He smacked his pot belly. As far away as I was, I could hear the smack.
"The first invasion," said a voice in my ear, "is next Thursday, fifty miles west of Bucaramanga, in
Colombia. Just before noon."
"By invasion," I said, looking around for the speaker, "you mean the Öht?" (Was it an insect, this
time, a mite? Or was it my earwax now talking to me?)
"Yes. Fifty miles west of Bucaramanga, you'll see from the road a high meadow. It's less than a mile
north—within sight—of Barrancabermeja. Try not to be late."
The voice, I had the impression, was saying good-bye. I was relieved that the aliens were departing,
but I had a few questions yet. I asked hurriedly, running back inside: "About this guardian business ... is
there any danger to me personally if I do—whatever it is I'm supposed to do? And what is it, exactly?
How do I keep the Öht off? Do you have some ray gun to give me? And suppose I don't choose to be a
guardian?"
I ran up to see how Lucille felt. She was sound asleep, snoring, unaccustomed to the drug. The
bedroom wallpaper design wiggled into words.
You are not given a choice in the matter. Guardians, physically, run no personal risk. Use