"Knight, Damon - The Analogues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

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The Analogues
by Damon Knight
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Copyright (c)1952, 1976 by Damon Knight
Originally published by Street and Smith Publications, Inc. in 1952

Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction


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THE CREATURE was like an eye, a globular eye that could see in all directions, encysted in the gray, cloudy mind that called itself Alfie Strunk. In that dimness thoughts squirmed, like dark fish darting; and the eye followed them without pity.
It knew Alfie, knew the evil in Alfie; the tangled skein of impotence and hatred and desire; the equation: Love equals death. The roots of that evil were beyond its reach; it was only an eye. But now it was changing. Deep in its own center, little electric tingles came and went. Energy found a new gradient, and flowed.
A thought shone in the gray cloud that was Alfie -- only half-formed, but unmistakable. And a channel opened. Instantly, the eye thrust a filament of itself into that passage.
Now it was free. Now it could act.

The man on the couch stirred and moaned. The doctor, who had been whispering into his ear, drew back and watched his face. At the other end of the couch, the technician glanced alertly at the patient, then turned again to his meters.
The patient's head was covered to the ears by an ovoid shell of metal. A broad strap of webbing, buckled under his jaw, held it securely. The heads of screw-clamps protruded in three circles around the shell's girth, and a thick bundle of insulated wires led from it to the control board at the foot of the couch.
The man's gross body was restrained by a rubber sheet, the back of his head resting in the trough of a rubber block.
"No!" he shouted suddenly. He mumbled, his loose features contorting. Then, "I wasn't gonna -- No! Don't -- " He muttered again, trying to move his body; the tendons in his neck were sharply outlined. "Please," he said. Tears glittered in his eyes.
The doctor leaned forward and whispered. "You're going away from there. You're going away. It's five minutes later."
The patient relaxed and seemed to be asleep. A teardrop spilled over and ran slowly down his cheek.
The doctor stood up and nodded to the technician, who slowly moved his rheostat to zero before he cut the switches. "A good run," the doctor mouthed silently. The technician nodded and grinned. He scribbled on a pad, "Test him this aft.?" The doctor wrote, "Yes. Can't tell till then, but think we got him solid."

Alfie Strunk sat in the hard chair and chewed rhythmically, staring at nothing. His brother had told him to wait here, while he went down the hall to see the doctor. It seemed to Alfie that he had been gone a long time.
Silence flowed around him. The room was almost bare -- the chair he sat in, the naked walls and floor, a couple of little tables with books on them. There were two doors; one, open, led into the long bare hall outside. There were other doors in the hall, but they were all closed and their bumpy-glass windows were dark. At the end of the hall was a door, and that was closed, too. Alfie had heard his brother close it behind him, with a solid snick, when he left. He felt very safe and alone.
He heard something, a faint echo of movement, and turned his head swiftly. The noise came from beyond the second door in the room, the one that was just slightly ajar. He heard it again.
He stood up cautiously, not making a sound. He tiptoed to the door, looked through the crack. At first he saw nothing, then the footsteps came again and he saw a flash of color: a blue print skirt, a white sweater, a glimpse of coppery hair.
Alfie widened the crack, very carefully. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming faster. Now he could see the far end of the room. A couch, and the girl sitting on it, opening a book. She was about eleven, slender and dainty. A reading lamp by the couch gave the only light. She was alone.
Alfie's blunt fingers went into his trousers pocket and clutched futilely. They had taken his knife away.
Then he glanced at the little table beside the door, and his breath caught. There it was, his own switchblade knife, lying beside the books. His brother must have left it there and forgotten to tell him.
He reached for it --
"ALFIE!"
He whirled, cringing. His mother stood there, towering twice his height, with wrath in her staring gray eyes; every line of her so sharp and real that he couldn't doubt her, though he had seen her buried fifteen years ago.
She had a willow switch in her hand.
"No!" gasped Alfie, retreating to the wall. "Don't -- I wasn't gonna do nothing."
She raised the switch. "You're no good, no good, no good," she spat. "You've got the devil in you, and it's just got to be whipped out."
"Don't, please -- " said Alfie. Tears leaked out of his eyes.
"Get away from that girl," she said, advancing. "Get clean away and don't ever come back. Go on -- "
Alfie turned and ran, sobbing in his throat.
In the next room, the girl went on reading until a voice said, "Okay, Rita. That's all."
She looked up. "Is that all? Well, I didn't do much."
"You did enough," said the voice. "We'll explain to you what it's all about some day. Come on, let's go."
She smiled, stood up -- and vanished as she moved out of range of the mirrors in the room below.