"Kuttner, Henry - The Children's Hour UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

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of inferiors, and never guess it until she began to develop
beyond their level. Maybe the . . . the king felt the same as I did about my own child—she needed the company of
inferiors. . . of children—while she was growing up. She couldn’t develop properly among—adults. Adults, you see, so far developed beyond anything we know that when they’re in the same room with you, you can’t even remember what
they looked like.”
It took Leasing a good minute after Dyke stopped speaking
to realize just what he meant. Then he sat up abruptly and
said, “Oh, no! It can’t be that. Why, I’d have - known—”
“You ought,” Dyke remarked abstractedly, “to watch my kid play baseball. While he’s playing, it’s the most important
thing in life. The other kids never guess he has thoughts
that go beyond, the game.” -
“But. . . but the shower of gold, for instance,” protested Leasing. “The presence of the god . -. . even the—” -
“Wait a minute! Just wait, now. You remember yourself that you jumped at conclusions about the god. Made him up cornpletely~ out of a glimpse of what looked like a golden shower, and the memory of the Danae legend, and the feeling of a presence and a purpose behind what happened. If you’d seen what -looked like a burning bush instead of a shower, you’d have come up with a completely different theory involving Moses, maybe. As- for the - presence and the visions—” Dyke paused and gave him a narrowed look. He hesitated a moment. “I’m going to suggest something about those later on. You won’t like it. First, though, I want to follow this . . . this allegory on through. I want to explain fully what might lie beyond this obvious theory on Clarissa. Remember, I don”t take it seriously, But neither do I want to leave it dangling.
It’s fascinating, just as it stands. It seems very clearly -to indicate—in the -allegory—the existence of homo superior, here and now, right among us.
“Supermen?” Leasing echoed. With an obvious effort he
forced his mind into focus and sat up straighter, looking at Dyke with a thoughtful frown. “Maybe. Or maybe-. Lieutenant, do you ever read Cabell? In one of his books somewhere I think he has a character refer to a sort of super-race that Impinges on ours with only one. . . one facet He uses the analogy of geometry, and suggests that the other race might be represented by cubes that show up as squares on the plane geometric surface of our ‘world, though in their own they have a cubic mass we never guess.” He frowned more deeply, and was silent.
Dyke nodded. “Something like that, maybe. Fourth dimension stuff—people restricting themselves into our world temporarily, and for a purpose.” He pulled at his lower lip and then repeated, “For a purpose. That’s humiliating! I’m glad I don’t really believe it’s true. Even considering the thing academically is embarrassing enough. Homo superior, sending his children among us—to play.”
He laughed. “Run along, children! I wonder if you see what I’m driving at. I’m not sure myself, really. It’s too vague. My mind’s human, so it’s limited. I’m set in patterns of anthropomorphic thinking, and my habit-patterns handicap me. We have to feel important. That’s a psychological truism. That’s why Mephistopheles was always supposed to be interested in buying human souls. He wouldn’t have wanted them, really—impalpable, intangibles, no use at all to a demon with a demon’s powers.”
“Where do the demons come in?”
“Nowhere. I’m just talking. Homo superior would be another race without any human touching points at all—as adults.
Demons, in literatuM, were given human emotions and traits.
Why? Muddy thinking. They wouldn’t have them, any more than a superman would. Tools!” Dyke said significantly, and sat staring at nothing.
“Tools?” -
“This. . . this world.” He gestured. “What the devil do we know about it? We’ve made atom-smashers and, microscopes. And other things. Kid stuff, toys. My boy can use a microscope and see bugs in creek water. A doctor can take the same microscope, use stains, isolate a germ and do something about it That’s maturity. All this -world, all this—matter-. around us, might be simply tools that we’re using like kids. A super race—”
“By definition, wouldn’t it be too super to understand?”
“In tote. A child can’t completely comprehend an adult.
But a child can more or less understand another child— which is reduced to the same equation as his own, or at least the same common denominator. A superman would have to grow. He wouldn’t start out mature. Say the adult human is expressed by x. The adult superman is xy. A superchild— undeveloped, immature—is ~-. Or in other words, the

equivalent of a mature specimen of homo sapiens. Sapiens reaches senility and dies. Superior goes on to maturity, the true superman. And that maturity—”

They were silent for awhile.

“They might impinge on us a little, while taking care of
their own young,” Dyke went on presently. “They might impose amnesia on anyone who came too close, as you did— might have done. Remember Charles Fort? Mysterious disappearances, balls -of light, spaceships, Jersey devils. That’s a side issue. The point is, a superchild could live with us, right here and now, unsuspected. It would appear to be an ordinary adult human. Or if not quite ordinary—certain precautions might be taken.” Again he fell silent, twirling a pencil on the desk.
“Of course, it’s inconceivable,” he went on at last. “All pure
theory. rye got a much more plausible explanation, though as I warned you, you won’t like it.” - -
Lessing smiled faintly. “What is it?”
“Remember Clarissa’s fever?” -
“Of course. Things were different after that—much more in the open. I thought—maybe she saw things in the delirium for the first time that she couldn’t be allowed to see head-on, in normal life. The fever seemed to be a necessity. But of course—” - -
“Wait. Just possibly, you know, you may have the whole thing by the wrong end. Look back,- now. You two were caught in a rainstorm, and Clarissa came out of it with a delirium, right? And- after that, things got stranger and stranger. Leasing, did it ever occur to you that you were both caught in that storm? Are you perfectly sure that it wasn’t yourself who had the delirium?” -
Lessing sat quite still, meeting the narrowed gaze. After a long moment he shook himself slightly.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”
Dyke. smied. “All right. Just thought I’d ask. It’s one possibility, of course.” He waited.
Presently Leasing looked up.
“Maybe I did have a fever,” he admitted. “Maybe I imagined it all. That still doesn’t explain the forgetfulness, but skip that. I know one way to settle at least part of the question,” .
Dyke nodded. “I wondered if you’d want to do that I mean, right away.”
“Why not? I know the way back I’d know it blindfolded.
Why, she. may have been waiting for me all this time!
There’s nothing to prevent me going back tomorrow.”
“There’s a little matter of a pass,” Dyke said. “I believe I can fix that up. But do you think you want to go so soon, Leasing? Without thinking things over? You know, it’s going to be an awful shock if you find no apartment and no Clarissa. And Ill admit I won’t be surprised if that’s just what you do find. I think this whole thing’s an allegory we haven’t fathomed yet. We may never fathom it. But—”