"Fritz Leiber - The Number of the Beast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

be telepathic.

“If you come right out and tell them that your mind is absolutely deaf-dumb-and-blind to the thoughts of
others, they act as if you’d made a dreadful social blunder and they cover up for you by pretending not to
have heard you. Talk about patronizing—! Why, they’re like a woman who is forever expecting you to
know what it is she’s angry about without ever giving you a hint what it is.

They’re like—“

“Now, now, I’ve dealt with a few telepaths in my time, Jim. I take it that the other prong of your
dilemma is that if you officially accuse one of them, and you hit it rights than he will up and confess like a
good little animal. using the ritual of speech to tell you who commissioned fee murder and all the rest of it,
and everything win be rosy.

“But if you hit it wrong, it will be a mortal insult to his whole race—to all telepaths, for that matter—and
there will be whole solar systems moving to resign from the Union and” all manner of other devils to pay.
Because, continuing the telepath’s fiction, that you are a telepath yourself, you must have known he was
innocent and yet you accused him.”

“Most right, Sean,” the Young Captain admitted rue-

fully. *’As I said at the beginning, truth-tellers and silence-

keepers—intellectual prigs, all of them! Refusing to be-

tray each other’s thoughts to a non-telepath, I can under-

stand that—though just one telepathic stoolpigeon would

make police work ten mountains easier. But all these

other lofty idealistic fictions do get my goat! If I were

running the Union—“

“Jim, your time is running short. I take it you want help in deciding which on& to accuse. That is, if you
do decide to chance it rather than shut your mouth, lose face and play for time.”

“I’ve got to chance it, Sean Earth-side demands it. But As things stand, I’ll be backing no better than a
three-to-one shot. For you see, Sean, every single suspect of the (our is just as suspect as the others. In,
my book, they*re four equally bad boys.”

“Sketch me your suspects then, quickly.” The Old lieu-tenant closed his eyes.

“There’s Tlik-Tcha the Martian,” the Young Captain began, ticking them off on his fingers. “A nasty
black beetle, that one. Held his breath for twenty minutes and then belched it in my face. Kept printing
‘No Comment’ white-on-black on his chest to whatever I asked him. In Garamond type!”

“Cheer up, Jim. It might have been Rustic Capitals.