"Brian Lumley - Psychomech 01 - Psychomech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

‘Er,’ (he hadn’t wanted to seem obvious, but—) ’where is Vicki, by the way?’
‘Vicki? She rose, breakfasted, swam, went back to bed. She has no tight schedule like you. Also, she seemed very
tired this morning. But don’t worry, we’ll all have a late lunch and you can talk to her then.’
She must have got up immediately after he had left her, Garrison thought. But was that amusement in Schroeder’s
voice? He couldn’t quite make up his mind.
‘Are you ready for today?’ Schroeder continued. ‘Perhaps you didn’t sleep too well? You, too, seem a little tired.’
‘Ready?’ Garrison answered. ‘For the sixth building, the Big Secret - the future? I won’t go to sleep on you,
promise.’
‘First the library,’ said Schroeder. ‘I want to show you some books, ask you certain questions.’
Garrison felt a sudden uneasiness. ‘This isn’t all going to be a pain like yesterday, is it?’
‘Oh, no,’ Schroeder shook his head. ‘If I’m right you’ll find it all very interesting.’
They finished their coffees and Garrison pushed Schroeder to the library building. There Schroeder used an
electronic key to unlock the library’s shatterproof glass doors.
Garrison then guided the chair to the bookshelves lining the walls. Now he found the books - books by the
hundreds, the thousands - and let his hands run over their spines.
‘The shelves are only two meters high,’ Schroeder told him, and went on to explain: ‘I hate shelves you need a chair
to reach! But they fill all four large rooms on both floors. And they contain more than three hundred and ten thousand
books. Hardbacks, softbacks, magazines, periodicals, first editions, rare collector’s items, cheap pulps. Yes, and they
all have one thing in common. A single theme, you might say.’
‘Oh?’ Garrison was politely curious.
‘The mysterious, the unexplained, the supernatural, the strange, the esoteric ...’
‘Weird stuff? I was never much interested in—’
‘That shelf you are touching now,’ Schroeder cut in, ’contains books dealing with ESP. About two hundred of them.
To your right are some fifty volumes dealing with possession. To your left, about thirty on alchemy. Over here we
have astronomy, and right alongside it astrology. A great number of books on the latter.’
Schroeder was on his feet now. He took Garrison’s elbow and led him to a shelf standing apart from the rest. Beside
it a small table was littered with books. ‘This subject, however, is my favourite. You see, I have a table here where I can
sit and read without going up to the observatory.’
An odd chill struck Garrison. It was as if a cold wind suddenly blew on him from his host, like the one he had felt in
the gardens when they were looking for the mushrooms. Perhaps it had something to do with the man’s voice, which
had taken on a new (guarded?) intensity. But guarded or otherwise, this preternatural chill told Garrison that whatever
Schroeder said or did in the next few minutes, he would be in deadly earnest.
‘Do you remember what you said to me yesterday evening when I told you I didn’t have a great deal of time left?’
Schroeder asked, and quickly continued: ‘You said that—’
‘You’d live forever,’ Garrison finished it for him. As he spoke a word jumped to the front of his mind, formed itself
and fell out of his mouth almost unbidden. ‘Reincarnation.’
Schroeder gasped but Garrison only smiled. He had always been quick on the uptake. After a moment the
industrialist took his elbow and said, ‘Sit.’ He held a chair for Garrison. They sat at the table and Garrison could hear
Schroeder turning the leaves of a book. ‘Reincarnation, yes. Metempsychosis. Do you believe?’
Garrison shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ve given it some thought, not much.’
‘Men have given it thought since the very first men knew how to think,’ the other told him. ‘I think, therefore I am
-and will go on being! I have more than two hundred and forty works on the subject, in all languages, and there is an
even greater number which I do not deem worthy of my collection. And I’ll tell you something: the older a man gets,
the more he thinks about it. It’s like believing in God. The closer you get to dying the more inclined you are to believe.’
‘And you really do believe,’ said Garrison. He made it a statement of fact, not a question.
‘I do, yes. Richard, I have a son. Thanks to you he still lives. He is healthy, he will be handsome, intelligent. He will
have a full life. If I had twenty years - if I had even ten - perhaps I could find a way to return, to come back in the body
of my son.’
Garrison was suddenly prompted to laugh. He did no such thing, however, but merely sat motionless. He could still
feel the chill, the tension in Schroeder’s voice, the goose-flesh creeping on his arms. No, this was no time for laughter;