"Incommunicado" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

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It began with a lesson tour, pointing and describing an Index. It became a follow-the-leader with each action in turn described in index—and it progressed.

The I. B. M. man, doggedly looking for Archy Reynolds through the suddenly deserted station, at last wandered in to the huge gym at 1.3 G and was horrified to see Archy Reynolds and Cliff Baker leading the entire staff of Station A in a monstrous conga line. Archy Reynolds was beating a drum with one hand and clicking castanets with the other, while the big sober engineer blew weird disjointed tunes on a toy harmonica and the line danced wildly. The I. B. M. man shut his eyes, then opened them grimly.

“Mr. Reynolds,” he called. He was a brave man, and tenacious. “Mr. Reynolds.”

Archy stopped and the whole dance stopped with him in deadly silence, frozen in mid step.

“What can I do for you?”

The I. B. M. man pulled three reels of tape from his brief case. “Seсor McCrea showed me Dr. Reynolds’ basic tapes, and I took a transcription. Now about the patent rights—” He took a deep breath and swung his glance doggedly across the host of watching faces back to the lean impassive face of the young man who held the rights to Reynolds’ tapes. “Could we discuss this in private?”

Instead of replying, the young man exchanged a glance with Cliff Baker, and they both began whistling rapidly, then Archy Reynolds stepped back with a gesture of dismissal and Cliff Baker turned, smiling.

“One condition,” he said, and now the intonations of his deep, hesitant voice were as alien as the voices of all others of the station, although earlier in the hall he had sounded comparatively sane to the I. B. M. man. “Only one condition, that I. B. M. leave the sound-frequency setup Reynolds has in his plans at audible volume, no matter how useless the yeeps seem to an engineer. Except for that, it’s all yours.” He smiled and the people in the lines behind him began restlessly swaying from one foot to another. Archy Reynolds began to pound on his drum.

“What?” gasped the I. B. M. man.

“You can have the patent rights,” Cliff replied over the din. “It’s all yours!”

The dance was beginning again, the huge line slowly mimicking the actions of the leaders. As the I. B. M. man hesitated at the door, staring back at the strange sight, Cliff Baker was showing his wife some intricate step, and the others mimicked in pairs.

The big engineer glanced toward the door, hesitated and hummed, clicked and whistled weirdly in a moment of complete stillness, then threw back his head and laughed. All eyes in the assemblage swiveled and came to rest on the I. B. M. man, and all through the hall there was a slow chuckle of laughter growing towards a howl.

Madness!

He stumbled through the door and fled, carrying in his brief case the human race.