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

“Pop! Hey, I didn’t know you were coming!” He was grabbed by Cliff and swung laughing towards the ceiling. “Hey! Hey! Put me down. I’ll drop my sandwich.”

Laughing, Cliff threw him onto the sofa. “Go on, you always have a sandwich. It’s part of your hand.”

Bill got up and took a big bite of the sandwich, fumbling in his pocket with the other hand. “Hm-m-m,” he said unintelligibly, and pulled out a child’s clicker toy, and began clicking it. He gulped, and said, in a muffled voice, “I’ve got to go back to class. Come watch me, Pop. You can give that old teacher a couple of tips, I bet.”

There was something odd about the tones of his voice even through the sandwich, and the clicker clicked in obscure relation to the rhythm of his words.

Cliff tried not to notice. “Where’s your mom?”

Bill swayed up and down gently on his toes, clicking rapidly, and singing, “Reeb beeb. At work, Pop. The lab head has a new lead on something, and she works a lot. Foo doo.”

Cliff exploded.

“Don’t you click at me! Stand still and talk like a human being!”

Bill went white and stood still.

“Now explain!”

Bill swallowed. “I was just singing,” he said, almost inaudibly. “Just singing.”

“It didn’t sound like singing!”

Bill swallowed again. “It’s Archy’s tunes. Tunes from his concerts. Good stuff. I… we sing them all the time. Like opera, sort of.“

“Why?”

“I dunno, Pop. It’s fun, I guess. Everybody does it.”

Cliff could hear a faint singsong note in the faltering voice. “Can you stop? Can anyone stop?”

“I dunno,” Bill mumbled. “For Pete’s sake, Pop, stop shouting. When you hear tunes in your head it doesn’t seem right not to sing them.”

Cliff opened the door and then paused, hanging on to the knob.

“Bill, has Archy Reynolds done anything to the library system?”

“No.” Bill looked up with a wan smile. “He’s going to be a great composer instead. His pop’s tapes are all right. You know, Pop, I just noticed, I like the sound of the automatics. They sound hep.”

“Hep,” said Cliff, closing the door behind him, moving away fast! He had to get out of there. He couldn’t afford to think about mass insanity, or about Bill, or Mary, or the Reynolds’ automatics. His problem was to get Archy up to Pluto Station. He had to stick to it, and keep from thinking questions. He looked at his chrono. The first deadline for leaving was coming too close. No use mincing words with Archy. He’d let him know that he was needed.



Archy was not at the rehearsal room. He was not at the library. Cliff dialed the Reynolds’ place, and after a time grew tired of listening to the ringing and hung up. The time was growing shorter. He picked up the phone again and looked at it. It buzzed inquiringly in his hand, an innocent looking black object with an earphone and mouthpiece, which was part of the strange organization of computer, automatic services, and library files which Doc Reynolds had left when he died. Cliff abandoned questions. He did not bother to dial.

“Ring Archy Reynolds, wherever he is,” he demanded harshly. “Get me Archy Reynolds. Understand? Archy Reynolds.” It might work.

The buzz stopped. The telephone receiver trilled and clicked for a moment in a whisper, playing through a scale, then it started ringing somewhere in Station A. Waiting, Cliff tried to picture Archy, but could bring back only an image of a thin twelve-year-old kid who tagged after Mike and him, asking questions, always the right questions, begging to be taken for space rides, looking up at him worshipfully.