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

The sound of Archy’s voice dispelled the images and brought a clear vision of a preoccupied adult face. “Yes?”

“Archy,” Cliff said, “you’re needed up at Pluto Project. It’s urgent. I haven’t time to explain. We have ten minutes to get going. I’ll meet you at the spacelock.”

He didn’t call Cliff “Chief” any more.

“I’m busy, Mr. Baker,” said the impersonal voice. “My time is taken up with composing, conducting, and recording.”

“It’s a matter of life and death. I couldn’t get anyone else in time. You can’t refuse, Jughead.”

“I can.”

Cliff thought of kidnaping. “Where are you?”

The click of the phone was final. Cliff looked at the receiver in his hand, not hanging up. It was buzzing innocently. The intonations of Archy’s voice had been an alien singsong. “Where is Archy Reynolds?” Cliff said suddenly. He gave the receiver a shake. It buzzed without answering. Cliff hung up jerkily. “How did you know?” he asked the inanimate phone.

Abruptly Cliff’s chrono went off, loudly ringing out the deadline. A little later, eighteen miles away in space his ship would automatically begin to apply jet brakes. After that moment there would not be another chance to take off for Pluto Station for seven hours. It was too late to do anything. There was no need to hurry now, no need to restrain questions and theories; he could do what he liked.

The Reynolds’ tapes. He was moving, striding down the hall, knowing he had himself under control, and his expression looked normal.

Someone caught hold of his sleeve. It was a stranger, meticulously dressed, looking odd in a place where no one wore much more than shorts.

“What?” Cliff asked abruptly, his voice strained.

The stranger raised his eyebrows. “I am from the International Business Machine Corporation,” he stated, being politely reproving. “We have heard that a Martin Reynolds, late deceased, had developed a novel subject-indexing system—”

Cliff muttered impatiently, trying to move on, but the business agent was persistent. Presumably he was tired of being put off with jibbering. He gripped Cliff’s arm doggedly, talking faster.

“We would like to inquire about the patent rights—” The agent was brought to a halt by a sudden recognition of the expression on Cliff’s face.

“Take your hand off my arm,” Cliff requested with utmost gentleness, “I am busy.” The I.B.M. man dropped his hand hurriedly and stepped back.



Ten minutes later, McCrea, the South American, stuck his head into the reading room and saw Cliff sitting at a reference desk.

“Hi,” Cliff called tonelessly, without altering the icy speed with which he was taking numbers from a Reynolds’ decimal index chart and punching them into the selection panel. The speaker on the wall twittered unceasingly, like a quartet of canaries.

“Que pasa? What happens, I mean,” asked the librarian, smiling ingratiatingly.

Cliff hit the right setting. Abruptly all twittering stopped. Smiling tightly, Cliff reached for the standard Dewey-Whitehead index to the old library tapes. They were probably still latent in the machine somewhere. It wouldn’t take much to resurrect them and restore the station to something resembling a normal inanimate machine with a normal library, computer, and servomech system. Whatever was happening, it would be stopped.

The wall speaker clicked twice and then spoke loudly in Doc Reynolds’ voice.

“Sorry. You have made a mistake,” he said. But Doe Reynolds was dead.

In the next fraction of a second Cliff began and halted three wild incomplete motions, and then gripped the edge of the desk with both hands and made himself listen. It was only a record. Doc Reynolds must have set it in years before as a safeguard.

“This setting is dangerous to the control tapes,” said the recorded voice kindly. “If you actually need data on Motive-320 cross symbols 510.2, you had better consult me for a safe setting. If I’m not around you can get help from either Mike Cohen or the kid. If you need Archy you’ll find him back in the tube banks, or in the playground at .5 G or—”