"The Diploids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

IF THERE was an unknown species of man, what was it doing in Omaha?

And if these men traveled among ordinary men, how did they manage to keep their existence a secret? The ability to keep the secret required money, intelligence and organization. And why did they want to stay secret? His imagination drifted toward the idea of a conspiracy again, and he smiled and rejected it. All these tenuous deductions were based on the idea that he was of an alien species, and that was merely an unproven hypothesis. There probably could be some other explanation of his physical peculiarities.

His thoughts were broken by a sound like someone turning the knob of his apartment door. It was locked of course, and it would be no use to anyone to turn it. He finished his shower and dressed hurriedly, scanning the corridor through the door viewplate before stepping out. No intruder was lurking there, and he began to wonder if the sound had been imagination. When he got to the street a feeling of being watched suddenly came with complete conviction. Casually he put his back against the nearest wall and inspected the street, checking each person.

Many people walked by. Some noticed him and glanced at him with the usual disconcerted reaction deepening to suspicion as they noticed his searching eyes, and the tension of his hands in his pockets.

He noticed the change in their expression and wondered bitterly how little provocation it would take to have them decide he had done something and call the police. Sourly he gave up looking and walked on his way, taking his chances on a bullet. The feeling of being watched continued.

In the airbus waiting room he had a chance to look around without attracting attention to himself and being stared at. People always looked around in waiting rooms, searching for first sight of whoever they were waiting for. His careful inspection of the room went unnoticed. There was no one in evidence who looked like Devon. Apparently Devon was not following him after all.

Mart picked up a newspaper from a mechanical vender. The headlines were much the same as yesterday’s. As he nipped toward the back pages an ad in a lower corner caught his eye. It was a picture of a hand, held out flat, the fingers separated, and it reminded him of his problem. The ad was nondescript, easy to pass without seeing. It could have been selling anything—astrology—palm reading—insurance. “Worried?” the caption read. “Dissatisfied? Seeing…”

People began to stream down from the upper level exits. The airbus had come in. Worried? Smiling wryly he folded the newspaper, dropped it into a trash dispenser and watched the draft suck it away into darkness. Dissatisfied? Smiling more broadly he went slowly home. The feeling of being watched was with him again, but he hadn’t seen anyone who looked like Devon, and he was beginning to get used to the feeling.



WHEN he stepped into his office the next day the viewer was chiming.

He switched it on while taking off his overshirt, and Nadine appeared on the screen. “Hey, the Martians are advertising for you.”

“What do you mean?” He took the curare gun and the alarm button the police had given him from his pockets and carefully placed them in a desk drawer.

When he glanced back at the screen she was holding up a magazine with a full page ad showing a well drawn hand, almost two thirds life size. “Did you see this ad?” It looked like an enlarged replica of the one he had glanced at in the newspaper the day before.

“I noticed it,” he admitted. “Didn’t read it.”

“Notice the hand?”

“Yeah, what’s it about? Palm reading?”

“Count the fingers.”

The hand was well drawn and looked normal, but this time he didn’t have to count. He could see the difference. Six fingers.

This was it. The thing he had been looking for. He wondered how often the ad had run. How many years had he been passing it by? He tried to control the eagerness in his voice. “What does it say? Read it!”

She read clearly. “Restless? Dissatisfied? Seeing dots before your eyes—too many fingers on your hands? Call Wesley C-06320. We might be what you’re looking for.” She glanced up eagerly. “And at the bottom here it says, “National Counseling Service 1862-A Halshire Avenue. That’s right in the city!”

“We can check on it this lunch. Have the time free?”

“I can fit it in. I don’t want to miss any of this.”

They found that the address on Halshire Avenue was a huge, beautiful white building with a three-story-high webbed-bronze archway opening on exclusive Halshire Place. Recessed inconspicuously into the white stone wall a long way from the main door was a private entrance. It was padded in morocco leather, studded with bronze studs and labeled inconspicuously with a small bronze plate. National Counseling Service. Through a porthole window inset in the door they could see a waiting room which was luxurious with the expensive Spartan simplicity of modernistic furniture.

Nadine touched his arm. “Going in?” People passed them in the sunlight, going both ways in orderly separate streams on the wide green sidewalk. Some glanced at them with faint interest. Some glanced back at him after they had passed, with that expression of puzzlement that he always noticed.

He glanced at his watch. It had taken them fifteen minutes to reach the address, and they both had appointments at one. “No. We have to save a little time for lunch.”