" Perry Rhodan 0110 - (102) Spoor of the Antis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

odour in the air as though somebody had spilled too much cleaning fluid on the floor. He bumped into the
table, which had a kidney-shaped indentation in it. This was to accommodate Lansing in his chair
whenever he was eating here.

Now where would the old man hide his Liquitiv?

Mulvaney thought awhile. He couldn’t just search around willy-nilly without some plan of action. That
might take him hours. Also, this blind groping around was bound to make noise. The only alternative was
to find Lansing.

He went around the table and stumbled over a chair. This was an unusual object to find in this place.
Fortunately the chair legs had been coated with some yielding material so that it didn’t make much noise.
Mulvaney was sure by now that the kitchen was empty. Evidently Lansing wasn’t in here. Suddenly the
idea came to him that Lansing might have become aware of his intrusion already. He might be lying in
wait for him somewhere with a weapon. The thought of Lansing’s being armed brought him a sense of
dread. For awhile he was incapable of doing anything. He merely stood there trembling with new fear.
But then his body took over and demanded its needed quota of Liquitiv. The gnawing sensation was
worse than any fear!

He left the kitchen. On the ground floor there were only two other rooms, the library and a so-called
workroom. Of course Lansing never worked anymore, even though he occupied the place a great deal of
the time. He received a monthly pension and also was given some voluntary support by relatives in
Europe. Lansing’s ‘workroom’ would have been a strange sight to any stranger. Two parallel metal bars
stretched from the entrance to the opposite window. They formed a kind of aisle which was just wide
enough to permit passage of the wheelchair. Only once had Mulvaney witnessed the purpose of this
arrangement. It was the only place where the crippled man could leave his chair without assistance. He
would get up onto the bars and pull himself along on them until he reached the window, where he often
stood and stared for hours at the street outside. When Mulvaney discovered him here that single time,
Lansing had remained angry about it the whole evening and had not been able to concentrate on his chess
game.

Mulvaney remembered when he had hesitantly pulled the curtain back to look in on him.

"Go ahead and laugh, why don’t you?" Lansing had shouted at him.

Mulvaney had been affected by the experience for several weeks after that and he had tried to avoid
visiting or contacting the old man. But Lansing had called him up and invited him to play with him again.

Now as he groped his way toward the ‘workroom’ he remembered the invalid’s words. A certain sense
of timidity kept him from parting the curtains and going in but finally he overcame the feeling and entered.
After finding that Lansing wasn’t there either he went to the library, which was also empty. This meant
that he had to be upstairs. With mixed feelings Mulvaney went stealthily over to the staircase

Here he unexpectedly tripped on a broken wheel of the wheelchair and fell on his face. His wildly flailing
hands came in contact with other disconnected parts of the familiar vehicle. Lansing’s wheelchair lay in a
rubble of destruction at the foot of the stairs. Mulvaney groaned and crawled his way out of the tangled
mess.

If Lansing were anywhere around here, the noise would have surely attracted his attention. But aside
from the sounds that Mulvaney made himself the house was completely still. He got up in a hurry and