"Mack Reynolds - Pacifist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

where the graduating cadets are seated, waiting their commissions.”


Realization was beginning to build within Casey.


“You’ll be flying one of those Y-36Gs,” the chairman pursued. His next sentence came slowly. “And the
guns of your craft will be the ones in the flight that are loaded.”


Warren Casey said, without emotion, “I’m expendable, I suppose?”


The chairman gestured in negation. “No. We have plans for your escape. You make only the one pass, and
you strafe the cadets as you do so. You then proceed due north, at full speed . . .”


Casey interrupted quickly. “You’d better not tell me any more about it. I don’t think I can take this
assignment.”


The chairman was obviously taken aback. “Why, Warren? You’re one of our senior men and an experienced
pilot.”


Casey shook his head, unhappily. “Personal reasons. No operative is forced to take an assignment he
doesn’t want. I’d rather skip this, so you’d best not tell me any more about it. That way it’s impossible for me
to crack under pressure and betray someone.”


“Very well,” the chairman said, his voice brisk. “Do you wish a vacation, a rest from further assignment at
this time?"


“No. Just give me something else.”


One of the other breed members took up another piece of paper. The matter of Professor Leonard LaVaux,”
he said.


Professor Leonard LaVaux lived in a small bungalow in a section of town which had never pretended to more
than middle class status. The lawn could have used a bit more care, and the roses more cutting back, but
the place had an air of being comfortably lived in.


Warren Casey was in one of his favored disguises, that of a newspaperman. This time he bore a Press
camera, held by its strap. There was a gadget bag over one shoulder. He knocked, leaned on the door jam,
assumed a bored expression and waited.