"Jean Marie Stine - Lost Stars Forgotten Sci-Fi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stine Jean Marie)

"Newborn?"
"Eighteen months," said Melinda stiffly, changing diapers. "He's cutting teeth."
Porteous shuddered. "What a pity. Obviously atavistic. Wouldn't the creche accept
him? You shouldn't have to keep him here."
"I keep after Harry to get a maid, but he says we can't afford one."
"Manifestly insecure," muttered the little man, studying Harry junior. "Definite
paranoid tendencies."
"He was two weeks premature," volunteered Melinda. "He's real sensitive."
"I know just the thing," Porteous said happily. "Here." He dipped into the glittering
litter on the tray and handed Harry junior a translucent prism. "A neural distorter. We
use it to train regressives on Rigel Two. It might be of assistance."
Melinda eyed the thing doubtfully. Harry junior was peering into the shifting crystal
depths with a somewhat strained expression.
"Speeds up the neural flow," explained the little man proudly. "Helps tap the unused
eighty per cent. The pre-symptomatic memory is unaffected, due to automatic
cerebral lapse in case of overload. I'm afraid it won't do much more than cube his
present IQ, and an intelligent idiot is still an idiot, but –"
"How dare you?" Melinda's eyes flashed. "My son is not an idiot! You get out of
here this minute and take your-things with you." As she reached for the prism, Harry
junior squalled. Melinda relented. "Here," she said angrily, fumbling with her purse.
"How much are they?"
"Medium of exchange?" Porteous rubbed his bald skull. "Oh, I really shouldn't–but
it'll make such a wonderful addendum to the chapter on malignant primitives. What is
your smallest denomination?"
"Is a dollar okay?" Melinda was hopeful.
Porteous was pleased with the picture of George Washington. He turned the bill over
and over in his fingers, at last bowed low and formally; apologized for any tabu
violations, and left via the front door.
"Crazy fraternities," muttered Melinda, turning on the TV set.
Kitty Kyle was dull that morning. At length Melinda used some of the liquid in the
green vial on her eyelashes, was quite pleased at the results, and hid the rest in the
medicine cabinet.
Harry junior was a model of docility the rest of that day. While Melinda watched TV
and munched chocolates, did and redid her hair, Harry junior played quietly with the
crystal prism.
Toward late afternoon, he crawled over to the bookcase, wrestled down the
encyclopedia and pawed through it, gurgling with delight. He definitely, Melinda
decided, would make a fine lawyer someday, not a useless putterer like Big Harry,
who worked all hours overtime in that damned lab. She scowled as Harry junior,
bored with the encyclopedia, began reaching for one of Big Harry's tomes on
nuclear physics. One putterer in the family was enough! But when she tried to take
the book away from him, Harry junior howled so violently that she let well enough
alone.
At six-forty, Big Harry called from the lab, with the usual despondent message that
he would not be home for supper. Melinda said a few resigned things about
cheerless dinners eaten alone, hinted darkly what lonesome wives sometimes did for
company, and Harry said he was very sorry, but this might be it, and Melinda hung
up on him in a temper.
Precisely fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. Melinda opened the front door and
gaped. This little man could have been Porteous' double, except for the black