"A. E. Van Vogt - Slan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

for the day when she could join her dead husband in the peace of the grave. 'But I've got to
bring you up, Jommy. It would be so easy, so pleasant, to surrender life; but I've got to
keep you alive until you're out of your childhood. Your father and I have spent what we had
of life working on his great invention, and it will have been all for nothing if you are not here
to carry on.'
He pushed the thought from him, because his throat suddenly ached from thinking of it.
His mind was not so blurred now. The brief rest must have helped him. But that made the
rocks on which he lay more annoying, harder to bear. He tried to shift his body, but the
space was too narrow.
Automatically, one hand fumbled down to them, and he made a discovery. They were
shards of plastic, not rocks. Plastic that had fallen inward when the little section of the wall
had been smashed and the hole through which he had crawled was made. It was odd to be
thinking of that hole and to realize that somebody else -- somebody out there -- was
thinking of the same hole. The shock of that blurred outside thought was like a flame that
scorched through Jommy.
Appalled, he fought to isolate the thought and the mind that held it. But there were too
many other minds all around, too much excitement. Soldiers and police swarmed in the
alleyway, searching every house, every block, every building. Once, above that confusion of
mind static, he caught the dear, cold thought of John Petty:
'You say he was last seen right here?'
'He turned the corner,' a woman said, 'and then he was gone!'
With shaking fingers Jommy began to pry the pieces of shard out of the damp ground. He
forced his nerves to steadiness, and began with careful speed to fill the hole, using damp
earth to cement the pieces of plastic. The job, he knew with sick certainty, would never
stand close scrutiny.
And all the time he worked he felt the thought of that other person out there, a sly,
knowing thought, hopelessly mingled with the wild current of thoughts that beat on his
brain. Not once did that somebody else stop thinking about this very hole. Jommy couldn't
tell whether it was a man or woman. But it was there, like an evil vibration from a warped
brain.
The thought was still there, dim and menacing, as men pulled the boxes half to one side
and peered down between them -- and then, slowly, it retreated into distance as the shouts
faded and the nightmare of thoughts receded farther afield. The hunters hunted elsewhere.
For a long time Jommy could hear them, but finally life grew calmer, and he knew that night
was falling.
 Somehow the excitement of the day remained in the atmosphere. A whisper of thoughts
crept out of the houses and from the tenement flats, people thinking, discussing what had
happened.
At last he dared wait no longer. Somewhere out there was the mind that had known he
was in the hole and had said nothing. It was an evil mind, which filled him with unholy
premonition, and urgency to be away from this place. With fumbling yet swift fingers, he
removed the plastic shards. Then, stiff from his long vigil, he squeezed cautiously outside.
His side twinged from the movement, and a surge of weakness blurred his mind, but he
dared not hold back. Slowly he pulled himself to the top of the boxes. His legs were lowering
to the ground when he heard rapid footfalls -- and the first sense of the person who had
.been waiting there struck into him. A thin hand grabbed his ankle, and an old woman's
voice said triumphantly: 'That's right, come down to Granny. Granny'll take care of you, she
will. Granny's smart. She knew all the time you could only have crept into that hole, and
those fools never suspected. Oh, yes, Granny's smart. She went away, and then she came
back and, because slans can read thoughts, she kept her mind very still, thinking only of