"Jack Williamson - The Humanoids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"Please, mister, is this the Starmont Observatory?" She seemed breathless and afraid. "May
I please see the director? Dr. Clay Forester?" Her wet eyes shone. "Please, mister! It's awful
important."
The sergeant scowled at her doubtfully, wondering how she had got here. She was about
nine, he thought, her head too large and deeply hollowed, as if from the pinch of long famine.
Her straight black hair was clipped short and primly combed. He shook his head
disapprovingly, because she was far too young to be here alone. He could feel her trembling
urgency, but stray urchins didn't see Dr. Forester.
"Not without a pass." She flinched from the hash rasp of his voice, and the sergeant tried to
smile. "Starmont's a military reservation, see?" Seeing the trouble in her dark uplifted eyes, he
tried to warm his tone. "But what's your name, sister?"
"Jane." She lifted her thin voice, stoutly. "And I've just got to see him."
"Jane? Haven't you any other name?"
"People used to call me other things, because I didn't know my really name." Her eyes fell
briefly. "They called me Squeak and Insect and Little Pip, and others not so nice. But Mr.
White says my really name is Jane Carter - and he sent me to see Dr. Forester."
"How'd you get here?"
The sergeant squinted past her at the narrow road beyond the fence that twisted down the
flank of the solitary mountain and lay straight and black on the tawny desert below. Salt City
was thirty miles away, much too far for her to have walked. But he could see no vehicle.
"Mr. White sent me," she repeated firmly. "To see -"
"Who," the sergeant broke in, "is Mr. White?"
An utter devotion illuminated her brimming eyes.
"He's a philosopher." She stumbled on the word. "He has a red, bushy beard, and he came
from other places. He took me out of a bad place where people beat me, and he's awful good to
me. He's teaching me tele-" She gulped. "He sent me with a paper for Dr. Forester."
"What sort of paper?"
 "This." Her skinny hand came halfway out of the pocket of her dress, and the sergeant
glimpsed a gray card clutched in her thin grubby fingers. "It's a message - and awful important,
mister!"
"You might send it in."
"Thank you." Her thin blue face smiled politely. "But Mr. White said I mustn't let anybody
see it, except Dr. Forester."
"I told you, sister -" The sergeant saw her flinch, and tried to soften his refusal. "Dr. Forester
is a big man, see? He's too busy to see anybody - unless you happen to be an inspecting
general, with papers from the Defense Authority. And you don't, see? Sorry, but I can't let you.
in."
She nodded forlornly. "Then let me - think."
For a moment she stood still, forgetting even to move her feet on the hot pavement. Her
bony head tilted and her eyes half closed, as if she listened to something beyond him. She
nodded, and whispered something, and turned hopefully back to the sergeant.
"Please - may I see Mr. Ironsmith?"
"Sure, sister!" He gave her a leathery smile, relieved. "Why didn't you say you knew him?
Forester's hard to see, but anybody can talk to Frank Ironsmith. He ain't important, and he's a
friend of mine. Come around here in the shade, and we'll call him."
Timidly silent, she came gratefully up under the narrow awning in front of the guard box.
The sergeant picked up his telephone to call the observatory switchboard.
"Sure, Frank Ironsmith has a phone," came the operator's nasal whine. "He works in the
computing section. Starmont 88. Sure, Rocky, he's in. He just bought me a cup of coffee, on
the way to work. Just hold the line."