"Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky. Monday begins on Saturday (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Correct. Sent by Onoukina. Who took it?"
"Privalov."


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* Leader of ghost goblins and supernatural monsters.



"Greetings, Privalov! Been in service here long?" "Poodles serve," I
said angrily. "I work!"
"Good, good. Work on. See you at the fly-in."
Tones sounded. I hung up and returned to my room. The morning was cool
so I did my setting-up exercises hurriedly and dressed. What was transpiring
seemed exceedingly curious and interesting to me. The telephonogram seemed
to associate strangely in my consciousness with the events of the night,
although I had no specific idea whatsoever exactly in what way. However that
might be, certain ideas were beginning to circulate in my head, and my
imagination was definitely aroused.
Everything that I was here witness to, was not altogether unfamiliar to
me. I had read of such incidents before and remembered how the behavior of
people finding themselves in analogous situations seemed to me
extraordinarily and irritatingly inept. Instead of fully exploiting the
enticing perspectives that were presented to them through a fortunate
opportunity, they became frightened and struggled to return themselves to
the humdrum and routine. One such exponent actually advised the reader to
keep a good distance from the veil dividing our world from the unknown,
threatening physical and spiritual maiming. I did not yet know how the
events would develop, but I was already prepared to immerse myself in them
enthusiastically.
Wandering about the room in search of a pitcher or mug, I went on with
my inner discourse. These poltroons, I thought, resembled certain
scientist-experimenters-- very persistent, very hard-working, but totally
lacking in imagination and consequently very cautious. Having obtained a
non-trivial result, they shied away from it, precipitately explaining it as
experimental contamination, and were in fact fleeing from the innovative,
because they were, in truth, much too tied to the old concepts comfortably
pigeonholed within the boundaries of authoritative theories. I was already
designing some experiments with the shape-shifter book-- it was still lying
on the sill, but was now The Last Exile by Oldridge-- and with the mirror
and with tooth-sucking. I had several questions for tomcat Basil, and the
mermaid living in the oak also presented a definite puzzle, although at
times it seemed to me that I had only dreamed of her. I have nothing against
mermaids, but I couldn't picture how one could be climbing trees...... But
on the other hand, what about the scales?
I found a dipper on the bucket by the telephone, but the bucket was
empty and I went off to the well. The sun had already risen quite high.
There was the distant bum of cars, a policeman's whistle, and the sound of a
helicopter making its way ponderously across the sky. I approached the well
and, noting with satisfaction that a battered tin bucket hung from the