"Джон Варли. Платежное поручение(engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Your identification tab." The foreman turned away. "Bill, bring me the
board." He looked Jennings up and down. "I'm going to check you from the
board, mister. I've never seen you in the crew before. Stay here." A man was
coming from a side door with a check board in his hands.
It was now or never.
Jennings sprinted, down the corridor, toward the great steel door.
Behind there was a startled shout, the foreman and his helper. Jennings
whipped out the code key, praying fervently as he ran. He came up to the
door, holding out the key. With the other hand he brought out the Boris gun.
Beyond the door was the time scoop. A few photographs, some schematics
snatched up, and then, if he could get out --
The door did not move. Sweat leaped out on his face. He knocked the key
against the door. Why didn't it open? Surely - He began to shake, panic
rising up in him. Down the corridor people were coming, racing after him.
Open --
But the door did not open. The key he held in his hand was the wrong
key.
He was defeated. The door and the key did not match. Either he had been
wrong, or the key was to be used someplace else. But where? Jennings looked
frantically around. Where? Where could he go?
To one side a door was half open, a regular bolt-lock door. He crossed
the corridor, pushing it open. He was in a storeroom of some sort. He
slammed the door, throwing the bolt. He could hear them outside, confused,
calling for guards. Soon armed guards would be along. Jennings held the
Boris gun tightly, gazing around. Was he trapped? Was there a second way
out?
He ran through the room, pushing among bales and boxes, towering stacks
of silent cartons, end on end. At the rear was an emergency hatch. He opened
it immediately. An impulse came to throw the code key away. What good had it
been? But surely he had known what he was doing. He had already seen all
this. Like God, it had already happened for him. Predetermined. He could not
err. Or could he?
A chill went through him. Maybe the future was variable. Maybe this had
been the right key, once. But not any more!
There were sounds behind him. They were melting the storeroom door.
Jennings scrambled through the emergency hatch, into a low concrete passage,
damp and ill lit. He ran quickly along it, turning corners. It was like a
sewer. Other passages ran into it, from all sides.
He stopped. Which way? Where could he hide? The mouth of a major vent
pipe gaped above his head. He caught hold and pulled himself up. Grimly, he
eased his body onto it. They'd ignore a pipe, go on past. He crawled
cautiously down the pipe. Warm air blew into his face. Why such a big vent?
It implied an unusual chamber at the other end. He came to a metal grill and
stopped.
And gasped.
He was looking into the great room, the room he had glimpsed beyond the
steel door. Only now he was at the other end. There was the time scoop. And
far down, beyond the scoop, was Rethrick, conferring at an active vidscreen.
An alarm was sounding, whining shrilly, echoing everywhere. Technicians were
running in all directions. Guards in uniform poured in and out of doors.