[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
wan'sta know, huh?"
Ross realized he had overdone it and shoved Bernie at the phone. Bernie snorted and guggled and
finally got out that he jus' wannit ta know. The captain warmed up immediately and said oh, sure,
the funny-lookin' ship, it was still there all right.
"How about the fella that's in it?"
"You mean the funny-lookin' fella? He went someplace."
"He went someplace? What place?"
"Someplace. He went away, like. I din't see him go, mister. I got plenty to do without I should
watch out for every dummy that comes along."
"T'ankSi" said Bernie hopelessly at Ross's signal
They walked the street, deep in thought. Helena sobbed, "Let's leave him here, Ross. I don't like
this place."
"No."
Bernie growled, "What's the difference, Ross? He can get a snootful just as easy here as anywhere
else "
"No! It isn't the Doc, don't you see? But this is the place we're looking for. All the answers we
need are here; we've got to get them."
Bernie stepped around two tussling men on the ground, ineffectually thumping each other over a
chocolate-covered confection. "Yeah," he said shortly.
Helena said: "Isn't that a silly way to put up a big sign like that?"
Ross looked up. "My God," he said. A gigantic metal sign with the legend, Buy Smogs You Can SMOKE
Them, was being hoisted across the street ahead. The street was nominally closed to traffic by
cheerfully inattentive men with red flags; a mobile boom hoist was doing the work, and quite
obviously doing it wrong. The angle of the boom arm with the vertical was far too great for
stability; the block-long sign was tipping the too-light body of the hoisting engine on its
treads. . . .
file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/...0M.%20Kornbluth%20-%20Search%20the%20Sky.txt (79 of 88) [2/24/2004 10:43:48 PM]
file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/New%20Fold...%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20-%20Search%20the%20Sky.txt
Ross made a flash calculation: when the sign fell, as fall it inevitably would, perhaps two
hundred people who had wandered uncaringly past the warning flags would be under it.
There was a sudden aura of blue light around the engine body.
It tipped back to stability. The boom angle decreased, and the engine crawled forward to take up
the horizontal difference.
The blue light went out.
Helena choked and coughed and babbled, "But Ross, it couldn't have because "
Ross said: "It's them!"
"Who?"
Excitedly: "The people behind all this! The people who built the cities and put up the buildings
and designed the machines. The people who have the answers! Come on,
Bernie. I just seem to antagonize these people I want you to ask the boom operator what happened."
The boom operator cheerfully explained that nab, it was just somep'n that happened. Nah, nobody
did nothin' to make it happen. It was in case rf anything went wrong, like. You know?
They retired and regrouped their forces.
"Foolproof machines," Ross said slowly. "And I mean really fool proof. Friends, I was wrong, I
admit it; I thought that those buildings and cars were something super-special, and they turned
out to be just silly ghncracks. But not this blue light thing. That boom had to fall."
Bernie shrugged rebelliously. "So what? So they've got some kinds of machines you don't have on
Halsey's Planet?"
"A different order of machines, Bernie! Believe me, that blue light was something as far from any
safety device I ever heard of as the starships are from oxcarts. When we find the people who
designed them "
"Suppose they're all dead?"
Ross winced. He said determinedly, "We'll find them." They returned to their begging and were
recognized one day by the gray-haired profile of the party. He didn't , remember just who they
were or where they were from or where he had met them, but he enthusiastically invited them to yet
another party. He told them he was Hennery Matson, owner of an airline.
Ross asked about accidents and blue lights. Matson jovially said some o' his pilots talked about
them things but he din't bother his head none. Ya get these planes from the field, see, an' they
got all kinds of gadgets on them. Come on to the party!
They went, because Hennery promised them another guest Sanford Eisner, who was a wealthy aircraft
manufacturer. But he din't bother his head none either; them rockets was hard to make, you had to
feed the patterns, like, into the master jigs just so, and, boy!, if you got 'em in backwards it
was a mess. Wheredja get the patterns? Look, mister, we always had the patterns, an' don't spoil
the party, will ya?
The party was a smasher. They all woke with headaches on Matson's deep living room rug.
"You did fine, Ross," Helena softly assured him. "No-bodyVould have guessed you were any smarter
than anybody else here. There wasn't a bit of trouble."
Ross seemed to have a hiatus in his memory.
The importance of the hiatus faded as time passed. There was a general move toward the automatic
dispensing bar. It seemed to be regulated by a time clock; no matter what you dialed first thing
file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/...0M.%20Kornbluth%20-%20Search%20the%20Sky.txt (80 of 88) [2/24/2004 10:43:48 PM]
file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/New%20Fold...%20Pohl%20&%20C.%20M.%20Kornbluth%20-%20Search%20the%20Sky.txt
in the morning, it ruthlessly poured a double rye with Worcestershire and tabasco and plopped a
fair imitation of a raw egg into the concoction. It helped!
Along about noon something clicked in the bar's innards. Guests long since surfeited with the
prairie oysters joyously dialed martinis and manhattans and the day's serious drinking began.
Ross fuzzily tried to trace the bar's supply. There were nickel pipes that led Heaven knew where.
Some vast depot of fermentation tanks and stills? Fed grain and cane by crawling harvest-monsters?
Gram and cane planted from seed the harvest-monsters carefully culled from the crop for the plow-
and-drag-and-drill-and-fertilize-and-cultivate monsters?
His head was beginning to ache again. A jovial martini-drinker who had something to do with a
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]