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.His voice was monotonous; the words ran together in a mumbledblur of fatigue. A sort of substitute for adequate copulation, I suppose& this is the lifelong orgasmfor them.Sometimes with tricks like your wife around, I get the feeling I m running a cat houseinstead of a From his coat, Cussick s hand brought out the gun.He was conscious of no decision; his handmoved on its own volition.In an instinctive, reflexive blur, he aimed and fired.It was at the larger of the two bodyguards that he had aimed; in some dim way he had the idea thatit was necessary to kill them first.But Jones, seeing the glint of metal, had suddenly jumped to hisfeet.Like a skinny, animated doll, he bounced between Cussick and the two guards; the explosiveshell caught him directly above the right eye.The two guards, paralyzed with disbelief, stood rooted to the spot, without even lifting their guns.Cussick, too, was unable to stir.He stood holding the pistol, not firing at the guards, not beingfired at in return.The body of Jones lay strewn across the littered desk.Jones was dead.He had killed him; it was over.It was impossible.19WHEN HE PUSHED open the apartment door, Nina gave a shriek and ran sobbing to him.Cussick caughthold of her and held her tight, his mind still swirling aimlessly. I m okay, he muttered. He s dead.It s over.She backed away, face streaked with tears, eyes red and swimming. You killed him? There wasonly disbelief there, without comprehension.He felt the same way; her expression mirrored his own. But how? I shot him. He was still holding the pistol.They had let him walk out of the building; nobodyhad tried to stop him.Nobody comprehended what had happened& he had met only dazed shock,comatose figures, stricken and lifeless. But you couldn t have killed him, Nina repeated. Didn t he expect it? I wasn t shooting at him.He was sitting down I shot at one of the guards. Cussick rubbed hisforehead uncertainly. It was instinctive.He was talking about you& I yanked out the gun and fired.Maybe that was it; I didn t plan to.Maybe I changed time.Maybe I somehow altered the future byacting reflexively.Maybe subrational responses can t be predicted.Clutching at straws, he almost believed it.Almost, he had constructed a convincingrationalization.Almost, he was prepared to accept it until he saw the small brown package on thearm of the couch. What s that? he demanded. This? Nina picked it up. I haven t any idea it came before I got here.From the organization.She held it out. It s addressed to you.It was lying in the hall, propped against the door.Cussick took it.The shape of the box was familiar: it was a reel of audtape.With numb fingers hetore off the paper and carried the tape to the playback equipment mounted in the wall above the coffeetable.The voice didn t surprise him.By now the pieces were falling together. Cussick, the thin, harried snarl began,  you had better lay low for awhile.There ll probably be alot of commotion.I don t know; I m just guessing.You understand? I m just guessing.As far asyou re concerned, I ve lost my ability, and you realize why.Yes, he realized why.Jones had seen everything up until the moment of his death.But that was all:nothing beyond that. You did a good clean job, Jones voice continued, the harsh, metallic mutter that he had heardnot half an hour ago. Of course, you shouldn t get the credit.All you did was shoot off that gun; itwas up to me to get in its way.But you did what you had to do.That was good; I knew you would.Youdidn t chicken out.Cussick halted the tape. Foxy dried-up little coot, he said savagely. Don t stop it! Nina quavered; snatching his hand away, she clicked the tape-transportmechanism back into motion. So now, Jones stated,  I m dead.I can t tell exactly when this willreach you, but I suppose it will.What I do know is this: if and when you hear this, I ll be dead,because I ve seen that much happen.And by now you ve seen it happen, too.Do you grasp how I feel?For one year I ve sat facing that moment, knowing it was coming.Knowing it couldn t be avoided.Suffering through that and through what comes afterward.Now it s over.Now I can rest.Yourealize, of course, that what you did was what I wanted you to do.But probably you don t understandwhy. I made a mistake.I gambled, I took a chance, and I lost.I was wrong& but not in the way youthink.I was more wrong than you think. No, Cussick said, baffled fury choking up inside him. In the next day or so, Jones continued,  the warships will be back home.People would see Imade a mistake they d realize that I was fallible like everybody else.They would know I didn t haveabsolute knowledge. An amused mutter of triumph burst through the words, interrupting themonotonous flow. Pretty soon the word would have started getting around: Jones was a fraud.Jonesdidn t have any talent.Jones played us for a sucker; he didn t have any more idea of the future than wedid.But now they won t think that.They ll have this fact: today, Jones was murdered.And tomorrow,the ships start leaking back in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]