Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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He looked at his watch, sighed, pulled his head in and shut the window. The air conditioner’s hiss replaced the outside sounds.

Not even imagination could get rid of the city for long.

Going through the outer office, he saw that Alice Grant, his secretary, already had her lunch out on her desk. She was a young thirty, not very tall and just inclined to plumpness. She wore her blonde hair pulled back into a knot that didn’t succeed in making her look severe, and her features were well-formed and regular, if plain. Amos noticed a new bruise on one cheek and wondered how long she’d stay with her sot of a husband. There were no children to hold her.

“I’ll probably be back late,” he said. “Anything for this afternoon?”

“Just Jim at two-thirty and the union agent at three.”

The lunch didn’t go too badly, lubricated as the customer liked it, and Amos was feeling only hazily uneasy when he got back.

A stormy session with his plant superintendent jarred him into the normal disquiet. Jim Glover was furious at having to take the fifteen-thousand-dollar claim, though it was clearly a factory error. He also fought a stubborn delaying action before giving Amos a well-hedged estimate of fifty thousand to equip for the new drug. He complained that Frank Barnes hadn’t given him enough information.