The Universe Maker Read Online Free PDF Page B

kitchen."
    Cargill hesitated, half-minded to resist. But the word, kitchen, conjured thoughts of food. He realized he was tremendously hungry. Silently he climbed to his feet and hobbled clumsily through the door she indicated. He was thinking, "These creatures could keep me chained up here from now on."
    The despair that came was like a weight, more constricting than the chain that bound him.
    The kitchen proved to be a narrow corridor between thick translucent walls. It was about ten feet long and at the far end was a closed transparent door, beyond which he could see machinery. Both the kitchen and the machine room were bright with the light that flooded through the translucent walls. Cargill glanced around, puzzled. There was no sign of a stove or of any standard cooking equipment. He saw no food, no dishes, no cupboards. Looking for lines in the glass-like walls, he saw hundreds that were horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curving and circular. They seemed to have no purpose. If any of them marked off a panel or a door he couldn't see it.
    He turned questioningly to the girl. She spoke first. "No clouds this morning. We'll be able to get all the heat we want."
    He watched, interested, as she reached up with one hand, spread it wide and touched the top of the wall where it curved toward the ceiling. Only her thumb and little finger actually touched the glass. With a quick movement she lightly ran her hand parallel to the floor. A thick slab of the glass broke free along an intricate series of lines and noiselessly slid down into a slot. Cargill craned his neck. From where he stood he could just see that there was a limpidly transparent panel inside, behind which were shelves. What was on the shelves, he could not see.
    Casually, the girl slid the panel sideways. For a moment her body hid what she was doing. When she drew back, she held a plate on which were raw fish and potatoes. It looked like trout, and surprisingly it had been cleaned. Yet neither Bouvy nor his daughter looked as if they would do anything in advance of need.
    He shrewdly suspected the presence of kitchen gadgets that could automatically scale and fillet a fish.
    The girl took a few steps toward him. Once more she ran her little finger and thumb along the upper wall. Another section of the sunlit wall slid down and there was a second panel with shelves behind it. Opening the panel, she placed the plate on one of the shelves.
    As she closed the panel a faint steam rose from the fish, turning it a golden brown. The potatoes lost their hard whiteness and visibly underwent the chemical change to a cooked state.
    "That'll do, I guess," said Lela Bouvy. She added, "You better get yourself a bite."
    She took out the plate with her bare hands, paused at the refrigerator to take out an apple and a pear from a bottom shelf and walked out, still carrying the plate.
    Cargill was left alone in the kitchen. By the time she returned for her own breakfast, he had eaten an apple, cooked himself some chicken legs and potatoes and was busily eating when she paused in the doorway.
    She was rather a pretty thing if one allowed for a certain sullenness of expression. So it seemed to Cargill. Her hair was not too well combed but it was not tangled, and it had a pleasant shine that indicated she lavished some attention on it. Her eyes were a hot blue, her lips full, and her chin came to a point. She wore dungarees and an open-necked shirt which partly exposed a very firm tanned bust.
    She said, with a suspicious tone in her voice, "How did a smart-looking Tweener like you come to get caught so easy?"
    Cargill swallowed a large mouthful of potato in several quick gulps and said, "I'm not a Tweener."
    The hot blue of her eyes smoldered with easy anger. "What kind of a smarty answer is that?"
    Cargill cleaned up what was left on the plate and said, "I'm being honest with you. I'm not a Tweener."
    She frowned. "Then what are you?" She stiffened, the anger leaving her eyes, making them