"Axler, James - Deathlands 050 - Pandora's Reboubt - Nick Pollotta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Axler James)

"The thermal inversion gradient of the armaglass portal is not precisely known," Doc Tanner replied, taking his usual spot on the floor. "But as this establishment was theoretically designed to be nukeproof, therefore, I would extrapolate that the defensive yield potential is-"
"Door!" Jak barked, pointing past Ryan.
Spinning, Ryan saw that the access door to the control room was slowly bulging inward, distending like the bloated belly of a starving man, horribly straining at the resilient alloy framework. The reek of sulfur hit them as yellow steam spurted around the edges and the walls on either side began to glow warmly. Then a wave of dry heat washed over the group, stinging their eyes and searing exposed flesh.
"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc intoned, pulling out his huge LeMat pistol for no sane reason. "The lava is here!"
"Everybody sit down!" Ryan ordered, starting to close the door to the mat-trans unit. But he was unable to remove his gaze from the terrible scene outside. Although stretching like warm taffy, the trembling door to the control room was still in place. The walls on either side, however, were turning orange from the volcanic heat.
"Soon yellow, then white," Krysty warned, sweat dripping off her chin. "Then it'll soften and melt away."
Loosening the collar of his jacket, J.B. agreed. "We'll be long gone by then. Got a minute yet, mebbe two."
As he spoke, the glowing walls beyond the chamber shattered in a crackling explosion, the remaining chunks peeling away like a flower blossoming to the sun, and white-hot lava began to thickly pump into the control room.
Beyond the yellowish haze they could see only an endless plain of reddish flames.
Once Ryan saw that all of the companions were properly seated on the floor, he slammed the door shut, triggering the jump mechanism, and quickly went to sit beside Krysty. Immediately, the usual mist filled the chamber, engulfing the seven friends, sparks forming around them like newborn stars.
Drawing his 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol, Ryan could just barely see the deadly lava flow inexorably rising higher and higher, moving toward them, the locked door standing ludicrously upright in the lambent field of molten stone. If the mat-trans unit failed to work because of damage from the lava, then he'd use the pistol. First on Krysty, then on the others and himself. It'd be a lot quicker than burning alive. He glanced at her and saw she already had her own .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver out and was looking at him. They shared a moment of understanding more intimate than any embrace.
Then a great surge of power filled their bodies from within as a subsonic hum tore them apart. The universe yawned wide as all eternity. Instantly, they embarked on a subelectronic journey toward an unknown destination, possibly into the great abyss itself
Well over one century old, the predark matter-trans chambers sent travelers randomly to other units, the secret of their precise control lost forever.
As always, during the time the friends were unconscious, hallucinations filled their minds, idyllic dreams and mad visions, phantasms of old enemies, bloody battles and sexual fantasies. But on this journey the visions died before being truly formed. Suddenly, solid, flooring was beneath Ryan's back, and he was reeling a bit from the usual aftershocks of being instantly transferred to a new destination.
As the mist began to thin, Ryan lay still, a pounding headache momentarily clouding his vision. The masking clouds of mist were unusually thick this time. Or was it the sulfur fumes? The awful heat of the lava seemed still to be with them, and he tried to force breath into his heaving chest Hot, he was so hot, and needed to draw a lungful of air. But he seemed unable to pull atmosphere inside his aching body. Was this another of the hallucinations? He had never dreamed of arriving before. Had they gone anywhere? Or where they still reduced to electronic signals pulsing along the hidden network of the worldwide web of mat-trans units yet to arrive? Perhaps never to arrive. Fireblast, there were times that he hated these bastard machines.
Slowly, the mists dissipated, but his vision was still oddly obscured. Squinting his good eye, Ryan saw the others working their mouths as if trying to draw air into their lungs.
Krysty was on her hands and knees. "Can't... breathe," she gasped, her prehensile hair hanging limply, as if the living strands of crimson were unconscious. Her chest rose and fell unnaturally as she tried to father air.
Jak had managed to get to his feet and leaned weakly against one of the armaglass walls. He began to drip sweat, black stains spreading over his camou-colored vest. J.B. was on his stomach, his beloved fedora bunched in a white-knuckled hand. Gasping, Mildred was tearing at the crew neck of her T-shirt, desperate to get restrictive clothing away from her throat His ebony swordstick lying at his feet, Doc grimaced as if in the grip of an invisible fist squeezing the very life out of him. Clutching the Browning to his chest, Dean stood stock-stiIl, as if dead and ready to topple over.
Clearly, there was no more time to wait. Ryan had to know if they were safe or should chance another jump immediately. Summoning strength, the one-eyed man forced himself to step out of the jump unit, half expecting his feet to vanish into fiery ash But his worn combat boots thumped onto a solid floor. There was no lava. The black-walled chamber was empty except for them. Thankfully, they had jumped to a different redoubt. Yet the heat was still here, cooking them to death.
Ryan hawked to clear his dry throat. "Something's wrong," he managed to croak.
"Jump now," Mildred gasped. "Heat's going to kill us."
Ryan shook his head. "Can't until we know for sure that the other redoubt is gone. If we jump back before the volcano melts the chamber completely, we fry."
"I say thee, nay, Agamemnon," Doc gasped. "Trepidation is unnecessary. We are quite safe."
"Bullshit," Dean coughed.
"A useful enough organic by-product of domesticated bovines, but not a correct summation in this particular instance, young Dean," Doc said, pausing between the words. "This roasting is merely..." He swallowed. "From the residual...heat that jumped with us. See?" He pointed a bony finger downward. There lay several large lumps of glowing orange rock among them, radiating a fierce heat like miniature blast furnaces.
"The old coot is right," Mildred gasped. "The lava came along with us."
"Some. It seems as if our timing has exceeded our quotient of luck by the nth factor."
"Come on out," Ryan ordered, "I can feel the redoubt's life support starting to pump in cool air." Then his stomach rebelled and he doubled over to retch loudly in the corner. Jump sickness almost always affected some of the companions, but usually Doc and Jak.
The friends staggered to their feet or pushed from the walls, moving as far from the lava as possible. Everybody was pale and holding throbbing heads. Jak sported a bad nosebleed and several of them used the corners of the chamber to vomit Wordlessly, Mildred extracted a battered canteen from her backpack. Unscrewing the chained cap took two tries, but it finally came free. The physician made a bitter face, then forced her to take a long swallow.
"Here," she said, handing it to the nearest person. "This should help."
Uncaring if it was poison or whiskey, everybody took a swallow and passed it on to the next.
"I hope it's better than the last batch," Krysty muttered, tilting her head and luxuriating in the cool breeze from the ceiling vents.
Smoothing his rumpled fedora, J.B. glumly signaled agreement. "Gave us the runs for a week."
"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," Doc said. "Or at least, that's the theory. Occasionally I have found Nietzsche to be a total ass."
However, minds soon cleared and the knotted stomachs eased some. Not much, but some.
"Best mix so far," Ryan stated, handing the empty canteen to Mildred.
The black woman screwed the cap on tight. "Would have been better if I could have found some mint leaves."
Sitting upright, Jak arched an snowy eyebrow. "Not?" he asked.
The physician shook her head. "Orange peels and scrag root. Close enough in taste, but not effect."
"Hope the mat-trans is still okay," Ryan said, studying the floor with its collection of fiercely glowing rocks.
Hawking loudly, Jak spit out an orange lump and watched the spittle sizzle into steam. "Close," he drawled.
"Too damn close," Krysty added.
"But we got the rations. No hunting mutie deer or trading bullets for chickens for a while," Mildred said. "The risk was worth it. We have enough clean food for a couple weeks."
"Tis a pity, though," Doc boomed, leaning heavily on his swordstick as he got standing. "That storeroom was a cornucopia of food, sufficient vittles for years. Decades!"
"Took all we could," Ryan said gruffly, checking the action on his SIG-Sauer blaster. The pistol was a prized possession, a military police blaster of the finest quality, and its built-in acoustic baffler made the silenced gun no louder than a cough when it fired.
"It's enough," said Dean, touching his vest to ascertain he hadn't lost anything in transit. Having been caught once with no ammo, and damn near getting aced because of it, Dean was grimly determined it would never happen again. Front and back, the entire expanse of a newly acquired leather vest was sewn into tiny pockets to hold individual rounds for his blaster. He was a walking munitions dump, and the weight was awful. However, he doubted if even an arrow could penetrate the thick garment. His father told him he was carrying too much, that speed was as necessary as bullets to stay alive in Deathlands, and he was right. But the lad wasn't yet ready to admit he had overfigured his own strength.
Feeling better by the minute, Ryan walked about the chamber. "Hmm, black walls with silver streaking. We've never been to this redoubt before."
"Beautiful," Mildred said, running fingertips across the smooth almost frictionless surface. "Could this be D.C.? Some ancient executive redoubt?"
"Mayhap some crazed billionaire's private penthouse," Doc grumbled. "Notice how the excess heat is almost totally dissipated? The life support system is exemplary."
"Not good enough for me," Krysty said, pinching her nose shut. "Hot lava and sulfur mixed with fresh vomit. This place stinks."