"Broderick, Damien - The Dreaming (The Dreaming Dragons)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Broderick Damien)

I have been provided with a wrist-watch. My own, together with all my clothes and personal effects, remains in custody. Presumably they will be destroyed to prevent further spread of the virus. The time is 2.17 a.m. Try as I will I cannot sleep.
The physicians have been to visit me.
Two of them. Lean, Ghandi-ascetic Zinoviev, who hurried me into the Project infirmary after my nausea yesterday, and then called the ambulance that brought me here. I vaguely recall his sombre manner from one or two bull-sessions in the Rec Facility. The other man was a stranger, a short hairy fellow of amiable mien.
'Good evening, Ilya Davidovich,' he said, offering his hand. 'I'm Sipyagin; I believe you know Dr Zinoviev.'
I nodded. 'Would it be appropriate to ask why I've been brought here?'
Sipyagin laughed easily, stepped back as Iosif Zinoviev put his black case on the teak desk beside my bed and began laying out diagnostic impediments. 'Of course,' he said. 'I daresay your removal here to Ekratkoye Complex was rather disconcerting.'
'That's where I am, then,' I said, none the wiser. Zinoviev gave me a sharp look, glanced at the shorter man, and started plying his stethoscope about my torso.
'A deep breath please,' he ordered. 'I didn't know you were familiar with non-Aegis Complexes.'
'No,' I said hastily between gasps. 'I meant that I didn't know the designation of this hospital. Now I do.' I was becoming quite rattled. 'It's nice to know a place has a name, even if it's just a letter of the alphabet and doesn't convey anything to you.'
Sipyagin came to my aid. 'I know just how you feel.' He hitched himself onto the edge of the bed and drew a folded sheet from his smock pocket. 'Here, I brought you a map of the Complex. We expect you'll be staying with us for a few days. You have complete liberty, so long as you don't leave this building.'
Zinoviev was peering at my facial acupuncture points with a tobiscope. He made another mark on the chart, took up a short syringe and drew a small quantity of blood from my thumb. Sipyagin continued to regard me with benign interest from the end of the bed. My mental turmoil changed to exasperation.
'Well, look here,' I said, 'what on earth's all this about? I grant I was bilious this morning, but I feel perfectly well now. Why am I being treated as an invalid?'
'No, no,' exclaimed Sipyagin, waving his hands in the air 'You've received altogether the wrong impression. It's most unlikely that you're seriously ill, but,' with a sly grin and gambit aimed perfectly at my self-esteem, 'you are a very important member of the Aegis team, Academician Kukushkin, and we can't afford to take any chances.'
I was ashamed to admit it, but his ploy was not without success. My face grew warm, a flush compounded in equal parts of pride and confused annoyance. 'Well, yes, but -- '
'We've reason to suspect,' said Sipyagin, all briskness now, 'that certain of the foodstuffs going into the Tse and Che kitchens this week contained impurities. A scandal. In short, doctor, you're probably suffering from a minor case of food poisoning.'
'Sabotage?' It seemed impossible. Besides, the Americans and the Jews were also working on the gluon shield. After all, their astronauts had made the original discovery of Selene Alpha.
Iosif Zinoviev gave a sour chuckle. He had packed away all his medical devices and stood at the door. 'You have a suspicious mind, Academician. No, Aegis security remains unbreached. The impurities involve a fatigue fault in one of the storage refrigerators. Unfortunate, but no machine is perfect. No more than any man.'
'As to its seriousness,' added Sipyagin, joining him at the door, 'the facilities we have in this hospital are more than adequate. Set your mind at ease, Kukushkin. You might be in for a little discomfort, but we'll have you out of here in a couple of days.' He nodded cheerily and strode out into the corridor. Zinoviev lingered for a moment, as though aware that I was far from satisfied. He had, however, little enough to add.
'There will be some pills brought in with your dinner. Take them before you go to sleep. If there's anything you want, press the button by your bed.' Dumbly I nodded, and watched his narrow back disappear into the corridor.
I was violently sick again after dinner. Oddly, I was afflicted by little of the enervation and wretchedness which usually attend nausea. About midnight, unable to sleep, I took advantage of my liberty and briefly explored the surrounds.
Despite my earlier presentiments there was no guard at my door. The corridor was white and antiseptic, dully echoing. A different nurse nodded to me from her cubicle. I found a lounge complete with Max Ernst print and television, a pale blue-tiled lavatory and bathroom. At the far end of the corridor, looking out on to a floodlit compound, was a heavily sealed entrance, with three plateglass doors each separated by a space of three metres.
If my calligraphy is becoming shaky, it's as much due to anger as to belated exhaustion. Do they think me a complete fool? An ordinary hospital has no use for triple-doored Bio Containment airlocks. Unquestionably, this Ekratkoye Complex is a centre for bacteriological weapons research.
Food poisoning my academic ass! Can there be any doubt that I have become the accidental victim of some experimental recombinant-DNA goddamned Doomsday virus?

NOVEMBER 13

I feel so strange this morning.
My sleep was broken and ruined by terrible dreams. I tossed and turned for perhaps five hours before Anna brought me a light breakfast. They were not nightmares, exactly, but torn and vivid pieces of my past -- my frightened childhood in the shadow of Stalin, my arid years at University, my corrosive marriage. I had thought them forgotten, in every sense well buried, but back they came to haunt my night.
There's more to it than that -- Not pain, I'm no longer sick, my stomach is rested and hungry indeed. But a vague dis
I cannot find the word, a restlessness is what I meant but I've gnawed my pen for five minutes in a sweat searching for the word, a dis a dis a disquiet of course, good god the word just would not come until I dredged for it like some senile fool searching for his
Christos, what's wrong with me? The sweat is pouring off me, all for one cursed replaceable elusive word. Again! I had to stop and worry and hunt for that word elusive. Something is sick inside me, something hurts, I don't know what it is but dear Jesus

LATER

Anna, I am appalled to record, found me weeping. She was entirely sensible about it, gave me two large white pills and left an egg-nog beside the bed. I drank it a few minutes later and felt ten times better. When I rang she was good enough to fetch me another, which I sipped slowly while talking to her about herself.
I meant to note it earlier, before that lamentable frenzy burst over me. My little triumph! I have uncovered the charming lady's first name, and she now calls me Ilya Davidovich with hardly a trace of her previous professional distance. Sister Kuenzli no more; she is Anna, and I am her brilliant patient Ilya Kukushkin, and never mind the 'Doctor', the 'Academician'. (I did Anna an injustice earlier, in demoting her to nurse. She is, of course, a graduate Sister with, it appears, qualifications in biochemistry and, of all things, psychiatry. My blushing tear-stained face!)
She is also beautiful, with plump rosy cheeks and a droll smile.

LATER

I've been trying to get into Stanislaw Lem's new novel, which Zinoviev fetched over for me from the Aegis Complex, along with a selection of my other books. I'm not enjoying it much, though. I've also tried to distract myself by going over the fifth equation of our unified-interaction model. There's something wrong there I'm certain, but I'm having trouble concentrating on it.
The doctors came after lunch. Well, during it actually but Sipyagin chatted away pleasantly while I finished my sweet. Hardly the meal one would have expected for a victim of food poisoning -- slices of pork, an excellent salad, even a glass of tart white wine to refresh the palate. My dark suspicions of last night seem absurd. Nevertheless I remarked on the feast to Sipyagin.
'No reason to starve you, Kukushkin,' he smiled. 'Anyhow, the best way to cleanse your system is by offering it wholesome protein to work on.'
I gave him a guarded glance. 'You're sure of this poisoning, then? It couldn't be a bug of some kind?'
Zinoviev cleared his throat, an offensive sound. I am beginning to detest that man. 'You can safely leave the diagnosis to us, Academician.'
'Don't be too hard on the poor chap, Iosif,' Sipyagin said. He adopted a speculative pose. 'My theory has always been that intellectuals labour under the burden of what might be termed the Socratic phobia. Too well they remember the hemlock.'
Zinoviev grunted, tugging out his instruments; I laughed aloud. It was a poor enough jest, but it soothed my anxieties. I thrust the last of the dessert into my mouth and submitted to their attentions.
Since they left, fears have crept back. It really does seem quite incredible that an ordinary base hospital, even one serving the most important military project of all time, should have a viral-contagion clean room environment as elaborate as this one. Perhaps the other beds are all full?

LATER