"Dickson, Gordon - Dragon And The George Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"You're sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Your body will stay right in the chair. Just your astral self will go to join Angie. That's the way it should have worked for her in the first place. Maybe she was concentrating too hard-"

"Don't try to blame it on her!"

"I'm not. I just- Anyway, don't you forget to con- centrate, too. Angie was experienced in this sort of concentration. You aren't. So you'll have to make an effort. Think of Angie. Concentrate on her. Concen- trate on her in some place with dragons."

"All right," Jim growled. "Then what?"

"If you do it right, you'll end up wherever she ap- ported to. You won't really be there, of course," said Grottwold. "It'll all be subjective. But you'll feel as if you're there, and since Angie's on the same instrument setting, she ought to be aware of your astral self being there, even if no one else there is."

"All right, all right!" said Jim. "But how do I get her back?"

"You'll have to get her to concentrate on returning," Grottwold answered. "You remembered how I taught you to hypnotize her-?"

"I remember, all right!"

"Well, try to hypnotize her again. She's got to be- come completely oblivious to wherever her present sur- roundings are before she'll be able to apport back here. Just put her under and keep telling her to con- centrate on the lab, here. When she disappears, you'll know she's come back."

"And what," said Jim, "about me?"

"Oh, it's nothing for you," Grottwold said. "You just close your eyes and will yourself back here. Since your body never left here to begin with, you'll automatically return the minute you don't want to be someplace else."

"You're sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Now, close your eyes- No, no, you've got to pull the hood down over your head..."

Grottwold stepped over and pulled the hood down himself. Jim was suddenly in a near-darkness faintly scented with the perfume of Angie's hair spray.

"Remember now," Grottwold's voice came distantly to him through the open bottom of the helmet, "con- centrate. Angie-dragons. Dragons-Angie. Close your eyes and keep thinking those two things..."

Jim closed his eyes and thought.

Nothing seemed to be happening. There was no sound from outside the helmet, and with the thing over his head he could see nothing but darkness. The scent of Angie's hair spray was overwhelming. Con- centrate on Angie, he told himself. Concentrate on Angie... and dragons...

Nothing was happening, except that the hair-spray odor was making him dizzy. His head swam. He felt huge and clumsy, sitting under the hair dryer with his eyes closed this way. He experienced a thudding in his ears that was the sound of his heart, beating along the veins and arteries of his body. A slow, heavy thudding. His head began to swim in earnest. He felt as if he were sliding sideways through nothingness and in the process expanding until he bulked like a giant.

A sort of savagery stirred in him. He had a fleeting desire to get up from where he was and tear something or someone apart. Preferably Grottwold. It would be sheerly soul-satisfying to take hold of that turkey and rip him limb from limb. Some large voice was boom- ing, calling to him, but he ignored it, lost in his own thoughts. Just to sink his claws into that george-

Claws? George?

What was he thinking about? This nonsense was not working at all.

He opened his eyes.

Chapter 3

The helmet was gone. Instead of into hair- spray-scented darkness, he stared at rock walls lead- ing up to a ceiling also of rock, high above his head and flickeringly lit by reddish light from a torch blaz- ing in a wall sconce.