"Keith Fenwick - Skid 03 - Skid 3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fenwick Keith)

probably forgotten for ever, luckily for him or them? These weren't normal
times.
His only problem was remembering which bubble belonged to which
offworlder. Or was it, these offworlders were so simple that it probably
wouldn't matter he decided after a moment.
Raele gave the bubble marked with an 'x' to the male offworlder and the
other to the female who had just realised she had left something behind.
"Bruce!" She shrieked suddenly recalling little Bruce. "What about the
baby?"
"What about the baby?"
 "Can we go back and get my baby?"
"Baby?" Raele tested the word in his mouth and realised that the
offworlder was talking about an infant. He was about to regard her with his
normal distaste, rearing your own infants indeed! Then he remembered that
before long some of his own people would be producing their own offspring. It
might be a good idea to have somebody about the place who knew how to deal
with them.
"Yes we can retrieve your infant," Raele replied reasonably and your
companions," he added turning to Bruce. "But first you must place this in your
ear." Raele demonstrated what he meant the offworlders to do with the bubble.
"What about me?" The President asked. He was used to being the centre of
attention whether he was being supported, congratulated or attacked by any
number of detractors, and was feeling a bit left out of things.
Bruce sniffed the little bubble he had been given and wondered why he was
supposed to stick it against his ear. Bloody thing wouldn't fit into his ear,
it was too big. To his surprise when he did place the bubble to his ear it
seemed to shrink and slip into his head of it's own accord. Frantically Bruce
tried to pull it free panicking that the alien might have slipped him,
something noxious, and cursed himself for being so gullible.
Then the memories flooded back and the bubble slipped out of his ear and
fell to the ground looking like a used condom.
Bruce felt as if somebody had slipped another chapter of the book that
was his life into his ear. Suddenly everything made sense, it didn't make him
any happier that everything suddenly made sense but he was relieved by the
sense of knowing.
He looked across at Sue and watched his own emotions mirrored on her face
as she realised that she wasn't going crazy after all.
"Fuck," Bruce muttered trying to make some sense of the unusual disorder
in his head as he tried to rank experiences and memories. His head whirled and
he reached out for support. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Sue had
fallen to the ground and that the President was standing over her trying to
draw her back to her feet. I hope one of those bloody great vacuum cleaners
doesn't come and suck me up Bruce thought with some alarm as he slowly
regained the use of his limbs and stood upright.
"You all right?" He asked Sue solicitously not knowing whether to laugh
or cry as he remembered the good times, the despair and frustration of the
time he had spent on Skid.
It wasn't really all that bad he thought after a moment and silently
remonstrated with himself that he had not made better use of his time back
then. But what exactly he could have done better he didn't know yet.