"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx - Bloodhype" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"I don't have to tell you what bloodhype addiction does. These new users
display the same symptoms and reactions as those of over a decade ago.
Which means that this new strain is at (cast as powerful as the original.
It affects any living creature with a complex neural system and circulating
liquid in its body. 'This includes every known intelligence, with the
exception of a few silicon based primitives on restricted planets. Direct
injection is the most common method of application, but inhaling the drug
in sufficient quantities is also effective.

"Concentrating on the neurons, the drug produces an extremely pleasurable
sensation. The thing about bloodhype is that most drugs work only on the
mind, by distorting and affecting the images it creates and the information
it receives. Bloodhype, on the other hand, is more in the nature of direct
neural stimulation. In other words, instead of producing distortions in the
information? interpreter (the brain), the original information is distorted
right at the beginning, at the original nerve pickups in hands, feet,
liver? everywhere the blood can carry it. The effect has been described
many ways. One addict said it was like being the highest?pitched wire on a
stringed instrument. It's many, many times more powerful than anything that
works just on the mind acting as it does directly on the nerve cells rather
than the brain. A moderate dose produces a 'fire?fit', an intense burning
sensation that seems to add to the overall pleasure.

"Withdrawal symptoms commence anywhere from 60hh or 72 t?standard hours
after the last injection. Coordination begins to go, accompanied by a
speed?up in involuntary muscular reactions. Breathing can speed up or slow,
as can the heart and other self?regulating muscles. The senses are badly
confused and feed false reports to the brain, which is itself undergoing
severe emotional changes, from depression to exaltation and so forth. The
body goes downhill like an unhatched egg with in sufficient yolk. It's
possible to be in excellent physical shape and be dying?until the final
moment, when every thing seems to jump on you at once.

"You go slowly insane, aware of what's taking place all the time. 'Dying by
inches,' I believe a terran author called something far less extreme. The
only way an addict can survive, once hooked, is if the medics can get to
him fast. A lot of very complicated and expensive equipment supports the
being's nervous system until the drug has burned itself out. Very painful
and not always successful. If the brain itself has been too badly damaged,
nothing can be done. In such cases, mercy killings are not unknown.

"If 120hh or 144 t?standard hours have passed, there is a ninety?eight and
something percent chance of an excruciatingly painful death occurring. In
such cases even the best of medical treatment is useless. There is, of
course, nothing like a simple antidote."

"And the shipments are coming through Repler?" said Kitten.

"It is thought to be so. We intercepted one, just one, by accident. No