"Rob Grant - Colony" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Rob)

Synopsis:
Lifetimes ago, the generation ship Willflower set out, manned by the cream of
humanity, on a mission to colonize the stars. But by the 10th generation, things are
starting to go badly wrong. The only man who can save the ship is astrophysical Dr
Piers Morton. Only he's not an astrophysical engineer, he's not a doctor, he's not
even Piers Morgan, and all that remains of his body is his head, his spinal column
and absolutely nothing else. Better yet, somebody on board is trying to kill what's
left of himтАж



Colony
By
ROB GRANT
Copyright ┬й Rob Grant, 2000
To my Lily and my Rose


PART ONE
Lucky Town

'Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither.
One, here, will constant be,
Come wind, come weather'
(John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's
 Progress)

1
Eddie O'Hare considers himself to be the unluckiest man in the entire cosmos. And,
bluntly, he's got a damned fine point.
He's standing at the smoked glass window that takes up an entire wall of a top
floor room in a hastily built hotel, staring down at the fickle crowds thronging the
neon splattered street below. His stomach is gurgling like a freshly skewered rat
dying slowly in a stinking sewer. Tomorrow, the streets will be empty. The town will
die. There'll be no reason for it any more. And unless his luck changes, unless the
universe stops throwing snake eyes with Eddie's dice, Eddie's going to die along
with it.
In his sweating fist, he's clutching his one last hope. A single gaming chip. A fifty.
He's trying hard to think of the number he should place it on. That's all he has to do:
pick the right number. A thirty-six to one shot.
If he can just do this one thing right: one right thing right, then all he has to do is
pick another right number. That can be done. That's do-able.
And then, the last and final thing he has to do is let all those winnings ride on just
one more right number.
He has to pick three right numbers. That's all. If he can just do that. Beat those
odds.
But the thought stops as abruptly as a marathon runner with a stitch just a few
seconds after the starting gun, jerks around in agony on the side of the track, and
expires.