"Peter F. Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

supporting the national medical service. Garissa wasn't a particularly rich world. And as to where the
Department of Defence had acquired such large amounts of antimatter, Alkad had studiously avoided
asking.
"It will be about thirty minutes before the next jump, " Peter Adul said. Alkad cancelled the datavise. The
sensor visualisation of the ships faded from her perception, replaced by the spartan grey-green composite
of the cabin walls. Peter was standing in the open oval hatch, wearing a dark turquoise ship-suit padded
on all the joints to protect him from bruising knocks in free fall. He smiled invitingly at her She could see
the worry behind the bright lively eyes.
Peter was thirty-five a metre eighty tall, with skin actually darker than her own deep ebony. He worked in
the university mathematics department, and they had been engaged for eighteen months. Never the
outgoing boisterous type, but quietly supportive. One person who genuinely didn't seem to mind the fact
that she was brighter than him-- and they were rare enough. Even the prospect of her being for ever
damned as the Alchemist's creator left him unperturbed. He had actually accompanied her to the ultra-
secure navy asteroid base to help with the device's mathematics.
"1 thought we could spend them together" he said.
She grinned back up at him and slipped out of the restraint net as he sat on the edge of her acceleration
cushioning beside her.
"Thanks. Navy types don't mind being cooped up by themselves during realignment. But it certainly gets
to me. " Various hums and buzzes from the ship's environmental systems invaded the cabin, crew-
members talking softly at their stations, vague words echoing along the cramped companionways.
Beezling had been assembled specifically to deploy the Alchemist device, its design concentrating on
durability and performance; crew comforts had come a long way down the navy's priority list.
Alkad swung her legs over the side of the cushioning ledge, feet pulled down to the decking by the strong
gravity, and leaned against him, thankful for the warmth of the contact, his just being there.
His arm went round her shoulders. "What is it about the prospect of incipient mortality which gets the
hormones flowing?" She smiled and pressed harder into his side. "What is it in the male make-up that
simply being awake gets your hormones going?" "That's a no?" "That's a no, " she said firmly.
"There's no door, and we'd do ourselves an injury in this gravity. Besides, there will be plenty of time
once we get back. тАЭ
"Yes. " If we do. But he didn't say that out loud. That was when the acceleration warning sounded. Even
then it took them a second to react, breaking through the initial moment of shock.
"Get back on the cushioning, " Peter yelled as the gee force leapt upwards. Alkad attempted to swing her
legs back up on the ledge. They were made of uranium, impossibly heavy. Muscles and tendons grated
horribly as she strained against the weight.
Come on. It's easy. It's only your legs. Dear Mother, how many times have you lifted your legs? Come
on! Neural-nanonic nerve- impulse overrides bullied her thigh muscles. She got one leg back on the
cushioning. By that time the acceleration had reached seven gees, She was stuck with her left leg on the
floor-. , foot slipping along the decking as the enormous weight of her thigh pushed down, forcing her
knee joint open.
The two opposing swarms of combat wasps engaged; attacking and defending drones splitting open, each
releasing a ban-age of submunitions. Space seethed with directed energy beams. Electronic warfare pulses
popped and burned up and down the electromagnetic spectrum, trying to deflect, goad, confuse, harass. A
second later it was the turn of the missiles. Solid kinetic bullets bloomed like antique shotgun blasts. All it
took was the slightest graze, at those closing velocities both projectile and target alike detonated into
billowing plumes of plasma. Fusion explosions followed, intense flares of blue-white starfire flinging off
violet coronae. Antimatter added its vehemence to the fray, producing even larger explosions amid the
ionic maelstrom.
The nebula which blazed between the Beezling and her attackers was roughly lenticular, and over three
hundred kilometres broad, choked with dense cyclonic concentrations, spewing tremendous cataracts of
fire from its edges. No sensor in existence could penetrate such chaos.