"Frank Herbert - Operation Syndrome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Operation Syndrome
Frank Herbert, 1954
Scanned by Anaerobic




Honolulu is quiet, the dead buried, the rubble of buildings cleaned away. A salvage barge
rocks in the Pacific swell off Diamond Head. Divers follow a bubble trail down into the green
water to the wreck of the Stateside skytrain. The Scramble Syndrome did this. Ashore, in
converted barracks, psychologists work fruitlessly in the aftermath of insanity. This is where
the Scramble Syndrome started: one minute the city was peaceful; a clock tick later the city
was mad.
In forty days -- nine cities infected.
The twentieth century's Black Plague.


SEATTLE
First a ringing in the ears, fluting up to a whistle. The whistle became the warning blast of
a nightmare train roaring clackety-clack, clackety-clack across his dream.
A psychoanalyst might have enjoyed the dream as a clinical study. This psychoanalyst was
not studying the dream; he was having it. He clutched the sheet around his neck, twisted
silently on the bed, drawing his knees under his chin.
The train whistle modulated into the contralto of an expensive chanteuse singing "Insane
Crazy Blues." The dream carried vibrations of fear and wildness.
"A million dollars don't mean a thing -- "
Hoarse voice riding over clarion brass, bumping of drums, clarinet squealing like an angry
horse.
A dark-skinned singer with electric blue eyes and dressed in black stepped away from a red
backdrop. She opened her arms to an unseen audience. The singer, the backdrop lurched into
motion, revolving faster and faster and faster until it merged into a pinpoint of red light. The
red light dilated to the bell mouth of a trumpet sustaining a minor note.
The music shrilled; it was a knife cutting his brain.
Dr. Eric Ladde awoke. He breathed rapidly; he oozed perspiration. Still he heard the singer,
the music.
I'm dreaming that I'm awake, he thought.
He peeled off the top sheet, slipped his feet out, put them on the warm floor. Presently, he
stood up, walked to the window, looked down on the moontrail shimmering across Lake
Washington. He touched the sound switch beside the window and now he could hear the night
-- crickets, spring peepers at the lakeshore, the far hum of a skytrain.
The singing remained.
He swayed, gripped at the windowsill.
Scramble Syndrome --
He turned, examined the bedside newstape: no mention of Seattle. Perhaps he was safe --
illness. But the music inside his head was no illness.
He made a desperate clutch for self-control, shook his, head, banged his ear with the palm
of his hand. The singing persisted. He looked to the bedside clock -- 1:05 A.M., Friday, May
14, 1999.
Inside his head the music stopped. But now -- Applause! A roar of clapping, cries, stamping
of feet. Eric rubbed his head.