"Monica Hughes - Devil On My Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Monica)

contoured couches. Tomi curled up on one as if to sleep.
"No, my Lord. Flat on your back. You will find your paks do not hurt your neck. Try and see."
The couch moved as he moved, in an odd unexpected way; but Tomi found that he could lie on
his back, completely relaxed, with no pain from his paks at all. He felt weightless, floating and sinking at
the same time.
Denn spoke from the other couch. "This is most strange. What happens now?"
"Patience, Young Lord. First I plug your lifepak into the back of the chair, so... and now yours,
Young Lord. I will leave you and program your desired dream."
"Suppose we don't like it?" Denn asked anxiously. "I mean... when we're in the middle of it.
What do we do?"
The worker laughed, a tinkly flat sound. "The dream you order is the dream you get, Young
Lord. There we are. Good dreamings, Young Lords." She closed the door softly and they were alone in
the dim sweet smelling room.
"I say, Tomi. What if...?"
"Sssh, Denn. You'll spoil it if you keep..."
The music stopped abruptly. The dim light flared into painful brilliance and the subtle scent was
displaced by the less attractive smell of rotting leaves.
"... if you keep talking. "Tomi heard his own voice thin out into enormous space. There was
something hard and bumpy under his back. He scrambled to his feet.
"Denn, where are you?" He stared through the brightness, his eyes watering. He rubbed them,
blinked and looked around. He was standing ankle deep in fallen leaves among enormous trees. A hot
brightness shone down on him. Could it really be the sun? Yes, that was it all right, and the blueness
spread all around and above must be sky. He was actually outside the Dome. A shiver ran down his
back.
Where was he? How far from the City? He ran a few paces through the trees, but all he could
see were a thousand more trees. He ran in the other direction. The same. ArcOne was nowhere in sight.
His heart began to pound. What was he doing alone in the wilderness, away from the comforting shelter
of the Dome? He had a feeling, like a lost memory, that someone should be with him. Hadn't he just
called someone's name? Farfat? Grog? No, definitely not them. Denn, that was it!
"Denn," he called again, "Where are you? DENN!"
His voice was lost among the silent trees and only silence answered him. He shivered and looked
up. The sun was sinking quite rapidly. It no longer warmed the little glade where he stood, but flickered
low between the trees, whose heavy trunks were slimed over with green stuff. Long shadows lay like
bars across the ground. Over his head the branches stirred gently, as if the trees were breathing. It was
really getting quite dark.
He couldn't stand still for ever. For want of a better choice he began to walk in the direction of
the setting sun. At once the trees seemed to close in around him. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he
was a stranger with no rights in this place. He began to run. The trees seemed to follow him.
He stumbled on for what seemed like hours, scrambling around prickly thickets that seemed
deliberately to bar his way, crashing through knee-deep weeds and grasses that gave off a bittersweet
smell as he brushed against them.
His heart pounded and each breath stabbed his chest and hurt his throat. At last he gained the
crest of a hill and saw below him, as the trees parted, a wide valley. The sun sat just above the rim of the
far hill. In the dusk at the bottom, sparks of silver caught in the red sun. A river, thought Tomi, and
suddenly realized how very hot and how unbearably thirsty he was.
Hungry too. His hands went automatically to his pockets and he looked down in surprise at the
clothes he was wearing. What a sight he must look! A kind of breeches and an overcoat of some
synthetic he had never seen before. It was heavy, but supple, of a brown color and with a strange wild
smell. The edges of the coat were decorated with fringes of the same stuff. There was a patch pocket on
each hip. One was empty and the other held only a loop of cord that widened to a broad band at one