"K. W. Jeter - The Dreamfields" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeter K. W)

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The Dreamfields by K.W.
Jeter
This was the dream of Arthur. He thought there was come into this
land griffons and serpents, and he thought they burnt and slew all the
people in the land, and then he thought he fought with them, and they
did him passing great harm and wounded him full sore, but at the last
he slew them. When the king awaked he was passing heavy of his dream.

тАФSir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur



PART ONE
The Base
CHAPTER 1
Something had struck the earth and it wouldn't stop ringing. Or so it
seemed. Ralph Metric took another pull at the beer can sweating in his
hand and watched the heat waves shimmer on the rocks and sand beyond
the glass. Below the glaring window the air conditioner whined.

"I just think it's kind of strange," came Stimmitz's voice again. It cut
through the aural haze produced by Bach cantatas dribbling into the room
at low volume. "Don't you? Strange, a little?"

"Huh?" Ralph turned, from the window. A phantom desert in green and
purple slowly ebbed from his vision, revealing Stimmitz sitting in the dark
end of the room. On one of the bookshelves behind him the reels of his
tape deck inexorably rotated.
 "Strange." The too-angular legs shifted their positions, like some part of
a mantis flexing. "Don't you think it is?"

Somehow I got lost here, thought Ralph. While I was looking out the
window? I can't even remember what we were talking about. "Strange?"
The word itself had gotten a little fuzzy from repetition, and beer. Bach,
too. He discovered he was running his thumb around the top of the beer
can at the same speed the tape reels were going around. He switched the
beer to his other hand and slid the first into his pocket. "What's strange?"
he said.

"Oh. You know." Stimmitz looked past Ralph towards the window.
"Operation Dreamwatch, the whole thing. The uniforms and the
pretend-military bit. I mean, if they really want discipline so tight, why'd