"Kay Kenyon -The Seeds of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

Clio gripped the chair arms, preparing for Dive. Except there wasn't any way to prepare for Dive.
Other Dive pilots had their rituals, customs, superstitions. Clio just dove, letting the time stream take her,
fighting the fear, the hallucinations, riding the sheer joy of it. Every other poor bastard on the ship in
dreamland, unconscious, depending on her, a Dive pilot with a dozen too many missions, and now with the
shakes to prove it.
Russo's voice: "Approaching Dive. Thirty seconds. Finn, you ready?"
"Ready, sir. "
Teeg flashed a grin at her. "Night all. Wake me with a kiss, this once, Finn. "
"Kiss my ass, Teeg. "
"Baby, I been dreaming on it. "
Russo again: "Cut the chatter, we're heading into Dive. Helm to you, Finn. "
"Yessir. " Clio throttled the main engines up to 100 percent, felt the ship lurch and reach for transition
speed, threw the pair of switches controlling the time coils. Sensed, then felt, the field envelope the ship, hit
the flight deck, take her reeling into the hidden underbelly of the space-time continuum.
And she was Diving. Was Diving down, leaving the common universe, felt her consciousness floating
just in front of her forehead, but her thought process, her coordination, they remained normal if she
remembered to engage them. The ship lights pulsed way down, cranking up the stars to laser intensity as
Clio watched through the viewport. Teeg's head slumped to the side, he was out, they were all out.
Starhawk was changing dimensions, from space to time, sweeping her up in a slow, rolling wave that for
some obscure reason left only a select few conscious and able to fly. And Clio Finn was one. Used to be,
she thought. Now I gotta have a little help.
The dimension change triggered a nasty ripple in space-time. Clio almost thought she could see the
ripple fen outward from the ship, but well clear of Earth, got to stay well clear. Ripple or no ripple, you
want to avoid your own historical pastтАФavoid changing it, changing yourself. No matter how much you'd
like to redo it. No second chances. Just fly by the book, girl.
She leaned forward, cradling her stomach, felt that old warm brick forming there, saw the lights haloed
around the control panel, and the air on the bridge turned thick as water at thirty fathoms. Gotta ride this
pony. Going to be fine. Dive fifty-five, going to be fine.
Clio's eyes flicked over to the comm screen, all static now, picking up only the electromagnetic impulses
of the galaxy. The static ebbed and surged, creating patterns if she watched long enoughтАФsometimes
faces, a fleeting Rorschach test. Clio yanked her attention back to the control board, trying hard to stay
tuned, get the job done.
The right-side controls in front of her were for aerospace, the left for Dive. She jockeyed both sides.
The Dive pilot rode the controls through Dive, and, coming up on real space, flew the ship like a normal
pilot.
The contrails of the stars striped across the viewport, tracing the bright orbits of their endless paths, as
the Milky Way rotated around its center. Starhawk was picking up time speed, the past rushing by. Time
before she was born, before Mom and Elsie and Petya. Time before the good old U. S. of A. Time before
time.
Clio focused her eyes on the chronometer, watched the numbers scroll up, six thousand years, going on
seven thousand, now crawling to eight thousand. She scanned the readouts for chunks of matter the galaxy
might throw at the ship, hurtling along faster than mere humans were meant to travel. Gotta stay awake,
stay awake.
Teeg was radiating colors everywhere his skin was exposed. His face had become fuzzy, as though the
surface of his skin wasn't always in exactly the same place. His handsome, squarish face had lost its
perpetual leer, looking lost and serene. Trusting to wake up in the right time and right place, like a child
committing himself to sleep, to the night.
If I should die before I wake...
Clio snapped back in a hurry. You were getting a little mesmerized there, old girl. Was not. Were too.
Ran a systems check. What the hell time was it anyway? She laughed out loud at that; heard a voice,