"Keith Laumer - Bolos 9 - Bolo Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

tones.
"Okay," he told it. "Set me up. Let's get this parade on the march!"
***
LKN 8737938 was his primary designation, but he was Elken to his
friends and the other members of his cr├иche social. He awoke, stretching
. . . and then the fear hit him in deep, shuddering waves, like the icy surf
at Gods' Beach. The last thing he remembered . . . no . . . what was the
last thing he remembered? Memory eluded him, like fragments of a
dream.
He opened his eyes, then wondered why he couldn't see. He reached
out with a trembling, sweat-slicked hand, then realized he couldn't feel
anything, that the tremors, the sweat, the cold were all imagined,
anchors for the mind adrift within a vast and lightless void.
Concentrating, he summoned memories from deep, deep within.
Surgery? He'd been going in for somatic surgery. Yes, he remembered
that much. His god had promised him a new body, a new and unending
life free of pain, of sickness, of fear. The god had promised him
transcendence. Immortality, and eternal youth.
What had gone wrong? . . .
Nothing is wrong, a voice, deep and quiet, spoke within the terror-
haunted depths of his thoughts. All is as it should be. reassurance>
"I can't see," he said, shouting into darkness. "I'm blind!"
You are not blind. Your optical processors are not yet online. reassurance>

The voice of his god! He was not alone after all.
Do not thrash about in your mind so, the voice continued. concern> We do not wish you to injure your new body.
New body! "Then . . . the operation worked? I'm immortal?"
The god did not reply immediately. Elken tried to conjure the being's
image in his thoughts, clinging to memory as a defense against the fear.
All he could manage was the memory of his god's eyes, deep and golden
and piercingly beautiful, the last time he'd seen them. How long had it
been?
What was wrong?
Nothing is wrong, the voice said, reassuring in tone and unhurried
pacing. You have been . . . chosen, LKN 8737938, chosen for greatness in
your service to Caern.
Elken forced himself to relax. If a god said that all was well, then well
it was, without question, without the possibility of doubt or question.
And yet it was so dark here.
And . . . just where in the Twelve Black Hells of Shrivash was here? .
..
"What do you mean . . . `chosen'?" Elken asked after a moment's
uncommunicative silence.
Caern is in great danger, the voice of his god replied. masked by self-assurance> Invaders, fallen demons of the Evil Beyond,
threaten now our world and all within it. You have been chosen to help
repel the demon-horde invasion.
"You . . . you promised me a new body, one that worked. . . ."

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