"Lumley, Brian - Psychomech 02 - Psychosphere UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

"Too loud," Garrison answered, "and not at all German. And yes, I suppose I must have been thinking about him."
"not German? But he looked soЧ" She stopped smiling. "You were eavesdropping? Listening to his thoughts? But why, Richard?"
"Actually, I wasn't," he said truthfully. "Hell, I hardly noticed the bloke. ButЧoh, I may have seen him before somewhere. He's not German, though, you can be sure of that."
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PSYCHOSPHERE
"And does it matter? His nationality, I mean?"
He wrinkled his nose, gave her question perfunctory consideration, grinned and said, "Shouldn't think so."
flow Vicki relaxed, reached across the table and took his hand, laughed out loud. "Oh, Richard, you really are the strangest man!" And because it had been spontaneous, she failed to see the significance of her words.
Garrison continued to grin outwardly, while inside:
Oh, yes, he thought, / really am. But there are stranger things in heaven and earth, Vicki, my sweet. Stranger by far.
And he knew that one of those things, those oh-so-strange things, was even now beginning. Or perhaps it had started long ago and only now was coming to a head, like pus gathering in a boil.
All about Garrison the Psychosphere eddied and swirled, pulsing endlessly, apparently ordered and serene. But occasionally it carried the ripples of far, distant disturbances beyond his understanding. Such ripples were there even now; they did him no harm, but they troubled him. He felt like a fish swimming in the Great Sea of the Psychosphere, and like a fish he sensed the presence of some mighty predator. Out there, somewhere in the fathomless deepsЧ a shark!
That was an interesting thought:
A shark in the Psychosphere, and Garrison not so much a ftsh as a spear-fisherman. While he preyed on smaller denizens of the deeps, some-
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Brian Lumley
PSYCHOSPHERE
where close at hand a large predator circled him. But he wasn't afraid, or at least not wholly afraid, for he had his spear-gun. Except ...ifa confrontation was in the offing, would his gun be powerful enough? Its once-tough rubber hurlers were getting old, growing weaker from continued stretching.
Worse than this, would he even see the enemy if it cameЧor would it coast up silently behind him, jaws agape?
Suddenly fearful, lost in his fantasy, Garrison cast about with his mind. Terror was the spur, boosting his ESP even as it boosted his adrenalin. Searching, he peered deep into the Psychosphere. Somewhere, somewhere...
. . . There!
That mottled, marbled shape, silent as a shadow, intent upon the pursuit of some other prey, showing no interest in Garrison whatsoever. UntilЧ
ЧThe shark-shape turned suddenly in Garrison's direction, came at him in a blind, head-on fury, a dull-gray bullet snarling through the mat-terless stuff of the Psychosphere.
It was close, looming closer . . . it sensed him!
"Richard?" Vicki's voice reached in to him, causing him to start as if slappedЧwhich in turn made her jump. "Wandering again?" she nervously asked.
Garrison's face felt drained of bloodЧbut he forced a grin, rose and reached across the table to draw her up with him. He hoped she couldn't feel the trembling in his arms. "Good idea," he
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said. "To wander, 1 mean. Let's walk down towards the beach ..."
But even as they set out she could tell that he was still not entirely with her . . .
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Chapter
2
MORE THAM FIFTEEN HUMORED MILES NORTHWEST of Rhodes it was midday and brilliant with sunshine. London was abustleЧbut in Charon Qubwa's mind-castle all was cool, shaded and calm as a somnolent beast. The Castle did not sleepЧit never sleptЧbut Qubwa had been alone all morning in his private quarters and not to be disturbed; which was about as close as the Castle as an entity might ever get to the stasis of slumber.
The Castle's staff, Qubwa's "soldiers," went about their tasks almost robotically, corpuscles in the Castle's veins; the machines and computers and support systems throbbed and pumped, rustled and ticked and whirred, organs by which the Castle lived; but Charon Qubwa himselfЧ rather, the Qubwa consciousness, the id, the mind of the placeЧhe had in part removed himself.
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PSYCHOSPHERE
Physically he was there, for he was also the Castle's pulse, without which it could not function and would have no purpose, but mentally .. .
This was one of those days when Qubwa practiced his arts, when he exercised his mind as more orthodox men might exercise their bodies; except that where the latter were bent upon physical creativity, the structural improvement of themselves, Qubwa's exercises were designed for the mental degradation and eventual destruction of others. And they were in truth "exercises": training tasks he set himself to carry him to the very threshold of an objectiveЧbut not to cross it. Not yet. Not until the time was ripe, when the result could only be total victory.
And in this respect Qubwa was a general, whose weapons were the telepathic and hypnotic powers of his own mind. The Castle and its staff: they were merely his armor. The world outside, the world of common men: that was his objective. Eventually.
But Qubwa was tiring now. His exercises had lasted for close on three hours and he was beginning to feel that mental strain which ever accompanied such excesses of mind.
He was seated in a massively padded armchair before a great glass tube which reached vertically from floor to ceiling. Within the tube a large globe of the world, with its continents and oceans etched in realistic bas-relief and color, hung in electro-magnetic suspension. Qubwa's eyes were closed; he sat completely relaxedЧ physically. Indeed he might well appear to be asleep, but he was not.
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Brian Lumley
Upon his lap lay a computer remote, its tiny screen glowing with this word and coordinates:
MOTH: 3░95' Ч64░7'
"Moth" was the codename of one of Britain's Polaris submarines and the coordinates told her location: midway between Iceland and Norway, roughly halfway along an imaginary line drawn due North between the Shetlands and the Arctic Circle. On Qubwa's globe this location showed as a steady point of light in the western reaches of the Norwegian Ocean, a telltale glow which served purely as a guide, a focal point, for his intense telepathic transmissions.
The coordinates had been snatched from the unsuspecting mind of the Duty Officer at the pen in Rosyth, roughly corroborated by a similarly unwitting mind in the Admiralty, and given final definition by Moth's Captain himself where he went about his duties 400 feet beneath a sparkling, choppy, sun-flecked surface. And that was where Qubwa's mind was at this very moment, seated astride the mind of Moth's commander.
The Castle's master was well pleased with the way the morning's exercises had goneЧso far. But this was his last "visit" of this session and it was the most important; it would determine his mood for days to comeЧit might one day determine the fate of the world.
As for the rest of the morning's work, work already completed:
Strategic Air Command had been a hard one. The AmericansЧespecially their military ele-