"Quantum Leap - Prelude" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

AUTHOR'S NOTE
I would like to thank Lisa Winters for providing the title of this book and awkward details, Linda Young for reminding me of the meaning of the Vietnam Memorial to a hero who lost his brother in that conflict, and Pathman Ed and Claire from GEnie's Medical RT for details about cell cultures. Special thanks also go to Claudia DeGailler for invaluable and voluminous research on Navy retirement ceremonies, Ginjer Buchanan for excellent suggestions and more awkward details, and Charlie Grant, who traded the earthquake for gravity. Any mistakes that appear in this work are mine, not theirs.
Synchronicity happens: the August 1992 issue of Discover magazine featured an article about Masuo Aizawa's work at the Tokyo Institute of Technology on combining nerve cells with electronics. My conception of Ziggy as a neural "hybrid computer" predated this article by over a year, and Ziggy is, of course, several generations beyond Aizawa's work, but it's funЧand a bit disconcertingЧto find yourself writing science fiction when you thought it was fantasy.
Several fans have noted a discrepancy between the Quantum Leap books as I write them and the series as it's presented on television, to wit: in the series, Sam's body Leaped, and the person he replaced appears in the Waiting Room. In the books, Sam's mind Leaps and his body stays home, to be occupied by the mind of the person he replaces. All I will say in defense of this is that in the first season of the series, the distinction wasn't clear, and I made my choices based on the inherent dramatic opportunities involved, and have remained consistent with them thereafter. It may help the determined purist to consider the books an alternate-universe version of "Quantum Leap."
In that spirit, therefore, one might take Prelude to be the story, not of "how things happened," but one version of how things might have been. . . .

SUMMER, 1990
Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime ...

He reads much; he is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men.
ЧWilliam Shakespeare Julius Caesar, I, ii, 200

CHAPTER
ONE

The morning paper had announced that Iran blamed the United States for the recent earthquake. A Navajo student attending the University of New Mexico had found a "New Gap to Bridge" that was, in fact, as old as the clash of cultures. A New Mexico man had been elected President of the League of United Latin American Citizens. It was going to be another hot, dry, sunny day in Albuquerque.
Admiral Albert Calavicci was nearly as white as the sheets he was lying on, his eyes closed and his left arm dangling from a traction hook to keep it elevated.
"You know, that stunt last night really took it out of you," his visitor continued. The kid couldn't take a hint in a package. "You're going to have to take some time to get back on
your feet." The eyes snapped back open, challenged. "What, you think
I'm some kind of old man?"
The young manЧAl decided grudgingly that he deserved thatЧlifted his hands in protest. "No, no, no, nothing like that. It's just that, you know, lots of things are changing for you now, and you've got this broken arm. Makes a great excuse for sitting back a little and taking some time to think about things. You should take advantage of the opportunity."
Al's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about what's changing for me?" Pushy, this kid was. Poking in. Interfering. Of course, if the kid hadn't been there to apply pressure and all of that stuff, Al might be dead right now instead of in the hospital with his arm hanging from a bunch of wires and pulleys. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for this kid, Ross Malachy, he wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place. It served him right for barging in on a robbery in progress.
His attention had been attracted to the situation in the first place because he recognized Ross. It wasn't as if Ross Malachy were a friend; he was just the kid who worked for Stephen Wales, and Stephen Wales was the guy who led the encounter group Al had gotten mixed up in. But he'd recognized the kid when he'd seen him in the notions store, and then seen what he was trying to do: disarm another kid armed with a gun. Al didn't really know Ross; he would have provided a diversion for anybody under the same circumstances.
Of course, he was the one who got lucky and caught a bullet. If he wasn't so hazed out from pain medication, he might get a little ticked off.
Ross shrugged. "I dunno. I heard it somewhere. That you were retiring from the military, and . . . that you were retiring. I knew somebody once who was retiring from the military. It wasn't easy, being a civilian all of a sudden."
Al studied him. Ross had a really dumb grin on his face. In fact, he was acting like he had some kind of secret, some surprise he was hugging to himself. Al didn't like surprises. But aside from that, he was the first person who really seemed to understand. Getting shot, hey, that could happen to anybody. But retiring from the only life you'd known for thirty yearsЧ that meant something. His suspicions thawed.
"Well, I can't stay here." He glanced up at his arm in disgust. "This really sucks."
"You know what I think you should do?" Ross said, the picture of innocence. "Since you really shouldn't stress yourself any more. Right now, I mean," he added hastily. "With a bullet wound. You ought to take some time. That's serious stuff."
"Yeah, kid, what do you think I should do with all this time you think I have?" The words were heavily laced with sarcasm, but not too heavily that it wasn't clear Al was curious about the answer. He tilted his head, watching as Ross came around the bed and adjusted the wires and hooks and trappings so the arm would hang more comfortably. The kid was deft and professional about it, and the changes helped considerably.
"I think if you've got any friends in this part of the country, you ought to give them a call," he said. "I'll bet they'd be glad to see you. I'll bet they want to see you."
Al opened his mouth to dismiss the idea, then closed it again, slowly. There was somebodyЧand he was somewhere around here. "Yeah. I guess I could do that, come to think of it."
"Sure you could. He really wants to hear from you. Like his life depends on it," Ross said cheerfully. "And you wouldn't want to disappoint an old friend, would you?"
"No, I guess not... ." Al watched him, confused and wary.
"Oh, and I got you a present. Call it a get-well, thank-you-for-saving-my-life, welcome-to-retirement kind of thing."
"Oh yeah?" Presents were always good. This explained that air of glee, too. Suspicion wiped away, Al smiled, and tried again to sit up.
"I'm gonna have to open it for you," Ross warned. He took out a narrow, flat box. "There's a card, see?"
The cover of the card featured a crudely drawn cartoon of a man fairly mummified in bandages. Al opened it with his free handЧ"I'm not helpless!"Чand read it aloud. " 'When you leap into the unknown, make sure you've packed your parachute! Get Well Soon!' "
"You didn't sign it," he said. But he was distracted by the box, and set the card aside, watching eagerly as the gray satin ribbon slid off, finally taking the box away from Ross to open it. "What theЧ"
He held up a tieЧa fine silk tie, heavy, expensive, beautiful, fluorescent purple with tiny bright pink squares and circles.
"Oh boy," Al said, awed and appalled in equal measure. "Hey, I'm in the military. I don't wear anything like this."
"You will," Ross assured him.
Three weeks later, having finished a course of IV therapy to prevent possible bone infection and having tried (and failed) to make dates with every female nurse in his ward, Al was released from the hospital with a sling, a recommendation for physical therapy, and an abiding distaste for civilian hospitals. By rights he should have been transferred to the Kirtland Base hospital, but a snafu in the paperwork had kept him where he was while surgeons repaired the damage caused by a bullet in the upper arm, a trifle too close to the shoulder for comfort. A fraction of an inch closer and it would have ripped out an artery and he would have bled to death. Ross Malachy had shown an uncanny knowledge of emergency medical procedures, the doctors said later. It kept the damage from being permanent. He'd get back full use of the arm if he did exactly what he was told.
Come to think of it, doctors in military hospitals said the same kind of stupid stuff. When he got out of the hospital after getting back from 'Nam, they'd given him a list of things to do and let him go, too. Doctors were the same everywhere. It was the same now as it had been more than twenty years beforeЧout of the dim shadowed lobby and smell of antiseptic into blazing sunshine and an empty feeling that he didn't quite know what to do next. He squinted and looked around for the taxi that was supposed to be waiting for him. There was no taxi.
Heroes on TV could take a bullet in the arm and keep on going like the Energizer Bunny. He'd been pushing to get out of the hospital since he woke up from the anesthesia. But he sure as hell wasn't going to stand around in hundred-degree, July-in-New Mexico summer sun until a taxi showed up.
Unfortunately, there wasn't any place to sit down, and it wasn't as if he could stroll over to Central Avenue and flag down a cab. For one thing, his flagger was temporarily out of order, and for another, taxicabs weren't all that common in Albuquerque. Come to think of it, the only place he could ever remember seeing one was at the airport. He was contempla-
ting going back into the shadows and sitting down for a while when Ross Malachy came out of the hospital entrance behind him. The kid was visiting Wales's wife, Al remembered.
"Admiral?" Ross was different somehow. A moment after he'd given Al the tie, he'd stepped back, blinking, and backed out of Al's room, confused. Probably a little self-conscious about giving a guy a present, Al figured. He still had that lookЧyounger somehow, less self-assured. As if when the gift left his hands, something else did, too.
Weird present, too, but the more he'd looked at the thingЧ a horrendous pink-and-purple creationЧthe more it grew on him. It appealed to the somewhat warped sense of humor the military had never quite managed to get rid of. So, now, he nodded and smiled, acknowledging the greeting.