"Steven E. McDonald - Event Horizon" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDonald Steven E)

EVENT HORIZON
by Steven E. McDonald
(c) August 1997

Based on the motion picture
written by Philip Eisner

Dedication

For my Dad,
Edward Charles "Ted" McDonald,
January 7th 1933-March 26th 1997
He handed me the keys
to time and space.

and

For Sylvia, Cherry, and Jim,
who believed
and would not let
"he then sadly fell silent"
be the end of the story.


Prologue


Space is deep.

Floating down through night, this thought came unbidden, shot across
confusion. The darkness was impossible, filling the universe, pouring down and
through, overwhelming. Beneath the cloak of reason rose mindless fear, a
chilling wave that subsumed everything that constituted rationality and
intelligence. Vertigo followed, the non-world spinning, passing by in an
unbearable rush, no beginning, no end.

Space is deep.

The darkness faded, blurring. All movement and starlight flared. There was
no warmth to be drawn from the brightness, nothing but cold that could eat
through to the soul, cocooning it in ice. The scientific mind could find a
loophole in the terror by speculating about this phenomenon, feverishly
working to reduce it to a set of statistics. Of course it was cold: out here
in vacuum the temperature would barely be above absolute zero.

Space is deep.

That whisper again, seeming to fill the universe. Floating, turning in this
unreality, protected against cold and vacuum. No control, no volition, turning
against will. Blue filled the starscape, coalesced, became a glowing blue orb.