"Norton, Andre - Solar Queen 04 - Postmarked The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

then, to Tau's orders.

Now it was almost as if some suggestion reached from the medic's mind to his. Though Dane had no claim
to esper talents, Tau had admitted that was in fact why he had made a good foil on Khatka.

"You can't remember what happened between your leaving the ship and your awaking in the inn,
consciously," the medic continued. Dane lost interest in that drumming finger and guessed.

"Deep probe?"

"Will it work?" Jellico demanded.

"You can't tell until you try. Dane has a block against some hypo techniques. How deep that goes, we can't
tell. But the dead man was wearing his tunic, which means they might have met. If he's willing to try, deep
probe might give us some answers."

Dane wanted to shout "no" with all the force the illness had left in him. Deep probe was used on criminals
by court order. If a man were susceptible enough, it would wring every incident of his life out of him back
to the first childhood memories. But they would not be after that, just the immediate past. Dane could see
the sense in Tau's suggestion. It was just that to accept it meant facing up to something from which he
shrank with every fiber of his being.

"We can set it only for the time you left the ship." Tau appeared to understand the cause of his reservation.
"And it may not work--you're not a good subject--plus the fact we have no idea what alteration of body
chemistry the poison may have worked. In one way, such a testing might be to your advantage, for then we
can judge any change that dose may have caused."

Dane felt a return of that same chill that had struck him when he had fought for strength in the inn. Did Tau
believe that he had taken mental damage? But he had remembered the stowage, and the tapes had
confirmed the accuracy of his memory. There was only the period of time that Tau wanted to research that
eluded him. He wavered--the distaste for the probe's revelations, together with a feeling he did not want to
know if the drug had affected him, combined to make him hesitate. Only, if he did not agree, then in days
to come his ignorance might be worse to face than certain knowledge.

"All right," he said, and then, for a second or two, wished he had refused.

Since the ship was in hyper and needed only a standby watch on the bridge, Rip was set that duty, and both
the Captain and Wilcox were present as Tau made ready to activate a probe. Dane was not quite certain
how it worked, though that it was able to turn a man inside out as far as his past was concerned was a
known fact.

Jellico made ready to tape what Dane would report, and Tau gave him the shot to send him under. He heard
a dwindling murmur and then--
He was going down the ramp, a little worried and resentful of this last-minute call to pick up a security
package. Luckily there was a field scooter parked not too far away. He scrambled in, fed in his ident disk,
and gave it the order for the gate.

"The Deneb." He repeated aloud his destination, having a vague idea it was an eating place not too far
from the field. At least that much was in his favor. And he had the receipt tape to hand, needing only the
voice and thumb record of the shipper to make it legal.