"Christopher Pike - The Immortal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

hates the aliens with a passion, and that he doesn't seem to give a damn about anything other than killing
them. David's superiors take him to learn how to handle the alien ship. They also introduce him to the
female they have captured. Her name is Vani. She is not pleasant to look at. She is hairless, her skull
protrudes in a number of colored lobes, and she has hands that are more like talons than fingers. At the
same time she has definite female characteristics. Her voice, in particular, is soothing. David hates her the
moment he meets her. He anticipates using her against her own people.

"Vani has an implant in her brain that can make her experience pain in varying degrees. That is how
David will control her. For example, say they come to a checkpoint while entering the alien solar system.
He will need Vani to say the right things to gain him entrance. She will do exactly what he wishes without
him hardly having to turn the dial on the control connected to the pain implant because she has been
totally devastated by the torture she has gone through. Even though David despises her, he also sees her
as a pathetic creature.

"The two take off toward the alien home world. David has aboard his ship a bomb the size of a
basketball, but one that is filled with antimatter-- capable of devastating a whole planet. The alien home
world is far away. David has to circumvent the entire local region of the galaxy to get to it. The ship is
capable of ultra light speed, but still the journey takes many months. Both of them sleep away most of the
38

THE IMMORTAL

time in hibernaculums. During this time David dreams of his wife, and we see in detail how his relationship
fell apart.

"When they awake they are near their goal. But they have to go through numerous checkpoints to get to
the alien solar system. Here I have a couple of action sequences. We see Vani aiding David past one
particular security check, only to have the aliens get suspicious. In the end David has to destroy them,
which adds pressure to his mission. He is not sure if he has already blown his cover. Yet he presses
forward.

"During this time, though, he gets to know Vani, and now has trouble hating her. She is pleasant, nicer
than most human beings, and he talks freely with her about his troubles with his wife. She listens well. He
discovers that the man the System tortured to death, the one who was with her when she was captured,
was her husband. He feels bad about that but then decides it is war. He doesn't empathize with her so
much that he forgets that Vani's people were the ones who destroyed the Earth. Vani does not deny this
fact either.

"But there are things Vani is incapable of discussing. She will go to speak them, and a wave of pain will
overcome her. It is obvious that during her torture she was conditioned not to speak of certain matters.
One of these is the one-way nature of the mission David has undertaken. Yes, his is a suicide mission. He
begins to figure it out anyway, even without her assistance. It makes sense. The System would want his
bomb to go off the moment the ship entered the

39
CHRISTOPHER PIKE