"Paul Preuss - Re-Entry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preuss Paul)

Holder looked at him. "My g'ness, Ev." A bewildered expression came over his
face; he bunked. "Have I gone too far?"
"Yes, Phil. Much too far indeed," said Bruneau, trying to hold his temper.
Holder peered at Bruneau, apparently puzzled by the anger in his friend's voice.
Confidence drained out of him.
"Come on, Phil," Bruneau sighed, feeling the barest twinge of remorse. "I'll get
you safely to bed."
"Oh. Sure. Sure, Ev, I'll come with you." Holder absently tossed the room
controls into the make-believe bushes.
"Oh, Phil!" For a moment the exasperated Bruneau considered searching for the
controls, but decided it was more important to get Phil Holder safely put away.
He took him by the arm; Holder stumbled against him.
Bruneau escorted the confused doctor out of the room, guiding him gently past a
number of angry guests who jostled him and hissed their spite. But as Bruneau
made his way slowly up the aisle he noted that a good many passengers seemed not
the least upset by the graphic sensie display. Bruneau saw Loa Westcliffe and
Robby Fain and Vivee ChilHngsworth among the audience who continued to watch in
slack-jawed masturbatory rapture as, behind Bruneau and his bewildered charge,
in the depths of the starship's elegant lounge, the apparition of Tyrannosaurus
continued to munch, and pick delicately at the stringy remains of its dinner.
'тАвClarissa Sirich was in at the beginning; indeed, as became apparent only much
later, her presence defined the beginning as such, though she was not herself
the initiator of those historic events hi Cole's laboratory/Born on April 25th,
1979 O.E., her name was originally Margaret Tanner, and she was the daughter of
the renowned research biochemist..." (from Darwin; A Millennium of Conservation)
Stefan Lazarev was twenty-two years old, an experienced operator of heavy
equipment, but more used to the suburbs of Moscow than the permafrost regions of
the sub-Arctic. He had lately been recruited by the Komsomol and assigned along
with a half dozen other bulldozeristy to a railroad construction camp north of
Tommot, where he was helping to build a major new spur connecting the Baikal-
Amur Mainline at Nagornyy to the city of Yakutsk on the Lena.
On this particular afternoon Stefan was working alone, following a line of
stakes set out the day before by a surveying crew, cutting an access road
through the birch trees and stunted firs with the blade of his big American Cat.
Spring comes late to the taiga, but brings with it a profusion of sweet
wildflowers and lush green grass and long warm afternoons that stretch into
soft, perfumed twilights. In such a climate love blooms as quickly as the
flowers. The tousle-haired youth was thinking about a girl named Valentina from
the track gang, not about safety, as he brought the noisy uiesel to a halt near
the banks of a little brook.
Stefan climbed down from the Cat and stood stfll a moment, feeling the sun on
his face, hearing the whisper of wind in the leaves. Then he carried his lunch
tin to the dappled shade of a ring of birches. His only concession to caution
was to bring along a beat-up old hunting rifle against the sudden, if unlikely,
appearance of a bear.
He was little prepared, then, when having chewed his way through half a chunk of
black bread he heard a sudden agonizing groan behind him. He leaped to his feet,
spewed 'out his mouthful, and snatched up the rifle. Spinning around, he was
just in time to watch with horror as his Cat's enormous steel blade slid beneath
the surface of the earth, followed by a rattling splash of gravel. The little