"Alastair Reynolds - Spirey And The Queen (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

but we weren't suddenly chewing vacuum.
And that was very bad news indeed.
Antiship missiles come in two main flavours: quackheads and sporeheads.
You know which immediately after the weapon has hit. If you're still
thinking - if you still exist - chances are it's a sporehead. And at that
point your problems are just beginning.
Invasive demon attack, Mouser shrieked. Breather manifold compromised...
which meant something uninvited was in the thick. That was the point of a
sporehead: to deliver hostile demons into an enemy ship.
"Mm," Yarrow said. "I think it might be time to suit up."
Except our suits were a good minute's swim away back into the bowels of


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Mouser, through twisty ducts which might skirt the infection site. Having
no choice, we swam anyway, Yarrow insisting I take the lead even though
she was a quicker swimmer. And somewhere - it's impossible to know exactly
where - demons reached us, seeping invisibly into our bodies via the
thick. I couldn't pinpoint the moment; it wasn't as if there was a jagged
transition between lucidity and demon-manipulated irrationality. Yarrow
and me were terrified enough as it was. All I know is it began with a mild
agoraphilia; an urge to escape Mouser's flooded confines. Gradually it
phased into claustrophobia, and then became fully-fledged panic, making
Mouser seem as malevolent as a haunted house.
Yarrow ignored her suit, clawing the hull until her fingers spooled blood.
Fight it," I said. "It's just demons triggering our fear centers, trying
to drive us out!"
Of course, knowing so didn't help.
Somehow I stayed still long enough for my suit to slither on. Once sealed,
I purged the tainted thick with the suit's own supply - but I knew it
wasn't going to help much. The phobia already showed that hostile demons
had reached my brain, and now it was even draping itself in a flimsy
logic. Beyond the ship we'd be able to think rationally. It would only
take a few minutes for the thick's own demons to neutralise the invader -
and then we'd be able to reboard. Complete delusion, of course.
But that was the point.

When something like coherent thought returned I was outside.
Nothing but me and the splinter.
The urge to escape was only a background anxiety, a flock of
stomach-butterflies urging me against returning. Was that
demon-manipulated fear or pure common sense? I couldn't tell - but what I
knew was that the splinter seemed to be beckoning me forward, and I didn't
feel like resisting. Sensible, surely: we'd exhausted all conventional
channels of attack against the defector, and now all that remained was to
confront her on the territory she'd staked as her own.
But where was Yarrow?
Suit's alarm chimed. Maybe demons were still subjugating my emotions,