"Jerry Sohl - I, Aleppo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sohl Jerry)

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CHAPTER ONE
Finally they were going to let him have his first dream with Project
Ephialtes. All the pleading he'd done, all the arguing with Max and the
others, and the big front he'd put up had reached ridiculous proportions
before he got his way.

He was sitting in the lounge having coffee with Kate, trying to pretend
this day was no different from any other, but he wasn't fooling Kate at all.

"Getting to you, isn't it?" she said, half teasing, half serious. She put a
hand over his, a very small, fine-boned hand. "You don't have to tell me."

He had to smile and shake his head. "I didn't think it would be like
this."

"It's not major surgery. Look at it that way."

It had belatedly and abruptly occurred to Gary Carmody that he had
absolutely no control over what he might dream. Would he be a coward?
Would he dream some terribly sexual dream that would embarrass him
when they played it back? Would his dream be a big bore? Some of the
others had had dreams that almost put him to sleep.

Max Easton, who headed up the project, dreamed once that he was
adrift on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic and Debussy's La Mer sloshed
in the background. They all sat under the monitor helmets, of course, and
took the trip with him. Sam Nevis, who was handling the console as well
as witnessing, got seasick toward the end. It was a strange dream for Dr.
Easton, whose gruffness made him seem older than he was. Gary had
thought he'd have a more romantic dream or at least one involving people.

Casimir Javanovski, who ran the vital signs modules most of the time,
dreamed of other worlds, strange universes where time ran backwards and
intelligent life wore feathers instead of skin. That had been an exciting
dream at first because it was so different, but when nothing happened
after half an hour they all tired of it.
 Dr. Kathleen Keegan, who had promised to be Mrs. Gary Carmody
when the project was over, when the funding ran out, or when Gary could
convince her life in the lab wasn't all there was (though they had already
discovered that), had dreams about castles and knights on white chargers
and wasn't at all embarrassed by them. "A girl has to find release
somewhere," she explained after the last one, when she stepped off the
ebony table and Max had turned off the holograph recorder. She grinned
at Gary, ran a few steps to his arms and gave him a wet kiss. "Present
company excepted."