"Allen Steele - Kronos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

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Kronos
by Allen Steele
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Science Fiction



3.10.2070 2316Z--PARN Intrepid

Consciousness returns to Kinnard like an aerated bubble rising from the bottom of an aquarium. He
stirs within the zombie tank as the last dregs of the biostasis drugs that kept him under are flushed from
his bloodstream.

When he finally opens his eyes, it is to the dimness of the hibernation deck. The lights have been
turned down low, but the dull blue glow of the status panel above his tank's open lid nonetheless causes
him to squint and blink. He takes a deep breath; his lungs are assaulted by antiseptic cold air, making him
cough. There is an urge to vomit, even though there is nothing in his stomach to bring up.

"Easy, Captain ... easy." A voice from the darkness, softly accented, warm and familiar, the last voice
he heard before his eyes closed nine months ago. "Keep shut your eyes, take shallow breaths."

He shuts his eyes. A plastic mask is placed over his nose and mouth. Pure oxygen forces the nausea
down, diminishes the pounding in his temples. The voice murmurs something unintelligible to another
person, then the mask is lifted away. "Try again," the voice says. "Don't rush so this time. Everything's
copa."

Kinnard carefully opens his eyes again. The status panel blurs, then gradually focuses, resolving into
an electronic quilt of lines and graphs. Thin plastic tubes filled with blood and phlegm-colored liquid
dangle from sacs suspended above his body, leading into major veins in the crooks of his elbows. No
strength in his arms, legs, or back; the soles of his feet tingle painfully, his bladder feels ready to explode.

A face comes into the light. Narrow and fine-boned, with albino-pale skin tattooed with intricate
swirls and whorls resembling a magnified fingerprint. Above dark blue eyes twice the size of his own is a
Gaelic cross, its spiked bars running across a hairless forehead and down the bridge of an aquiline nose.

"Peter..." he gasps, his lips and mouth parched and dry.

"A second, then be done." Intrepid's doctor nods to his assistant. She steps into the weak light: Anna
Christ-Webster, the ship's cargo master, Peter's first-wife. Anna's face is also marked with the Gaelic
cross of Christ clan; unlike her husband, whose skull is shaved bald, Anna's blond hair is tied into a long
braid that tumbles over her narrow shoulders like a loose rope.

A plastic waste-disposal bag is in her tattooed left hand. Before Kinnard can object, Anna reaches
beneath the sheets, her long finsers sliding across his groin in search of the catheter. She carefully secures
the bag around his penis. Anna's intent is anything but sexual, but his member involuntarily stiffens at her
touch; her pale skin blushes beneath the tattoos, her large blue eyes making brief contact with his. It's an
embarrassing moment for both of them.
 "Sorry, Marion," she whispers. "Take just a moment."