"Charles Stross - Ancient Of Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Ancient of Days
Charles Stross
There were less than two weeks to go until Christmas, and flakes of snow were
settling silently on the window-sill. Sue leaned against the wall next to the casement so that
her breath formed patterns of condensation on the glass. The red glow of the newly-lit street
lights turned the falling snow to blood, drifting down across the deserted alleyway behind the
lab. She blinked slowly. Was it her imagination or was there a new shadow behind the dump-
bins? Holding her breath so that it would not fog the glass, she stared out of the window. The
shadow disappeared and she breathed out. Then she undid the catch and swung the window
open in invitation. "You're late," she said.
The shadow re-appeared in front of her, resolved into the shape of a man shrouded
in a donkey-jacket against the cold. "Rush-hour traffic," he said, his voice somehow
deadened by the softness that settled on every surface. "Help me in?"
Sue extended a hand. He took it and levered himself up and over the sill. He swung
himself into the room and dropped to the floor, looking around as he did so. "You're wet," said
Sue. "Did you bring any equipment?"
He nodded and held up a small brief case. She looked at his face. Something wasn't
quite right. "You look strained," she said as she shut the window.
He nodded tiredly. "I am not as young as I used to be, Sally. If you knew what I had to
do to get here тАУ"
"I can guess, and as for the name I'm called Sue," she said, a trifle too sharply. He
stared at her for a moment then nodded and forced a smile. The shape of his cheekbones
turned it into something hollow and unconvincing.
"Please accept my apologies then тАУ Sue. It's late and I've got a job to do and we've
all been under considerable stress recently тАУ"
"Accepted. Just remember who it was who laid their neck on the line to get a job here
..."
"It is noted," he said curtly.
"No it's not!" she flashed. "This unit is licensed to work with pathogenic organisms.
They wanted a blood sample and insisted upon giving me a series of vaccinations тАУ"
"Ah, I'm sure it hurt." He shook his head, oblivious to the finer points of immunological
stress. "But in view of what you found that's immaterial now, isn't it?"
She turned away angrily and busied herself with an untidy pile of papers that sat on
the desk in the corner by the centrifuge.
"Believe me when I say that this could be the greatest threat we have ever
encountered," he said softly. "Greater than any ancient encounter with half-glimpsed horrors
..."
She nodded slowly, wondering if she had it in herself to forgive him the slight. "You
might have a point," she said. "But only time will tell." She rummaged through a drawer in
search of a paper-clip, bound the documents together, and slid them out of the way. Then
she walked to the battered metal locker and removed a creased lab coat. "Let's make a start
on it, shall we?"
Kristoph grinned and removed his donkey-jacket. "Let's," he said. He opened his brief
case and pulled out a pair of disposable plastic gloves. "Now who shall we apportion the
blame to? How about some animal rights activists? Or shall we make it look like an industrial
job this time, do you think?"
Kristoph was not his real name. He had no real birth certificate, although he had
carried several. He was much older than Sue, and he had lived through interesting times. He
had lost a large part of his heart on the Eastern front, so that fifty years later he still wondered
if he could ever be whole again: he had survived the decades since the war by auctioning his