"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Hell on Earth (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

from my supine position, saying anything, God knows
what, anything to snap her back to some semblance of
herself. After a while she dropped the shiv and started
crying, saying she had murdered God or some such
silly nonsense.
I wasn't going to abandon her, no matter what; but
there was nothing in my personal rule book that said I
had to make it any more difficult. We had Medikits in
the shed. I gave her a shot. She struggled, coughed,
and turned to me. "Why can't we eat our brothers?"
she asked; then the drug took effect.
She'd be okay; in the mail-tube rocket, we've have
more pressure, and more important, more partial-
pressure of O2. She'd be all right ... I hoped.
I put her aboard the rocket, threw in a bag of
supplies, and squeezed in next to her. It was like being
in a sleeping bag togetherЧor a coffin. I positioned
myself so I could reach all the controls, took a deep
breath and got serious.
Just before lighting the cigar, I remembered the
stark terror of riding in the E7 seat of an S-8 sub-
hunter "Snark" jet and coming in for my virgin
landing on an aircraft carrier. Trusting entirely to the
guy on the other end made me more nervous than the
idea of landing on a postage stamp. Well, this time,
for better or worse, I was the guy with the stick;
considering that I'd never flown anything but a troop
shimmy over some mountains, I almost wished I were
back in the S-8.
I threw the switches, pushed forward on the throttle
(oddly similar to a passenger airliner), and the rocket
slid along the tube, launching at ten g's. Arlene was
already out, of course, and missed the pleasure of
blacking out with me.
Suddenly, I discovered myself in a strange room, a
faint hissing catching my attention. Black and white,
no color ... I knew I should know where I was, what
all these things, this equipment around me, was.
I should know my name too, I guessed.
Then the sound cut back in; fly, someone said. A
command? Fly, flyЧ"Fly." It was me, my lips, saying
the word fly ... the name! Fly, me; my name.
Then I saw color and recognized the jerry-rigged
blinking lights and liquid-crystal displays of the mail
tube. I'd installed them myself; the mail doesn't need
to see where it's going, but we did.
Through the slit of a viewscreen, I saw deepest blue
with faint, cotton-candy wisps, strings flashing past. I
glanced at the altimeterЧmuch too high for clouds.
Ionized gases?