"Brennert, Alan - The Refuge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brennert Alan)

The man nodded once and retreated into the anteroom. Gina turned back to Ray.
"Think you can stand up?"

Ray nodded. As he stood, the whorls and eddies of water became ripples moving
away from him, as the nanos flocked together like a school of invisible fish,
retreating as one to a safe comer of the tub. As Gina began toweling him off, he
felt a sudden flush of self-consciousness; in the water, irrational as it
seemed, he'd somehow felt less -- exposed.

She asked him his name.

He told her, smiling a bit sheepishly. "I, uh, don't usually show quite this
much of myself to someone before I'm introduced."

She smiled back. "Never? Are you sure?"

He laughed, but in fact he wasn't sure. And now that he was no longer in danger
of losing his life, the gaps in his memory became more important -- and not a
little frightening. Suddenly he felt wobbly; weak on his feet.

Gina steadied him. "Lean on me." Her grip was strong and steady, and she led him
the four or five steps to one of the beds. "You're a lucky man, Mr. Bava. Most
of the frostbite was superficial; you'll have a few blisters, but that's all.
How long were you out there?"

Ray slipped his legs under the covers. "I...I don't know..."

"Where were you coming from? Another enclave?"

The more he tried to remember, the less he was sure of, but he fought back a
stab of panic and said, calmly, "I...don't know that, either. I'm having
trouble...remembering things..."

She nodded, unsurprised. "Side effect of the infection. We all have it to
varying degrees."

"Infection?"

"The bacteria? You remember that?"

He looked at her, rather blankly, he imagined. "No," he said, "I guess I don't."

"Don't worry about it just now," she said gently. Her fingers touched him
lightly on the arm, and he felt a tingle that had nothing to do with the warm
water or the cool air.

"Hold still, now." She pressed a blunt-edged hypo against his bare shoulder; he
felt a sharp jab, then the familiar, and oddly erotic, sensation of a nanochip
entering his bloodstream. He dimly recalled reading that something like eighty