"Chapter 07" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Dickson - Forever Man)

C H A P T E R

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JIM DID GO BACK TO HIS QUARTERS. AND HE DID SLEEP-FOR



about seven hours. At the end of which time he woke up feeling terrible generally, but very happy for reasons he could not, in the first minute or two, remember. Then he recalled the long wait in Mollen's office and what had happened after the general had showed up; and his sensations of feeling terrible settled down to the recognition that he was merely very hungry, ready to eat anything digestible-in large quantities.
He checked his wrist-com. It was midafternoon. He got up, showered, dressed and went to the Officers' Club, where he found the menu available at that hour to consist only of sandwiches. He proceeded to eat perhaps a dozen of these and wash them down with several bottles of ginger ale-no great amount, but the food and drink together in his stomach acted on him like knockout pills. He made his way heavily back to his quarters, undressed and fell asleep again . . . and this time
he slept until after five-thirty the following morning.
His body had become used to running. It wanted to get out and move, but he was once again as hungry as a bear in spring. He had breakfast, put aside the desire to run and went directly to Mary's lab.
"Credentials, sir?„
73



74 / Gordon R.
It was a different face beyond the transparency, but the uniform and the routine were as usual. Except that this time, for the first time in months, there were no lab workers waiting to take him off for their eternal tests. He showed his credentials.
"You'll have to wait for the Head of Lab, sir. If you'll take a seat, she ought to be here in the next ten or fifteen minutes," said the guard.
He found a hard seat on a bench built into the wall across from the transparency. He grinned. From cooling his heels in Mollen's outer office to cooling his heels in Mary's surveillance entrance. That was progress.
It was, however, nearly three-quarters of an hour before
Mary showed up. Jim did not care. He was this far and he did
not intend to move unless they carried him out. When at last
Mary did come in from the street, she had Mollen with her.
"Told you he'd be here at the crack of dawn!" said Mollen. If Jim had not been feeling so happy, he might have allowed himself a small sense of injury. Dawn had been a good three hours earlier.
"I'm sorry I haven't had more time to talk to you myself all these past months," Mary said directly to Jim. She looked at him, he thought, sympathetically. "You've lost weight."
"Nonsense!" said Mollen. "He's in top shape. Aren't you, Jim?"
"Yes sir. Top shape," said Jim. He grinned at Mary. Today he even loved her.
"Come along." Mary and Mollen showed their credentials to the guard in movements that betrayed an infinity of repetitions.
"Please go on in, ma'am, sirs."
Mary led them through the inner door, and for the second time Jim stepped into the enormous room that he had looked down into only from galleries for nearly twelve months. It was the same as it had been, the last time he had seen it. The plastic tent was still in place. But Mary led them to it, pulled back a flap of the plastic and let them into the enclosed interior which was lit by its own lamps hanging just under the fabric of its roof.
By that light, the two ships Jim had seen on his first trip
here still lay, side by side. La Chasse Gallerie was still a