"Sharon Green - Mind Guest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

He'd heard about Special Agents, and believed enough of what he'd heard to be
very, very careful.
I unhooked the monostrand mesh and swung my legs over the side of the bunk,
then stood up. I was feeling steadier than I thought I would, but a couple of
twinges flashed here and there, an unpleasant tail-end reminder of Radman's
reaction to my "attempted escape." After I'd been chained with no more than a
single link's space between wrists and ankles, Radman had spent some time
kicking me around-literally. Experience had probably taught him how much pain
he could give without actually breaking anything important, and he'd put that
knowledge to work. By the time he'd worked off the heavy sweat he'd felt at
the thought of my getting loose I was sure he'd cracked a couple of ribs at
the very least, but I'd been wrong. Nothing had scraped together inside when a
couple of Radman's men had carried me to a metal-framed cot and had shifted
the chains on me to create the ever-popular spread-eagled look. Radman had
gotten hot from the fun he'd had knocking' me around, and wanted to spend some
time working that off. I have a high pain threshold, but happily not that
high; it didn't take long before his second-stage battering put me out. Which
was a damned good thing. If I'd still been conscious when it came time for him
to let rip I would have spit in his face, and I'd been in no shape to stand
what would have come from that little gesture.
The small cabin opened onto a somewhat larger common room, from which it was
possible to reach the rest of the ship. All the lights were set at daylight
normal, but I ignored the brightness in the common room the way I had in the
cabin and made my way to the tiny galley. I took a long drink of water while
the ship thawed and heated a synthegg sandwich for me, then sat and ate it
while a second was being done. Cryosol slows your bodily processes while it
keeps you unconscious, but that just means you won't starve to death before
you wake up. It doesn't mean you can afford to forget to grab at least a quick
bite once you're up and around again, despite the fact that you're not feeling
very hungry. People have been known to die from the oversight, and it would
have been rude of me to die so quickly and thereby spoil all of Radman's
carefully laid plans.
When the second sandwich was ready I took it with me to the control room.
Radman had had a lot of fun telling me all about what he intended doing, but
even knowing what to expect didn't stop the flutter of panic I felt at sight
of all that red on the pilot's console. Most pilots equate blinking red with
the pumping of lifeblood out of a major artery, and I was no different. It
took an effort to keep from running closer and quickly slapping switches, but
since I knew how useless slapping switches would be I could walk forward
slowly until I stood behind the pilot's chair.
The acceleration and deceleration switches had been cut off flush with the
console, giving the check-off computer hysterics, and the emergency rocket
toggle was also gone. The life-support system, meteor deflectors, view screens
and communicator were still on the green, but that meant nothing. Radman had
preset the view from the forward view screen, and the location computer was
running a continuous "no information" blank tape, showing that I'd left
human-inhabited space long behind me. Just for the hell of it I checked the
number of inches of blank tape, multiplied by the standard rounded figure
supplied in the front of every ephemeris, then took a long, slow bite of my
sandwich. At the time of calculation I'd already been in an area of space that