"Harry Harrison - SSR 03 - The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The " - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Which is why we knew what was happening when it began to happen. The alarms
were going off, and we had no time to warn anyone--not that warnings would do
any good. We were aware of our duty. Plus the fact that we were the only ones
who could do anything at all. We jury-rigged a time-fixator around this
laboratory, then made the smaller portable models such as the one you are
wearing now."
"What does it do?" I asked, touching with great respect the metal disk on
the nape of my neck.
"Has a recording of your memory that it keeps feeding back to your brain
every three milliseconds. Telling you you are you, you see, rebuilding any
personality changes that time line alterations in the past may have shifted.
Purely a defensive mechanism, but it is all we have." Out of the corner of my
eye I saw another man wink out of sight, and the professor's voice grew grim.
"We must attack if we are to save the Corps."
"Attack? How?"
"Send someone back in time to uncover the forces waging this time war and
destroy them before they destroy us. We have a machine."
"I volunteer. Sounds like my kind of job."
"There is no way to return. It is a one-way mission."
"I withdraw the last statement. I like it here." Sudden memory--restored
no doubt three milliseconds earlier--grabbed me and a prod of fear pumped a
number of interesting chemical substances into my blood.
"Angelina, my Angelina! I must speak to her . . ."
"She is not the only one!"
"The only one for me, Prof. Now stand aside or I'll go through you."
He stepped back, frowning and mumbling and tapping his teeth with his
fingernails, and I jabbed the code into the phone. The screen beeped twice,
and the few seconds crawled by like lead snails before she answered the call.
"You're there!" I gasped.
"Where did you expect me to be?" A frown crossed her perfect features, and
she sniffed as though to get the aroma of booze from the screen. "You've been
drinking, and so early too."
"Just a drop, but that's not why I called. How are you? You look good,
great, not transparent at all."
"A drop? Sounds more like a whole bottle." Her voice chilled, and there
was more than a trace left of the old, unreformed Angelina, the most ruthless
and deadly crook in the galaxy before the Corps medics straightened out the
knots in her brain. "I suggest you hang up. Get a drive-right pill, then call
me back as soon as you are sober." She reached out for the disconnect button.
"Don't! I am cold sober and wish I weren't. This is an emergency, red. A
top priority. Get over here now as absolutely fast as you can and bring the
twins."
"Of course." She was on her feet instantly, ready to go. "Where are you?"
"The location of this lab, quick!" I said, turning to Professor Coypu.
"Level one-hundred and twelve. Room thirty."
"Did you get that," I said, turning back to the screen.
Which was blank.
"Angelina...."
I jabbed the disconnect, tapped her code on the keys. The screen lit up.
With the message "This is an unconnected number." Then I ran for the door.