"Frank Herbert - Operation Syndrome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"Twenty-eight hour time lag," he thought. "Every one of them. That's too much of a
coincidence."
He experienced a moment of vertigo, followed by weariness. "I'd better get some rest. I'll
come back to this thing when I'm more alert."
He padded into the bedroom, sat down on the bed, kicked off his sandals and lay back, too
tired to undress. Sleep eluded him. He opened his eyes, looked at the clock: 7:00 A.M. He
sighed, closed his eyes, sank into a somnolent state. A niggling worry gnawed at his
consciousness. Again he opened his eyes, looked at the clock: 9:50 A.M. But I didn't feel the
time pass, he thought. I must have slept. He closed his eyes. His senses drifted into
dizziness, the current in a stream, a ship on the current, wandering, hunting, whirling.
He thought, I hope he didn't see me leave.
His eyelids snapped open and, for a moment, he saw a unitube entrance on the ceiling
above his head. He shook his head.
"That was a crazy thought. Where'd that come from?" he asked himself. "I've been working
too hard."
He turned on his side, returned to the somnolent state, his eyes drooping closed. Instantly,
he had the sensation of being in a maze of wires; an emotion of hate surged over him so
strongly it brought panic because he couldn't explain it or direct it at anything. He gritted his
teeth, shook his head, opened his eyes. The emotion disappeared, leaving him weak. He
closed his eyes. Into his senses crept an almost overpowering aroma of gardenias, a vision of
dawnlight through a shuttered window. His eyelids snapped open; he sat up in the bed, put
his head in his hands.
Rhinencephalic stimulation, he thought. Visual stimulation ... auditory stimulation ... nearly
total sensorium response. It means something. But what does it mean? He shook his head,
looked at the clock: 10:10 A.M.




Outside Karachi, Pakistan, a Hindu holy man squatted in the dust beside an ancient road.
Past him paraded a caravan of International Red Cross trucks, moving selected cases of
Syndrome madness to the skytrain field on the Indus delta. Tomorrow the sick would be
studied at a new clinic in Vienna. The truck motors whined and roared; the ground trembled.
The holy man drew an ancient symbol with a finger in the dust. The wind of a passing truck
stirred the pattern of Brahmaputra, twisting it. The holy man shook his head sadly.
 Eric's front door announcer chimed as someone stepped onto the entrance mat. He clicked
the scanner switch at his bedside, looked to the bedroom master screen; Colleen's face
appeared on the screen. He punched for the door release, missed, punched again, caught it.
He ran his hands through his hair, snapped the top clip of his coveralls, went to the entrance
hall.
Colleen appeared tiny and hesitant standing in the hall. As he saw her, something weblike,
decisive, meshed inside him -- a completeness.
He thought, Boy, in just one day you are completely on the hook.
"Eric," she said.
Her body's warm softness clung to him. Fragrance wafted from her hair.
"I missed you," he said.
She pulled away, looked up. "Did you dream about me?"
He kissed her. "Just a normal dream."
"Doctor!"
A smile took the sting out of the exclamation. She pulled away, slipped off her fur-lined