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

instant"
Colleen held the microphone intimately close to her mouth.
"We have some more real oldies for you tonight," she said. An electric pressure of
personality pulsed out from her. "Two of these songs we've never presented before. First, a
trio - 'Terrible Blues' with the musikron giving you a basic recording by Clarence Williams and
the Red Onion Jazz Babies, Pete Serantis adding an entirely new effect; next, 'Wild Man Blues'
and the trumpet is pure Louis Armstrong; last, 'Them's Graveyard Words,' an old Bessie Smith
special." She bowed almost imperceptibly.
Music appeared in the room, not definable as to direction. It filled the senses. Colleen
began to sing, seemingly without effort. She played her voice like a horn, soaring with the
music, ebbing with it, caressing the air with it.
Eric stared, frozen, with all the rest of the audience.
She finished the first song. The noise of applause deafened him. He felt pain in his hands,
looked down to find himself beating his palms together. He stopped, shook his head, took four
deep breaths. Colleen picked up the thread of a new melody. Eric narrowed his eyes, staring
at the stage. Impulsively, he put his hands to his ears and felt panic swell as the music
remained undiminished. He closed his eyes, caught his breath as he continued to see Colleen,
blurred at first, shifting, then in a steady image from a place nearer and to the left.
A wavering threnody of emotions accompanied the vision. Eric put his hands before his
eyes. The image remained. He opened his eyes. The image again blurred, shifted to normal. He
searched to one side of Colleen for the position from which he had been seeing her. He
decided it could only be from inside the musikron and at the instant of decision discerned the
outline of a mirror panel in the face of the metallic box.
"Through a one-way glass," he thought. "Through Pete's eyes."
He sat, thinking, while Colleen finished her third number. Pete emerged from the musikron to
share the applause. Colleen blew a kiss to the audience.
"We'll be back in a little while."
She stepped down from the stage, followed by Pete; darkness absorbed them. Waiters
moved along the tables. A drink was placed on Eric's table. He put money in the tray. A blue
shadow appeared across from him, slipped into the chair.
"Tommy told me you were here ... the busboy." She leaned across the table. "You mustn't
let Pete see you. He's in a rage, a real pet. I've never seen anybody that angry."
Eric leaned toward her, caught a delicate exhalation of sandalwood perfume. It dizzied him.
"I want to talk to you," he said. "Can you meet me after the show?"
"I guess I can trust you," she said. She hesitated, smiling faintly. "You're the professional
type." Another pause. "And I think I need professional advice." She slipped out of the chair,
stood up. "I have to get back before he suspects I didn't go to the powder room. I'll meet you
near the freight elevator upstairs."
She was gone.
 A cold breeze off the bay tugged at Eric's cape, puffing out behind him. He leaned against
the concrete railing, drawing on a cigarette. The glowing coal flowed an orange wash across
his face, flaring, dimming. The tide rip sniggled and babbled; waves lap-lap-lapped at the
concrete beneath him. A multi-colored glow in the water to his left winked out as the
illumabeams above the Gweduc Room were extinguished. He shivered. Footsteps approached
from his left, passed behind him -- a man, alone. A muffled whirring sound grew, stopped.
Light footsteps ran toward him, stopped at the rail. He smelled her perfume. "Thanks," he said.
"I can't be long. He's suspicious. Tommy brought me up the freight elevator. He's waiting."
"I'll be brief. I've been thinking. I'm going to talk about travel. I'm going to tell you where
you've been since you hooked up with Pete in Honolulu." He turned, leaned sideways against
the railing. "You tried your show first in Santa Rosa, California, the sticks; then you went to