"James P. Hogan - Giants 3 - Giant's Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

looked down at himself and found that he was wearing a dark blue, open-necked shirt and light gray
slacks. There was nobody else in the room.
After a few seconds he got up, found that he felt fine, and strolled across the room to
part the drapes curiously. Outside was a pleasant, summery scene that could have been part of any
major city on Earth. Tail buildings gleamed clean and white in the sun, familiar trees and open
green spaces beckoned, and Hunt could see the curve of a wide river immediately below, an older-
style bridge with a railed parapet and rounded arches, familiar models of groundcars moving along
the roadways, and processions of airmobiles in the sky. He let the drapes fall back as they had
been and glanced at his watch, which seemed to be working normally. Less than twenty minutes had
passed since the "Boeing" touched down at McClusky. Nothing made sense.
He turned his back to the window and thrust his hands into his
pockets while he thought back and tried to remember something that had been puzzling him
even before he stepped out of the spacecraft. It had been something trivial, something that had
barely registered in the few moments that had elapsed between Calazar's brief appearance inside


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the craft and Hunt's first glimpse of the stupefying scene that had greeted him outside just
before everything went crazy. It had been something to do with Calazar.
And then it came to him. In the Shapieron, zoaAc had interpreted between Ganymeans and
humans by means of earpiece and throat-mike devices that provided normal-sounding synthesized
voices, but which did not synchronize with the facial movements of the original speakers. But
Calazar had spoken without any such aids, and apparently quite effortlessly. What made it all the
more peculiar was that the Ganymean larynx produced a low, guttural articulation and was utterly
incapable of reproducing a human pitch even approximately. So how had Calazar done it, and without
looking like a badly dubbed movie at that?
Well, he wasn't going to get nearer any answers by standing here, he decided. The door
looked normal enough, and there was only one way to find out whether it was locked or not. He was
halfway toward it when it opened and Lyn walked in, looking cool and comfortable in a short-
sleeved pullover top and slacks. He stopped dead and stared at her while part of him braced itself
instinctively for her to hurl herself across the room and throw her arms around his neck while
sobbing in true heroine tradition. Instead she stopped just inside the door and stood casually
inspecting the room.
"Not bad," she commented. "The carpet's too dark, though. It should be a more red rust."
The carpet promptly changed to a more red rust.
Hunt stared at it for a few seconds, blinked, and then looked up numbly. "How the hell did
you do that?" he asked, looking down again to make sure that he hadn't imagined it. He hadn't.
She looked surprised. "It's VISAR. It can do anything. Haven't you been talking to it?"
Hunt shook his head. Lyn's face became puzzled. "If you didn't know, how come you're wearing
different clothes? What happened to your Nanook outfit?"
Hunt could only shake his head. "I don't know. I don't know how I got here, either." He
stared down at the red rust carpet again. "Amazing...I think I could use a drink."
"VIsAR," Lyn said in a slightly raised voice. "How about a Scotch, straight, no ice?" A
glass half filled with an amber liquid materialized from nowhere on the table beside Hunt. Lyn
picked it up and offered it to him nonchalantly. He reached out hesitantly to touch it with a
fingertip, at the same time half hoping that it wouldn't be there. It was. He took the glass
unsteadily from her hand and tested it with a sip, then downed a third of the remainder in one
gulp. The warmth percolated smoothly down through his chest and after a few moments had worked a