"Brian Lumley - E-Branch 1 - Defilers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

sense. If you stick me with a pin I hurt, and if you lie to me I know-which in your case hurts
just as much. You've changed just recently, Liz, and it isn't for the better. Okay, so this is
what you would call a white lie, correct? But it's a lie just the same. And me, I'm only
interested in the truth."
Trask sat back, took a deep breath, and finished off: "Now tell me, please, is he obstructing
you?"
Liz bit her lip again and said, "Yes, I think so. I think I could read him easily if he'd let me.
And I think-in fact I know-that I could send to him. Let's face it, I did it in Australia, and
that was when he was three hundred miles away!"
"That was under duress," he nodded. "You were stressed out and it was your last chance for life: a
telepathic shout, a psychic cry for help. But still, three

hundred miles! And he heard you, he even 'came' to you. And then his subsequent jumps, into and
out of Malinari's bubble dome in the last seconds before it blew itself to hell. And finally he
took an entire monorail car full of us-the whole damn car!-through the Mobius Continuum to our
safe house in Brisbane. And now . . . now you can't get through to him across a desk?"
"I know," she was biting her lip again. "And he can't remember the numbers."
"Numbers?" Just for a moment Trask failed to connect, but then he remembered. "Harry's formula?
For the Continuum?"
Liz nodded. "In his dreams, that's all he does. It's like a repetitive nightmare, like watching a
computer screen processing an endless display of figures, fractions, decimals, algebraic equations
and obscure mathematical symbols, and all of it scrolling and mutating down the screen of Jake's
mind while he searches for that one all-important formula. But he can never find it. . ." "And
that's all he dreams about?"
"No," Liz shook her head. "Sometimes he dreams about that Russian girl- her dead face looking at
him through the window of a car as it sinks into night-black water-and sometimes he ... sometimes
he dreams about me."
Trask shrugged (he hoped not negligently). "He, er, 'fancies' you, right?" "No," Liz said again,
perhaps ruefully. "He rejects me, as if I'm some kind of intrusion. He rejects everything, and
he'll continue to do so until he's solved his own problems."
"Castellano and the mob," Trask said sourly. "That's one of them." "And the others?"
"One other, I think. But I don't know what it is. But I do know he's frustrated, and it would help-
"
"Who isn't frustrated?" Trask cut in, becoming heated once more. But having gone this far, Liz


file:///G|/rah/Brian%20Lumley/Brian%20Lumley%20-%20E-Branch%201%20-%20Defilers.txt (21 of 263) [2/13/2004 10:10:51 PM]
 file:///G|/rah/Brian%20Lumley/Brian%20Lumley%20-%20E-Branch%201%20-%20Defilers.txt

wasn't about to be stopped.
"-It would help, if he knew everything and had access to all the Keogh files, or better still if
you personally told him all you know about his... well, his condition."
For a long moment Trask was silent, and then he said, "And is that it, the lot?"
"That's it." And this time it was the truth. Or ninety percent of the truth, anyway. As for the
other ten percent.- that could be very personal, especially since she was in his dreams.
And after a moment Trask sighed and said, "Liz, I'm really sorry I blew up on you. You're not
Jake's keeper, after all. It isn't your fault that he has 'problems.' And in a way it isn't his
fault either. But believe me, I'm doing what I can to solve his problems, and I just wish we could
get some mutual cooperation going, that's all. It's that important."
"I know it is," she said, standing up.