"Brian Lumley - Psychomech 03 - Psychamok" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

never happened.
Garrison was on duty when the bomb warning came, was there at the Europa when Schroeder and Koenig
returned from certain 'business' talks with the IRA (whose proposals they had viciously rejected) to find the
building cordoned off and in process of evacuation. In an effort to get Schroeder's wife, child and nanny out
of the hotel, Garrison had killed two young terrorists - after which he had been caught in the bomb blast. He
was blinded, Schroeder crippled, the nanny killed outright. But Schroeder's wife and child were saved,
unharmed.
At the last, however, when the blast came, Garrison had expected it. He had known it was coming and also
that it would blind him - as it had in his dream. He later remembered Schroeder's face from that dream, too
- the face of the man-God . . .
In early 1973 Garrison accepted Schroeder's invitation out to his estate in the Harz Mountains. There he
became aware of the man's consuming interest in ESP and the 'fringe' sciences, theories and beliefs -
especially reincarnation and immortality.
Like any vastly rich man as he grows old, the German loathed and feared death's inevitability. His intention
had been gradually to transfer his own mind and personality into his child. A man is after all 'reborn' in his
son; but Schroeder had been intent upon a far more substantial rebirth. Now, however, it could not be. The
boy was as yet a baby, his mind unformed, and Schroeder was dying as a result of the bomb. If he had had
ten more years . . . but he had not even one.
On the other hand, he did have Richard Garrison . . .
Under Schroeder's tuition Garrison began to discover and practise the hidden talents of his mind, finally
coming to believe that indeed a man might achieve immortality! They made between them a pact, which
was this:
If Schroeder could return from beyond the grave - if there was any way in which his psyche could subsume
or Gestalt itself within Garrison's - then that Garrison would accept him, become host to another's mind. In
return . . .
Schroeder numbered among his friends the world's greatest seer, Adam Schenk. Schenk plumbed the
future for Garrison and it was seen he would become rich and powerful beyond all dreams of human
avarice. But money and power were not everything, there would be much, much more. The future was
never lucid, ever misty; but there would be ... a machine, the Machine of Garrison's dream. And through
the Machine his sight would be restored to him.
His pact with Schroeder was sealed . . .
During his stay in the Harz Garrison met Vicki Maler. She, too, was blind and already beginning to burn
bright with a rare cancer. But they loved each other, however briefly and intensely, before he lost her.
Since she knew she was dying - unwilling to burden Garrison - Vicki simply went away.
Within six months Thomas Schroeder was dead, and not long after that Vicki Maler too. Schroeder was
cremated; Vicki's ravaged body was cryogenically 'suspended' at Schloss Zonigen in the Swiss Alps. This
latter had been Garrison's wish and he had his reasons - even if he did not fully understand them.
Meanwhile, much of Schroeder's wealth had passed down to Garrison. Along with it came Willy Koenig, to
look after the blind man as he had once looked after his beloved Colonel Schroeder; for Koenig believed
that something of Schroeder had already found its way into Garrison. And there was also a dog: Suzy, a
black Dobermann bitch.
Years passed and Garrison married. Perhaps he loved Terri initially, it is doubtful that she loved him; there
had been a man before Garrison and eventually she would turn to him again, though not for some years yet.
He was the psychiatrist Gareth Wyatt, into whose hands had fallen a certain machine. A machine called
Psychomech, a mechanical psychiatrist.
Wyatt was desperately in need of funds. His practice, once flourishing, was almost defunct; to make
matters worse, there was a problem of a far more serious nature. Wyatt was a murderer. His victim had
been the war criminal Otto Krippner who deserved death (even if he did not die for his crimes), and the
weapon Wyatt had used was Psychomech.
Perhaps ironically, Psychomech had been built by Krippner, a man whose origins, background and ideals