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

feared Garrison.
Gubwa knew that while his own mind was a mere glowing dustmote in the Psychosphere, Garrison's was a
rising star. Of all men, Garrison was the one who might one day stand in Gubwa's way, prevent him from
achieving his awful ambition. For the albino, too, desired immortality - desired to make himself the immortal
and omnipotent Emperor of Earth!
And his ambitions were greater (or more dire) than even that. Gubwa was both man and woman, a freak in
the eyes of mankind's great majority. But in the future he envisioned - after the world had been devastated
and when the remnants of the human race began to climb back out of the nuclear pit - hermaphrodism
would be the norm, bisexuality would cease to be. And only Garrison, unknowing, unsuspecting, standing in
his way.
And so Gubwa set wheels turning to crush Garrison. An attempt was made on his life, and more would
follow.

And Garrison's powers deserting him now, running out like water from a leaking bucket. And of all three
facets of his multimind, his the ascendant one, and him the most vulnerable.
Gubwa's weapon against Garrison was two-pronged: he manipulated certain elements of both the Mafia
and a largely underground and somewhat suspect branch of the Secret Service. And with Garrison
apparently on the run, finally Gubwa kidnapped Vicki Maler and took her to his subterranean headquarters
deep beneath London.
Gubwa's 'Castle' originally had been designed as a nuclear shelter and command post towards the end of
World War II, but was now largely forgotten. Gubwa had equipped it to his own needs, staffed and ran it in
a paramilitary fashion.
There in the Castle, captive along with Vicki Maler, Gubwa also held Phillip Stone, an agent of M16. Stone,
a dangerous man in his own right, had been the unwilling tool the albino had used in Vicki's kidnap; but he
would later cause Gubwa to regret his enforced involvement.
Using telepathy to probe Vicki's mind, Gubwa found out about Psychomech, discovered the facts of
Garrison's 'creation'. Since Garrison's death now seemed inevitable, Gubwa looked forward to the next
phase of his plan for world domination. He would build a bigger, better Psychomech - and this time he
would be the Machine's subject. His powers of ESP were spawned of radiation and mutation, and were
greater far than Garrison's had been before Psychomech. Garrison had emerged an incredible, awesome
power - Gubwa would emerge a God! An actual God: omniscient, omnipotent, and utterly evil! Building
Psychomech would take a little time, but time was on Gubwa's side.
Meanwhile . . . Garrison fled north for Scotland. He had dreamed again, a precognitive dream no less
important than his Belfast dream of 1972. In this new dream he had courted the Goddess Immortality, and
She had shown him the panoply of infinity, the glorious pathways of the universe. Also, there had been the
glimmer of dawning awareness, the recognition of an imminent transition. Garrison knew that he was ready
to take the next step, a step which must be taken. The gateway to his destiny lay in a wild valley where a
new hydroelectric scheme was due to come into operation, but he must get there before his pursuers took
him or his powers failed him entirely.
He was within an ace of his objective when the Mafia caught up with him. In the ensuing confrontation,
Suzy was again fatally injured and Garrison driven to expend most of what was left of his ESP power. Of
his pursuers . . . they were no more.
But Garrison was now merely a man once more, his powers very nearly spent, and still a way to go. He
absorbed the essence of the dying Suzy into himself, adding her as a new facet to his Gestalt psyche, and
with a dog's instinct set out on foot to cover the last leg of his journey . . .
With the fall of night he found the valley, taking shelter in a deserted house which stood in the shadow of a
great hydroelectric dam of still, slumbering waters. And there, even as the last dregs of his power leaked
from him, Garrison accidentally stumbled upon his salvation. By then he was very nearly blind again and the
old house was dark. Fumbling with an electric lamp, attempting to insert naked wires into a socket, he
received a shock - and a shocking, marvellous revelation!