"Lumley, Brian - Psychomech 02 - Psychosphere UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

BY 5TH COLUMNISTS. PARIS NUKED! ICBMS FIRED IN USSR! AND IN USA! CRUISE MISSILES LAUNCHED ON USSR FROM EUROPE! INNER LONDON NUKED!
"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!—" Foster was whispering over and over.
NUCAC 9, said Qubwa.
"No!" Foster gasped. "It's all wrong! It has to be wrong! We would've been the first to know, not the last. They're blowing up the world out there—bombers, ICBMs, Cruise—and we're only on NUCAC 9?" Sweat dripped from his chin, plastered his shirt to his back. Outside his dream, Foster's body struggled out of his bunk, staggered from his tiny cabin.
NUCAC 10, said Qubwa.
"It's all yours, Captain," said Arnott, feeding the final code into the computer. A tiny panel snapped open in the table's surface beside Foster's right hand. In the recess, a large red firing-button blinked on—off—on—off—on—
"Captain?" said Arnott.
NUCAC 10! Qubwa snapped.
For a moment Foster's right hand hovered over the button—then shot across the table and grabbed Arnott's throat. "Dream!" he was babbling. "Dream—nightmare—it has to be—!"
NUCAC 10! Qubwa squeezed Foster's mind.
But Arnott was dissolving away in Foster's grasp, the outline of his face and form melting down. And the NUCAC cell's lights and fittings were blurring, shifting like melting wax. Foster was waking up!
Despite Qubwa's every effort to restrain him,
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the man was breaking free. His situation had been too nightmarish, the ultimate nightmare, and he must—
—"Wake up!" Foster gasped.
NO!
"Must!"
Failure! Qubwa was furious. There must be a fault in his scenario. He hadn't built it carefully enough.
Foster was almost awake. And his mind was agitated, a whirlpool, crowded with terror, confused and yet resolute. Qrimly determined to ... to wake up! Useless in this condition. Useless to Charon Qubwa.
The exercise was over. The Castle's master withdrew from Foster's mind.
At which precise moment, in Lindos, Rhodes, Richard Allan Garrison was fantasizing about the great mottled mind-shark . . .
"Captain! Captain Foster! Qary!" someone was yelling. The voice was Arnott's, but choked, strangled. Foster felt his grip broken, was hurled back. The slender thread which remained, linking him to the world of dreams, snapped. The last revenant of Qubwa's hypnotic scenario vaporized as Foster felt the pain of slamming backwards into a bulkhead . . . but hands were there to grab him and hold him up. He shook his head, stared about through eyes which refused to focus, shrugged off the two crew members who stood gaping at him.
"What in hell—?" Then he looked down at himself where he stood trembling in shock,
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dressed in loose, sweat-soaked issue pajamas! He remembered now: he had intended to sleep for an hour, maybe a little longer.
Across the ops area Mike Arnott was perched on a table, massaging his throat. Foster moved unsteadily towards his 2IC. "Mike, what—?"
"You tell me, sir," said the other hoarsely. "You floated in here like a ghost just a minute ago. You were gabbling something—don't ask me what. I only caught one word, NUCAC—then you grabbed me by the throat!"
Foster wasn't yet oriented. "I grabbed you? You're on watch?"
"Of course."
"And nothing . . . unusual? No incoming signals?" Foster's eyes were wide now, staring.
"Only . . . well, this!" Arnott answered. "The rest was routine." He grabbed the other's trembling arms, held him steady. "Gary, what is it?"
"Where are we?" the Captain's breathing was slowing down, regulating itself. He peered at location charts, sighed his relief. "An hour from turnabout. Thank God!"
"Where did you think we were?" Arnott was incredulous. "Were you asleep, dreaming?"
Foster nodded. "Only explanation. Sleepwalking, too, apparently." He almost fell into a chair, reaction catching up with him. "It was the Big One-NUCAC 10!"
Arnott's eyebrows went up. He nodded to the crewmen. "You two wait outside a minute." They left. "Sir, that's a funny sort of dream you've had." He shrugged. "Understandable, consider-
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ing our job, but . . . been pushing it too hard, perhaps?"
Foster looked at him, narrowed his eyes. "That could be the answer, I suppose. Don't concern yourself, I'll have a checkup. But. . . I'd like it if this didn't go any further. Speak to those two, will you?" He nodded towards the hatchway.
"Of course."
"Good. Now I'd better get some clothes on." Foster turned away, glad that his cabin was close by. As for the checkup: he would speak to the ship's doctor. And he'd see another doctor later—just as soon as Moth got back to Ros-yth . . .
Thwarted, on leaving Foster's mind Qubwa should have soared instantaneously back to his own seat of consciousness in the Castle, but something intervened.
Another mind moved in the Psychosphere, was close, almost on a collision course. There was no real contact but an awareness—from which Qubwa recoiled no less sharply than the other. Two wary forces facing each other, drawing back, finally fleeing in mutual panic—
—And Gubwa snapped open his eyes in the Castle, starting at once to his feet. If he had been furious before, now he was doubly so—and not a little worried. Now what had that been? Who?
Of course there were other minds in the Psychosphere: the Psychosphere was the essence of all sentience, of mental intelligence. But the vast majority of minds were no more aware of
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the Psychosphere than a bird is aware of air. This mind had been aware, or had seemed so. And Qubwa had sensed . . . fear? Perhaps. In which case the close brush had probably been accidental.