"Steve Perry - Aliens 01 - Earth Hive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

of cold fog. She remembered her dreams. They wanted something scary? Fine. “Okay. I got one for
you.
“There are these… things. Nobody knows what planet they come from, but they showed up
one day on Rim. They’re the color of black glass, they’re three meters long and have fangs as big as
your fingers. They have acid for blood—you cut one and if it bleeds on you, it burns right through to
the bone. Only you can’t really cut them, “cause they have skin as hard as a deep spacer’s hull. All
they do is eat and reproduce, they’re like giant bugs, and they can bite through tool alloy, their teeth
are diamond hard.
“Oh, wow,” Carly said.
“If they catch you, you’re lucky if they kill you,” Billie continued. “Because if they don’t kill
you right off, it’s worse than death. They put a baby monster inside of you, they ram it down your
throat, and it grows in your body, grows until its teeth get sharp enough, and then it chews its way
out, through meat and bone, it digs a hole in your guts—”
“Creesto, yuk!” Carly said.
Mag slapped herself over the chest.
Billie paused, waiting for the wisecrack.
But Mag said, “I—I don’t… feel too good…”
“Come on, Mag,” Carly said. “This is moronville—”
“N-n-no, I—my stomach—ow!”
Billie swallowed, her throat dry. “Mag?”
“Ahh, it hurts!”
Mag slapped at her chest, as if she were trying to smash a rock beetle with her hand.
Suddenly the E-suit bulged over Mag’s solar plexus, like a fist trying to punch through a sheet
of rubber. The suit stretched impossibly.
“Aaahhh!” Mag’s scream washed over Billie.
“Mag! No!” Billie stood, backed away.
Carly reached for Mag. “What is it?”
Mag’s suit stretched again. Tore open. Blood fountained outward, bits of flesh sprayed, and a
snakelike thing the size of Billie’s arm flashed needle-pointed teeth in the dim starlight as it emerged
from the dying girl.
Carly yelled, her voice breaking. She tried to back away, but the monster shot from Mag to
Carly like a rocket. It fastened those terrible fangs on to her throat. It bit. Her blood looked black
under the starlight as it spewed into the night. Her scream turned into a gurgle.
“No!” Billie screamed. “No! It was a dream! It wasn’t real! It wasn’t! No—!”

Billie struggled up from sleep screaming.
The medic leaned over her. She was on a pressor bed, and the fields held her firmly to the
cushion like a giant hand. She struggled, but the harder she tried, the stronger the field became.
“No!”
“Easy, Billie, easy! It’s only a dream! You’re fine, everything is okay!”
Billie’s breath came in gasps. Her heart pounded, she could feel her pulse in her temples as she
stared up at Dr. Jerrin. The indirect light gleamed on the sterile white walls and ceiling of the medical
center room. Only a dream. Just like the others.
“I’ll get you a soporific patch,” Jerrin began.
She shook her head, the pressor field would allow that much. “No. No, I’m okay now.”
 “You sure?”
He had a kindly face; he was old enough to be Billie’s grandfather. He had treated her for
years, ever since she’d come to Earth. For the dreams. They weren’t all the same, usually she
dreamed about Rim, the world on which she’d been born. It had been thirteen years since the
nuclear accident that had destroyed the colony on Rim, almost a decade since she left Ferro. And