"Alastair Reynolds - Signal to Noise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

“I will.” Mick moved to get off the couch. This version of his body
wasn’t plumbed in like the other one. But when he tried to move, nothing
happened. For a moment, he felt a crushing sense of paralysis. He must
have let out a frightened sound.

“Easy,” Joe said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “One step at a time.
The link still has to bed in. It’s going to be hours before you’ll have
complete fluidity of movement, so don’t run before you can walk. And I’m
afraid we’re going to have to keep you in the lab for rather longer than you
might like. As routine as nervelinking is, this isn’t simple nervelinking. The
shortcuts we’ve had to use to squeeze the data through the correlator link
mean we’re exposing ourselves to more medical risks than you’d get with
the standard tourist kit. Nothing that you need worry about, but I want to
make sure we keep a close eye on all the parameters. I’ll be running tests
in the morning and evening. Sorry to be a drag about it, but we do need
numbers for our paper, as well. All I can promise is that you’ll still have a lot
of time available to meet Andrea. If that’s what you still want to do, of
course.”

“It is,” Mick said. “Now that I’m here… no going back, right?”

Joe glanced at his watch. “Let’s start running some coordination
exercises. That’ll keep us busy for an hour or two. Then we’ll need to make
sure you have full bladder control. Could get messy otherwise. After
that—we’ll see if you can feed yourself.”

“I want to see Andrea.”

“Not today,” Joe said firmly. “Not until we’ve got you housetrained.”

“Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”

****

MONDAY
He paused in the shade of the old, green boating shed at the edge of the
lake. It was a hot day, approaching noon, and the park was already busier
than it had been at any time since the last gasp of the previous summer.
Office workers were sitting around the lake making the most of their lunch
break: the men with their ties loosened and sleeves and trousers rolled up,
the women with their shoes off and blouses loosened. Children splashed in
the ornamental fountains, while their older siblings bounced meters into the
air on servo-assisted pogo sticks, the season’s latest, lethal-looking craze.
Students lolled around on the gently sloping grass, sunbathing or catching
up on neglected coursework in the last week before exams. Mick
recognized some of them from his own department. Most wore cheap,
immersion glasses, with their arms covered almost to the shoulder in
tight-fitting, pink, haptic feedback gloves. The more animated students lay
on their backs, pointing and clutching at invisible objects suspended above