"Charles Stross - Escape" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

them is nearby: the system access bay, nerve centre of the Bronstein, where the main flight control
processors are racked in banks behind anonymous screen panels. Its seal is open, but I doubt the feeble
torchlight will have penetrated.

I yank myself hand-over-hand towards it and balance just behind the rim, holding my breath. Bolter, left
hand: torch, right hand. Ready? Breathe out ... wait ... breathe in. Ready to roll forward and hit
the door? Ack. Now ... go!

Thump. The hatch bounces inwards and I follow it into the cramped cabin which lights up like the inside
of a decaying log, heart in my mouth, right arm outstretched with the torch and there's a faint whine,
globules on black drifting in the air on a familiar smell of shit and something more basic, more metallic, the
smell of death itself.
"Ye-AHH!" I yell. Bodies floating, moving, blood still spouting from a ripped throat -- " hold it!" Cloud
of darkness in front of me, point the bolter inward and use the hatch for body-cover --

" Freeze."

All she has is a knife, but I freeze all the same. The cabin emergency light winks on and etches everything
on my memory like an acid burst. She's on the other side of the room, and she has a powerknife. It's
where the point is placed that stops me breathing.

Mikhail drifts against his straps, eyes blindly staring at the ceiling, mouth wide. The second mouth in his
throat is dry, raw, its false lips peeled back from his carotid vein. The other one, I can't recall her name,
floats like a loose sack of bones in a web of restraints. A great black bubble of liquid glistens and quivers
below her chin like a goitre the size of a skull. The third one is still thrashing, pulled out of interface
involution by the knife Raisa has drawn across her throat.

Raisa opens her eyes and looks at me, asking hey, why are you here? Is it time yet? before I see her
pupils dilate and she opens her mouth because she is just realising what is happening --

"Let her go," I say quietly. I feel hollow, scooped-out because I know it won't work, so I try it again: "let
her go."

Something happens to her face. It warps into an expression of animal cunning, supercilious contempt,
overweening arrogance.

"Oshi: if I let her go now she won't dump to Dreamtime. You know that. Cognitive bandwidth blocks are
in effect. Why make things harder? You know it makes sense."

It's the Boss. Inside Raisa's skull, the way he was inside mine. Only Raisa doesn't have any of the
anti-tampering wetware I've got. She's a prisoner in her own body.

He sounds like sweet reason on cyanide. I grind my teeth, keep my finger loose on the trigger although
I'm longing to mash it down and smear his head across the wall -- but that would take Raisa with him.

"Let her go," I repeat. "Do it. I won't shoot. Trust me."

The Superbright fragment laughs: "trust me! You never listened before. You asked questions when I told
you not to. And now you expect me to trust you? You put too much faith in your own reliability."