[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Kate stared at the floor. "I don't know. I just don't know." She turned to
Max. "Isn't there some way we can communicate with Gary in the tank?"
She knew the answer just by looking at his face. Max said, "You saw how he
is."
"It's as if he's not even alive!"
Sam said, "Maybe he's not."
This only sent Kate to the tank for another look.
There had been the fight, Gary remembered, all very dreamlike and in slow
Page 48
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
motion, the city out there somewhere frozen in time, not a living thing
moving, while he and Aleppo slugged it out. Yes, he knew it was
Aleppo now, now that he was no longer dreaming, now that he was dead.
He'd heard small sounds, clicks and beeps, and even voices as Aleppo had
started to choke him to death. So he'd been throttled like Ralph and now here
was Gary Carmody in the same place as Ralph and Casimir, which was nowhere.
There had been pain. There had been a gasping for breath. Then everything
receded, the main control of his life was being turned down all the way and
somehow it didn't matter. It was when the blood coursing
through his body stopped that he knew he was dead. None of his senses worked
any more except his brain and he didn't see how this could be. No doubt Kate
and Max and Sam were even now having to answer to Cassoit for what had
happened, though they shouldn't have to do that because he'd signed the
release, the waiver. There was no sound, no smell where he was, just a
nothingness into which he had fallen. He had reached that vast and profound
solitude to which no created thing had access: Death.
It was tranquil and it was peaceful and strange! he felt good. It was a
waiting in a void that stretched in its whiteness in all directions. He was
One, full of wholeness, serenity and awe. He had no idea it was going to be
like this. Here there was no anxiety, no fear. What was there to fear when
there was nothing where he was?
There was nothing beyond this place where he was which was nowhere.
Yet there was something.
Something!
A prickle of his mind. Something was trying to get through to him from
somewhere& something from another plane& a voice from another world?
He tried to focus on the whiteness. Maybe he could see what it was, though he
knew it was opaque although he did not know how he knew that. Something was
moving& There was something out there! It was something a different color than
the whiteness. There were lights.
Pinpoints of lights! How was this possible?
He was in no hurry. The pinpoints moved this way and that& until he realized
they weren't moving, that it was he who was moving.
And then it struck him.
He knew where he was!
The colloid tank. Of course! How could he have been so stupid? He was in the
tank and not dead after all. He drifted this way and that, excited with his
discovery but in a strange way, for he had no heart to beat& or had he? Was
this mere illusion?
He was near the end of the whiteness. The pinpoints of light were
brighter now. The mist was receding. He came up to the end of it and realized
it was the tempered glass of the tank. The two pinpoints of light were the
eyes of Kathleen Keegan!
His mind reeled with shock. She was staring at him in a strange way.
Unblinking.
Then he realized that her time was different from his. She was somehow slower,
for when she blinked it seemed to take forever for her eyelids to come down
and then go up again. He wanted to say something, but he could not. He opened
his mouth, but he did not feel it open. He tried to say her name, but there
was nothing. No sound. No feeling of air coming out of his mouth.
He tried to raise his hands, tried to wave to her, but suddenly he was too
weak.
He bumped into the glass barrier and at once he was sent spinning backward,
the pinpoints of light moving around his head. I am moving and not they, he
told himself. I must remember that.
Why couldn't he move his arms and legs?
Page 49
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
What was it that was holding him?
Why couldn't he do what the weight lifter did and bang on the glass? If he
could move he could spell something out to Kate& and wasn't that Sam and Max
with her in that brief time he saw them?
Then he thought of the life support system.
Look out for Aleppo! he wanted to say. He's there somewhere and he'll turn off
the life support system if you give him a chance.
How did he know Aleppo was there?
Strange. He knew things, yet he could not move.
Kate? I love you, Kate. I never told you that in so many words& I
suppose I didn't have to&
White was all around. He must be in the middle of the tank. If he could only
move, he could somehow propel himself over to where Kate was, if she
was still there.
So he was in the tank.
How was he going to get out?
They had never considered the problem.
And that, he thought, was too bad.
"Max!"
Easton came to stand at her side and watched her point to the rolling figure
in the tank. "I could swear he looked at me."
"If he did," Max said, "it is a good sign." She turned. "What's that supposed
to mean?" Max said nothing. Sam, who had been elsewhere in the lab, moved up
to say, "He means Gary isn't like the weight lifter, Ronsard. Remember how the
strong man used to pound on the glass with his fists?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • moje-waterloo.xlx.pl
  •