Destiny Run Mark Ellis(1)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

His mind rolled with confused questions. Through the blurred swirl of his vision,
he tried to see the color of the armaglass.
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/James%20Axler%20-%20Outlanders%2002%20-%20Destiny%20Run.html (119 of 368)16-2-2006 16:57:47
Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
Before he could fully focus, bile arose in a burning column in his throat, and he
just managed to turn onto his right side before it spewed explosively from his
mouth. Fortunately he had eaten very little before the jump, so after the first
ejection of liquids and stomach acids, he only dry-heaved for a few moments.
Drinking in gasps of cool, stale air, wiping his running nose with the sleeve of
his coat, Kane painfully hitched himself up on an elbow, squinting through the
dim light. He saw Brigid curled in a fetal position on the far side of the six-sided
chamber. Her mouth sagged partly open, her eyes were closed and she
whimpered softly to herself like a small, frightened animal. Tears glistened on
her cheeks, and her shoulders quivered.
On the other side of him, Grant coughed, groaned and tried to blink his eyes
open. A thread of blood worked its way out of his right nostril. In a voice tight
with pain, he grated, "Fucking fireblast."
Kane pushed himself up in a half-prone position, putting his back against the
earth-toned armaglass wall, silently enduring an attack of vertigo. He massaged
his throbbing temples with trembling hands. It felt as if the walls of his cranium
had been scoured with fistfuls of sand. His stomach lurched and boiled and
twisted in cramps.
"So this is what slamming instead of sliding feels like." Kane's words were a
hoarse, barely audible rasp.
Grant squirmed his way up to a sitting position, resting his forehead against his
knees. His breathing was labored. "My head feels like a slaghole full of stickie
piss."
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/James%20Axler%20-%20Outlanders%2002%20-%20Destiny%20Run.html (120 of 368)16-2-2006 16:57:47
Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
The simile made Kane's stomach slip sideways again. "Did you dream?"
"I did something& probably in my pants." His muffled voice was flat, toneless.
"Oh, God please don't let me puke. If I start, I probably won't stop."
Kane looked over toward Brigid. She was still curled up on the floor, but the
small sobs had ceased. He called her name, but she didn't respond. He forced
himself to his hands and knees, surprised and irritated by how weak he was. As
he crawled over to her, he realized the chamber was slightly smaller than the one
in Cerberus, around three-quarters the size. He knelt beside her and gently shook
her by the shoulder. "Baptiste?"
She didn't respond, so he lightly slapped her cheek, noting with dismay how
parchment pale she looked. Brigid's eyelids flickered, then opened. Blinking, she
stared up at Kane in complete disorientation, her emerald eyes clouded by
confusion and tears.
Then her hand shot up and closed around his wrist with a fierce strength, her
nails biting into his flesh. She lunged into a sitting position, clutching him in a
desperate embrace. In a thin, aspirated voice, she whispered, "I saw you die,
Kane. I saw you die! You were trying to save me "
Kane was too stunned to speak. He had already discounted his vision during the
transit as a dream, a nightmare, just another symptom of jump sickness. He
didn't want to speculate that it might have been anything else. He refused to
speculate that it might be anything else.
"Just a dream, Baptiste," he said softly. "A hallucination, like Bry warned us
about."
file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/James%20Axler%20-%20Outlanders%2002%20-%20Destiny%20Run.html (121 of 368)16-2-2006 16:57:47
Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
Some of the tension went out of her body, and she pushed herself away from
Kane, her eyes scanning his face quickly, intently, as though she were
convincing herself that he truly was who he was supposed to be. Inside him,
Kane felt a jolt as he saw the longing in her eyes, knew it to be a reflection of the
longing in his own soul. Then the moment was gone. She turned away quickly,
wiping at the tears on her cheeks. "I'm all right now," she said in a monotone. "I
hallucinated."
She tried to stand up, staggered and swayed and would have fallen had Kane not
reached up and steadied her. "Take it slow," he said. "We're all in rocky shape."
With a wan smile she leaned against the wall, rubbing her forehead. "My head is
splitting. Anyone need a pain reliever?"
Grant replied, "I'm feeling a little better. Let's give ourselves a few minutes to
recover on our own before we juice ourselves up."
The three of them remained where they were for a while, and at length the pain
in Kane's head abated though his stomach was still tied in cramped knots.
Carefully, as if he were ninety years old, he climbed to his feet and stumbled on
rubbery legs to the heavy door of the chamber. He noticed immediately that the
handle was bent in the middle. Obviously some terrific force had been exerted
upon it. He looked over his shoulder at Grant. "How are you feeling?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podstrony