The Death of Sleep
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Най Джоди Линн
- Серия: Planet Pirates #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Death of Sleep». Краткое содержание книги:
Her last conscious thoughts were of her daughter, and she hoped that the rescue shuttle wouldn't take too long to answer the Mayday.
All lights on the shuttle except the exterior running lights and beacon went down. Inside, cold cryogenic vapor filled the tiny cabin, swirling around Lunzie's still form…
Then he slipped away into shadow as yellow street-lights washed across the rounded windows of the rolling groundcar. Lunzie buckled herself in and gave her destination to the robot-brain.
The Alpha Meridian reminded Lunzie of theDestiny Calls. In the main lobby, there were golden cherubs and other benevolent spirits on the ceiling holding up sconces of vapour-lights. Ornate pillars with a leaf motif, also in gold, marched through the room like fantastic trees. A human server met her at the door and escorted her to the registration desk. No mention was made of her casual clothing, though she appeared a mendicant in comparison to the expensively dressed patrons taking a late evening morsel in cushiony armchairs around the lobby.
The receptionist, who Lunzie suspected was a shapechanging Weft because of the utter perfection of her human form, impassively checked Lunzie's credit code. As the confirmation appeared, her demeanour instantly altered. "Of course we can accommodate you. Citizen Doctor Lunzie. Do you require a suite? We have a most appealing one available on the four-hundredth-floor penthouse level."
''No, thank you," Lunzie replied, amused. "Not for one night. If I were staying a week or more, certainly I would need a suite. My garment cases will follow by messenger."
"As you wish. Citizen Doctor." The receptionist lifted a discreet eyebrow, and a bellhop appeared at Lunzie's side. "One-oh-seven-twelve, for the Citizen Doctor Lunzie." The bellhop bowed and escorted her toward the bank of turbovators.
Her room was on a corridor lined with velvety dark red carpet, and smelled pleasantly musky and old. The Meridian was a member of a grand hotel chain of the old style, reputed to have brought Earth-culture hostelry to the stars. The bellhop turned on the lights and waited discreetly at the door until Lunzie had stepped in, then withdrew on silent feet. In her nervous state, she flew to the door and opened it, to make sure he had really gone. The bellhop, waiting at the turboshaft for the 'vator to come back, threw her a curious glance. She ducked back into her room and locked the door behind her.
"I must calm down," Lunzie said out loud. "No one followed me. No one knows where I am."
She paced the small room, staying clear of the curtained window, which provided her with a view of a tiny park and an enormous industrial complex. The bedroom was panelled in a dark, smooth-grained wood with discreet carvings along the edges near the ceiling and floor. The canopied bed was deep and soft, covered with a thick, velvety spread in maroon edged with gold trim that matched the smooth carpeting. It was a room designed for comfort and sleep but Lunzie was too nervous to enjoy it. She wanted to use the com-unit and call the ship to see if Aelock had made it back safely. A stupid urge and dangerous for both of them. Shaking, Lunzie sat down on the end of the bed and clenched her hands in her lap.
Someone would be coming by later with her clothing and possessions. Until that someone came, she couldn't sleep though her body craved rest after the draining of Discipline. The hotel provided a reader and small library in every room. Hers was next to the bed on a wooden shelf that protruded from the wall. She was far too restless to read, the events of the evening on constant replay in her mind. Even if the two assailants had been captured, that didn't mean they had been alone, or that their capture would go unremarked. That left a bath to fill in the time and that at least was a constructive act, helping to draw tension out of her body and ready it for the sleep she so badly needed.
While the scented water was splashing into the tub, Lunzie kept imagining she heard the sound of knocking on her door and kept running out to answer it.
"This is ridiculous," she told herself forcefully. "I can take care of myself. They would scarcely draw attention to themselves by levelling the hotel because I'm in it. I must relax. I will."
Her clothes were dirty and sweat-stained and there was a large blot of sauce on the underside of one forearm. She tossed them in the refresher unit, and listened to them swirl while she lay in the warm bath water.
The bathroom was supplied with every luxury. Mechanical beauty aids offered themselves to her in the bath. A facial cone lowered itself to her face and hovered, humming discreetly. "No, thank you," Lunzie said. It rose out of her way and disappeared into a hatch in the marble-tiled ceiling. A dental kit appeared next. "Yes, please." She allowed it to clean her teeth and gums. More mechanisms descended and were refused: a manicure/pedicure kit, a tonsor, a skin exfoliant. Lunzie accepted a shampoo and rinse with scalp massage from the hairdressing unit, and then got out of the tub to a warmed towel and robe, presented by another mechanical conveyance.
It was close to midnight by then and Lunzie found that she was hungry. Her entree at Colchie's had turned out to be an assassin with a needlegun. She considered summoning a meal from room service but she was loath to, picturing chalky-faced waiters in silk capes streaming into the tiny room with guns hidden in their sashes. She'd been hungrier than this before. Wearing the robe, Lunzie climbed into bed to wait for the messenger with her bags.
Most of the book plaques on the shelf were best-sellers of the romance-and-intrigue variety. Lunzie found a pleasant whodunnit in the stack and put it into the reader. Pulling the reader's supporting arm over the bed, Lunzie lay back, trying to involve herself in the ratiocinations of Toli Alopa, a Weft detective who could shapechange to follow a suspect without fear of being spotted.
Somewhere in the middle of a chase scene, Lunzie fell into a fitful dream of pasty-faced waiters who called her Jonah and chased her through theDestiny Calls, finally pitching her out of the space liner in full warp drive. The airlock alarm chimed insistently that the hatch was open. There was danger. Lunzie awoke suddenly, seeing the shadow of an arm over her face. She screamed.
"Lunzie!" Tee's voice called through the door and the door signal rang again. "Are you all right?"
"Just a moment!" Fully awake now, Lunzie saw that the arm was just the reader unit, faithfully turning pages in the book plaque. She swept it aside and hurried to the door.
"I'm alone," Tee assured her, slipping in and sealing the locks behind him. He gave her a quick embrace before she realised that he was wearing civilian clothes. "Here are your bags. I think I have everything of yours. Sharu helped me pack them."
"Oh, Tee, I am so glad to see you. Did the captain tell you what happened?"
"He did. What an ordeal, my Lunzie!" Tee exclaimed. "What was the scream I heard?"
"An overactive imagination, nothing more," Lunzie said, self-deprecatingly. She was ashamed that Tee had heard her panic.
"The captain suggested that you would trust me to bring your possessions. Of course, you might not want to see me…" He let the sentence trail off.
"Nonsense, Tee, I will always trust you. And your coming means that the captain got safely back. That's an incredible relief."
Tee grinned. "And I've got orders to continue to confuddle whoever it is that sends assassins after my good friends. When I leave here, I am going to the local Tri-D Forum and watch the news until dawn. Then I am going to an employment agency to job hunt." Tee held up a finger as Lunzie's mouth opened and closed. "Part of the blind. I go back to the ship when you are safely out of the way and no connection can be made between us. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes indeed," Lunzie said. "I never got past the appetizer and I haven't eaten since you and I had breakfast this morning. I don't dare trust room service, but I am positively ravenous. If the wooden walls didn't have preservative varnishes rubbed into them, I'd eat them."