Pegasus In Space
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Pegasus In Space». Краткое содержание книги:
For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. But there are those who, for motives of their own, want Padrugoi to fail. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected--and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who is going to save the Talented?
Pegasus in Space is the tale of Peter Reidinger, first Tower Prime!
"However, the good admiral's security guys are picking the brains of the freighter crew; not literally. That isn't legal. But the good ship Elise has been moored onstation for the past eight days." Johnny frowned. "Indeed, since our Limo left. So perhaps the late Idi ibn Sorkut-at least that's the name on his papers-might have let drop some tidbits in the Mall while awaiting the news that Limo-34 was MIS."
"You sound better."
"I'm not really."
"Could all this really be a fatwa?"
"More than likely, though a fatwa was a religious punishment, for blasphemy. This is for plain revenge."
"Plain?" Peter exclaimed.
"No, I guess there's nothing plain about this at all." Johnny raised bloodshot eyes and managed a grim smile. He pulled the list over to him. "You've done the first?"
"I'll organize the second, too. You haven't had enough coffee yet." Peter laid his hand on the list to draw it back to him, aware that his fingers were twitching.
Johnny saw it and blinked to clear his eyes. "Is that new?"
"Seems to be. Doesn't hurt. I don't feel it."
"That's nerve action. You're not supposed to have working nerves."
"A fringe benefit of free fall?" Then Peter suggested slyly, "Maybe all the hard work I did landing us?"
Johnny reached for the comunit and gave an address. "Is Dr. Scott available? Good. Will she please report to Admiral Coetzer's conference room. This is not an emergency."
Suddenly Johnny thrust his coffee mug into Peter's left hand, curved where he had laid it to hold down the schedule list. Peter jerked his hand… away from heat?
"I felt that!" Peter stared down at his hand.
Johnny moved the mug to Peter's right hand, slowly pressing the thumb up against it.
"And that?" Johnny's voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Yes."
Slowly, as if he would almost rather not be disappointed, Peter kinetically fitted both hands around the hot coffee mug. He swallowed hard.
"I can feel heat in all my fingers and in the palms of my hands."
He raised his eyes to Johnny's. A slow and incredulous smile spread over the general's face, and his eyes were shining with extra moisture. He slid his hands lightly over Peter's.
"D'you feel that?"
"Just a slight pressure." Peter wanted to cry. For the first time since Dorotea had found him in the hospital, he wanted to cry. He blinked very hard. He couldn't cry in front of Johnny Greene.
"If you do, I will," Johnny murmured, and gently embraced him. Can you feel this?
Peter gave his head a little shake, his head resting against Johnny's broad shoulder. Just a sort of pressure. But, even to have the use of my fingers again! I haven't been able to move them since that damned body brace shorted out, with me in it. He didn't shake with sobs, that was probably beyond his new capability, but he did feel his chest move and let the tears roll down his face. Until they heard the tentative rap on the door.
"Admiral?" The muffled voice was female. Mentally Peter reached out and recognized Ceara Scott.
Johnny opened the lock and, as she pulled the door forward she was startled to see the occupants and hurried inside, her eyes focused on Peter. She closed the door quickly.
"What's wrong?" She hurried to his side and Johnny released his hold.
"I don't think nerves spontaneously regenerate," Johnny said, his lips twisted to one side.
"I feel heat." Peter demonstrated by clasping the coffee mug in both hands.
"But you can't," she exclaimed. Then, shaking her head in a double denial, she altered her remark. "You shouldn't be able to! I saw your medical files, the spinal trauma."
"I can feel heat," Peter repeated, holding the cup up in both hands toward her. Johnny instantly extended the flat of his hand to support the mug.
"That coffee's hot, you know." The general's tone was gruff but his eyes remained very shiny. "I don't want you splattered and burned because you're showing off."
"Let's just see what we've got here," Ceara said, deftly removing the hot cup from Peter's hands and noting its heat. "Undoubtedly hot."
She took Peter's left hand and turned it over, noting the redness. She pressed one fingertip.
"I felt that, too!" There was delighted amazement in Peter's voice. "I didn't quite feel that, " he said with less delight when she pressed the skin of the next knuckle of the finger. She dug her finger nail into his skin and he felt the sharper prod. "That I felt!" He looked at the mark her nail had left on the skin.
Ceara eased herself into the nearest chair. "You should see a proper neurologist as soon as possible. And there isn't one onstation. We've got to find out if you really could have had some regeneration… We do have an MRI in sick bay-" She broke off, eyes blinking in confusion. Peter could feel her mind blazing alternately with optimism and denial. Miracles didn't happen anymore. She gave her head a sharp shake. "I didn't realize you were back on Padrugoi." Her glance took in Johnny.
"I'll see if Dirk will admit we're here. Especially if we have to get Peter down to sick bay. First order of business." Johnny reached for the comunit as briskly as if he were no longer suffering from a hangover.
"Second order of business is this," Peter said, tapping a fingertip-and feeling it-on the day's list.
"Would he be endangering himself?" Johnny asked Ceara anxiously, pausing on the comm keypad.
"How?" Peter demanded. After all that's happened to me in the last two weeks?
14
Upon hearing that Peter needed to go to sick bay, Dirk Coetzer was concerned.
"What has to be done?" Peter asked Ceara warily. He'd had more than enough physical examinations, even if he hadn't felt them.
"We've a good MRI, though an EMG…"
"What's that?" Johnny demanded, far more alarmed than either Coetzer or Peter.
"Electroneuromyograph, but it's done with sensor pads, much like that equipment," and she nodded to the unit to which Peter was already attached. "Used to be much more intrusive. Anyway, sick bay doesn't have one. You'd've had to go downside. I'd recommend Finn Markstein. He's a neurologist. I trained with him at Mountainside Hospital."
"Will the MRI be conclusive?' Johnny asked. "Will we see what's going on?"
Peter turned to regard Johnny with some amusement. Johnny sounded so anxious while Peter was being far more objective. Catching the look, Johnny flushed and gripped Peter's shoulder, then remembered Peter might feel it and threw both hands up in the air in bewilderment.
"General Greene, if I haven't collapsed by now, I won't. But let's just get the second shipment off." He looked at Ceara. "Then I'm all yours." It was his turn to blush.
She covered her mouth with her hand to hide a grin before giving him a more professional look.
"An MRI doesn't take that long but it will reassure everyone about your present condition."
"He's worried about a shipment?" Johnny ignored her reassurance and waved his hands over his head, rolling his eyes. "He's not worried about 'feeling' for the first time in what is it, six years?"
Peter grinned at Johnny's histrionics.
"Look, Peter, don't concern yourself over 'porting," Dirk Coetzer began placatingly on the comlink.
"Admiral, that is my job here. I made it to First Base so I could 'port more efficiently. I'm not about to malinger when General Greene cannot undertake such assignments on his own." Peter swallowed hard, hoping that his agitated response would not put Johnny on guard. Hurriedly he said, "I'll send the second shipment, go down to sick bay, get this MRI, and be back in time to send number three."
Ceara gave him a long look that said clearly "only if the MRI is good."