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| 3001 The final Odissey |
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Страница 5 из 91 so annoying to doctors, who always want to know just what`s happening to them. `EEC readout?` Professor, Matron and nurses looked equally baffled. Then a slow smile spread across Anderson`s face. `Oh -- electro... enceph .. alo... gram,` he said slowly, as if dredging the word up from the depth of memory, `You`re quite right. We just want to monitor your brain functions.` My brain would function perfectly well if you`d let me use it, Poole grumbled silently. But at least we seem to be getting somewhere -- finally. `Mr Poole,` said Anderson, still speaking in that curious stilted voice, as if venturing in a foreign language, `you know, of course, that you were -- disabled -- in a serious accident, while you were working outside Discovery.` Poole nodded agreement. `I`m beginning to suspect,` he said dryly, `that "disabled" is a slight understatement.` Anderson relaxed visibly, and a slow smile spread across his face. `You`re quite correct. Tell me what you think happened.` `Well, the best case scenario is that, after I became unconscious, Dave Bowman rescued me and brought me back to the ship. How is Dave? No one will tell me anything!` `All in due course... and the worst case?` It seemed to Frank Poole that a chill wind was blowing gently on the back of his neck. The suspicion that had been slowly forming in his mind began to solidify. `That I died, but was brought back here -- wherever "here" is -- and you`ve been able to revive me. Thank you...` `Quite correct. And you`re back on Earth. Well, very near it.` What did he mean by `very near it`? There was certainly a gravity field here -- so he was probably inside the slowly turning wheel of an orbiting space-station. No matter: there was something much more important to think about. Poole did some quick mental calculations. If Dave had put him in the hibernaculum, revived the rest of the crew, and completed the mission to Jupiter -- why, he could have been `dead` for as much as five years! `Just what date is it?` he asked, as calmly as possible. Professor and Matron exchanged glances. Again Poole felt that cold wind on his neck. `I must tell you, Mr Poole, that Bowman did not rescue you. He believed -- and we cannot blame him -- that you were irrevocably dead. Also, he was facing a desperately serious crisis that threatened his own survival...` `So you drifted on into space, passed through the Jupiter system, and headed out towards the stars. Fortunately, you were so far below freezing point that there was no metabolism -- but it`s a near-miracle that you were ever found at all. You are one of the luckiest men alive. No -- ever to have lived!` Am I? Poole asked himself bleakly. Five years, indeed! It could be a century -- or even more. `Let me have it,` he demanded. Professor and Matron seemed to be consulting an invisible monitor: when they looked at each other and nodded agreement, Poole guessed that they were all plugged into the hospital information circuit, linked to the headband he was wearing. `Frank,` said Professor Anderson, making a smooth switch to the role of long-time family physician, `this will be a great shock to you, but you`re capable of accepting it -- and the sooner you know, the better.` `We`re near the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. Believe me -- you left Earth almost a thousand years ago.` `I believe you,` Poole answered calmly. Then, to his great annoyance, the room started to spin around him, and he knew nothing more. When he regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in a bleak hospital room but in a luxurious suite with attractive -- and steadily changing -- images on the walls. Some of these were famous and familiar paintings, others showed land and sea-scapes that might have been from his |
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