Firefox by Craig Thomas

Author:Craig Thomas [Thomas, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780751519853
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 1990-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

At first, the signal from the bleeper was a muscular tic, not even a sound to Gant as he was consumed by the flames of his dream. He was still in the posture of defeat, sagging stiffly, immobile, on the lavatory seat, his body damp with sweat. Something pulsed in his arm, he was aware of it, but he could not move his hand to scratch it, to rub the spot. The dream was drawing towards an end, and he was patiently waiting for his release. There was no need to move, no need to fight. It had been bad, but it was ebbing now, the separate images flung off like frozen sparks, photographs of his past in a flickering album.

The noise ate down into his mind, the one-to-the-second bleeping of the receiver. A part of Gant's mind, the part that always coldly observed the progress of the dream, powerless to prevent or still, recognised that it was some kind of signal and fumbled, as with frozen fingers, to decipher its significance. Something to do with an alert - not an alert like others, not a scramble.

With sudden, frightening clarity he knew what it was, so that the image of the Firefox, in one of the photographs he had studied, was before him - then the memory of the cockpit simulator they had built for him, on which he had learned… He knew what it was. Baranovich. He saw the wise face, peering kindly, in Olympian pity, through the flames.

Tic and noise coordinated. The bleeper on his arm, taped there by Baranovich. The instructions filtered through, like pebbles dropped irregularly into dark water. The bleep was the alert - wait for the continuous sound, which is the summons.

He tried to move, felt that he was moving against a great wave, which pinned him where he was, struggled, tried again to raise himself - and did so.

The bathroom came into a kind of focus, and he shook his head, rubbed both stiff hands down his cheeks. It was like coming back from the dead, far worse than coming back from a narcotic trip, far worse than that. The water, still running, filtered through his mind as a distant sound, nothing to do with the crackling of flames. He had always been afraid of moving like this, before the dream had played itself out. Now he knew he had to.

He opened the bathroom door, his hand like a frozen claw gripping the door handle clumsily. He slammed the door behind him. He felt an ache, dull and distant, in his thigh. He looked down. There was a bruise across his muscle. He presumed it was some self-inflicted blow, performed an age before.

He walked stiffly, like a man on new limbs, across to the locker which he remembered contained Voskov's pressure-suit. He had to dress himself…

The bleep is the alert; wait for the continuous noise, which is the summons. Baranovich smiled down on him, the memory of that moment in Kreshin's bedroom, the white-haired man holding the cup of sweet coffee.

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