| Genom. Sergey Lukyanenko (ENG) |
| 1 | Sergei Lukyanenko THE GENOME Operon I, Recessive. The Speshes. Chapter 1 Alex gazed into the sky. Its appearance was strange. Irregular. Unprecedented. The kind that happens over worlds still unspoiled by civilization. The kind of sky that might happen over Earth, humanity's home planet, a world trashed and flushed clean three times over. But over Quicksilver Pit, the industrial center of the sector, a planet of three shipyards with all the necessary infrastructure, this kind of sky simply should not be. |
| 2 | Alex gazed up. Clear, iridescent blue. Scattered threads of clouds. Pink glow of the setting sun. A glider gamboling as playfully as a puppy in a snowdrift. Never before, not through the hospital window, not on the planetary news programs, had he seen such a sky over Quicksilver Pit. There was something odd about the whole city today. The setting sun splashed a warm pink over the walls of the buildings. |
| 3 | The last remnants of dirty snow clung to the support columns of the old monorail, spaced out along the highway. Once in a very long while, a car would rush by, as if afraid to tear the silence, slipping away so fast it seemed in a hurry to escape this suddenly unfamiliar, pink world. Or maybe this was the way the world should look to a person just emerging from five months' confinement to a hospital ward. |
| 4 | "No one meeting you?" Alex turned to the guard. Whiling away his time, bored in his plexiglass booth, the guard cut a strapping figure. Ruddy cheeks, shoulders three feet wide, a stun gun on his belt, and a bulletproof vest over his uniform—as though someone planned to storm the hospital. "I don't have anybody." "You from far away?" "Uh-huh." Alex reached for his cigarettes. Drew the smoke of the strong local tobacco deep into his lungs. |
| 5 | "Need a taxi? You're dressed kind of light for this weather, friend..." The guard was evidently eager to help. "No, thanks. I'll take the rail." "Comes once an hour," warned the guard. "It's free public transport, for the naturals..." To be honest, he looked like a natural himself. Not that you could tell anything by looks. "That's why I'm taking the rail, 'cos it's free." The guard gave Alex a once-over, then glanced at the hospital buildings behind him. |
| 6 | "No, no, I am a spesh," explained Alex. "I'm just broke, that's all. Work insurance plan. I couldn't have paid for the treatment myself. They could have brought me here in a basket... well, maybe they did. I don't remember." He slashed a hand across his own waist, indicating the invisible line that, five months ago, had divided his body and his life in two. He felt an overwhelming need to share, to talk to someone who hadn't seen his medical charts, someone who would listen, appreciate, click his tongue... |
| 7 | "Rotten luck," sighed the guard. "Well, now you're all right? Main parts back to normal?" Alex stepped on the cigarette butt and nodded in response to the guard's conspiratorial smirk. "Like new... Well, thanks." "For what?" replied the guard in surprise. But Alex was already on his way to the road. He walked fast, not looking back. They had really done a splendid job of patching him up. He couldn't have wished for better treatment... |
| 8 | especially in his situation. But now, since having signed the last insurance document half an hour ago, affirming that he had no complaints against the medical personnel and proclaiming his condition "identical to pre-trauma state," nothing connected himto the hospital anymore. Absolutely nothing. Or to this planet, for that matter. But leaving Quicksilver Pit would be much harder. On the side of the highway, he waited for a speeding car to pass, a luxurious, sporty, bright-redCayman. |
| 9 | Crossed over to the monorail support column, and walked up the spiral staircase—the elevator, of course, was out of order. "Well, we're on our own again, just you and me. Right, Demon?" he said into the air. Then glanced sideways at his shoulder. Alex's clothes really were all wrong for the weather, even this unexpected thaw which had burst upon the city on the eve of Independence Day. His jeans and shoes, bought for pennies donated by a local charity fund, were more or less all right. |
| 10 | But the leather vest over a sleeveless jersey looked weird. At least his Demon seemed to be having a good time. It lived on his left shoulder: a color tattoo some four inches tall, a small demon with a pitchfork in its hands, who stared into space with a gloomy and disapproving air. Its long tail was wrapped around its waist, probably to keep the Demon's legs from getting tangled up in it. The Demon's short gray fur looked like a set of fuzzy clinging overalls. |
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