Veil

Начало книги

Vivid dreaming is his gift and affliction, the lash of memory and a guide to justice, a mystery and sometimes the key to mystery, prod to violence and maker of peace, an invitation to madness and the fountainhead of his power as an artist.

Chapter 2

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Dinner had been in the grand manner, French cuisine expertly prepared and graciously served in an elegant setting that provided a feast for all the senses. Now Veil Kendry stood on the great stone balcony outside the dining hall, sipping cognac as he watched moonlight splinter and dance on the shimmering surface of the sea hundreds of feet below him. Somewhere at the botton of the night, seals barked.

Kendry was impressed. The Institute for Human Studies was spread over the top third of a mountain in California's Big Sur, fifty miles from Monterey. The Institute was concerned solely with what its brochure described as "extreme people." Its staff probed the limits of human accomplishment and endurance through the exhaustive physical and psychological analysis of uniquely gifted individuals who came to the Institute by highly prized invitation. The equipment in the Institute's many laboratories was state-of-the-art, its approach relentlessly multidisciplinary, and its staff represented the elite in dozens of fields. Nobel laureates felt privileged to be invited to lecture or perform research at the Institute.

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