The Heart of the Serpent

Начало книги

Music broke through the mists of oblivion. “Awake, ye, yield not to sinister entropy…” The words of the familiar song stirred memories and started off an endless chain of accustomed associations.

Life returned to the great ship. It still trembled, but the automatic devices went on with their work. The whirls of energy that had enveloped the three beehive-shaped green metal domes in the control room had died down. In a few seconds the domes leapt up and disappeared in niches overhead among a maze of pipes, trusses and wires, revealing three men reclining in deep padded seats.

Two of the men remained motionless, but the third stirred, opened his heavy-lidded eyes and tossed back a mane of dark hair. He raised himself up from the depths of the soft insulation, and leaned forward to read the multitude of dials on the slanting illuminated surface of the main instrument panel that stretched across the compartment half a metre in front of the three seats.

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