Bluebolt One

Начало книги

Julian Hartog walked across the utility-furnished office to the window, moving with his peculiarly characteristic loping stride, as quiet and purposeful as a tiger.

He said in a deep, grating voice, “It’s starting, Steve.”

Stephen Geisler didn’t seem to have heard; and Hartog looked out across the hard, dry earth between the control-station’s admin, buildings and the flagstaff where the naval ensigns of Britain and the United States drooped limply like butter muslin, side by side on a dead level, and looking oddly out of place among the lush, heavy trees which hemmed in the station. He looked away towards the cloud-bank forming, dark and menacing and yet welcome, along the top of the Naka Hills. All the night before he had lain awake, as he had lain awake for so many nights now. He had tossed and turned, haggard-eyed beneath the mosquito-netting, and listened to the mutter of Africa close at hand beyond the high-voltage cables and the barbed-wire mesh which formed the perimeter of the base. Like all else that lived and breathed and moved in the airless heat, he had waited for the blessed breaking of the rains which were now some weeks overdue.

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