NastyMisanthrope: переводы

→Torquato stopped, breathing heavily. "A cleansing," he was muttering. "Yes, a cleansing. Start again, new and fresh."

→Torquato tugged on the wheel, then gave a little cry of frustration. He raised the bar and started striking the hatch again, at the hinge. The pressure was too great, Altman realized with relief. Unless he loosened a hinge or blew the hatch from the control panel, the seal might hold. Much more worrisome, though, was the lack of air.

→Holding on to the ladder, Altman tilted his head back irtil he co Jd see Torquato there, upside down. He was lying flat in the passage, a metal bar in one hand, a strut maybe, something stolen from the remains of the oxygen recirculator. His knuckles were bloody, and Altman could see symbols like those on the artifact, painted here and there along the passage in blood.

→"It's stuck!" he shouted, apparently at nobody. "I'm trying, Itell you!"

→He hung there motionless, hoping Torquato wouldn't turn around.

→The banging started again, Torquato screeching along with it. Altman jumped, caught the rung. He flailed his leg up, managed to get his ankle around the side rail of the ladder as well. The banging stopped.

→From there, he could almost reach the fixed metal ladder. He steadied himself, reached as far as he could, but his fingers just grazed it. He'd have to leap up, hope that his fingers caught the rung and held it the first time, so that he wouldn't come down with a crash and alert Torquato.

→He clambered onto the sideways chair, nearly fell when it swiveled. There was a brief groan, and for a moment he thought it was going to come unbolted from the deck, but it held. Carefully he put both feet on the chairback and stood.

→Oh. shit. Altman realized, his limbs instantly going heavy: He's trying to open the hatch. He's trying to flood the bathyscaphe.

→The banging started up again.

→The ladder leading to the hatch was directly above him, horizontal along the ceiling, and he could see Torquato's feet sticking out of the passage.

→The banging started again. Altman slowly pulled himself up, standing on the porthole. The cabin felt extraordinarily warm, stuffy. He scaled the side of the console and stood on it. The oxygen recircJator had been disabled, was nothing but a mass of tangled metal, sparks flying off it. He was careful not to touch it. No wonder the air felt stuffy. How long had he been out? He looked down at the console until his eyes found the chronometer. It, too, had stopped.

→Trying to what? Altman wondered.

→"It's stuck," he heard Torquato's voice mutter. And then, "fm trying, I tell you, fm trying."

→When he regained consciousness, it was to find himself pressed ip against the observation porthole, the bathyscaphe pushing ip against the artifact with the motor still running until it was tilted on end. There were repeated banging noises coming from somewhere, punctuated by long moments of silence.

→"You've been here again and again, just beside it," he said to Altman, stroking his cheek. "Yet you have felt nothing. Don't you hear it calling to you? Won't you answer?"

→Altman made an effort, bit the inside of his mouth until it bled, succeeded in focusing.

→He reached down and, with effort, plucked it out. His tongue already felt thick in his mouth. Torquato was talking to him, he suddenly realized, though he was a little less clear on what he was saying. He blinked and Torquato blurred out of focus, only slowly coming back in again. The man was speaking incomprehensibly, endlessly, about the necessity for Convergence.

→How he'd undone the restraint on his leg, Altman hadn't been able to figure out at the time, though later he discovered it had been cut, whether by Torquato or someone else, he never could be certain. In a flash, Torquato was free, and that was all that mattered. Altman tried to get the tranquilizer gun out and fire a dart, but Torquato had been too quick, and when he reached for it, he found the holster empty, the pistol aimed at him instead. He dived to the side, but the pistol had already fired, and there it was, the dart sticking out of his arm.

→Torquato's turn was different from that of the others, much more abrupt, little if any warning. One moment he was sitting there, shielding the black box's needle display with his hand, and the next he had attacked.