[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
How much does he know, and how much suspect? wondered Fenn. "You'll find out."
"If I so choose."
"I think you will. Look, can we go somewhere by ourselves and talk? As Kinna used to say, 'What
harm?' " It hurt with an unexpected sharpness to voice that.
"For a span, then." The curtness was unwonted. Usu-ally Lunarians were either courtly or they cut you
off as if with a knife. Did Elverir grieve too?
He led the way to a nearby trail head and down into the chasm. Stone sheered dark or tawny or
mineral-streaked, cliffs and crags fantastically time-graven, aloft into the red sky. Fenn felt more than
heard the grating of grit under his boots; otherwise the only sounds were his own breath and pulse and
the whisper of his air cycler. Dust smoked up from footfalls, curved off the repellent suit fabric, and fell
back down. Kinna had said once that it was like the brief fluttering of life on the planet, a billion years ago
or more. The ruckus we raise will never stop." She'd laughed.
Memories of canyoneering with her crowded this path out of him. His mind returned to it when he
stumbled and nearly went over the side, fifty meters straight fall onto a slope of impact-whetted shards.
Elverir spun around at his gasp. Fenn waved him off and thereafter concentrated grimly on following him.
The Lunarian halted on a narrow ledge, a natural rest-ing spot. The depths went on, blue-shadowed, the
canyon wall opposite too remote to see. In that direction lay Kinna's home.
David Ronay had said little when they'd talked over the eidophone, and his tone had been courteous,
almost impersonal; but Fenn had known he would not be wel-come when they scattered her ashes
through the sky above Sananton.
Elverir extended the legs of his rumpseat and settled himself. "Here we may speak," he said. "Begin."
For a moment, rage flared in Fenn. He wanted to hit this insolent whelp.
He mastered it. Keeping his feet, looking down into the swarthy face, his tone hoarse and harsh, he
asked, "What do you know about what's happened lately?"
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Elverir considered him in feral wise. Then, slowly: "Someone broke into the Star Net Station and the
secret data are out. It was in truth a breaking in, no matter the syrup fed us by the Synesis. What else
could it have been? I think it was you and Kinna who did this, for her family has informed us, her friends,
that she is dead."
The savageness in Fenn made him snap back, "And so are two of your Inrai animals, who killed her, and
the other two are caught." The officers had given him that information, at least, in the course of his
interrogation.
"Yes," Elverir said. "We knew of this." It was a deduction the remaining outlaw leadership could make,
and transmit over the remaining communication lines, af-ter the band of four had disappeared and a
renewed hunt for others like them soon commenced.
Best to veer off from that. It wasn't what Fenn had traveled here to talk about. "Do you know what
those data mean?'' he probed. Lunarians who had figured it out already might well keep it to themselves.
Elverir tensed. "Nay."
"Let me tell you."
Elverir made no reply. Silence brooded under the stone and the sun.
Fenn drew breath. He should first explain his own sit-uation, to make the rest of his words believable.
"Yes, Kinna and I got in and released the file. On the way back to our flyer, we were set on by those
Inrai, unprovoked, and she was shot dead." He hastened on. "The consta-bles arrived and took charge. I
was pretty well beaten down by then." He must force the admission. "I agreed to cooperate quizzing
under drugs nothing seemed to matter very much anymore "
Elverir got up, retracting the seat legs, not to be loomed over as he said, A Lunarian would have died
first."
Anger erupted. "So you tell yourself. Get rid of the romance, will you? How do you suppose the
constables learned what they know about the Inrai, where to be find-ing them, if it weren't for prisoners?
Your outfit is done for, and deserves to be. Admit it!"
Again Elverir was mute, impassive. Shadows were lap-ping higher than before.
"It may well be," he said at last, softly.
Fenn's wrath gave way to sudden respect. To accept reality like this took manhood. And... she had
found Elverir worthy of her friendship.
The green eyes sought the blue. "But you are no longer helpless," Elverir said.
"I haven't been for some while," Fenn revealed. "Oh, true, without my diergetic and euthymic pills, I'd fall
down in a heap." As he must eventually, the sooner the wiser. His debt to nature was accumulating
compound interest. But he wouldn't pay it yet. There was too flam-ing much to do. "I'm not, uh,
emotionally stunned any more, though. I've got a purpose back." A driving, rising fury. "I let on to be still
curled up inside myself, three-quarters robot." The reviving shrewdness had taken con-trol over the
rekindling rage. Maybe he was finally growing up. "It's evidently worked. They let me flit here
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
unescorted. First, when nobody was looking, I slipped into their storeroom and borrowed a detector.
No spybugs in my clothes or on my person. The police will be glad to see the last of me, but meanwhile
they don't take me seriously."
"Hai, good," Elverir said low.
"Never mind the details of what happened on the mountain. For now, anyway." They would only wound,
when time was short and work was at hand. "Let me tell you about the data we got. Everybody 'will
soon know, but I need your help today."
Elverir poised. If not yet amicable, he had shed hos-tility, and in an instant; but then, he was young,
Kinna's age.
Fenn gave him what Chuan had given. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
How much does he know, and how much suspect? wondered Fenn. "You'll find out."
"If I so choose."
"I think you will. Look, can we go somewhere by ourselves and talk? As Kinna used to say, 'What
harm?' " It hurt with an unexpected sharpness to voice that.
"For a span, then." The curtness was unwonted. Usu-ally Lunarians were either courtly or they cut you
off as if with a knife. Did Elverir grieve too?
He led the way to a nearby trail head and down into the chasm. Stone sheered dark or tawny or
mineral-streaked, cliffs and crags fantastically time-graven, aloft into the red sky. Fenn felt more than
heard the grating of grit under his boots; otherwise the only sounds were his own breath and pulse and
the whisper of his air cycler. Dust smoked up from footfalls, curved off the repellent suit fabric, and fell
back down. Kinna had said once that it was like the brief fluttering of life on the planet, a billion years ago
or more. The ruckus we raise will never stop." She'd laughed.
Memories of canyoneering with her crowded this path out of him. His mind returned to it when he
stumbled and nearly went over the side, fifty meters straight fall onto a slope of impact-whetted shards.
Elverir spun around at his gasp. Fenn waved him off and thereafter concentrated grimly on following him.
The Lunarian halted on a narrow ledge, a natural rest-ing spot. The depths went on, blue-shadowed, the
canyon wall opposite too remote to see. In that direction lay Kinna's home.
David Ronay had said little when they'd talked over the eidophone, and his tone had been courteous,
almost impersonal; but Fenn had known he would not be wel-come when they scattered her ashes
through the sky above Sananton.
Elverir extended the legs of his rumpseat and settled himself. "Here we may speak," he said. "Begin."
For a moment, rage flared in Fenn. He wanted to hit this insolent whelp.
He mastered it. Keeping his feet, looking down into the swarthy face, his tone hoarse and harsh, he
asked, "What do you know about what's happened lately?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Elverir considered him in feral wise. Then, slowly: "Someone broke into the Star Net Station and the
secret data are out. It was in truth a breaking in, no matter the syrup fed us by the Synesis. What else
could it have been? I think it was you and Kinna who did this, for her family has informed us, her friends,
that she is dead."
The savageness in Fenn made him snap back, "And so are two of your Inrai animals, who killed her, and
the other two are caught." The officers had given him that information, at least, in the course of his
interrogation.
"Yes," Elverir said. "We knew of this." It was a deduction the remaining outlaw leadership could make,
and transmit over the remaining communication lines, af-ter the band of four had disappeared and a
renewed hunt for others like them soon commenced.
Best to veer off from that. It wasn't what Fenn had traveled here to talk about. "Do you know what
those data mean?'' he probed. Lunarians who had figured it out already might well keep it to themselves.
Elverir tensed. "Nay."
"Let me tell you."
Elverir made no reply. Silence brooded under the stone and the sun.
Fenn drew breath. He should first explain his own sit-uation, to make the rest of his words believable.
"Yes, Kinna and I got in and released the file. On the way back to our flyer, we were set on by those
Inrai, unprovoked, and she was shot dead." He hastened on. "The consta-bles arrived and took charge. I
was pretty well beaten down by then." He must force the admission. "I agreed to cooperate quizzing
under drugs nothing seemed to matter very much anymore "
Elverir got up, retracting the seat legs, not to be loomed over as he said, A Lunarian would have died
first."
Anger erupted. "So you tell yourself. Get rid of the romance, will you? How do you suppose the
constables learned what they know about the Inrai, where to be find-ing them, if it weren't for prisoners?
Your outfit is done for, and deserves to be. Admit it!"
Again Elverir was mute, impassive. Shadows were lap-ping higher than before.
"It may well be," he said at last, softly.
Fenn's wrath gave way to sudden respect. To accept reality like this took manhood. And... she had
found Elverir worthy of her friendship.
The green eyes sought the blue. "But you are no longer helpless," Elverir said.
"I haven't been for some while," Fenn revealed. "Oh, true, without my diergetic and euthymic pills, I'd fall
down in a heap." As he must eventually, the sooner the wiser. His debt to nature was accumulating
compound interest. But he wouldn't pay it yet. There was too flam-ing much to do. "I'm not, uh,
emotionally stunned any more, though. I've got a purpose back." A driving, rising fury. "I let on to be still
curled up inside myself, three-quarters robot." The reviving shrewdness had taken con-trol over the
rekindling rage. Maybe he was finally growing up. "It's evidently worked. They let me flit here
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
unescorted. First, when nobody was looking, I slipped into their storeroom and borrowed a detector.
No spybugs in my clothes or on my person. The police will be glad to see the last of me, but meanwhile
they don't take me seriously."
"Hai, good," Elverir said low.
"Never mind the details of what happened on the mountain. For now, anyway." They would only wound,
when time was short and work was at hand. "Let me tell you about the data we got. Everybody 'will
soon know, but I need your help today."
Elverir poised. If not yet amicable, he had shed hos-tility, and in an instant; but then, he was young,
Kinna's age.
Fenn gave him what Chuan had given. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]