[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
in silence for the education and social grooming, the connections and entries
she wouldn't have been able to provide for the kids on her own, not to mention
physical security from the enemies Hipshot had made in the course of his wild
life.
Eschewing remarriage, she had concentrated on earning her keep and raising her
children, only to die tragically and far too young when as had happened
intermittently on every planet with a technoindustrial infrastructure a
long-inactive Cyber-plague vector program had emerged from hiding. The
outbreak was a mutated strain of the insidious DoomsData virus, one of the
original and most destructive of the lot.
Despite 'wares scrubbers and phages, DoomsData had infected a First Lands
CAD/CAM facility, though how it had lain undetected or penetrated the system,
no one could say. Using the machinery, hazardous materials, vehicles, and even
climate controls, the Cyberplague had slain more than 2,800 human beings
before it had been contained and eradicated. Sin, who had been acting as
assistant on an Orman purchasing delegation, had died trying to fight her way
to the complex's control room.
In the wake of her death, Humbert Orman, paterfamilias of the bastion and
onetime Allgrave, had shown Siri's orphaned children an even greater measure
of the gruff warmth and inadvertent pity he doled out to them. Burning had
already been made something of a loner by his lack of status, and Fiona had
Page 15
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
begun to look for her self-worth in the opinions others held of her. Then had
come that day at Bastian Orman's Wheel Weevil stable.
Burning had been out for a practice ride not because he rejoiced in the sport
the way his father had but because he had needed to clock roll time for a
cadet Skills qualification. At the stables Humbert had taken a crash that had
left him unhurt but furious, and Burning, without thinking it through, had
pointed out that the Weevil's belly plates had been allowed to become
mite-infested and inflamed. Normally, Humbert would have controlled his
temper. Publicly humiliated and shaken, however, he had instead taken a
swagger stick to the groom, a half-feral boy whose own mother was dead and
whose father was an abusive alcoholic brute.
Without uttering so much as a whimper, the groom had taken a thrashing that
would have made a grown man cry. Humbert Orman was beyond any revenge, but a
month later Burning, out on a solo orienteering exercise, was set upon by a
masked assailant who beat him senseless and heaved his body into a crevasse.
Found by chance, he was brought to intensive care and began a period of
recuperation and rehab that lasted nearly two years.
The attacker had worn a fieldsuit developed by the Bastion Gilead, with which
the Ormans had had a long-running and sometimes violent feud. But the Gileads
had refused to respond to accusations, and save for Burning's gut conviction,
there was no evidence that the abused groom was involved. The long
convalescence yanked him off the usual bastion rearing track and set him even
more apart from his peers.
In due time, his body healed and he resumed his pursuit of Flowstate, the
Skills, and military training, as all Exts were required to do. But it took
the war with LAW to turn him hard.
By then the father of the abused groom had died under murky circumstances, and
the boy himself had left Bastion Orman. Years would pass before Burning
reencountered him in the theater of war. The former groom's ferocity, cunning,
and combat prowess had earned him nearly legendary status among the Exts, who
had given him the field name Zone.
Chapter
Five
"Mother always warned me," Lod screamed." 'Never share a foxhole with anybody
braver than you are!' She forgot to say 'Weevil rides, either!'"
Artemis lofted off a little hummock and bounced through some tall weeds. The
annuloid was honking for breath and sloughing a lathery trail of yellow saliva
behind her but was still rolling strong.
She flattened a screen of frogwood saplings and slewed when she hit a mud hole
but regained balance and headway thanks to her scores of strong bowed legs.
Burning's battlesuit and Lod's trench coat were spattered with mud and rain
and decked with blue tresses of hagmoss, lengths of lime-green popbead vine,
and webbed flipper leaves.
Burning slipped into Flowstate calm, scanning the terrain, watching the
tracking cursor on his visor display, and plying the armrest stick. The Weevil
burst through a screen of dirk sticker vines that would have given even a
battlesuit trouble and barreled on unscathed across a low meadow. The point
where Lod had encountered the recce team was only seven hundred meters to the
southwest.
Enemy positions came into view, seeming to bob insanely. There were spotlights
everywhere, along with illumination banks the size of First Lands billboards.
To the southeast a chemically lit trail laid down by remote on the assumption
that Burning would arrive in a surface vehicle traced a safe ground route from
the enemy lines to the area where Lod had left his jumpjeep.
Drawing a deep breath, he cut a course away from it and somewhat to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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in silence for the education and social grooming, the connections and entries
she wouldn't have been able to provide for the kids on her own, not to mention
physical security from the enemies Hipshot had made in the course of his wild
life.
Eschewing remarriage, she had concentrated on earning her keep and raising her
children, only to die tragically and far too young when as had happened
intermittently on every planet with a technoindustrial infrastructure a
long-inactive Cyber-plague vector program had emerged from hiding. The
outbreak was a mutated strain of the insidious DoomsData virus, one of the
original and most destructive of the lot.
Despite 'wares scrubbers and phages, DoomsData had infected a First Lands
CAD/CAM facility, though how it had lain undetected or penetrated the system,
no one could say. Using the machinery, hazardous materials, vehicles, and even
climate controls, the Cyberplague had slain more than 2,800 human beings
before it had been contained and eradicated. Sin, who had been acting as
assistant on an Orman purchasing delegation, had died trying to fight her way
to the complex's control room.
In the wake of her death, Humbert Orman, paterfamilias of the bastion and
onetime Allgrave, had shown Siri's orphaned children an even greater measure
of the gruff warmth and inadvertent pity he doled out to them. Burning had
already been made something of a loner by his lack of status, and Fiona had
Page 15
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
begun to look for her self-worth in the opinions others held of her. Then had
come that day at Bastian Orman's Wheel Weevil stable.
Burning had been out for a practice ride not because he rejoiced in the sport
the way his father had but because he had needed to clock roll time for a
cadet Skills qualification. At the stables Humbert had taken a crash that had
left him unhurt but furious, and Burning, without thinking it through, had
pointed out that the Weevil's belly plates had been allowed to become
mite-infested and inflamed. Normally, Humbert would have controlled his
temper. Publicly humiliated and shaken, however, he had instead taken a
swagger stick to the groom, a half-feral boy whose own mother was dead and
whose father was an abusive alcoholic brute.
Without uttering so much as a whimper, the groom had taken a thrashing that
would have made a grown man cry. Humbert Orman was beyond any revenge, but a
month later Burning, out on a solo orienteering exercise, was set upon by a
masked assailant who beat him senseless and heaved his body into a crevasse.
Found by chance, he was brought to intensive care and began a period of
recuperation and rehab that lasted nearly two years.
The attacker had worn a fieldsuit developed by the Bastion Gilead, with which
the Ormans had had a long-running and sometimes violent feud. But the Gileads
had refused to respond to accusations, and save for Burning's gut conviction,
there was no evidence that the abused groom was involved. The long
convalescence yanked him off the usual bastion rearing track and set him even
more apart from his peers.
In due time, his body healed and he resumed his pursuit of Flowstate, the
Skills, and military training, as all Exts were required to do. But it took
the war with LAW to turn him hard.
By then the father of the abused groom had died under murky circumstances, and
the boy himself had left Bastion Orman. Years would pass before Burning
reencountered him in the theater of war. The former groom's ferocity, cunning,
and combat prowess had earned him nearly legendary status among the Exts, who
had given him the field name Zone.
Chapter
Five
"Mother always warned me," Lod screamed." 'Never share a foxhole with anybody
braver than you are!' She forgot to say 'Weevil rides, either!'"
Artemis lofted off a little hummock and bounced through some tall weeds. The
annuloid was honking for breath and sloughing a lathery trail of yellow saliva
behind her but was still rolling strong.
She flattened a screen of frogwood saplings and slewed when she hit a mud hole
but regained balance and headway thanks to her scores of strong bowed legs.
Burning's battlesuit and Lod's trench coat were spattered with mud and rain
and decked with blue tresses of hagmoss, lengths of lime-green popbead vine,
and webbed flipper leaves.
Burning slipped into Flowstate calm, scanning the terrain, watching the
tracking cursor on his visor display, and plying the armrest stick. The Weevil
burst through a screen of dirk sticker vines that would have given even a
battlesuit trouble and barreled on unscathed across a low meadow. The point
where Lod had encountered the recce team was only seven hundred meters to the
southwest.
Enemy positions came into view, seeming to bob insanely. There were spotlights
everywhere, along with illumination banks the size of First Lands billboards.
To the southeast a chemically lit trail laid down by remote on the assumption
that Burning would arrive in a surface vehicle traced a safe ground route from
the enemy lines to the area where Lod had left his jumpjeep.
Drawing a deep breath, he cut a course away from it and somewhat to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]