[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

It had been years since he d memorized the ancient play, but the vivid iambic
pentameter carried him along relentlessly.
Short of beating him into unconsciousness, there seemed nothing Galen could do
to turn him off.
Miles was not even to the end of Act I when the two guards dragged him back
down the lift tube and threw him roughly back into his prison room.
Once there, his rapid-firing neurons drove him from wall to wall, pacing and
reciting, jumping up and down off the bench at appropriate moments, doing all
the women s parts in a high falsetto. He got all the way through to the last
Amen! before he collapsed on the floor and lay gasping.
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%...20Bujold%20--%2009%20Brothers%
20In%20Arms.txt (159 of 308) [1/21/03 10:44:26 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold%20--%2009%20B
rothers%20In%20Arms.txt
Captain Galeni, who had been scrunched into the corner on his bench with his
arms wrapped protectively around his ears for the last hour, lifted his head
cautiously from their circle. "Are you quite finished?" he said mildly.
Miles rolled over on his back and stared blankly up at the light. "Three
cheers for literacy . . .
I feel sick."
"I m not surprised." Galen looked pale and ill himself, still shaky from the
aftereffects of the stun. "What was that?"
"The play, or the drug?"
"I recognized the play, thank you. What drug?"
"Fast-penta."
"You re joking."
"Not joking. I have several weird drug reactions. There s a whole chemical
class of sedatives I
Page 92
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
can t touch. Apparently this is related."
"What a piece of good fortune!"
I seriously doubt the utility of keeping him alive. . . "I don t think so,"
Miles said distantly.
He lurched to his feet, ricocheted into the bathroom, threw up, and passed
out.
He awoke with the unblinking glare of the overhead light needling his eyes,
and flung an arm over his face to shut it out.
Someone Galeni? had put him back on his bench. Galeni was asleep now across
the room, breathing heavily. A meal, cold and congealed, sat on a plate at the
end of Miles s bench. It must be deep night. Miles contemplated the food
queasily, then put it down out of sight under his bench. Time stretched
inexorably as he tossed, turned, sat up, lay down, aching and nauseous,
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%...20Bujold%20--%2009%20Brothers%
20In%20Arms.txt (160 of 308) [1/21/03 10:44:26 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold%20--%2009%20B
rothers%20In%20Arms.txt escape even into sleep receding out of reach.
The next morning after breakfast they came and took not Miles but Galeni. The
captain left with a look of grim distaste in his eyes. Sounds of a violent
altercation came from the hallway, Galeni trying to get himself stunned, a
draconian but surely effective way of avoiding interrogation. He did not
succeed. Their captors returned him, giggling vacuously, after a marathon
number of hours.
He lay limply on his bench giving vent to an occasional snicker for what might
have been another hour before slipping into torpid sleep. Miles gallantly
resisted taking advantage of the residual effects of the drug to get in a few
questions of his own.
Alas, fast-penta subjects remembered their experiences. Miles was fairly
certain by now that one of Galeni s personal triggers was in the key word
betrayal.
Galeni returned to a thick but cold consciousness at last, looking ill.
Fast-penta hangover was a remarkably unpleasant experience; in that, Miles s
response to the drug had not been at all idiosyncratic.
Miles winced in sympathy as Galeni made his own trip to the washroom.
Galeni returned to sit heavily on his bench. His eye fell on his cold dinner
plate; he prodded it dubiously with an experimental forefinger. "You want
this?" he asked Miles.
"No, thanks."
"Mm." Galeni shoved the plate out of sight under his bench and sat back rather
nervelessly.
"What were they after," Miles jerked his head doorward, "in your
interrogation?"
"Personal history, mostly, this time." Galeni contemplated his socks; which
were getting stiff with grime; but Miles was not sure Galeni was seeing what
he was looking at. "He seems to have this strange difficulty grasping that I
actually mean what I say. He had apparently genuinely convinced himself that
he had only to reveal himself, to
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%...20Bujold%20--%2009%20Brothers%
20In%20Arms.txt (161 of 308) [1/21/03 10:44:26 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold%20--%2009%20B
rothers%20In%20Arms.txt whistle, to bring me to his heel as I had run when I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • akte20.pev.pl