"Allen, Roger MacBride - Chronicles of Solace 3 - Shores of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

УWait a second. If he needs people, warm bodies, so badlyЧwhy not just go over to Last Chance Canyon?Ф

УMaybe we have skills they donТt. Maybe he was lying about Last Chance Canyon, and itТs not there at all. Maybe he thought they were a security riskЧor were just likely to come at him with all guns blazing, and snatch everything here, if they knew he existed. Or maybe hehas tried recruiting them, and been told no. Or maybe itТs something totally different, something we havenТt thought of.Ф

Marquez shrugged and checked the time again. УNow we really have to go,Ф he said. He powered down the equipment he had activated, set the intercom back to normal function, and slid the hatch open. Koffield followed him out of the engine compartment, and they sealed the engine-room hatch behind them. They made their way back to the upper deck, and Marquez punched a command into the airlock controls. They heard the whir of hidden pumps as the excess pressure was pulled out of the lock chamber.

Excess pressure,Marquez thought as he watched the lock indicators.Yes indeed. He glanced at his companion. That was something, he felt sure, that Admiral Anton Koffield knew all about.

Chapter Three

HISTORY IN THE DARK

The great looming shapes of the dormant machines slumbered in the darkness, cocooned in protective blankets that blurred their shapes and purposes. A thin layer of dust, the accumulation of a hundred long years, lay upon them, obscuring the mothballed hardware just that little bit more.

Anton Koffield trudged wearily along the labyrinthine corridors, back toward the lifts that would carry him to the upper levels of DeSilvo City, to regions of light and warmth and human contactЧat least to the degree any of those commodities were available on the frozen corpse of the world that was Glister.

He had learned a great deal on his exploration of the lower regionsЧand yet, in another sense, nothing at all. He had seen a lot of machines, true enough. Some of the hardware he found he could identify. Some he could not, at least not with full confidence. Certainly no sign of any autofacs, but he hadnТt really expected DeSilvo to leave anything that valuable out where it might be found.

The challenge was to fit what hecould identify into some sort of coherent whole. Knowing what sort of hardware DeSilvo had should at least tell him what DeSilvo was capable of, even if it did not reveal his intent. All very sensible in theoryЧbut the machines that he had found were so powerful, so capable of so many things, as to provide him no real clue. DeSilvo could do nearly everything with themЧand therefore might be planning to do almost anything.

But Koffield had knownthat much for some time.

He was tired, dead tired. Time to go back to his quarters. Time to go to bed.



The moment Koffield opened the door to his room, before he entered, he could hear soft breathing. Someone was there, waiting in the dark, behind the door. He instantly had to fight down his old training. He knew who was in the station. Of those, there were two people who might conceivably have the motive to go for him.

DeSilvo did not have the physical courage. Sparten would have the nerve to do it, and might well have dreamed up some damned-fool reason why it was his noble duty to kill Anton KoffieldЧbut no, he would have come straight at Koffield, not waited in ambush.

But Anton Koffield had no wish to stake his life on that sort of amateur psychology. Better toЧ

But then the breathing turned to a gentle snore, and Koffield caught a whiff of a fragrance he knew quite well. He chuckled to himself. He was getting twitchy.

He reached around the doorframe and flipped on the lights by hand, then pushed the door the rest of the way open. There, sitting in the roomТs one comfortable armchair, was Wandella Ashdin, sound asleep, a datapad on her lap.

Koffield stepped into the room, crossed to the chair, and gently tapped her on the shoulder. УDr. Ashdin? Doctor?Ф

УHuh! What? Oh!Ф Dr. Ashdin looked around in bewilderment for a moment, then came back to herself. УOh, for heavenТs sake. Forgive me, Admiral. I didnТt intend to doze off.Ф

УItТs quite all right,Ф Koffield said.

Dr. Ashdin struggled unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. УJust, just give me a moment, please.Ф

УOf course,Ф Koffield said. There were a pair of scruffy yellow plastic chairs sitting with their backs against one wall of the room. Koffield got one of them, brought it over, and sat down facing Wandella Ashdin.

Ashdin looked about the way everyone imagined the ideal grandmother would look, with a gentle face framed by frizzy snow-white hair. Her sky-blue eyes somehow made her seem constantly surprised, and that was not far off. She was far from the most organized person in Settled Space. But her work, her research, was always first-class. And, at a guess, it was her work she was there to discuss.

УWhatТs on your mind, Dr. Ashdin?Ф Koffield asked.