"Terry Dowling - Flashmen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dowling Terry)

тАЬTime to make a move.тАЭ

****

As it turned out, quite a few of the old Big Name crews were going in. The
wildfire, pond-ripple, rumour mill prevailed as ever it had. Word of one team
activated meant something happening on the QT; best keep an eye out just
in case. Sponsors appeared like magic: governments, corporations, citizen
protection groups, patents and futures speculators old and new. Good
sense. Contingency and precaution.

One of PunkyтАЩs former lieutenants, Baine Couse, had put together a
rag-tag band - the Argentics on the registration database - with Rollo Jayne
and Toss Gatereau in the lineup. Molly Dye had re-activated her Lonetown
Farriers, once definitely second stringers all, but a real force now that Rod
Sinner had been brought in to replace Corven, lost at The Sailmaker in тАШ35.
Julie Farro and Yancy Cada had a new line-up of their Spin Doctors ready
to go. Other names he knew. Many he didnтАЩt.
 Riding the wind-tram out to the Baylieu Gate, Sam shook his head at
the wonder of it. Conspiracy theory always messed things up. The chats
were crazy with it, the seaboard axis abuzz. All the new coastal cities were
making a feature of it. Four teams now, forty later. TheyтАЩd be tripping over
themselves before they were an hour along - most of them makeshift
tagger groups of newbies and quarterhands duelling it out on the fringes,
maybe risking The Spanish Lantern, The Moonraker and The Three Spices,
then scuttling back to the bars and chats with improbable stories that grew
larger with every telling. Not just in Australia either. The African coastal axis
had groups stirring; the West American axis preempted everyone by
sending a team to check the sub-Saharan Landings. French teams were
heading for the Gobi Desert outside Sagran. The flashmen. The leones.
Darlings of the WHO doctors. The ten years were like smoke.

****

The WHO perimeter units gave the teams access in twos, and the
Trimmers and the Regulators were promised a clear dayтАЩs lead before the
Argentics and the Farriers, then the Spin Doctors, The Sneaky Pete
Regulars and the rest of the official line-up. Some newbie crews would
jump queue around that vast boundary. Some would be wasted quick
smart, the rest would be nabbed by the authorities on the way out. Easier to
let the Landings tidy things up first. ThereтАЩd be penalties, token sentences
in the new barrios, but ultimately WHO didnтАЩt care so long as flashpoints
were dealt with and data - any data after all this time тАУ was forthcoming.
Better they risk another Krackenslough, they secretly figured, secretly
gambled, unofficially believed, than not know anything about their deadly
visitors.

At Baylieu Gate there was more waiting, of course. The orbitals
needed to track the complex fluxes, wait for what they considered to be
suitable hiatus readings before giving the go-ahead - all frustratingly