"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 04 - Seeds of Destiny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

But the relief did not last long.
When he reached his tiny office safely, he peered beneath the metal desk and behind the books and
knickknacks on the shelf. Once he was sure none of the tiny, insectoid robots were present, he set the
plant in its mug beside the keyboard of his terminal. Then he wondered what the gyp he could do with it.
He scratched his belly where the mug had pressed. He was carefully tucking in his shirt once more
when the doorlatch clicked behind him.
"Got a min-- ? What have you got there?"
He spun and flushed and said, "Sorry. But-- "
"That's dumb," said Renard Saucier. "Suicidally dumb."
Hrecker did not think to ask why Saucier was in his doorway, belly straining against his traditional
coverall, hairline arching toward the ceiling. As usual, the man's upper eyelids folded down at their outer
edges and he looked exhausted. He was in charge of this section of the lab, supervising several
researchers and technicians, but he was rarely seen until after lunch. Mornings he spent on his own
research.
"A plant, of all things," said Saucier. "Today, of all times. I was just in a meeting..."
"An African violet." Hrecker tried very hard to sound meek. "I was going to throw it away."
"Then why did you bring it here? If Security spotted it..."
"I know."
"You'd never run another probability shifter, would you?"
Hrecker shook his head. The lab had learned how to use the probability warp that made the Q drive
possible to achieve macroscopic tunneling a decade ago. The trick had proved to be the key to
faster-than-light travel, the heart of the tunnel drive the Gypsies had mastered before they fled the system
more than a century before. More recently, they had been trying to use a variation of the technique to
control the placement of ions in semiconductors. They hoped to build electronic memories that would
match the capacity of biological ones.
A shelf on the wall to the left of the doorway held a veedo set. Saucier turned toward it and touched
its switch. Then he reached past Hrecker and picked up the plant. "I'll dispose of it. You check the
news."
Was that why he had appeared so early in the day? Was there something important happening in the
world outside the lab? Something that might affect their work? Or...?
Obediently, Marcus Aurelius Hrecker watched the screen as it came to life. And when the image
proved to be that of a familiar piece of Olympian tunnel, he reached blindly for his chair, rolled it away
from the desk, turned it, and sat.
A voice was saying: "Constant vigilance is the only way we can remain free of the green taint. Only half
an hour ago, Security noticed this woman..." A small woman, elderly, silver-haired, her bent back against
a shadowed alcove. Hrecker recognized her, and a premonition of her fate shivered down his spine.
"Obviously a Gypsy sympathizer," the voice went on conversationally. "Perhaps even an actual agent.
She was distributing emblems of that subversive movement." The camera swung toward one of the
woman's hands, the image enlarged, and the screen filled with a plump cactus rooted in a small glass jar.
"She is in Security's custody now, being interrogated. Once she has divulged the names of everyone who
accepted one of her emblems, they too will be arrested and questioned. Then she will be-- "
"Executed." Saucier was back. "So will they."
"She practically forced it on me!"
"You should have screamed for help."
"For what? Assault with a deadly flower?"
"It's deadly enough when Security is watching."
Hrecker nodded. "Yeah. Is that what you wanted me to see?"
The other shook his head as the weathergirl came on to speak of dust storms and unusual cold
sweeping across the face of Mars. "I didn't even know about that one. Give it another minute."
"But why? The last time anybody saw a Gypsy was a century ago. That was when we conquered the