"Barbara Hambly - Windrose 1 - The Silent Tower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

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"You know, I'm getting very tired of your OK." She pushed the soft tangle of
her shoulder-length, too-curly blond hair from her eyes and reached for the
much-thumbed program that rested on top of the precarious stacks of printouts,
manuals, schematic drawings of Tiger missiles, and scrawly handwritten ads for the
in-plant newspaper, the San Serano Spectrum, that heaped the desk on all sides of the
keyboard. "And I'm also getting very tired of you," she added, scanning the long,
cryptic columns on the screen. "You're supposed to be the hottest mainframe west of
Houston, you know. We shouldn't have to play Twenty Questions in binary every
time I want to run a . . ."
Her hand froze in mid-gesture.
There was someone out in the hall.
But when she listened, she heard nothing but the faint hum of air conditioning.
Even the massive radios of the janitorial staff, which generally drove her to take long
walks to the coffee machines in the far corners of Building Six, had ceased, she
realized, some time ago.
It occurred to her that it must be very late.
Security, she told herself and turned back to the monitor.
She didn't believe it.
She'd worked enough overtime, running analyses of missile test-flight results, to
know well the sounds of the security staff as they patrolled the corridors. That swift,
breathing rush of light footfalls outside her cubicle had nothing in common with the
familiar hobnailed tread and jingle of keys.
With reflex reassurance, part of her said, If it isn't Security, Security will take
care of it. Another part, with equally reflex dismissal, added, Don't be silly. It was
probably some poor technician wandering around looking for the john or for a coffee
machine that still had coffeeтАФor what passed, at San Serano, for coffeeтАФin it at this
hour, whatever this hour was.
It was nothing to worry about.
Nevertheless, Joanna worried.
She was a small girl, with an air of compact sturdiness to her despite her rather
delicate build. Ruth, the artist who lived downstairs from her, was of the
often-expressed opinion that Joanna could be beautiful if she'd take the time, but
Joanna had never seen the point of taking the timeтАФor anyway not the hours a day
Ruth put into it. Now she soundlessly hooked the toe of her sneaker under the pull of
the desk drawer and slid the metal bin open far enough to allow her to dip into her
mailsack of a purse and produce a hammer.
Then she sat still and listened again. This time she heard nothing.