"Peter F. Hamilton - Fallen Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

above his carpals, black nozzles poking out. The dart swarm erupted.
As he left the bar, Lawrence turned the cardboard sign on the door so it said
CLOSED and shut it behind him. He made sure his hat was on square, a fussy
action, covering his anger. God damn the Armory Division. Those bastards never
erred on the side of caution, always on the side of overkill. He'd seen two of the
men lying on the floor start to convulse, the dart toxin levels set way too high for
a simple incapacitation sting. The bar was going to get very noisy with police,
very quickly.
A South American couple was sitting at one of the tables on the bar's veranda,
studying the laminated menu. Lawrence smiled politely at them and walked off
down the main street back to the skycable terminus.

***

Ambulances and police vehicles were parked down the length of Kuranda's
main street when Simon Roderick's TVL77D executive liaison helicopter
whispered over the town. They were at all sorts of angles to each other,
completely blocking the road for thirty meters on either side of the bar. There
were obviously no traffic regulator nodes to guide anybody through Kuranda's
streets. Thoroughly in keeping with the town's doughty throwback nature. He
shook his head in bemusement at the chaos. Emergency service drivers could
never resist the dramatic slam-halt arrival. Tough luck if one of the injured
needed a paramedic crew urgently; the closest vehicles were all police.
Paramedics clad in green boilersuits were maneuvering stretchers around
awkward angles, sweaty faces straining from the effort.
"God, what a bunch of no-brainers," Adul Quan complained from the seat
behind Simon. The Third Fleet intelligence operative had pressed his face against
the helicopter's side window so he could view the town directly. He never liked
utilizing sensor feeds through his direct neural interface, claiming the viewpoint
switch made him giddy. "We should bid to manage the state's civil operations. At
least offer them AS coordination, bring them into this century."
"We have the urban area franchise," Simon replied. "And all our people have
some kind of medical monitor fitted in case there's a problem. We can retrieve
them wherever they are. That's what matters."
"Good PR, though. Devoting resources to helping civilians."
"If they want our help they should take a stake in us, contribute and
participate."
"Yes, sir."
Simon heard the skepticism in the other's voice and made no comment. To get
where he was, Adul had built up a large stake in Z-B, but even that couldn't
make him understand what true belonging meant. In truth, Simon thought, no
one except himself did. That would change eventually.
Simon used his DNI to feed a series of commands to the autopilot, and the
helicopter swung round over the little circular park at the top end of the main
street. As he came back to the scrubland truck lot he'd identified as a landing
zone, he saw that some kids had spray painted an open eye on the corrugated
roof of a derelict shop. The fading green and blue symbol was big enough to
stare up at all the strategic security division helicopters that zipped through the
tropical skies above the town. Like a perfect portrait painting, its gaze followed
Simon as the TVL77D extended its undercarriage and sank down on the baked-