"Frank Herbert - Hellstrom's Hive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

roof: new pumphouse was the guess, but it looked like a defensive blockhouse.

The watcher, whose name was Carlos Depeaux, made a mental note that the valley fitted the
descriptions. It was full of default messages: no people stirring about on the land (although a
distinctly audible and irritating machinery hum issued from the barn), no road coming up from the
north gate to the farm buildings (the nearest road, a one-way track, came up to the valley from the
north but ended at the gate beyond the blockhouse). A footpath with narrow indentations
apparently from a wheelbarrow stretched from the gate to the farmhouse and barn.

The valley's sides were steep farther up and in places almost craggy with brown rock outcroppings
at the top on the far side. There was a similar rocky upthrust about a hundred feet to Depeaux's
right. A few animal tracks wound their dusty ribbons through oak and madrona along the valley
sides. The black rock of the tiny waterfall closed off the southern end where a thin cinnamon
tracery of water spilled into the stream. To the north, the land undulated away out of the valley,
widening into pasture meadows and occasional clumps of pine intermingled with oak and madrona.
Cattle grazed in the far distance to the north and, although there were no fences immediately
outside the farm's barrier, tall grass revealed that the cattle did not venture too near this valley.
That, too, accorded with the reports.

Having satisfied himself that the valley still matched its descriptions, Depeaux wriggled backward
behind the crest, found a shaded patch beneath an oak. There, he turned onto his back and brought
his small knapsack into a position where he could explore its interior. He knew his clothing would
blend well with the grass, but he still hesitated to sit up, preferring to wait and listen. The sack
contained his binocular case, a well-thumbed copy of Naming the Birds at a Glance, a good thirty-
five-millimeter camera with a long lens, two thin beef sandwiches wrapped in plastic, an orange,
and a plastic bottle of warm water.

He brought out a sandwich, lay for a moment staring up through the oak's branches, his pale gray
eyes not really focused on anything in particular. Once, he pulled at the black hairs protruding
from his nostrils. This was an extremely odd situation. Here it was mid-October and the Agency
still had not been able to observe the farmers in that valley through an entire harvest. The crops
had been harvested, however. That was obvious at a glance. Depeaux was not a farmer, but he
thought he recognized the stubby remains of corn plantings, although the stalks had been removed.

He wondered why they had cleared away the stalks. Other farms he had seen in the long drive to
this valley were still littered with harvest remains. He wasn't sure, but he thought this was another
default message in the valley that interested his Agency so much. The uncertainty, the gap in his
knowledge, bothered him, however, and he made a note to check on this. Did they burn the stalks?

Presently, sensing no watchers around him, Depeaux sat up with his back against the oak's bole, ate
the sandwich, and drank some of the warm water. It was the first food he had allowed himself
since before daylight. He decided to save the orange and other sandwich for later. It had been a
long, slow approach to this vantage point from the place far back in the pines where he had
concealed his bicycle. The van and the stake-out where he had left Tymiena were another half
hour's bicycle ride beyond that. He had decided not to venture back before nightfall and knew he
was going to be very hungry before he got back to the van. Not the first time on such a job. The
peculiar nature of this case had become increasingly obvious the nearer he came to the farm. Well
-- he'd been warned about that. Stubborn persistence had kept him pressing forward past the
imaginary hunger line he knew he'd have to pass on the return. The countryside was much more
open and empty of concealment than he'd expected from the aerial photos, although Porter's reports