"Herbert, Frank - The Eyes of Heisenberg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

But Nourse and Calapine would have defended Svengaard. He knew it. They'd have insisted the man was reliable, honorable, loyal. They'd wager anything on it.
Anything? Schruille wondered. Is there something they might not wager on Svengaard's loyalty?
Schruille could almost hear Nourse pontificating, 'Our judgment of Svengaard is the correct one.'
And that, Schruille thought, is what disturbs me. Svengaard worships us...as does Max. But worship is nine-tenths fear.
In time, everything becomes fear.
Schruille looked up at the watching scanners, spoke aloud:
'Time-time-time...'
Let that chew at their vitals, he thought.

seven
THE place was a pumping station for the sewage reclamation system of Seatac Megalopolis. It lay at the eleven hundred foot level on the spur line that sent by-product irrigation water into Grand Coulee system. A four-storey box of sampling pipes, computer consoles and access cat-walks aglow with force-buoyed lights, it throbbed to the pulse of the giant turbines it controlled.
The Durants had come down through the personnel tubes during the evening rush hour, moving in easy random stages that insured they weren't followed and that they carried no tracer devices. Five inspection tubes had passed them as clean.
Still, they were careful to read the faces and actions of the people who jostled past. Most of the people were dull pages, hurried, intent on their business. Occasionally, they exchanged a mutual reading-glance with another courier, or identified sub-officials with the fear goading them on Optiman errands.
No one noticed a couple in workman brown, their hands clasped, who emerged onto Catwalk Nine of the pumping station.
The Durants paused there to survey their surroundings.
They were tired, elated and more than a little awed at having been summoned into the control core of the Parents Underground. The smell of hydrocarbons filled the air around them. Lizbeth sniffed.
Her silent conversation through their clasped hands carried overtones of tension. Harvey worked to reassure her.
'It's probably our Glisson we're to see,' he said.
'There could be other Cyborgs with the same name,' she said.
'Not likely.'
He urged her out onto the catwalk, past a hover light. They took a left branching past two workmen reading Pilot gauges, their faces in odd shadows created by the lights from below.
Lizbeth felt the lonely exposure of their position, signaled, 'How can we be sure they aren't watching us here?'
'This must be one of our places,' he said. 'You know.'
'How can it be?'
'Route the scanners through editing computers,' he said. 'The Opts see only what we want them to see then.'
'It's dangerous to feel sure of such things,' she said. Then, 'Why have they summoned us?'
'We'll know in a few minutes,' he said.
The walk led through a dust-excluding lock port into a tool bunker, gray walls punctured by outlets for transmission tubes, the inevitable computer controls blinking, ticking, chuckling, whirring. The place smelled of a sweet oil.
As the port clanged shut behind the Durants, a figure came from their left and sat on a padded bench across from them.
The Durants stared silently, recognizing and repelled by the recognition. The figure's outline suggested neither man nor woman. It looked planted there in the seat, and as they watched, it pulled thin cables from pockets in its gray coveralls, plugged the cables into the computer wall.
Harvey brought his attention up to the square, deeply seamed face and the light gray eyes with their stare of blank directness, that coldly measured observation which was a trademark of the Cyborg.
'Glisson,' Harvey said, 'you summoned us?'
'I summoned you,' the Cyborg said. 'It has been many years, Durant. Do you still fear us? I see that you do. You are late.'
'We're unfamiliar with this area,' Harvey said.
'We came carefully,' Lizbeth said.
'Then I taught you well,' Glisson said. 'You were reasonably good pupils.'
Through their clasped hands, Lizbeth signaled 'They're so hard to read, but something's wrong.' She averted her eyes from the Cyborg, chilled by the weighted stare. No matter how she tried to think of them as flesh and blood, her mind could never evade the knowledge that such bodies contained miniaturized computers linked directly to the brain, that the arms were not arms but prosthetic tools and weapons. And the voice - always such a clipped-off unemotional quality.
'You should not fear us, madam,' Glisson said. 'Unless you are not Lizbeth Durant.'
Harvey failed to repress the snap of anger, said, 'Don't talk to her that way! You don't own us.'
'What is the first lesson I taught you after you were recruited?' Glisson asked.
Harvey brought himself under control, forced a rueful smile onto his mouth. To hold our tempers,' he said. Lizbeth's hand. continued to tremble in his.
That lesson you did not learn well,' Glisson said. 'I overlook your fallibility.'
Through their hands, Lizbeth signaled, 'It was prepared for violence against us.'
Harvey acknowledged.
'First,' Glisson said, 'you will report on the genetic operation.' There was a pause while the Cyborg changed its jacked connections to the computer wall. 'Do not be distracted by my work. I distribute tools - thus' - it indicated the bunker - 'this' space which appears on their screens as a space filled with tools, will never be investigated.'
A bench slid from the wall to the Durants' right. 'If you are. fatigued, sit,' Glisson said. The Cyborg indicated its cable linkage to the wall computer. 'I sit only that I may carry on the work of this space while we speak.' The Cyborg smiled, a stiff rictus to signify that the Durants must realize such as Glisson did not feel fatigue.
Harvey urged Lizbeth to the bench. She sat as he signaled, 'Caution. Glisson's maneuvering us. Something's being hidden.'
Glisson turned slightly to face them, said, 'A verbal, factual, complete report. Leave out nothing, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. I have limitless capacity for data.'
They began recounting what they had observed of the genetic operation, taking up from each other on cue without a break as good couriers were taught to do. Harvey experienced the odd feeling during the recital that he and Lizbeth became part of the Cyborg's mechanism. Questions came so mechanically from Glisson's lips. Their answers felt so clinical. He had to keep reminding himself. This is our son we discuss.
Presently, Glisson said. There seems no doubt we've another viable immune to the gas. Your evidence virtually completes the picture. We have other data, you know.'