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

Svengaard stiffened.
The bulky back turned. Svengaard looked up into a pair of glistening eyes, gray, measuring, devoid of emotion. One of the thick hands lifted, carrying a springshot ampoule. The hand touched his neck and there was a jolt.
Svengaard stared up at that faceless face while the fuzzy clouds closed around his mind. His throat felt thick, tongue useless. He willed himself to protest, but no sound came. Awareness became a tightening globe centered on a tiny patch of ceiling with slotted openings. The scene condensed, smaller and smaller - a frantic circle like an eye with slotted pupils.
He sank into a cushioned well of darkness.

thirteen
LIZBETH lay on a bench with Harvey seated beside her, steadying her. There were five people here in a cubed space no bigger than a large packing box. The box had been fitted into the center of a normal load on an overland transporter van. A single glowtube in the comer above her head illuminated the interior with a sickly yellow light. She could see Doctors Igan and Boumour on a rough bench opposite her, their feet stretched across the bound, gagged and unconscious figure of Svengaard on the floor.
It was already night outside, Harvey had said. That must mean they'd come a goodly distance, she thought. She felt vaguely nauseated and her abdomen ached around the stitches. The thought of carrying her son within her carried a strange reassurance. There was a sense of fulfillment in it. Potter had said she could likely do without her regular enzymes while she carried the embryo. He'd obviously been thinking the embryo would be removed into a vat when they reached a safe place. But she knew she'd resist that. She wanted to carry her son full term. No woman had done that for thousands of years, but she wanted it.
'We're picking up speed,' Igan said. 'We must be out of the tubes onto the skyway.'
'Will there be checkpoints?' Boumour asked.
'Bound to be.'
Harvey sensed the accuracy of Igan's assessment. Speed? Yes - their bodies were compensating for heavier pressure on the turns. Air was coming in a bit faster through the scoop ventilator under Lizbeth's bench. There was a new hardness to the ground-effect suspension, less bounce. The turbines echoed loudly in the narrow box and he could smell unburned hydrocarbons.
Checkpoints? Security would use every means to see that no one escaped Seatac. He wondered then what was about to happen to the megalopolis. The surgeons had spoken of poison gas in the ventilators, sonics. Central had many weapons, they said. Harvey put out an arm to hold Lizbeth as they rounded a sharp comer.
He didn't know how he felt about Lizbeth carrying their son within her. It was odd. Not obscene or disgusting... just odd. An instinctive response had come to focus within him and he looked around for dangers from which he could protect her. But there was only this box filled with the smell of stale sweat and oil.
'What's the cargo around us?' Boumour asked.
'Odds and ends,' Igan said. 'Machinery parts, some old art works, inconsequential things. We took anything we could pirate to make a seemingly normal load.'
Inconsequentials, Harvey thought. He found himself fascinated by this revelation. Inconsequentials. They carried parts to things that might never be built.
Lizbeth's hand groped out, found his. 'Harvey?'
He bent over her. 'Yes, dear?'
'I feel.. so... funny.'
Harvey cast a despairing look at the doctors.
'She'll be all right,' Igan said.
'Harvey, I'm afraid,' she said. 'We're not going to get through.'
'That's no way to talk,' Igan said.
She looked up, found the gene surgeon studying her across the narrow space of the box. His eyes were a pair of glittering instruments in a slim, supercilious face. Is he a Cyborg, too? she wondered. The cold way the eyes stared at her broke through her control.
'I don't care about myself!' she hissed. 'But what about my son?'
'Best calm yourself, Madame,' Igan said.
'I can't,' she said. 'We're not going to make it!'
That's no way to act,' Igan said. 'Our driver is the finest Cyborg available.'
'He'll never get us past them,'' she moaned.
'You'd best be quiet,' Igan said.
Harvey at last had an object from which to protect his wife. 'Don't talk to her that way!' he barked.
Igan spoke in a long-suffering tone. 'Not you, too, Durant. Keep your voice down. You know as well as I do they'll have listening stations along the skyway. We shouldn't be speaking now unless it's absolutely necessary.'
'Nothing can get past them tonight,' Lizbeth whispered.
'Our driver is little more than a shell of flesh around a reflex computer,' Igan said. 'He's programed for just this task. He'll get us through if anyone can.'
'If anyone can,' she whispered. She began to sob - wracking, convulsive movements that shook her whole body.
'See what you've done!' Harvey said.
Igan sighed, brought up a hand containing a capsule, extended the capsule to Harvey. 'Give her this.'
'What's that?' Harvey demanded.
'Just a sedative.'
'I don't want a sedative,' she sobbed.
'It's for your own good, my dear,' Igan said. 'Really, this could dislodge the embryo. You should remain calm and quiet this soon after the operation.'
'She doesn't want it,' Harvey said. His eyes glared with anger.
'She has to take it,' Igan said.
'Not if she doesn't want it.'
Igan forced his voice into a reasonable tone. 'Durant, I'm only trying to save our lives. You're angry now and you- '
'You're damn' right I'm angry! I'm tired of being ordered around!'
'If I've offended you, I'm sorry, Durant,' Igan said. 'But I must caution you that your present reaction is conditioned by your gene shaping. You've excess male protectiveness. Your wife will be all right. This sedative is harmless. She's hysterical because she has too much maternal drive. These are flaws in your gene shaping, but you'll both be all right if you remain calm.'
'Who says we're flawed?' Harvey demanded. 'I'll bet you're a Sterrie who's never-'
'That's quite enough, Durant,' the other doctor said. It was a rumbling, powerful voice.