"Christopher Hinz - Paratwa 03 - The Paratwa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hinz Christopher)

Buff grimaced. "I don't think you should go there."
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The message decoded itself. On screen, the weird blending of darting iconsтАФspheres, triangles,
bubbling spiralsтАФerupted into words and sentences A WHITE MALE AND BLACK FEMALE. NO
POSITIVE ID, BUT WEAPON USED ON SMUGGLERS DEFINITELY A CORE WAND.
INTERVIEW WITH INJURED SMUGGLER SUGGESTS THAT MALE DISPLAYED
EAGERNESS FOR CONFLICT. PERPS WERE OSTENSIBLY TRYING TO CONTACT A
HIGH-TECH WEAPONS DEALER NAMED FAQUOD. PROBABILITY EXTREMELY HIGH
THAT PERPS WERE GILLIAN AND BUFF.

The lion of Alexander scanned the intelligence report a second time, then turned off the monitor, an
action that automatically sent the Sirak-Brath report into the obscurity of the Costeaus' secret files. Not
that secrecy seemed so important in this instance. The lion had a feeling that Gillian's actions would soon
be discussed throughout the cylinders. No one had seen a Cohe wand used in over fifty years.

He recalled Gillian's parting words, weeks ago.

"If something should happen to me, Jerem ... if I should become someoneтАФsomethingтАФthat you no
longer recognize as Gillian ... and you're sure that I can't be brought back . . . send jour Costeaus out to
find me."

To bring you back? the lion had asked.

"Mo.Not to bring me back."

Gillian's meaning had seemed clear: before I become something monstrous, uncontrollableтАФbefore my
monarch, Empedocles, becomes master of this bodyтАФkill me. At least that was how the lion understood
it.

Was it time to obey Gillian's wishes?

The lion rose from his seat and slipped an arm around his waist, kneaded his palm across an aching
muscle in the lumbar vertebrae. It was an old injury, acquired in youth, stirred to prominence by the
ravages of late adulthood. He wished his wife was here right now; Mela was an expert masseuse, but she
remained in the Alexanders' home cylinderтАФthe Colony of DenтАФwith some of their children and
grandchildren. Den was one of the three so-called new colonies, all Costeau places that had been
admitted to the Irryan federation in the past twenty years under the auspices of the mainstreaming
movement.

/ am Jerem Marth, the lion of Alexander. I am sixty-eight years old, and today I am feeling my age. He
would have liked nothing better than to hop on a shuttle and make the short journey home. But duty
demanded his presence here.

He marched from the communications room, down a long wide hallway, and out the back door of the
A-frame, into his small secluded garden at the rear of the house, where wildly sprouting azul rosebushes
in twenty-six shades of blue encircled a genetically stunted white birch. Overhead, the great green forest,