"Dean Ing - Devil You Don't Know" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

abso-bloody-lutely still. Same for the X-ray check on your implant circuitry. It's a whole lot bigger in
area than it might be, since I wanted it spread out for easy maintenance."

"You didn't cut down to the mastoid?"

"No need to fix the resonator; I just incised a tiny slit to your circuit chip. It was a hairline circuit fracture,
just right for laser repair. Total heat doesn't amount to a paramecium's hotfoot, using the miniaturized
Stanford rig. See, you don't have to hurt the one you love." He grinned.
"I'll remind you of that after supper." He clucked his tongue in mock dismay, still grinning. Message clear,
will comply, out. She returned to Durrell as the kilometers hummed away.

The supper hush puppies in Vicksburg were a pleasant surprise, not by being in the least digestible but in
their lingering aftertaste. When she and Chris vented simultaneous belches later, her fit of giggles might
have caused a lesser man to make war, not love. All credit to the Maffei mystique, she decided still later,
as she lazed on the motel bed and watched Chris attack his toenails. "You never told me how you got
those mangled toes," she murmured. "We beautiful people are repelled by physical deformity, y'know."

He looked up, preoccupied, then grinned. "Same way I got this," he rubbed his finger over the broken
nose that gave him a faintly raffish look. "Soccer. Did I ever tell you I once played against Pele?"

She fetched him a wondering smile. "Wow; no."

Deadpan: "Well, I never didтАФbut Lord knows what I may've told you." Dodging the flung pillow, he
went on. "You'd best save your energy for tomorrow, Val. We'll be delivering you up to the graces of
Gulfview Home around noon."

Retrieving the pillow, she placed it in her lap and hugged it, eyes half closed, dreaming awake. "A view of
the gulf will be nice. I hope this is a clean placeтАФand please, God, air conditioned."

"Don't count on it. It's forty kilometers from the gulf; how's that for an auspicious start?"

She shrugged. "It figures. But why this place? We're kind of off our itinerary." She wriggled beneath the
covers, hiding her thin limbs.

He put away his clippers and reached for the light-plate, waving it to a diffuse nightlight. "A tip from
HealthEdWelfare," he said, swinging under the coverlet. After a long pause he added, "You'll have a
contact inside: a Ms. May Endicott. She won't know about you, but she knows something, I guess. And
an insider's tip is a good place to start. Better the devil you know, and all that. I'll find out what sent her
running to HEW after we commit you. Most likely a snoopy old dowager with fallen arches and clammy
handshake." He grew silent, realizing that Val's response was the softest of snores. Chris Maffei fell
asleep wondering if Gulfview and old Ms. Endicott would fit his preconceptions.



Gulfview Home squatted precisely in the center of its perimeter fencing; held its white clapboard siding
aloof like skirts from the marauding grass. Viewing the grounds, it was hard to imagine much organized
recreation for patients. Chris identified himself to the automatic gate, then rolled his window back up to
escape the muggy air. In silence, they pulled up before the one-story structure.

Their expectations followed earlier studies which, since the 1950s, had always shown higher per capita