"James Patrick Kelly - The Prisoner of Chillon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

felt better. Which is to say I had no time to feel anything at all.
The nearest town was St. George, about four kilometers down the
crumbling mountain road. We started at a jog and ended at a drag, gasping in
the thin air. On the way Django stopped by a mountain stream to wash the blood
from his face. Then he surprised me -- and probably himself -- by throwing up.
Join the club, Django. When he stood up, he was shaking. It would make great
telelink. I murmured a voiceover, "Yet, for all his bravado, this master
criminal has a human side too." The fact checker let it pass. Django made a
half-serious feint at the goggles and I stopped shooting.
"You okay?"
He nodded and staggered past me down the road.
St. George was one of those little ghost towns that the Swiss were
mothballing with their traditional tidiness, as if they expected that the
forests and vineyards would someday rise from the dead and the tourists would
return to witness this miracle. Maybe they were right; unlike the rest of the
EU, the Swiss had not yet given up on their acid-stressed Alpine lands, not
even in unhappy Vaud, which had also suffered radioactive fallout from the
nuking of Geneva. We stopped at a clearing planted with the new Sandoz
pseudo-firs that overlooked the rust-colored rooftops of St. George. It was
impossible to tell how many people were left in the village. All we knew for
sure was that the post office was still open.
Django was having a hard time catching his breath. "I have a
proposition for you," he said.
"Come on, Django. Save it for the dollies."
He shook his head. "It's all falling apart ... I can't...." He took a
deep breath and blew it out noisily. "I'll cut you in. A third: Yellowbaby's
share."
According to U.S. case law, still somewhat sketchy on the subject of
spook journalism, at this point I should have dropped him with a swift kick to
the balls and started screaming for the local gendarmerie. But the microcam
was resting, there were no witnesses, and I still didn't know what WILDLIFE
was or why Django wanted it. "The way I count, it's just us two," I said. "A
third sounds a little low."
"It'll take you the rest of this century to spend what I'm offering."
"And if they catch me I'll spend the rest of the century in some
snakepit in Iowa." That was, if the ops didn't blow my circuits first. "Forget
it, Django. We're just not in the same line. I watch -- you're the player."
I'm not sure what I expected him to do next but it sure as hell wasn't
to start crying. Maybe he was in shock too. Or maybe he was finally slowing
down after two solid days of popping fast-forwards.
 "Don't you understand, I can't do it alone! You have to -- you don' t
know what you're turning down."
I thought about pumping him for more information but he looked as if he
were going critical. I didn't want to be caught in the explosion. "I don't get
it Django. you've done all the hard work. All you have to do is walk into that
post office, collect your e-mail, and walk out."
"You don't understand." He clamped both hands to his head. "Don't
understand, that was Babe's job."
"So?"
"So!" He was shaking. "I don't speak French!"