"Michael P. Kube - McDowell - The Quiet Pools" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kube-McDowell Michael P)

The Quiet Pools
Michael P. Kube-McDowell


CHAPTER 1
тАФGAUтАФ
"This is JeremiahтАж"

From the elevated guard station at the main entrance to Allied
Transcon's Houston center, a young corpsec monitored the truck
trundling up Galveston Road toward NASA Boulevard. With his
televiewer, he could see that the rider cabin of the robot tractor was
empty. The dull silver tank trailer bore the familiar logo of Shell Chemical.

"Traffic on the board," his watch partner said suddenly as the truck
crossed the security threshold. His watch partner was an artificial
intelligence personality named Isaac, one of eight personalities making up
the center's Sentinel system.

"I've got it," said the corpsec. A squeeze on the grip of the televiewer
brought the reply to the station's radioed interrogative into the finder in
pale yellow lettering. "ID's okay. Shellchem local hauler, running empty."

"I have confirmation from the National Vehicle Registry," Isaac said.
"The registry is valid and current."

"Okay." The corpsec idly continued to track the tanker in the glass,
trying to read the graffiti scrawled on its flanks. In the course of their
four-hour shift, more than a hundred wheeled cargo vehicles would slide
by on the old surface road, shuttling between Galveston and Houston.
Except for the occasional burst of imagination or artistry in the graffiti,
they were hardly worth notice.

Besides, ground traffic was the least of Corporate Security's concerns. It
was far more likely that someone seeking to penetrate Allied Transcon
would try to hop the triple fence in a flyer; far more likely that someone
trying to destroy it would lob a screamer from the forest of scrapers
downtown, or from a boat bobbing somewhere on the poisoned waters of
Galveston Bay.

And even those possibilities were hard to take very seriously at
allтАФright up to the moment the Shellchem tanker suddenly veered right
and roared up the ramp onto NASA Drive, accelerating all the way. At the
top of the ramp, the tanker swept an unsuspecting two-seat flyer aside and
hurtled down the entrance drive toward the barbican.

"Jesus," the corpsec said unbelievingly. "It's going to crash the gate."

There was little else for him to do, for the silicon reflexes of Sentinel
had already taken over. In less than a microsecond, the AIP declared the