"13 Sentinels 01 - The Devils Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Dr. Emil Lang, The New Testament

The Regent was relaxing in his bath when Obsim's message finally reached him. The sunken tub in his private chambers was as large as a backyard swimming pool, surrounded by ornate fixtures the Regis had detested. You have too many things, she used to scream. Things!-when the very goal had always been to move away from such material trappings. Her goal, at any rate. Freedom from this base condition...her wards to describe their world after the affair with Zor. After Optera, an Eden if ever there was one, had been defoliated by the Masters' warrior clones, robbed of the Flower that was infinitely precious to the Invid, so essential. They were like starving creatures now, feeding off what nutrients had been stored up in their flesh, but hungry, ravenous for sustenance only the Flower could provide.
The Regent sighed as he climbed from the tub, regarding the sterile green bath fluids with a mixture of sorrow and disdain. To be sure, the bath had been drawn from Flowers and fruits, but a mutated variety from Peryton that had to pass for the real thing, for absent, too, were the Pollinators, those shaggy little beasts critical to the Flowers' reproductive cycle. As a result, the Regent no longer bathed to empower himself, but simply to sustain a memory of brighter times.
Brighter times indeed, he told himself as a servant moved in to drape a robe over him. You have taken a wrong turn, the Regis had warned him. A turn toward deevolution and evil purpose. She was already in Tiresioid form then, desperate in her attempts to emulate Zor's race. She had begged the Regent to join her in that novel guise, but he would hear nothing of it. His queen, his wife, had been defiled, his world contaminated, and still she would ask for such a thing. When his very heart was burning with a rage never before known to him. Was it any wonder then that he had chosen his own course? The goal-the goal, my dear-is conquest and consumption; and things-warriors and weapons and battle mecha-are pivotal to that end.
To hell with her if she couldn't understand his purpose!
And yet...and yet how lonely this place seemed without her. Surrounded by nothing but servants and soldiers now, he could almost miss the arguments of those final days. The passion. She had fled with half her brood to carry on with her mad experiments in transmutation, her quest for the perfect physical vehicle to inhabit while she completed her Great Work, a form more suitable for her wisdom and dreams, more supportive than his embrace.
"Curse her!" he seethed, taking quick steps toward the antechamber.
A messenger genuflected as he entered, lowering its head and bringing an arm to its breast. The Regent's Hellcats were restless, pacing the room, sniffing and snarling. He put them at ease with a motion of his hand and bade the messenger rise and state its purpose.
The messenger handed over a voice-imprint and withdrew. The Regent activated the device and listened, running it through again and again until satisfied that he had memorized Obsim's every word, every nuance.
Tirol under attack-by what Obsim had initially believed were Micronized Zentraedi, but were now thought to be a coalition of Zentraedi and some unknown Tiresioid race. A race of beings with Protoculture-driven starships and mecha! This was the astonishing thing. Protoculture could only be derived from the Flowers, and the potent Flowers were indigenous to Optera, and Optera only. Look what had become of those seedlings Zor himself had tried to implant on Karbarra, Spheris, and the rest.
"What could it mean?" the Regent asked himself. An undiscovered world, perhaps, rich in the Flower that was life itself, ripe and waiting to be plucked.
He summoned the messenger to return. "Make haste to inform Obsim that reinforcements are on their way." He turned to his lieutenants next, his stingraylike hood puffed up, betraying his agitation.
"The Regis is not to learn about these matters. This new world will be our...our present to her."
But only if she agrees to listen to reason, he kept to himself. Only if she accepts the path of conquest!
The Regent's huge hand closed on the voice device, splintering it to bits.

Jack and Karen stood transfixed at the edge of the Royal Hall's shimmering shield, unsure of what they were up against. They had given the enemy drones the slip for the moment, but there was no time to dally.
"I say we try to go in," Jack was saying.
Karen gazed into the field's evil translucency. "And I say you ought to have your head examined."
"Maybe if I just touch-"
Jack reached his hand out before she could stop him, and in a flash was flat on his back unconscious.
Karen screamed and ran to him, kneeling by his side, wondering if there was anything she could do, her hands fluttering helplessly. "You stupid idiot!"
Jack came to and looked up at her stupidly, then shrieked as the pain caught up to him. His left hand flew to his right wrist, clutching it as though aware of the torment above. Karen pried Jack's fingers loose and pulled his hand to her. It was blanker than a newborn's, void of prints and lines. She told him to lie still, ran to the idling Hovercycle, and returned with a first-aid kit. She hit him with a preloaded syringe of painkiller and waited till it took effect.
Jack's face was still beaded with sweat a moment later, but the drugs had done their job; he offered her a weak smile and forced his breath out in a rash. "Now, what was that you were saying?"
"About you needing to have your head examined? Forget it." She showed him his effaced palm. "You're going to need a whole new personality."
"No big deal," Jack muttered. "The old one was about used up anyway."
"I'm glad you said it." Karen laughed, helping him to his feet. "Now let's get back to base."
They started for the cycles, only to swing back around to the sound of metal-shod feet. Five Hellcats came tearing around the corner, for some reason slithering to a halt instead of leaping. The drones fanned out and began to stalk the two Humans as they backed themselves slowly toward one of the Hovercycles. Karen had her blaster drawn.
"Nice kitties," Jack said in a calming voice. "On three we leap for the cycle," he told Karen out of the corner of his mouth.
"But-"
"Don't worry, I can drive. You keep those things away from us."
Karen thumbed the handgun's selector to full auto. "Ready when you are,"
"One, two...three!" he yelled, and they both bolted. Two of the Hellcats jumped at the same time; Karen blasted them out of the air, pieces raining down on the Hovercycle as Jack toed it into gear and took off.
A third Hellcat tried to keep pace with them, but Karen holed that one, too, right through the thing's flashing eyes. She had one arm around Jack's waist, loosing rear fire as he threw the cycle into a turn and raced down a side street.
"Where to?" she yelled.
"Left!" he answered, just as two more 'Cats leaped to the streets from the peak of a pediment.
Karen twisted on the cargo seat and laid down an arc that seared one of the beast's legs off. But others were joining in the pursuit; she stopped counting at eleven.
"How's our fuel?" she thought to ask.
"Going fast," he said, his bad hand up by his shoulder, comically mouthing the words. "Any suggestions?"
"Yeah. Remind me to let you go it alone next time something like this comes up!"

"I've got them, Skull Leader," one of the VT team confirmed. "They're both on the same cyc now, west of the Hall on a connecting street between two of the main spokes. 'Bout a dozen drones behind them."
"Have they spotted yogi, Blue Lady?"
"Uh, negative. They've got their hands full. Some rough terrain up ahead-craters, devastated buildings..."
"Can you exfiltrate?" Max asked her.
Blue Lady fell silent, then said, "Think I see a way."
"Coming around to cover you."
"I'm going in," the woman announced to her Beta copilot. "Breaking hard and right..."