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

Her husband was about to make a serious mistake, but she could not bring herself to intervene.

The raucous sound of a static-spiced squawkbox woke Janice from dreams of electric sheep. One eye opened, she spied Minmei on her knees across the room trying to adjust the radio's volume.
"Too late," Janice called out.
Minmei swung around, surprised, fingertips to her lips. "I didn't mean to wake you."
Janice sat up and yawned. "I'm sure." She'd fallen off an hour ago, just after Lynn had left their new quarters for parts unknown. "What is that-a transceiver?"
"No one will tell me anything about Jonathan. This is a kind of, uh, unscrambler. I thought I could pick up some combat reports."
Janice stood up to get a better look at the radio and its decoder feed. "Where'd you get this, Lynn?"
"Promise not to tell?"
Janice looked around the room, calling attention to their confinement. "Who am I going to tell?"
"A woman who works for Dr. Lang got it for me. I explained the situation."
"Stardom does have its advantages, doesn't it?" Janice kneeled down next to Minmei and reached a finger out to readjust the radio's tuner. In a minute she located the com net's frequency.
"General Edwards and the Ghost Squadron are already on their way, over," someone was updating. After several seconds of static a second voice said, "That's good news, com two. We've lost Wolff-"
Minmei's gasp erased the next few words; then Janice succeeded in quieting her. "Listen, Lynn, just listen."
"...had him for a while, but we're getting nothing now. Probably that force field. Everything was roses up till then. No sign of enemy activity."
"You see," Janice said. Minmei was still upset, but hopeful again. "It'll be all right, I promise."
Trembling, Minmei shut off the receiver and got to her feet. "I can't listen to it," she said, wringing her hands. "I just can't think about the horrible things he must be facing." She collapsed, crying, into Janice's open arms.

In the nave of the Royal Hall, the Invid brain looked as though it might succumb to a stroke at any moment. Cells were flashing out one after another as power continued to be shunted to the force shield and energy reserves were depleted. A dozen or so soldiers stood motionless; awaiting the brain's command.
Obsim, too, was on the verge of panic, convinced now that the Regent meant to abandon him there. Looking frightened and desperate, he paced back and forth in front of the brain's bubble chamber under the expressionless gaze of his Enforcer unit.
"Don't watch me like that!" he shouted, suddenly aware of their eyes on him. "Who let the Tiresians escape? It wasn't me, I can tell you that much. Don't I have enough to do already? Do I have to do everything myself?" He waved a four-fingered fist at them. "Heads are going to roll, I promise you!"
Obsim tried to avoid thinking about the punishment the Regent would have in store for him. A one-way trip to the Genesis Pits, perhaps, for quick devolvement. Nothing like a little reverse ontogeny to bring someone around. Obsim had seen others go through it; he recalled the sight of them crawling from the pits like land crabs-obscene representations of an evolutionary past the Invid had never lived through, a form that existed only in the shape and design of the Pincer Ships and Shock Troopers.
Obsim stopped pacing to confront the brain.
"Situation," he demanded.
The living computer struggled to revive itself; it floated listlessly in the middle depths of the tank, dull and discolored. Obsim repeated his command.
"Intruders have entered the subterranean vaults and corridors," the brain managed at last.
"Show me!" Obsim barked, fighting to keep his fear in check. "Let the Inorganics be my eyes."
An image began to take shape in the interior of the communicator sphere; gradually it resolved, albeit distorted, as if through a fish-eye lens. Obsim saw a small group of armed invaders moving through the corridors on foot. There were males and females among them, outfitted in helmets, body armor, visual and audio scanners. The Inorganic remained in its place of concealment and allowed them to pass by unharmed.
"There is a second group," the computer announced. "Closer than the first. In the area where the Tiresians' transmissions originated."
That place had not been found; the Inorganics had instead given chase to the Tiresians themselves.
"They entered the way the others left," Obsim speculated. "Could they be in league?"
The brain assessed the probability and flashed the results in the communicator sphere.
Obsim made a disgusted sound. "As I feared. They must be stopped."
"Activating the Inorganics will substantially weaken the shield," the brain said, second-guessing Obsim's command.
"Do it anyway." The scientist straightened his thick neck, allowing him to regard the room's distant ceiling. "Let them waste their firepower battering us from above, while we destroy their forces below."

"Puppies?" Wolff repeated, exchanging puzzled glances with the radioman. "Ask him to clarify."
Quist listened for a moment. "She says they look like little sheepdogs, sir, except there's something funny about their eyes and they've got some kind of horns. Sounds like there's a whole bunch of 'em."
"You can hear them?"
"Yes, sir."
Wolff pressed the headset to his ear and heard a chorus of shrill barks. "Sounds like they're crying," he commented. "Verify their position. Tell them to sit tight."
Aware that the external links were down, Wolff sent a runner back to the entrance, then gave the signal for the team to move out. His group had encountered nothing but mile after mile of corridor and serviceway, with the occasional cavernous room to break the monotony. By all accounts they were well beneath the Royal Hall, but they had yet to locate a way up. The B team, however, had wandered into a tight maze of even smaller tunnels, and were now in what their lieutenant described as a database lab. That's where they found the puppies.
Half an hour later the two teams reunited.
It was indeed a computer room, consoles and screens galore, but the lieutenant's "puppies" were anything but. The creatures remained huddled together in one corner of the lab, screaming their sad song, loath, it appeared, to leave their spot.
"Sir, I tried to pick one of them up and it just seemed to disappear right out of my arms," the lieutenant told Wolff.
He gave her a dubious look and was about to try for himself when the voice of one of the corridor sentries rang out.
"We've got movement, people! From all directions!"
Wolff studied the motion-detector display briefly. There was a wider corridor two hundred yards left of the lab that led almost straight to the entrance, with a two or three jags thrown in. He dispatched a second runner with instructions for the tankers, and began to hurry everyone along toward the corridor.
"The...things, sir, do we leave them?"
Wolff glanced into the room at the Pollinators' whiteshag pile. "They're probably just Tirol's way of saying `rat.' Now let's move!"