"Miller.and.Lee.-.Liaden.Universe.-.The.Tomorrow.Log" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Steve)

CHAPTER ONE

His name was Gem and he was a thief.
With stealth and in utter silence, he slipped down the darkened hallway to the door he sought. Gently, he brought the specially etched glove from his shirt and laid it, palm-flat, against the lockplate.
The door sighed gustily as it opened, and Gem crouched, ears straining to catch the slightest hint of unrest from the household slumbering about him.
Silence in all parts of the house. The telltale on his wrist showed no surge of energy, as from the triggering of a remote alarm. The room itself was dark, slightly cool and smelling of must. Gem slid the infraglasses down over his eyes and stepped inside.
His information from here forward was nerve-wrackingly vague, so he went slowly, alert to the possibility of pressure-sensitive tiles, sending the tiny electronic spiders ahead of him, step by cautious step, until he was at the case itself, and never an alarm had been raised.
A less wary man, or a thief yet short of mastering the craft, might have grinned his triumph here, and laid his hands upon the case. Gem hunkered down before it, adjusted the lenses to maximize detail and began a painstaking study of the frame and the shatterproof crystal, while the little spiders perched on his shoulders and clung to his hair.
Close scrutiny revealed no trip-wires or alarm-grids; readout from his wrist was uncompromisingly flat. Gem frowned and sat back on his heels, mindful of the passing of time; mindful, too, of the value of the object within the case, which none but a moonling would allow to sit, all unguarded, except for the laughable outside intruder-net.
Mordra El Theman was no moonling, despite that Gem was even now well within her house, with neither her invitation nor her permission. He stared at the case and that which was within the case, felt the skittering of spider claws at his nape and frustration in his heart.
The case was not booby trapped, unless the trap was so sophisticated that the very advanced equipment he carried on his person detected no hint.
Gem stood up and lifted the lid, carefully locked it in the raised position and was still, barely breathing, ears strained to the ultimate, eyes on the telltale.
All was quiet in the house; the readout showed not even the tiniest spike of energy that might be a cry of warning to the police.
He bent his attention to the object of his desire, minutely, and found no webs of light or wire indicating that it was itself a trap. He sent a spider to perch on the rosette rim. It glided down the gilded, arching side to the floor of the case and discovered no pressure-plate there.
The same spider clambered back up to the lip of the urn and slipped down inside, suspended by a line of synthetic silk. Its tiny half-chip brain sent impressions to the telltale, which refined them for the man's understanding.
There was something within the urn, but not yet the alarm he had begun to hope for.
Instead, his instruments showed something organic; unalive; uncontagious. Gem called the spider home, barely noticing as it climbed across his hand and took a firm grip on his sleeve. No alarms. None. Unbelievable.
Unbelieving, Gem extended a plas-gloved hand and curled his fingers around the urn's neck.
Revulsion erupted within him; revulsion and a fear so consummate that his heartbeat spiked, sweat beading his face, sheathing his body; his bladder threatened to fail and he shook so hard that three of the spiders fell from their perches to the floor and scrambled to ascend his trousers.
Terror built, firing his imagination so that he heard the whole household roar awake and come running toward this room; and heard sirens in the front court; felt the irons already on his wrist-
"Ah!"
Barely a sound at all, loud in his fevered ears, he bit his lip to keep another from escaping, jerked his hand away from the urn, brought the lid clumsily down and went across the room in a stumbling shamble. Instinct alone closed the door; sheer animal wiliness got him silently down the long, darkened hall and to the window he had breached; the stem discipline that made him a master craftsman closed that window and erased all signs of his entry.
He reached the street, heart still stuttering, shivering as the sweat dried and the dawn breezes found him; and he walked for a long time, rubbing the hand that had touched the thing down his thigh, over and over, as if the palm were burned.


CHAPTER TWO

Two days later, he was at Iliam's, admiring the view and a certain aquamarine necklace, when a man stepped to his side and lightly touched his sleeve.
"Gem ser Edreth?"
He turned slowly, for the voice was not familiar, nor, once faced, was the man: Tallish, stocky, middleaged and genteel; exactly the sort of person one expected to find at Iliam's Curiosity Shop of an afternoon.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," he murmured, smiling courteously and slipping his sleeve away from the other's fingers.
The man bowed slightly. "I have come from Saxony Belaconto," he said softly. "She greatly desires a favor from your honor."
"I am, of course, overwhelmed by the lady's condescension, but I am not in the habit of doing favors."
"Ms. Belaconto," said the genteel individual smoothly, "repays her favors-generously."
"I would not have thought otherwise," Gem answered; "and I am desolate to disappoint her. If it were anything but a life-rule, sir, laid down to me by Edreth himself ... Convey my very heartfelt regret to your lady, and my certainty that she will easily find another able to oblige her
The man's face showed that which might not be considered quite genteel; then he was bowing, as others came to admire the aquamarine necklace.
"Good-day, sir," he said tightly.
"Good-day," said Gem, and moved off to look at the other displays.
He did steal the aquamarine set. Later, he wondered if it had been an omen.

The second contact was less auspicious: two burly individuals, conspicuously armed, waiting in the dimness of Third Noon, blocking the narrow courtway to his house.
"Gem ser Edreth," snapped the burlier of the two. He bowed, trying not to measure his slightness against their bulk; or to weigh his skill with the sorl-knife against their probable accuracy with the jutting rapid-fires.
"Gentles."
"Ms. Belaconto sent us. You know why." The slimmer of the pair held a truncheon, which she slapped rhythmically against her palm. Gem stared at her with what coldness he could muster and the bully hesitated; glared.
"I was told," he said to the spokesman, "that Ms. Belaconto desired a favor. I have already explained that I could not oblige her. Henron houses several members of my profession-and Zelta is not that far to send, if no one on-world meets the lady's requirements."
"Ms. Belaconto wants you," the one with the truncheon said, and grinned. "She said to hurt you, if you weren't-obliging."
"Oh, nonsense," he snapped. "What possible good would it do to beat me? If I agreed to accommodate your mistress at the end of it, I'd hardly be in shape to fulfill my guarantee. And if I still refused-even if you killed me!-she would be faced with the same problem. I cannot believe the Vornet is as inefficient as that!"
The truncheon-holder blinked and turned to her partner, who sighed. "That's right. But we could hurt you without hurting you, if you take my meaning."
Gem shook his head, mentally working the moves; measuring how far they stood from the door to his house; measuring how far he might be able to run.
"If you're going to beat me," he said irritably, "then get on with it; but I assure you my answer will be no different at the end than it is now: My sincere apologies to your mistress, but I simply cannot oblige her."