"ss - Breath's a Ware That Will Not Keep 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Monteleone Thomas F)

"I can't believe that's really you talking. I always thought you were different from the rest of them. You acted like you had more understanding, more compassion . . ."
"You make it sound like I'm against you," he said defensively.

"Perhaps you're not. But you've got to tell them that I'll stop anybody who tries to get near me. Even kill them if necessary." Feraxya's voice in his mind was sharp, cutting deeply into his skull like a bright razor.

"And you're telling me about understanding, about compassion? Feraxya, what's happening to you?" Inwardly, he reviewed her last words. What was this talk about killing? If her mind was going, Barstowe would have to know about it.

"I can't help it, Benjamin. It's something that I feel deep inside. Something that we've almost forgotten about. The instincts, the drive that a mother feels to protect her children."

"They're not your children," he said vindictively.

"They were given to me. They're mine." There was a long pause. "I don't want to argue with you. Please, go tell them what I've said."

Cipriano exhaled slowly. "All right. I'll see Barstowe, but I don't think it'll do any good."

He waited for her to reply, but when she didn't, he switched off the communications channel and pulled the helmet from his head. He keyed in Barstowe's office, but the lines were all jammed with other calls. Wanting to get the matter finished as quickly as possible, he left the booth and walked to the elevators that would take him to Barstowe's office level.

After the Superior was given a reconstruction of the conversation, he shook his head as if in disbelief. "Nothing like this has ever happened before," the man said.

"Well, what do we do about it?" asked Cipriano.

"Do!" cried Barstowe. "We don't have to do anything about it. We just ignore that crap and go on with the operation. You can tell her she'll be getting a new implantation as soon as possible."

Cipriano paused, still thinking about what she had said to him. He looked at Barstowe and spoke again: "What about that bit about `killing' people?"

Barstowe laughed. "Just a threat . . . a very stupid one at that."

"You don't think she's more powerful than we've imagined, do you?"

"What're you getting at?" Barstowe stared at him with cold, penetrating eyes that looked like oiled ball bearings.

"I don't know," said Cipriano. "I just can't figure out why she'd talk like that. It's not like her."

"Well, we don't have time to worry about it. For now-" Barstowe was interrupted by the buzzer on his communicator. He answered it, and saw a white helmeted Bioneer on the screen. They spoke for several seconds, then the screen darkened out. "That was Stander. They're about ready to get started. I want you down there. You can tell her what was said up here."

Cipriano nodded and left the office. When he returned to his console, he could see the surgical team approaching Feraxya's Tank. He put on the helmet and opened the channel to her mind. "They wouldn't listen," he said. "They're coming now. Pretty soon you'll be going under anesthesia. I'm sorry, Feraxya."

"Don't be sorry, Benjamin," was all she said. There was something chilling in the way she had touched his mind. The familiar warmness had vanished, and Cipriano felt the first twinges of terror icing in his spinal cord.

A Bioneer approached the console and prepared to administer the anesthesia. Outside the booth, Cipriano could see the surgical team as they reached the glassteel wall of the Tank. Suddenly the man next to him threw back his head and uttered a brief scream. The man tried to press his hands to his head just as blood began to stream from his nose and the corners of his mouth; his eyes bulged out, unseeing, and he slumped over the console, dead from a massive cerebral hemorrhage Cipriano rushed over to him, but there was nothing that could be done.

Next to the Breeder Tank, the three men of the surgical team were waiting for the anesthesia to take effect. One of them had begun scaling the wall of the
Tank, but he never made it. Falling backward, the man landed on his back as he struggled with his suit's helmet, he convulsed for several seconds and then lay still. The remaining two surgeons rushed to his aid, but had taken only a few steps before they too were struck down by some unseen, killing force.

Cipriano watched their death throes as alarms wailed through the corridors. Suddenly people were scrambling all around him. Two parameds ran into the Breeder Tank Area and were also brought down screaming and convulsing. Benjamin stepped back from the booth window, feeling a pit form at the base of his stomach. He flipped on the screen and punched for Barstowe's office. "Something's happened to the team!" he yelled before the picture materialized. "Barstowe! Can you hear me?"

The Superior's face appeared on the screen. "I know! What's going on down there? The intercom's going crazy!"

"I don't know," said Cipriano. "I don't know!"