"Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 01 - Emerald Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

but I was being closely followed by an enemy who had promised to cut my heart out and eat itтАФand I rather
believed Camber Tremodian would do just exactly that, given the chance.
I did not intend to give him the chance. At the fast end of time I hurried through the slow air.

Monday, December 11, 2029; the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratories,
in New Jersey.

He arrived from Capital City just before eight o'clock; security let Darryl Amnier into Suzanne Montignet's
office more than two hours early. They were uneasy, doing it.
But they did it nonetheless.
He sat behind her desk, in her chair, with the lights dimmed. A small man, with paper-white hair and
wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made him look far older than he was, he found Montignet's chair
slightly too high for his taste. He did not readjust it. Her office had no window, which pleased him to the
degree that he ever allowed himself to be pleased. A crank with a rifle was that much less likely to bring
three quarters of a million Credit Units' worth of research grinding to a halt with a single shot.
The decor was standardized, little different from what Amnier had seen in over twenty other research
installations in the last four months. Amnier was not certain whether that surprised him or not. From a woman
of such exceptional skills, one might reasonably have expected anything.
The same comment, of course, might be made about Malko Kalharri, the director of security for the
installation.
An Information Network terminal, left turned on and connected to the Mead Data Central medical
database, sat at attention immediately next to her desk. Amnier made a note to find out what sort of bill the
laboratories were running up on the Network. An ornamental bookshelf against one wall held reference works
in too excellent condition. There were no holographs, not even of Colonel Kalharri, who was reputed to be her
lover. Nor were there paintings. The desk was locked. Amnier considered picking it, and decided not to. There
was unlikely to be anything inside that he would either understand or find incriminating, and whether he
opened it or not, Montignet was certain to suspect he had.

Which was the whole point.

The empty corridor in which I appeared connected the sterile genegineers' labs with the showers which
led to the unsterile outer world, on the first floor of the New Jersey Laboratories of the United Nations Bureau
of Biotechnology Research. The entrance to the genegineer's labs was through a small room with sealed
doorways at both ends. They were not airlocks, though the technology of the day was sufficient to allow the
use of airlocks; indeed, at the interface between the showers and the rest of the installation airlocks were in
use. But it was cheaper to keep the laboratories under a slight overpressure; when the door opened, the
wind, and any contaminants, blew outward.
The door swung wide, and a pair of laboratory technicians in white gowns and gloves strode through. The
resemblance between their garb and mine brought the ghost of a smile to my lips.

As they left, I, the god Named Storyteller, entered.
 Suzanne Montignet stopped by Malko Kalharri's office on the way to her own. The lights in his office had
not yet been turned on that morning. Entering the room from the brightly lit hallway, Suzanne found it difficult
even to see Kalharri at first.
"Malko?"
"Yes?" The office lacked a desk; the man who was sprawled loosely on the couch, one oversized hand
wrapped loosely around a steaming coffee cup, did not look away from the holo tank in the corner of his
office. Kalharri did not resemble his name, which he had received by way of his grandfather; he was a big
blond man with a tan. The channel light glowed at 35: S-STR, the political news station.
"What's happening?"