"Andre Norton - Ross Murdock 03 - The Defiant Agents" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

14: The Foanna
15: Return to the Battle
16: The Opening of the Great Door
17: Shades Against Shadow
18: World in Doubt?

- Chapter 1
The Defiant Agents
1
No windows broke the four plain walls of the office; no sunlight shone on
the desk there. Yet the five disks set out on its surface appeared to glow
-- perhaps the heat of the mischief they could cause . . . had caused . . .
blazed in them. But fanciful imaginings did not change cold, hard fact. Dr.
Gordon Ashe, one of the four men peering unhappily at the display, shook his
head slightly as if to free his mind of such cobwebs. His neighbor to the
right, Colonel Kelgarries, leaned forward to ask harshly: "No chance of a
mistake?"
"You saw the detector." The thin gray man behind the desk answered with
chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have definitely been
snooped."
"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important point
now.
"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the
gray man. Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every
possible precaution was in force. There was a sleeper -- a hidden agent --
planted -- "
"Who?" Kelgarries demanded. Ashe glanced around at his three companions --
Kelgarries, colonel in command of one sector of Project Star, Florian
Waldour, the security head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven . . .
"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had led
him. Waldour nodded.
It was the first time since he had known and worked with Kelgarries that
Ashe saw him display open astonishment.
"Camdon? But he was sent by -- " The colonel's eyes narrowed. "He must have
been sent. . . . There were too many cross checks to fake that!"
"Oh, he was sent, all right." For the first time there was a note of emotion
in Waldour's voice. "He was a sleeper, a very deep sleeper. They must have
planted him a full twenty-five or thirty years ago. He's been just what he
claimed to be as long as that."
"Well, he certainly was worth their time and trouble, wasn't he?" James
Ruthven's voice was a growling rumble. He sucked in thick lips, continuing
to stare at the disks. "How long ago were these snooped?"
Ashe's thoughts turned swiftly from the enormity of the betrayal to that
important point. The time element -- that was the primary concern now that
the damage was done, and they knew it.
"That's one thing we don't know." Waldour's reply came slowly as if he hated
the admission.
"We'll be safer, then, if we presume the very earliest period." Ruthven's
statement was as ruthless in its implications as the shock they had had when
Waldour announced the disaster.