"NORTON, Andre- Night Of Masks (1964)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

She did not meet his gaze but glanced at Leeds, her soberness somehow a warning. And then she turned abruptly and left the .room. Nik, puzzled, looked to the captain for enlightenment.

"What-?" And this time it was the other who would not meet Nik eye to eye.

He went back to the mirror, drew one hand down its glistening surface, and saw those fingertips meet the ones in the mirror reflection. So, that was he-no trickery there. But still something was wrong. His hand sought his face, not to mask it this time but to reassure himself by touch as well as by sight that there was firm brown skin there, flesh unscarred, bone no longer missing. He could see, he could feel-

"What is wrong?" Nik turned to stand before Leeds, making that demand with a fear all the keener because of his exhilaration of moments earlier.

"We had months to do a job that might have taken more than a year," Leeds said slowly, "three months lacking a few days. Gyna is not sure it will last unless"-now he did meet Nik's gaze-"unless you can get back into her hands within another two months, Korwar-planet time."

"But, you mean it will be the old story-no growth flesh-?" Nik dared not face his reflection again. That first blasting failure had occurred years ago, and he had been too young then to grasp the horror of what was happening. But now- now he would know!

"No," Leeds replied quickly, "this was done by another technique altogether. Gyna is sure it would have succeeded with the right time element; now she cannot be sure. You may need a tightening process to recover any slip. But it will hold long enough for you to do the job. Then you'll come back here for the checkup."

"You'll swear to that?" Nik's rising fear was like a shaking sickness.

Leeds' hands held onto his shoulders. He stood tense and taut in that grip. "Nik, I'll swear by anything you want to name that we'll keep this promise-providing you deliver. The Guild takes care of its own."

There was enough truth in that to allay the icy fear a little. Nik knew the reputation of the organization-it was loyal to its own.

"All right. But in two months-"

"You'll have plenty of time. You start today, and you have all that you need right here." The captain lifted one hand from Nik's shoulder and tapped him in the middle of his forehead.

That was true. During the time he was being turned into Hacon outwardly, all the information gathered by snoopers had been fed into his mind by hypo-induction. Everything Vandy had created in Hacon and about Hacon was in Nik's mind, including the approach that would best entice Vandy into the needed adventure.

"When?"

"Right now," Leeds answered.

Nik had not been out of the suite of rooms for days, probably weeks, but the captain took him now with a sense of hurry that Nik's own need built. How long would Hacon last? Would he fail in his task and so lose everything? Yet the meeting with Vandy could not be too hurried; the boy's suspicions must not be aroused. Nik knew everything about Vandy that the snooper tapes could tell, but that did not mean he knew Vandy.

"You have all any induction can give you." Leeds did not sound in the least worried as they went down one of the long corridors that Nik knew were underground. "It's been so well planted in your mind that you can't make a wrong move, even if you wanted to. Just get him into the LB-"

"But when we get there-on that other planet?"

"No need to worry about that. The setup on Dis has been in order for months. You'll have all the help you need there."

They came out not on the roof of the gray-green house this time but on a hillside, where a cluster of rocks and a fringe of bushes had concealed the opening. There was a small glade in which a flitter waited, another man already aboard. That flier had an odd shimmer about its outline, a light that made Nik's eyes smart and forced him to look away quickly. Some other trick device for its concealment, he decided. Leeds climbed in and took the controls, proving that the flier was not on a set flight pattern. "Set?" Leeds asked of the other passenger. The man consulted the timekeeper on his wrist. His lips moved as if he counted; then he snapped his fingers, and on that signal the flitter bounced into the air under a full spurt of power. They were out of the masking greenery and flying into the wilderness beyond the fringe of the city.

"Correct course and speed," the man behind Leeds ordered. "Two-four-hold it!"

The flier bore on. They lifted over the first range of hills, and Nik looked down into a tangled mass of vegetation. Then he caught a glimpse of red stone walls surrounding a solid-looking building.

The flitter came about in order to approach the building from another direction.

"What about the LB?" Nik dared to ask. How could they have planted any craft as large as a space lifeboat undetected by the guards below?

"It's ready." Leeds appeared to have full confidence in that.