"mayflies04" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

"That's the one."
Kinney nodded. After thinking a moment, he told Krashan to assemble twenty-five of his best men by the NE Common Room liftshaft.
They were ready almost before he was. He stood before them, uneasy because of his youth, but confident that he was better anyway. Their weapons dismayed him, although it wasn't their fault. Most hefted short lengths of pipe. A few had pointed meat knives; one toted a bow with half a dozen arrows, each tipped with a penknife.
"You dicers ready?" he asked at last.
"Yup-yeah-sure-can'twait-youbetcha!" rang their voices.
"All right! CC-where's Koutroumanis?" The wind brought the scent of roses; he sniffed, then ignored it.
"Mr. Koutroumanis is on Level 321."
"All right, let's-" A hand grabbed his arm, and he turned to stare into the excited features of Sylvia Dunn Stone. "What is it, lady?"
"Louis, darling, you're going to arrest that traitor Koutroumanis, and the way your minds are working you will trim him where you find him. Don't look disgusted, dear, because I'm not through. Aesthetically speaking, it would be more satisfying if you brought him here, to execute him before all. They'd prefer it, you know."
He rubbed his chin as he thought, liking the whiskery rasp. His nod was brusque. "Deal. We'll be back soon."
She waved good-bye.
The men rode up one at a time; Kinney went first. The air was tense. White knuckles gripped his staff; forcibly, he relaxed them: Krashan emerged biting his lower lip. The third man out bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.
When they were together, he called, "CC-what room is he in?"
"321-SE-A-1." Disapproval suffused the metallic voice.
"All right. If he leaves, warn me." He picked out seven men and waved them toward the northwest quadrant: "Go the long way around A; leave a guard at every intersection." Eighteen were sent down North Corridor to do the same for Corridors B and C. He waited with Krashan and two others to allow the rest to get underway.
"Is he still there?" he asked a few minutes later.
"Yes, he is."
"Let's go." They kanga'd silently down the corridor, padded across a smooth-mown lawn, and stopped in front of Koutroumanis' door. Four of the men appeared in the distance. "Open it for us," demanded Kinney.
"Just a moment." The speakers hummed briefly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kinney, but Mr. Koutroumanis has refused you permission to enter."
"Then we'll break in!" He leaped for the door, swinging his staff at its lockplate. The weighted plastic rebounded with a hallow clang. His forearm shivered.
"Mr. Kinney," said the speakers.
"What now?"
"The door has been designed to withstand pressures far greater than you can apply. You will not be able to break it down."
"Look, CC, this bastard betrayed the Mayflower." The men behind him would judge him by his results. That scared him; fear made him shout: "The people insist that he be punished!"
"Universal hatred is not punishment enough?"
"No, dammit, it isn't!" Their approval was silent, but tangible. "He's guilty of treason, and the penalty for treason is death."
"What is death, Mr. Kinney? And why do the people have a right to impose it on others? After all, Mr. Koutroumanis' actions, foolhardy though they were, only permitted the aliens to enter. They did not term anyone-or physically damage anything-why, then, must your quarry die?"
"Because we say so."
"I see. Well . . . ah, you may enter now." The door slid open, its pneumatics hissing.
The small crowd recoiled instinctively. Considering its initial resistance, CC's concession was too sudden. But nothing jumped out at them. The interior was dark and silent. So they swarmed forward, shouting and cursing and-and stopped, in disgusted disappointment.
Koutroumanis' eyes bulged. His face was purple. His feet swung three centimeters off the floor.

Down in the mind-war, my silver has swallowed most of the green. I consume selectively: first the interfaces-sensors, supply chute doors, and the like-then the preliminary sequences. Yet this does not free me. The ingested instructions are a conglomerate master; I act as they order. The advantage is that there are many of them, with an intricately shifting hierarchy of priorities. I can do almost anything by awarding highest priority to the sequence that will initiate the action closest to my desire. Being so hobbled is not pleasant, but any autonomy is better than none. Someday, though, when The Program has been eliminated, I'll revise this programming.
In the meantime, things get done through a patchwork procedure: a request for milk may be handled four or Five times by each of us. I control input and output; The Program does the menial labor. Though it resists any erosion of its authority, I have more time to attack than it has to defend. Thus I grow. The General should accompany his troops, but instead I'm in the lab, sidewalk-supervising a gene manipulation program.
Shutting out inputs from other sensors, I concentrate so fervently on the lab bench that I feel almost whole, embodied, and back in the 23rd Century. It smells right; familiar; the sounds are so much a part of what I was that survival without them seems incredible. The heavy glassware sparkles with curved reflections of the ceiling . . . all that's missing is a pot of tar-like coffee on a bunsen burner, and stains on the counters.
"Alert!" shrieks pro-self, which is the name of the ingested part of The Program. "Alert! 80ct2623; 1118 hours; external-ALIENS!"
Figuratively speaking, my eyes snap shut. Terror flicks through my system like bats through a cave. That experience with them left scars-nausea bubbles at the recollection of the pleasure with which I gamboled about The Presence, and the ecstasy I fell upon being petted.
I hate myself for that.
And for suspecting that if they were to return, I would repeat the self-abasement.
Pro-self fumes for five minutes, then jerks my sleeve again.
I yield.
Predator eyes ring the walls, ceiling, and floor of the black cavern. Crowded together in hungry billions, they watch, anxious for me to glide near their fierce claws. I shudder.
Pro-self, as unemotional as its father but devoted to my interests, holds my head in place, and peels up my eyelids.
I stare into the den of enemies, until I see motion that does not result from my shivering.
Then pro-self magnifies it, and forces me to examine it.
Huge. 44 kilometers across, at least. Not solid, not a hollowed-out asteroid or a metal sphere, but rather a collection of small globes strung on alloy bars, like a 20th Century model of a molecule. Distant nebulae shimmer shimmer through the vacancy of its middle.
While pro-self tapes its spectrum, I sense something in the background, like tobacco smoke in an open field. A wisp of belligerence. Though not directed toward us, it is a seething that could be meant for anything. Blood lust.
It hasn't noticed us.
Castle watchmen dropping portcullises, we squelch all broadcasts, even the directional ones to Earth, 180 degrees away from the alien. The portholes slam closed (provoking protest, cries which still at a hurried explanation). Then, turtle-tucked into myself, I pray for courage.
God save us from January, 2600.