"Steve Perry - Matador 03 - The Machiavelli Interface" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

that Khadaji wore a disguise, that none of the students ever saw his face."
Wall leaned back in his form-chair and sighed as he watched the pale silk
sheet over his head. "True. But I'm afraid I can't let you go, Cteel. You see, I
know about your plan to ally yourself with Venture." He looked at the other
man. "The Confed hasn't collapsed yet, and when it does, I still plan to be the
supreme power in whatever is left, old friend. You should have known that,
after all this time. Oh, I understand your thoughtsтАФthe Military will be a
factor, to be sureтАФbut I'm afraid I can't allow such an alliance to take place.
It would upset the balance I'm striving to achieve."
Realization dawned on Cteel. Wall admired how well he took it.
"The kik-dust."
"I'm afraid so," Wall said. "I am not a cruel man, Cteel. It will be painless;
quite enjoyable actually, so I'm told. And you'll have several hours for last
minute good-byes, that sort of thing."
Cteel managed to smile. "Well. Thank you for that, Marcus. You do
understand it was not personal?"
"Of course." That might well be a lie, but Wall preferred to pretend to
believe it.
"I won't take any more of your time." Cteel rose and moved to kiss Wall's
hand.
Wall decided, for the sake of old memories, to allow Cteel a final victory.
He stretched out his hand and allowed the man to take it. He hardly felt the
jab of Cteel's sharpened fingernail against his palm, and he pretended to take
no notice of the new light in Cteel's smile. "Farewell, old friend," Wall said.
"And you, old friend."
After Cteel was gone, Wall called his vouch from its tether, to check on the
scratch. The servomechanism inspected the cut with its sensors, bonded the
skin, and pronounced Wall unharmed. Poor Cteel thought his nail carried
slow-acting neurotoxin; in fact, his biomed tech had worked for Wall for
years, and the nail was laced with nothing more than a mild antiseptic. It
wasn't so much for Wall to do, to let his old friend think he'd been revenged.
He was, after all, The Wall: he could afford to be generous to a dead man.

TWO

EMILE ANTOON KHADAJI sat on a slab of silicon, staring at the inside of
a room that seemed carved from that same material. An interesting cell, he
decided. The rubbery substance was hard enough so that it could not be torn
and, say, stuffed into one's mouth, if suicide by choking might be desired. At
the same time, the silicon was soft enough so that it would take a very
determined effort for a prisoner to effect self-damage. He could, he supposed,
stand on the chunk that served as bed and chair and dive headfirst at the
floor. With his head tilted just so, it might be possible for him to break his
neck. Such would do him little good, Khadaji knew. A military-issue vouch
no doubt prowled outside the doorтАФitself hidden under layers of siliconтАФ
and it would be inside at the slightest hint of physical danger to the cell's
occupant. Probably ultrasound telemetry fed the vouch Khadaji's vital signs,
but they might be using Doppler.
Khadaji grinned at unseen watchers. Suicide wasn't on his mind. Oh, there
were risks to being here, but calculated ones. He had, after all, given himself