"Alastair Reynolds - A Spy In Europa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

need illumination. "I'm sure the usual will suffice."



The elevator slowed into immigration.

Demarchy guards hefted big guns, but no one took any interest in him. His

story about coming from Mars was accepted; he was submitted to only the

usual spectrum of invasive procedures: neural and genetic patterns scanned

for pathologies, body bathed in eight forms of exotic radiation. The final

formality consisted of drinking a thimble of chocolate. The beverage

consisted of billions of medichines which infiltrated his body, searching

for concealed drugs, weapons and illegal biomodifications. He knew that

they would find nothing, but was relieved when they reached his bladder

and requested to be urinated back into the Demarchy.

The entire procedure lasted six minutes. Outside, Vargovic followed a

slitherwalk to the city zoo, and then barged through crowds of

schoolchildren until he had arrived at the aquarium where Cholok was meant

to meet him. The exhibits were devoted to Europan biota, most of which

depended on the ecological niches of the hydrothermal vents, carefully

reproduced here. There was nothing very exciting to look at, since most

Europan predators looked marginally less fierce than hatstands or

lampshades. The commonest were called ventlings; large and structurally

simple animals whose metabolisms hinged on symbiosis. They were pulpy,

funnelled bags planted on a tripod of orange stilts, moving with such

torpor that Vargovic almost nodded off before Cholo arrived at his side.
She wore an olive-green coat and tight emerald trousers, projecting a haze

of medicinal entoptics. Her clenched jaw accentuated the dourness he had