"John Ringo - Sister Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

Two sharp yanks to the line and the pack began ascending out of sightтАФnow it was Harrison's problem.
Once she got the glass oval seated back in the window, she took a ballpoint pen out of her evening bag.
The pen extruded a thin line of silicon-based adhesive and nannites around the cut piece. The window
would heal in about a day. After that, it would take a very sophisticated forensic analysis to tell that there
had ever been any damage. Well, okay, there was a slightly larger bead of goo where she'd had to shake
the pen. Damn thing was almost empty. Still, it was the next best thing to untraceable. When she was
done, the pen went back into the tiny evening bag with her lip gloss, a pack of Kleenex, a comb, an
assorted handful of fedcreds, and the ubiquitous slimline PDA that nobody who was anybody went
anywhere without. The decoy nano-generator code keys were in a hidden pocket. It wouldn't pass close
scrutiny, but then, as she wasn't on the guest list tonight, neither would she.


She'd chosen this office because the suite had an internal stairwell access, and the door was right outside
this one. The office door was ajar, and she ghosted through the opening without needing to lay a finger on
it. The door to the stairs was another matter. She opened it with a tissue, crumpling it and tucking it back
in her purse. As she climbed the stairs to the 32nd floor, she glanced briefly at her watch and sighed,
slipping off her shoes so she could pick up the pace without sounding like a herd of elephants.


The last half flight of stairs, she froze, foot halfway down onto the next stair. Talking in the hall. The
Darhel was late leaving his room. The sound was muffled enough that without her enhanced hearing she
wouldn't have heard it at all through the heavy stairwell door. With enhancement she still couldn't make
out the words. Just that it sounded like a command, followed by the shrill, piping acknowledgment of an
Indowy servant. After a few moments she heard the bell of the arriving elevator, and she strained to hear
the opening of the doors, and their closing.


Cally glanced at her watch,Damn. Time's gonna be tight. She crept the rest of the way up the stairs,
pausing to slip her shoes back on before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. This part of
the building was immaculately maintained. The carpet was new, and the walls smelled of fresh paint. She
passed a picture of a lighthouse, in a gilt frame, as she counted three doors down and retrieved the gas
grenade from inside her dress.


The Posleen had reduced Earth from a thriving civilization of five billion down to about one billion
refugees, barbarians, and Galactics' lackeys. The six-legged carnosauroid aliens were immune to every
hostile chemical agent the humans or Galactics had been able to envision. Likely, they were immune to
quite a few things nobody but the half-legendary Aldenata had envisioned. Fortunately, the Indowy were
more vulnerable. Particularly, they were vulnerable to the general anesthesia agent in the grenade. She
opened the door just long enough to toss it in, pulling it closed and waiting outside.


Non-lethal and scentless except for a vanishingly faint chemical-lavender smell, the gas was harmless to
humans and persistent enough to be readily detected later. The thing she liked best about it was that one
of the breakdown products was a common Darhel allergen and tended to give them avery nasty
rashтАФabout three days later. She watched the second hand on her watch tick off thirty seconds before
going in.


Inside, one of the first things she noticed was a holographic display which sat on an antique mahogany