"Smith, Kristine - [Kilian 2] - Rules of Conflict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Kristine)
Jani turned. "The Vynsha had taken the perimeter settlements by then. All they'd left to do was declare themselves 'rau' and send their Haarin advance troops into Rauta Sheraa to prepare the way. The Family members who'd supported the Laum were scrambling to realign themselves. Some pretty formidable names feared for their lives. You'd think Intelligence would have had their hands full getting them out of Rauta Sheraa alive."
Val sighed. "Yes, the Vynsha were exhibiting remarkably human vindictiveness, weren't they? I think Intelligence was concerned John, Eamon, and I were on the same short list. We were bad boys, remember? Turn ninety degrees, please."
Jani rotated slowly. The rough sensapad on which she stood made the soles of her feet itch. "Did you really think they'd have killed you?" She tried to shift her footing, but stopped when she heard Val grumble. "Nema considered the three of you esteemed enemies. A chief propitiator's regard should have been enough to save you."
Val huffed. "We had traveled pretty far into the land of forbidden knowledge by then. Besides, Nema was on his Temple's fecal roster. His regard and a vend token wouldn't have bought us a cup of coffee." A series of clicks sounded as he downloaded the screen data into the recorder. "All done. You can come out now."
Jani eased from behind the screen and reached to the floor for the crumpled medgown. The chill tile helped ease the burning on the bottoms of her feet, but before she could examine the damage, Val called to her.
"Let's have a look at those sweet baby jades of yours," he said as he wheeled the screen against the wall. "Strip off those eyefilms."
10 Kristine Smith
"My eyefilms?" Jani backed against the sinkstand. Her ankles prickled. She stifled a cough.
"What's the matter with you?" Val took a step closer. "What's wrong?"
Jani coughed again as her lungs filled with scancrete. "Can't breathe. My feetЧ" She slumped against the sink-stand. Black patches grew and faded before her eyes.
Val rushed to her. He knelt down, grasped her ankle, and snatched a glance at the bottom of her foot. Then he looked back at the sensapad. "Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it\" He hurried to the pad platform, tore the thin polymer film from its metal base, rolled it into a tight tube, and shoved it under his jacket and into the waistband of his trousers. Then he rushed to the door, pushing through the gap before it opened completely. "/ need a shockpack!"
He returned, dragging an equipment-laden skimcart; white coats streamed in after him like a flood of milk. Two of them lifted Jani onto the scanbed while Tellinn clipped a monitor relay to her ear. "Hurry the hell up, Val," he snapped. "Her oxygen saturation's dropping like a rock."
Prodded with probes, raked over by scanners, Jani watched the frantic bustle with growing disinterest. Her world had become one of deadened emotion, blurring color, choppy sound and motion. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Val work over her right arm, then felt the pinch of an injector. The heaviness in her chest eased, and she inhaled with a wheezy rattle.
"Blood pressure's up. A hundred over fifty-five." The source of the announcement, a silver-haired woman with chief of staff etched into her ID badge fixed Val with a glare. "What happened, Parini?"
Val's eyes locked with Jani's. They know, Jan, they said, as the once-glib mouth worked soundlessly. Sweat trickled down the face he'd copied for her, in a basement lab outside a war-torn alien city, when he and John and Eamon had learned enough about her to realize rebuilding her old one wasn't an option.
They know you 're here.
CHAPTER 2
"Here, drink this." Val refilled the cup and pushed it over to Jani's side of the table. "Now, while it's hot."
Jani eyed the black, foamy brew with distaste. John's coffee had always tasted like a gift from the gods. Val's, on the other hand. ... "Don't you think three cups are enough?" She belched quietly. "My stomach's going to go critical any second." She gazed longingly across the table at his iced lemonade. "I think we can ease up on the caffeineЧmy breathing's fine."
Val had returned to the bar, set in a sunken alcove in the middle of his spacious hotel room, and continued to rummage through coolers and cupboards. "Just keep drinkingЧ you're not out of the woods yet. Damn it, I injected you with enough adrenosol to punch a resistant male one and a half times your weight through the ceiling, and it just brought your blood pressure up into low-normal. I couldn't risk giving you more, not with all those expert witnesses around." He slammed the cabinet door.
"I got enough of the fish-eye as it was. 'Wasn't that dose a tad high, Val? What were you doing to her, anyway?' They know the story of the patient we patched together on Shera, and not all of them approved of our methods. I swear they all think I was experimenting on you, and it backfired. You'd think that damned augmentation of yours could have helped you out."
11
12 Kristine Smith
"You know Service augies only work in threatening situations." Jani fingered the tiny round scar on the back of her neck where skull met spine. The large bore canula of a ster-eotaxic headset had punched a hole there over twenty years ago, then injected the self-assembling components of her little passenger. "Discharge a shooter across my bow, I can get as frosty and functional as you please." Only then would the tiny glands adjacent to her amygdala release their reservoirs of pseudocatecholamines. Sharpen her wits. Ease her panic. Dull her pain.
Val returned to the table, the results of his explorations clutched in his hands. He piled all the stomach-settling food he could find, dispos of crackers and peppermint candies, by Jani's cup, then fell into the chair across from her. "I've got the head of Security running scan searches and background checks to see who the hell could have put the mat there. I'm not optimistic. It was either a Service or Cabinet plant, and they're probably off-world by now." He fumbled with a packet of crackers. "As for what was in it, I won't know for sure until I test it, and I can't test it properly until I get it home. Whatever it was, it had your number. You stood on it for no more than ten minutes, and the soles of your feet look like someone went after them with a strap."
Jani winced. Her heavily salved feet, encased in thick, truecotton booties, tingled with a maddening, itchy burn. The booties had been treated with anti-irritants and healing accelerants, but they couldn't work miracles. Walking promised to be a real treat for the next few days.
Wherever I happen to be. She checked her timepiece; six hours had elapsed since her episode. Most of that time had been spent in the office of Dr. Fanshul, the tart-tongued chief of staff, who had argued vehemently that it was in Jani's best interest to stay in the hospital overnight for observation. Val had put an end to the debate, and blown his cover in the process, by signing her out under his care. By the time all
RULES OF CONFLICT 13
the signatures were in place, half the facility knew something strange had happened on the seventy-second floor involving one of the "Big Three" and a mysterious "woman in white."
"So?" Val laid claim to one of the peppermints. "Have I fucked up your situation here sufficiently, or should I try for full-page adverts in tomorrow morning's newssheets?" He smiled broadly, his teeth and lips coated bright blue by the candy.
Jani knew he wanted to coax a smile out of her. Under different circumstances, it might have worked. "I have to get off-planet. Within the hour."
Val slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. "My ship's having some refit work done. It'll be ready in two days. Let me take youЧ"
"I can't wait two days."
"You better find a way. Face reality. You almost died. As things stand now, I can hear you breathe across the roomЧ that situation isn't going to change for days. And if you try to do much walking on those feet of yours, you risk a nasty infection."
"Can't you give me something to see me through?"
Val's expression grew pained. "Jan, I'm not sure how the drugs I have on hand would affect you. As you learned to your detriment in Chicago, your response to some common medications has become idiosyncratic." He stared moodily into his lemonade. "For all I know, there's nothing wrong with that sensapad. You may have simply developed a sensitivity to that particular biopolymer, and damn it, if exposure to something like that is enough to knock you for a loop, what else out there could affect you?"
"That's not your problem."
"Monkey's ass it's not my problem! YouЧ" Val fell silent. Jani could almost hear the click of a balance as he weighed his words. "Jan, your body is going through some changes right now. We know why, but the how, what, when, and where have us a little baffled." He looked at the ceiling, into the depths of his glass, everywhere but at her.
"Why can't you say it, Val?" Jani took another sip of coffee, and swallowed hard. "Eighteen years ago, you
14 Kristine Smith
patched me together with tissue manufactured from human and idomeni genetic material. You thought you'd deactivated most of the idomeni genes, but you hadn't. You thought you'd made it so I'd live for two hundred years, but you didn't stop to think what I might live as."
Val blinked rapidly. "Jani," he said, his voice cracking, "you're wrong."
"I'm hybridizing. I'm not human anymore, but I'm not idomeni either. I can eat Haarin spices that would blister the inside of your mouth, but some of their herbs and nuts go through me like poison. I can't drink human tea anymore. I can barely choke down anything sweet, but I can peel a lemon and eat it like you would an orange." Jani heard the tremor in her voice. When she tallied up the small thingsЧ that was when it scared her. "Nema was right. He said this would happen, that no matter how you tried to stop it, I would continue to change."
"Jani, Nema is a religious fanatic with an agenda as long as my arm. Let's leave your medical care to experts, shall we?"
"And which experts would those be, Val? The ones who got me into this mess in the first place?"
Val flinched as though she'd slapped him. The room lighting accentuated the lines near his mouth, signs of age Jani couldn't find around her own no matter how hard she looked. "Jani, we did the best we could for you."
"That you did, Val, that you did. Thanks to you, I have eyes that look like two corroded copper discs and eating habits that make people stare. I york my guts a couple times a week, and between the nausea and the shivery shakes, my every day is a joy. And let's not forget that this condition of mine has reinforced Nema's grand theory that I'm his heir apparent, which gives him the right to take charge of the rest of my life if I ever let him get his hands on me, which I don't believe I will, thank you!" She glared at the stricken man. "I've had time to think these past few months. Way too much time. I hate being this way and I didn't have a choice. And now that the Service and the Commonwealth
RULES OF CONFLICT 15
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