"S. M. Stirling - Draka 03 - The Stone Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

and mustache, conservatively dressed in indigo velvet and white
lace. There was no impatience in his posture, leaning back at his
ease in one of the two dozen swivel chairs that lined the little
auditorium. Still, the woman in the white lab coat flushed
slightly, coughed to cover it; her fingers moved on the controls.

"Well," she said. Her vowels had a rather crisp tone, an East
African accent; she had been born in these highlands. "Well, here
are the recordings of the chimp results."

The screen blanked for a moment and split. "The left is our
control sample, an' the right is the Series 24 D group."

Two enclosures, sealed under glass but green with flowers and
trees, like giant terrarias. The left showed a group of
chimpanzees foraging, grooming, playing; one male reared up on
his hind legs and then ran screaming down a slope, flailing the
ground with a bamboo, a threat display. On the right, nearly the
same.

"This is an hour after the introduction of the activating
factor; yo' understand, there has to be stress fo' the altered
enzyme chain toтАж Ah, here."

One of the chimps in the right-hand group had snatched a
palm-heart from her neighbor. The victim rolled back and bared
her teeth, then suddenly leaped. Both animals went over in a blur
of limbs and grass and shrieking.

"This is highly atypical, yo' see. Chimps do fight to the death,
but very seldomтАФyes." The victor had risen, the blunt
almost-human face wet with blood; she was dancing on the
dying animal's form, with leaps and arm-waving. The others
were visibly agitated, hooting and moving back and forth in
distress. Then two more began to fight; a mother picked up her
infant and slammed it on the ground, over and over, until a big
male leapt on her back and began tearingтАж

The Senator watched, stony-faced amid his silent aides. The
plainly-clad woman at the heart of the other clump laughed
aloud. A minute passed, and nothing living remained on the
right-hand screen. To the left, a picture of the innocence before
the birth of man.

"It seems," he said, "that yo've been makin' progress, Doctor."

She nodded eagerly." 'Specially since yo' got us the new
computer," she said, one hand caressing the row of pens in her
breast pocket with a nervous gesture.