"Michael Swanwick - Tin Marsh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

walker could easily handle. Or she could keep on ahead, up the canyon.

Which way should she go?

Upslope.

She set the walker on auto-run.

Meanwhile, she studied the maps. The free satellite downloads were very
good. They werenтАЩt good enough. They showed features down to three meters
across, but she needed to know the land yard-by-yard. That crack-like little
rilleтАФdid it split two kilometers ahead, or was there a second rille that didnтАЩt quite
meet it? She couldnтАЩt tell. SheтАЩdтАЩve gladly paid for the premium service now, the
caviar of info-feed detailed enough to track footprints across a dusty stretch of
terrain. But with her uplink disabled, she couldnтАЩt.

Patang ducked into a rille so narrow her muscle suitтАЩs programming would
have let her jump it, if she wished. It forked, and she took the right-hand branch.
When the walls started closing in on them, she climbed up and out. Then she ran,
looking for another rille.

Hours passed.

After a time, all that kept her going was fear. She drew her legs up into the
torso of her suit and set it to auto-run. Up this canyon. Over this ridge. Twisting,
turning. Scanning the land ahead, looking for options. Two directions she might go.
Flip a mental coin. Choose one. Repeat the process. The radio was line-of-sight so
MacArthur couldnтАЩt use it to track her. Keep moving.

Keep moving.

Keep moving...

****

Was it hours that passed, or days? Patang didnтАЩt know. It might have been
weeks. In times of crisis, the suit was programmed to keep her alert by artificial
stimulation of her brain. It was like an electrical version of amphetamines. But, as
with amphetamines, you tended to lose track of things. Things like your sense of
time.

So she had no idea how long it took her to realize that it was all no use.
 The problem was that the suit was so damned heavy! If she ran fast enough to
keep her distance from MacArthur, it left a trace in the regolith obvious enough to be
followed at top speed. But if she slowed down enough to place her walkerтАЩs feet on
bare stone when she could, and leave subtle and easy-to-miss footprints when she
couldnтАЩt, he came right up behind her. And try though she might, she couldnтАЩt get
far enough ahead of him to dare slow down enough to leave a trace he couldnтАЩt
follow.