"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

A PLAGUE OF ANGELS 367

Gaddir child. Bred for this purpose. Well, the Gaddir child was meeting her destiny, and a high destiny it was.
"What do we do now'?" called Ander, interrupting her train of thought. Ellel caught at a handhold and answered absentmindedly. "We don't do anything until we get to the station. According to Dever, that will be two days from now. Even when we arrive, we don't have to do much. Our documents say the station has air, warmth, gravity, all supplied by solar power, so we don't need to worry about that. Our families will occupy the station while we inventory what's there and make decisions on what we'll bring back, but the walkers will do all the work." She moved herself about, enjoying the feel of it. She'd rehearsed this in her mind so many times, this floating, this flying.
Ander, watching her obvious enjoyment from the corner of his eye, thought it best not to mention the fact that his family had already studied the inventory and decided what to bring back. Every Artder on board was agreed about it.
"The workers will load the shuttle for us, will they? Before we go on to the moon'?"
"Exactly. The moon lander is removed when we get to the station. That gives us room in the shuttle for the--material from the station, and while some of the walkers are loading it, the others go down to the moon in the lander."
"How will you control them, Ellel? How will you give them commands'?" She shrugged. "There's a control box back in my cubicle. Mitty told me how to do it from the station. Then, later..." Her voice trailed off. Later she would do it from the moon itself. Later--after the earth was conquered! After the cities were brought under sway, and the forest tribes, and the people of Artemisia.
"How long until we get back'?"
"A few days," said Ellel. "Only a few."
"I hope those we left behind don't get into any mischief back there," Ander muttered. "I hope they don't make problems while we're gone."
Ellel stared through him. "They won't. They can't. I've set the walkers co box them in. Nobody in, nobody out. Aside from the fact they may be a bit hungry, everything will be just as we left it when we return "She yawned, unabl~ to control herself. "I told her, in there. I told her we had to get back safe, or her friends would be forfeit."
She turned and maneuvered her way back to the seat she had left, pausing en route to stare warily at Oily once more. Still nothing. Motionless. Like a machine.
She strapped herself into her chair. It would have been fun to bring Berkli along, but Oracle had confirmed Ellel's own instincts. This way would guarantee a better result. The Place was shut up behind her, and no one was


368

Sheri S. Tepper

able to do anything about it. There were only Ellels and Anders on the shuttle, including all those from either family who might have been likely to seize power in her absence. Virtually all. Forsmooth Ander had been too ill to come along, the old snake! The Anders were up to no good, obviously, but the walkers on the ship would control the Anders. The walkers on the ship were completely dependable. She'd been saving them for decades, just for this trip. They'd never been used for anything at all. The walkers back on earth would control the situation until she returned, and once she had the weapons from the space station in the hands of her own family, she'd put the Mittys where they belonged! In the shops, maintaining her walkers and her weapons! They were hers. Her imperial army. Just as she'd planned. In time, her family would learn to manufacture more of them.
She took from her pocket a slender booklet, its lined pages annotated in her own hand. The weapons that had been left behind in the space station when men went to the stars, noted from the inventory sheets in order of priority. Some massive, some small. It might take more than one trip to get them all. She read down the list again, the smudged lines as clear to her as though they were newly written. She knew them. In her mind she had held them, worked with them, used them against her enemies. The great laser cannons. The fusion guns. The sonic disrupters. The biologicals and chemicals, array after array of them. And all the lesser stuff, eyes to see with and ears to hear with and tiny devices that could kill leaving no trace...
She put the book away with an expression of slight distaste. All was going precisely as she had planned. Why then this feeling of vague disappointment? Perhaps because there was nothing to see except the dark. Like a night sky. There were stars, of course. And the sun, if you looked toward it, which would be unwise, or so Dever had said. They couldn't see the moon yet. Dever had explained that their journey was a long outward spiral. They wouldn't be able to see the moon until they got much farther out. Right now they were headed away from it, being pulled by the gravity of earth into the proper path. So Dever had said.
"How are our people back there?" asked Ander. "In'their cosy little cubicles?"
"Sleeping," she replied. "Except for the two of us, they'll sleep until we get there. It's what our doctors recommended. If they sleep, they'll avoid any unpleasant effects of this weightlessness, and there'll be one-half earth gravity at the station." This too had been planned, though she had felt no effects of weightiessness, and Ander seemed to have adjusted well.
"Shouldn't we see the station?" he asked, leaning forward to peer sidewise through the portal. "Where we're going'?"
She shook her head. "Dever said not until we're almost there."
She relaxed, letting the belt hold her, feeling her vague discontent fade


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A PLAGUE OF ANGELs

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