"Dave Wolverton - Siren Song at Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolverton Dave)

Alliance slated my fatherтАЩs execution date, making him a single sacrificial lamb. I found nothing to prove
either his innocence or guilt.

[Two seconds of silence.]

The Alliance did not reveal my fatherтАЩs location before his execution. All last night I paced my room,
waiting for them to call to tell me where the execution would be held. At dawn, commlink tones sounded
in my head. A woman told me to come to Camp Bol├нvar, outside Cartagena. I rode to the Marine camp
in a taxi, too nervous to drive, and I found a military shuttle armed with neutron cannons warming its
engines just inside the gates. Two police scanned me for weapons and ushered me into the shuttle with a
dozen guards. I knew even before we left the coast that we were heading for the desertтАФthe soldiers in
the shuttle were adjusting the color settings on their body armor so that it turned an ivory shade, the color
of alkali soil. The sun shining through the shuttle windows reflected from their visors as if each helmet
were a single white star opal.
We thundered south for fifteen minutes, plummeted into a desert ghost town high in the Andes. The
portals to the shuttle slid open and my guards scurried like sow bugs from beneath the shadow of an
overturned rock. They dropped to the ground and covered the old limestone buildings with their pulse
rifles. The cold mountain air hit me, and a cloud of smoky-gray dust and chaff swirled up from the
shuttleтАЩs landing skids. I stepped out and surveyed the town: the morning sun cast long blue shadows
across each fold of the mountains, across each jutting stone. The light was so intense that my eyes could
not focus on objects in the shadows. Everything was either black or white in this hard land; there was no
room for grays.

From the door of one stone building a dark little mestizo squinted at the bright sunlight. He wore the
space-blue uniform of the Alliance Marines and smoked a thin cigar. He straightened his back, tossed his
cigar to the dirt, and ground it under his heel as if it were a locust. тАЬSe├▒orita Elegante.тАЭ he said, тАЬI am
Major Gutierrez. The press will be here shortly, and you will not have much time to spend alone with
your father before the . . . ceremony.тАЭ

тАЬFine,тАЭ I said, shaking. I held the capsules behind my teeth, hoping he would not search me. He ushered
me to the tiny stone building, and my hope rose. The facility was a prison, hundreds of years old with
antiquated steel cages for the criminals, though all the cells were empty. I thought that if my father were
kept in such a facility, it would be easy to pass the mem-set to him.

We walked down a long corridor to a darkened cell, and I saw my father huddled in a corner, sobbing.
He was sweating profusely, as if he had labored in the hot sun, so that his hair hung to the side of his
bead like a damp black rag, and his jaw was set with fear. A soft orange glow in the air around his cell
showed that a repulsion field had been hastily installed. Two armored guards and a priest stood outside
the cell. I would not be able to get the mem-set to him.

тАЬCan I go into the cell?тАЭ I asked Major Gutierrez.

тАЬI am sorry,тАЭ the major answered, тАЬbut, no.тАЭ

тАЬCan I speak with him alone?тАЭ

тАЬNo,тАЭ the major answered, but he ordered a guard to follow him as he left, affording a little more privacy.
The priest would have left also, but my father beckoned, тАЬNo, stay! Please. I want you to hear my
confession.тАЭ