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.One of the Security Services men, named, Malko thought,Deavers, was nodding.Captain s bars glowed on Deaver s uni-form. Yes.Look, on monitors five and nine as well.Peaceforcertroops. The Peaceforcers were taking up positions at the pe-rimeters of the crowd, and seemed to be content to stay there,for the moment. I wonder if they d have let you through, Carl said.Still hehad not turned to look at them, nor greeted them. Somehow,he said in an expressionless voice,  I don t think they re here toprotect us from the riot outside. Hello, Carl, said Malko softly.Carl pivoted slowly to face them.Malko Kalharri winced andlooked away.Suzanne Montignet had not made the mistake ofattempting to meet his gaze.Trent looked straight at him. Hello, Father.Carl said gravely, as to an equal,  Hello, Trent.You shouldnot have come.Now that you are here, you should not stay.Trent looked around the room. I didn t drive, he offered asan explanation to them all. It s not my fault.The answer seemed to throw Carl.For the first time in agreat long while, the ghost of a smile touched him. Suzanne,he said,  go home.Take Malko and Trent and go home.I expectMoran 193the Peaceforcers surrounding us will let you leave.Don t comeback until this is over. Carl? Are you crazy? Malko dropped one of his crutches tothe floor and leaned on the other. One hand to handle thecrutch, and the other one to fire a weapon with, if it comes tothat.Carl said too gently,  Malko, go.There s nothing you can dohere.And right now. He found it hard to say. You ll just get inthe way.For the first time in the decades Suzanne had known Malkohe looked old.But there was fight left in him. Carl, he said, you can make me leave, but you re not doing me any damn fa-vors by  I m not trying to do you any favors! Carl roared.Jany andJohann and the two Security Services men looked away from thescene.Malko blinked, and Carl said flatly,  Suzanne and Trentare going to need you.I know you d love to go out in a goddamblaze of glory, but that s a luxury you re fucking well going tohave to miss.Stop being selfish, damn it.Go home.Malko Kalharri swayed on his single crutch.The blood haddrained from his face and out of a dry mouth he said finally, Okay.Carl held his gaze, and then nodded. I ll see that Double-Sescorts you past the crowd.It s better this way, Malko. Heturned to Trent. Good-bye, Trent.The boy s eyes widened slightly. Oh? He looked away for amoment, expressionlessly, and then looked back and said po-litely,  Good-bye, Father.Carl started to say something; the outspeaker interruptedhim:  Councilor Carson is on the line for Carl.The holo appeared over the ready room s largest table, andthe image of Unification Councilor Jerril Carson appearedwithin the field.TRENT WAS ONLY distantly aware of the others around him.Thesysterm in the corner came up under his flying hands.Hewished that he had not left his portaterm in the car, but there194 Taleswas no time to regret its lack.His traceset was in his shirtpocket, but he had no time to don that, either.He had strippedhis user profile out of the machines in the Complex.At the timeit had seemed a good idea.The accesses he had developed forthat user profile would have been useless in the hands of anamateur, and terribly dangerous in the hands of a Player onlyslightly skilled.And he had not been planning to return.He hacked his way through the default user profile until itwould do the bare minimum he required of it, turned autohelpoff, turned prompts off, enabled abbreviated command syntax,and loaded the profile into memory.Trent danced through the InfoNet.CARL STOOD STARING in a rage so vast it left no room in him forspeech.Jerril Carson stared out of the holocube at them, hisskin a pallid gray.When it became clear that Carl was not goingto speak, he said in a shaking voice,  I have the twins. Carl saidnothing, and emboldened, Jerril Carson continued. You havecaused me severe problems, Carl. His voice gained firmness andcertainty as he spoke. If you wish to see your children alive,ever again, you will do as you are told.Carl closed his eyes.Jerril Carson jerked and went rigid.He and Carl held thetableau for several seconds, and then Carl s eyes opened again,and Carson jerked like a puppet whose strings had been re-leased.He gasped for air. Fool, he snarled in a harsh voice,still panting. You think I ve known you.this long.withoutlearning anything? There are.hundreds of minds all around me,and thousands more in the distance between us.You can t touchme.AT SUZANNE MONTIGNET S home in Massapequa Park, the sys-term rang once and answered an incoming call.In the bedroom where Trent had been sleeping, jacked intothe house circuitry, was a device about the size of a makeup key.There was more processing power packed into its molecular cir-cuitry than was to be found in the entire world in the year 2000.Moran 195It was a biochip Image coprocessor, one of the finest commer-cially available anywhere in the System.Touched, roused, and the program assembled itself fromstorage, assumed a sort of shadowy dim self-awareness, andthen Ralf, the Wise and Powerful, sought through the InfoNetfor its master.THE FEAR WAS past; a vindictive enjoyment was evident in Car-son s demeanor.  and state that you falsified Sandoval s re-cording, that it was a complete fake [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]