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Jonathan's neck.
He flipped on a pair of glasses that spread a map of the satellite across his
vision, and began to make his way through the crowds.
The Skysnake raised and lowered vast cargo barges. At the top, here, the
football-field-sized containers detached, became huge, lumbering cargo ships,
and made their way to waiting star cruisers.
In a few seconds they would own one such barge. It would make a dandy landing
craft for the small army he'd brought with him.
His thoughts turned incandescent as he thought of Delta. The killing rage
took him then, which was as it should be: all the others of the
Pleb leadership had specific talents. He did, too.
He was their killer.
Leele felt the jolt as Jonathan's attack shut down much of the power on the
distribution satellite. She began to run.
"Come on, out of here!"
They dived through an entry hatch at the end of the tunnel, then into a long,
flexible boarding tube. The lights were out here, too, but a faint,
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phosphorescent glow from the emergency glow strips lighted their way.
They dived pell-mell through the open space lock at the end of the tube,
Steele sputtering orders as she moved. Jim felt himself lifted, tossed like a
sack of flour, and then he slammed into a steel wall. He was suddenly
weightless: the abrupt transition brought a belch of bile into his throat.
Alarms rang. He lay stunned a moment, watching the space lock cycle shut.
Then somebody grabbed him, dragged him up a ladder,
and thrust him into a mall chamber. He looked around: cramped toilet
facilities. But there was a lock on the heard it snick shut.
A moment later, the ghostly hand of acceleration against the deck. It wasn't
very strong, nor did it last more few seconds, or he might have been badly
hurt. As it was, he to stand up, but his shackled hands betrayed him, and he
banging his head. So it was with ringing in his ears and whirling in his eyes
that he started the last leg of his long, trip.
The circle imally complete, the snake eating its tail.
Back to the beginning.
at shook her head, trying to jar the cobwebs out. She passed from
Steele's care into Jonathan's hands in. one transfer, and had barely noticed
Jim heading the other Something must have sparked, though, because now she be
red how his hand has risen in greeting, then fallen
Waving. Waving at her.
"Jonathan!" she screamed suddenly, caught in the grip of a of Plebs.
"What have you done!"
But Jonathan wasn't there, and if he was listening somehow, didn't make any
reply.
Now, an hour later, she stood in the vast, echoing emptiness cargo barge and
watched an army of Plebs make ready to go
War.
Everybody seemed to have forgotten her. Her two rescuers brought her here and
left her sitting on a low pile of soft tarps, andl here she had stayed while
her senses gradually began to clear, to:ii sharpen again.
For the past several minutes she'd felt almost normal, though there was an
undercurrent of fear in her mind: what had Delta'i. done to her?
Had the interrogators damaged her permanently'?
And Jonathan. What the hell was he doing? God only knew what kind of sensors
Delta had hidden inside her. It wasn't inconceivable that everything she saw
with her own eyes, heard with her own ears, was somehow being directly relayed
to Delta himself.
"Jonathan!" she shouted, and this time she saw him turn, in the center of his
small group, and glance over at her.
Grunting, she pushed herself up. Her legs weren't quite right yet, it felt as
if she was walking through sludgy water, but she kept on. He watched her as
she came, that infuriating smile on his oatmeal face, and made no move to
help. He just waited.
So like him, she thought suddenly, and realized that she'd never really liked
him at all. She wondered why this would come to her now, as she stumbled
toward him, and then she knew: comparison.
Jim Endicott wasn't like that. Jim wouldn't watch her with that clinical
scorn, as if she were little more than some interesting bug.
Jim would have come to her, helped her, done anything he could. And he would
have never looked at her with that expression on his face.
"Jonathan..." she said, as she finally reached the group, and it parted,
letting her in.
"What, Cat? I'm busy.." got a little assault here to run."
"Is that what this is? An assault? Jonathan, have you lost your mind?"
He stared at her, waiting.
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She licked her lips, trying to pull herself together. "Jonathan, I'm probably
bugged six ways to hell. Delta wouldn't let a chance like that go to waste."
He grinned. "Is that it? Listen, little sister, don't worry about it.
Of course he bugged you. Didn't you notice those two dudes with the hand
scanners? You lighted them up like Christmas at the Confederation
Center."
She still didn't get it. "Then he knows? Delta knows what you're doing?"
He glanced at the others, then back. "Maybe..."
"What do you mean, maybe?"
"Listen, Cat, why don't go back over there, sit down, rest up a bit.
Things'll start to get hot soon enough."
"Jonathan... what's going on here? What did you do?"
He gave her one final hard glare and turned away. But she wasn't having that.
She grabbed his shoulder, jerked him around. "Jonathan, talk to me, damn it!"
He whirled, some of the milkiness gone from his eyes.
hell, Cat? You think two can't play at Delta's game? We trade, understand?
You for your boyfriend. You for Jim
And then she got it. Something hard and cold fell into the bottom of her
belly. "What did you do to him? What did you Jim?"
He raised his hands, flapped them as if to shoo her off.
down, Cat. Nothing you can do about it anyway..."
"What did you do, you frigid bastard?"
He sighed. "I did what I had to. A couple of micro virus tumblers, a little
of this, a little of that. Put it this way. Delta's get one hell of a
surprise when he unwraps our little package."
She froze. "Microviruses? But... there's only one way to, something like
that past Delta's scanners .... "What's your problem, Cat? You'll find
another guy to gle with. Hell, there's a million of us out there.
Now go on, hell away from me, leave me alone. I've got work to do!"
She slugged him in the mouth with every ounce of could put behind it, but all
that bought her was a quick trip to her tarps.
"Look, Cat, I understand where you're coming from, okay?."
the tall blond man, one of Jonathan's bodyguards, who'd her away from
Jonathan. "But don't pull a stunt like that
I really will put you down the next time. I mean it, all right?"
Sullenly, she nodded, as she pulled her knees up chest. "Bastard..."
she mumbled.
"What's that?"
"Nothing. Go away. Leave me alone."
He eyed her, then stepped back, but not too far. Jonathan over and spoke
quietly to him. They both looked at her.
Obviously, she was now a prisoner. Jonathan didn't trust
And he was right, she thought. She would betray him in an if she could save
Jim. She put her head down on top of her and closed her eyes.
Poor Jim. Delta would... She shivered. The ghost of an idea began to form,
and she raised her head slightly. Her guard was back, looking sheepish.
"Jonathan," he said. "He told me to stick with you. He's worried you might
try something.." stupid."
Blinking back tears, she forced herself to smile up at him. "Well, sit down, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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