[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
lifted. The
292
JAMES AXLER
lighting was muted, diffused, and the world looked strange. Shadowy figures
moved, wavered back and forth.
"Kane..." the voice said again, this time underscored by a note of relief.
The woman who leaned over him seemed grotesque at first, impossibly deformed
as if stretched by some monstrous torture device. Then Kane realized the
impression was one created by his poor vision and artifice. The woman's pants
hugging her long, lithe legs were cut high at the waist and fell over
stilt-heeled boots that gave the illusion of great height. Her waist was
tightly cinched by a red sash and the narrow shoulders of her black tunic were
lifted by tapered pads.
The fabric was tailored to conform to the thrust of her full breasts.
Emblazoned on the left breast was a familiar symbol. A thick-walled pyramid
was worked in red thread, enclosing, and partially bisected by, three
elongated but reversed triangles. Small disks topped each one, lending them a
resemblance to round-hilted daggers.
Kane squinted up at her, trying to pierce the fog that seemed to float over
his eyes, and see her face. At the same time, he realized he lay in an
uncomfortable bed, covered from the neck down by a thick quilt.
He was surprised not only by the bed, but also by the fact he was alive so he
could wake up, the bed's discomfort notwithstanding. His thought processes
moved ponderously, like half-frozen mud, but he re-
TALON AND FANG 293
alized the SPIDE had rendered him unconscious with a jolt of voltage, rather
than frying him like a slab of bacon.
He didn't feel particularly grateful for the machine's restraint. The back of
his head ached fiercely, and his skin prickled painfully, as if he were
suffering a body-wide sunburn. He started to sit up, but pain hit the back of
his head like a club and the bed spun. A wave of nausea churned in his belly,
and he lay down again, closing his eyes tightly.
Erica van Sloan said softly, "Don't move too quickly...you're still
Page 114
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
recuperating."
Kane nodded as if he understood, even though he didn't. "Is it really you,
Erica?"
"You know it is, Kane. It's been many, many years. When Tanvirah told me that
you would be coming after her, I didn't know what to feel. I apologize for the
reception. I didn't authorize the airborne attack or the soldiers' assault."
"But the SPIDE was your idea?"
"Yes." The flat, almost dead intonation of her voice caused the hairs on his
nape to tingle. She sounded old and weak and helpless.
"How long have I been out?" He was disturbed by how raw his voice sounded in
his ears.
"Around fourteen hours."
He opened his eyes a slit, and his sense of perspective slowly returned, in a
piecemeal fashion. He slowly looked around, gauging his surroundings, feeling
a distant sense of familiarity with them, despite the fact
294
JAMES AXLER
the room was small with cheap furnishings a narrow bed not much better than a
cot, a cabinet and small table on which was placed a framed photograph. He
squinted at it, trying to identify the three people it featured. Then he
realized it was a pic of himself standing between his father and mother. He
hadn't seen the photograph in many, many years, or the people in it.
He looked at the image of the cocky, eager kid he used to be. He was smiling
in the picture. His father and mother weren't. His dad had the same dark hair
and high-planed features as he did, but he looked brooding and unhappy. His
mother's somber expression spoke of the same emotion.
Kane's mother had vanished from his life right after he entered the Magistrate
Division training academy.
Her disappearance wasn't unusual. Though matrimony and child producing were
considered the supreme social responsibility by the barons, it was also
considered only a temporary arrangement.
Children were a necessity for the continuation of society, but only those
passing stringent tests were allowed to bear them. Genetics and social
standing were the most important criteria. Generally, a man and a woman were
bound together for a term of time stipulated in a contract.
Once the child entered a training regimen of one of the ville divisions, the
parents were required to separate, particularly in the case of male children
recruited by the Magistrates. So his mother had removed her-
TALON AND FANG 295
self. She had probably realized there was a limit to the pointlessness she
could endure of being a parent in absentia.
Kane had never really known, but he had often wondered if the entire purpose
of her life had been to give birth to him. After he entered the Division, her
duties discharged, the rest of her life had to have been one long, total
anticlimax.
As for his father, the last sight of him was impressed indelibly and eternally
in Kane's mind. He knew even if some horrible accident wiped his memory clean
of everything else in his life, he would never forget his visit to Nightmare
Alley in the Archuleta Mesa installation.
As the center for advanced and ongoing genetic experiments, Nightmare Alley
was well named. It was horrible, unbelievable, insane. There he, Brigid and
Grant had found Kane's father, suspended in cryonic stasis, his body now
supplying its superior genetic material for later hybridization. His father's
fate remained unknown, even after the incendiaries they had touched off during
their first incursion had wreaked wide devastation. The odds that his father
had survived were exceptionally remote, but Kane was by nature a percentage
player and even a one percent chance provided a feeble ray of hope.
However, the devastation caused by the crash of the Aurora a year later was
Page 115
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
certainly more widespread, and even if his father's cryostasis canister had
come through the incendiary explosions
intact, the last wave
296 JAMES AXLER
of destruction more than likely engulfed it, as it had the rest of the
installation.
Trying to clear a dry-as-dust throat, Kane croaked, "I'm in Cobaltville,
aren't I? In my old flat?"
Erica pushed a flexible straw between his lips. As he gratefully drew in a
mouthful of cool water, she said, "You're in High River in the Enclaves, yes.
They were restored many years ago as a way to honor you, if you ever decided
to join us. Like a memorial for the services you rendered to the cause of
unity before, during and after the war."
Kane nearly choked on the water as the absurdity of her statement sunk in. All
four-room apartments in the residential Enclaves were essentially
interchangeable. Conformity, standardization, whatever the euphemism, the
flats were about as homelike as a cell block.
None of the doors on any Enclave level had locks. It was a carryover from the
Program of Unification, when the Council of Front Royal had decided that
privacy bred conspiracy. The council had further decreed that since everyone
had the same possessions as everyone else, there was no need to steal,
especially among the elite. The desire for privacy was viewed not just as
gauche, but as an expression of deviant thinking.
He recalled his few paltry personal possessions from those days. He had owned
absolutely nothing anyone would want. Most of his property had been inherited
from his grandfather and father, including the photograph. Since the apartment
was more or less the Kane
TALON AND FANG
297
ancestral home, it should have been filled with relics of earlier generations.
It wasn't. There were a couple of lamps, a chair, a table, a sofa, the futon
in the bedroom, a few antique books wrapped in plastic, a couple of ancient
muzzle loaders confiscated from Tarer traders nearly sixty years ago.
Wincing against the pain hi his head, he mumbled around the straw, "This must
be the ugliest and most boring museum display in the entire history of the
world."
Erica didn't laugh. She sat on the edge of the bed and held the cup of water [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
lifted. The
292
JAMES AXLER
lighting was muted, diffused, and the world looked strange. Shadowy figures
moved, wavered back and forth.
"Kane..." the voice said again, this time underscored by a note of relief.
The woman who leaned over him seemed grotesque at first, impossibly deformed
as if stretched by some monstrous torture device. Then Kane realized the
impression was one created by his poor vision and artifice. The woman's pants
hugging her long, lithe legs were cut high at the waist and fell over
stilt-heeled boots that gave the illusion of great height. Her waist was
tightly cinched by a red sash and the narrow shoulders of her black tunic were
lifted by tapered pads.
The fabric was tailored to conform to the thrust of her full breasts.
Emblazoned on the left breast was a familiar symbol. A thick-walled pyramid
was worked in red thread, enclosing, and partially bisected by, three
elongated but reversed triangles. Small disks topped each one, lending them a
resemblance to round-hilted daggers.
Kane squinted up at her, trying to pierce the fog that seemed to float over
his eyes, and see her face. At the same time, he realized he lay in an
uncomfortable bed, covered from the neck down by a thick quilt.
He was surprised not only by the bed, but also by the fact he was alive so he
could wake up, the bed's discomfort notwithstanding. His thought processes
moved ponderously, like half-frozen mud, but he re-
TALON AND FANG 293
alized the SPIDE had rendered him unconscious with a jolt of voltage, rather
than frying him like a slab of bacon.
He didn't feel particularly grateful for the machine's restraint. The back of
his head ached fiercely, and his skin prickled painfully, as if he were
suffering a body-wide sunburn. He started to sit up, but pain hit the back of
his head like a club and the bed spun. A wave of nausea churned in his belly,
and he lay down again, closing his eyes tightly.
Erica van Sloan said softly, "Don't move too quickly...you're still
Page 114
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
recuperating."
Kane nodded as if he understood, even though he didn't. "Is it really you,
Erica?"
"You know it is, Kane. It's been many, many years. When Tanvirah told me that
you would be coming after her, I didn't know what to feel. I apologize for the
reception. I didn't authorize the airborne attack or the soldiers' assault."
"But the SPIDE was your idea?"
"Yes." The flat, almost dead intonation of her voice caused the hairs on his
nape to tingle. She sounded old and weak and helpless.
"How long have I been out?" He was disturbed by how raw his voice sounded in
his ears.
"Around fourteen hours."
He opened his eyes a slit, and his sense of perspective slowly returned, in a
piecemeal fashion. He slowly looked around, gauging his surroundings, feeling
a distant sense of familiarity with them, despite the fact
294
JAMES AXLER
the room was small with cheap furnishings a narrow bed not much better than a
cot, a cabinet and small table on which was placed a framed photograph. He
squinted at it, trying to identify the three people it featured. Then he
realized it was a pic of himself standing between his father and mother. He
hadn't seen the photograph in many, many years, or the people in it.
He looked at the image of the cocky, eager kid he used to be. He was smiling
in the picture. His father and mother weren't. His dad had the same dark hair
and high-planed features as he did, but he looked brooding and unhappy. His
mother's somber expression spoke of the same emotion.
Kane's mother had vanished from his life right after he entered the Magistrate
Division training academy.
Her disappearance wasn't unusual. Though matrimony and child producing were
considered the supreme social responsibility by the barons, it was also
considered only a temporary arrangement.
Children were a necessity for the continuation of society, but only those
passing stringent tests were allowed to bear them. Genetics and social
standing were the most important criteria. Generally, a man and a woman were
bound together for a term of time stipulated in a contract.
Once the child entered a training regimen of one of the ville divisions, the
parents were required to separate, particularly in the case of male children
recruited by the Magistrates. So his mother had removed her-
TALON AND FANG 295
self. She had probably realized there was a limit to the pointlessness she
could endure of being a parent in absentia.
Kane had never really known, but he had often wondered if the entire purpose
of her life had been to give birth to him. After he entered the Division, her
duties discharged, the rest of her life had to have been one long, total
anticlimax.
As for his father, the last sight of him was impressed indelibly and eternally
in Kane's mind. He knew even if some horrible accident wiped his memory clean
of everything else in his life, he would never forget his visit to Nightmare
Alley in the Archuleta Mesa installation.
As the center for advanced and ongoing genetic experiments, Nightmare Alley
was well named. It was horrible, unbelievable, insane. There he, Brigid and
Grant had found Kane's father, suspended in cryonic stasis, his body now
supplying its superior genetic material for later hybridization. His father's
fate remained unknown, even after the incendiaries they had touched off during
their first incursion had wreaked wide devastation. The odds that his father
had survived were exceptionally remote, but Kane was by nature a percentage
player and even a one percent chance provided a feeble ray of hope.
However, the devastation caused by the crash of the Aurora a year later was
Page 115
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
certainly more widespread, and even if his father's cryostasis canister had
come through the incendiary explosions
intact, the last wave
296 JAMES AXLER
of destruction more than likely engulfed it, as it had the rest of the
installation.
Trying to clear a dry-as-dust throat, Kane croaked, "I'm in Cobaltville,
aren't I? In my old flat?"
Erica pushed a flexible straw between his lips. As he gratefully drew in a
mouthful of cool water, she said, "You're in High River in the Enclaves, yes.
They were restored many years ago as a way to honor you, if you ever decided
to join us. Like a memorial for the services you rendered to the cause of
unity before, during and after the war."
Kane nearly choked on the water as the absurdity of her statement sunk in. All
four-room apartments in the residential Enclaves were essentially
interchangeable. Conformity, standardization, whatever the euphemism, the
flats were about as homelike as a cell block.
None of the doors on any Enclave level had locks. It was a carryover from the
Program of Unification, when the Council of Front Royal had decided that
privacy bred conspiracy. The council had further decreed that since everyone
had the same possessions as everyone else, there was no need to steal,
especially among the elite. The desire for privacy was viewed not just as
gauche, but as an expression of deviant thinking.
He recalled his few paltry personal possessions from those days. He had owned
absolutely nothing anyone would want. Most of his property had been inherited
from his grandfather and father, including the photograph. Since the apartment
was more or less the Kane
TALON AND FANG
297
ancestral home, it should have been filled with relics of earlier generations.
It wasn't. There were a couple of lamps, a chair, a table, a sofa, the futon
in the bedroom, a few antique books wrapped in plastic, a couple of ancient
muzzle loaders confiscated from Tarer traders nearly sixty years ago.
Wincing against the pain hi his head, he mumbled around the straw, "This must
be the ugliest and most boring museum display in the entire history of the
world."
Erica didn't laugh. She sat on the edge of the bed and held the cup of water [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
