[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
nanite personal protection system Father had insisted on when I returned from
Federal Service had suddenly become worth the inordinate investment, at least
from my perspective. Otherwise I would have been waiting for eye clones to
regrow the blistered tissue, and suffering under an artificial epidermis and
more.
The ground alarm system noted the approach of two gliders, and then verified
the Civil Authority transponders. The CAs had arrived. I stood slowly, then
walked from the study out to the front entry. I was still seeing stars, and
there were vacant spaces that crossed my field of vision when I opened the
door.
Two CAs stood there, a short and slender man and a taller but more blocky
blonde woman, both in their off-white and gray singlesuits, both with the
streamlined equipment belts and the impact helmets, but with the visors up.
Two gliders rested on the grass outside the hangar door, and a third blockier
glider hovered next to the stone wall nearly three hundred meters along the
side of the hill, the wall that separated my grounds from those of Rokley
Barres.
Ser & That was the woman.
I m Daryn Alwyn, as you probably know from the call. Someone used what seemed
to be a laseflash on me as I was leaving the glider hangar a little while
ago. I paused.
Yes, ser, she replied. We checked the skytors on the way. Her voice and
the emotions beneath revealed a certain disgust/dislike.
Why? Because I lived on the lower Hill? Because I was a pre-select?
Why don t you come on in? I motioned for them to enter, and then walked into
the front sitting room, where I sat in the straight chair.
The two followed me, the second closing the door. After a moment, they sat in
the matching armchairs opposite me, but they sat on the forward edges.
What did you discover? I asked.
There was a single-burst laser set up on the top of your neighbor s wall. It
was set in a plastic. The plastic was the same shade as the stone. According
to the skytors, the burst was for four hundred microseconds, the woman CA
replied.
I winced.
You re augmented, aren t you, ser?
Theoretically, that was none of the CA s business, but it didn t matter, and I
really didn t want to give her more reasons to dislike me. Yes.
She nodded somberly. If you weren t augmented, under that much intensity,
you d be blind and in the medcenter right now.
But not dead, not from the laseflash.
I assume it melted down.
Mostly, ser.
What about past records? When was it placed? I asked.
The two exchanged glances. The shorter male CA finally answered. We don t
know. The skytors records are on a three week loop. We had the whole loop
downloaded and scanned once the energy spiked. It set off the skytors alarm.
The duty tech thought it might be a fire at first.
So no one came near that part of the wall in the past three weeks?
No, ser. Except for the gardeners, and they didn t get that close, answered
the man.
And there were no remote signals to the unit?
Page 32
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
It could have been set off locally & but the tech says it looks like it was
coded to recognize you and your glider, and to discharge. He paused before
adding, There was no high-power signal, and there were only three people
within a klick, and all of them were & modified.
Norms hated the term brain-damped, but if the skytors, with their resolutions
and scans, had only been able to pick up three people, and all were
brain-damped, or modified, those three hadn t been the ones. The CA wasn t
lying. He was a norm, and my systems could read him well enough to be sure of
that.
I blinked. My eyes still watered. Thank you very much.
Do you have any idea who might have done this, ser? asked the female CA.
I have no idea. No idea at all. That was certainly the truth.
Have you done anything & that might have upset people? she pursued.
I m an edartist & that s always possible, but I haven t received any messages
or anything to indicate that might be the reason. That was also true, so far
as it went.
No one has sent you any strange VRs or other & communications?
Not anything out of the ordinary, I admitted.
The questioning seemed to last for hours, but my system told me it was closer
to thirty minutes before they both stood and bowed ever so slightly.
I followed them to the door.
We ll let you know if we find out more. Ser & if you find out anything we
should know & you will inform us, will you not? asked the woman. Underlying
her even tone of voice were hints of contempt and dislike.
I certainly will. I could promise that, especially given the way she d
phrased the request. I could ignore the contempt.
I closed the door and walked slowly back to the kitchen where I poured a long
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]