[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
mistaken?
No, Annja said, drawing it out, shaking her head. I d call it a pretty
spot-on assessment. Even if a little uncomfortable.
We can never be a great team, Easy went on earnestly, precisely because
we re so much alike. Our strengths and weaknesses overlap, rather than
complement each other. In the present case, however, two women who are our
precise kind of crazy may be exactly what s needed.
And if it s not, Annja said, we probably won t live long enough to worry
about it much.
Here, now! Easy said sternly. I thought you were in charge of positive
thinking.
Me? I thought it was your job! Annja exclaimed.
They laughed. Probably, more than it was worth. But it kept them from
breaking&
28
The neighbors mocked him. Jerry Cromwell s voice rang through the camp of
the Lord s Wa Army, pitched in the middle of an ancient plaza. He had sworn to
eradicate it as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Lord, how they
mocked! But Noah worked on. He trusted in the Lord! The Lord of Israel, the
Lord of Hosts!
His voice, which sounded to Easy lying on her belly in the underbrush at once
strained and over-enunciated, had electronic assistance. Dragging a generator
up here made at least some sense. But who knew what possessed Cromwell to lug
along speakers and microphones for a public-address system.
Apparently his followers felt reverence for his strident voice as it echoed
among the crumbled massive cliffs of stone. In any event his actual sermon had
to be translated by Wa translators with their faces hard beneath their
distinctive yellow head wraps.
Their painfully young faces. Easy guessed the fallen preacher s translators,
like the dozen bodyguards who stood flanking him with M-16s leveled at their
own fellows, ranged from twelve to fourteen. It didn t make them any less
dangerous, she knew her own continent s recent history bore ample witness to
that.
Easy lay scarcely fifty yards from the nearest of them. Sixty from their
gangly, pasty-white messiah.
It isn t the marksmanship that makes the hunter, you see, she thought. It s
the stalk.
Elephant Calf Ngwenya had been born into a culture which, for all its pride in
its modernity, was very different from the one in which Annja had been brought
up. Although an upbringing in a Catholic orphanage in New Orleans, Easy
reckoned, was likely to be considerably more Darwinian than girls of Annja s
race and class usually underwent. To Easy s mind that probably accounted much
for the fact that Annja was a heroine, and not another ineffectual,
overeducated wimp.
Warrior-princess though she was she had always tried, not always successfully,
not to be too smug about that Easy harbored strong ethical standards when it
came to killing people. It was not all right unless they were actively
committing aggression. Then they became not only legitimate targets, but it
was also an act of virtue to kill them.
Jerry Cromwell and his fanatics fell into that category as far as she was
concerned. Easy still felt bad about the lion after all these years. He was
Page 91
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
mighty, a truly impressive beast, guilty of nothing more than doing what was
natural for him.
She would dampen her pillow not at all over Jerry Cromwell. In the unlikely
event she survived, of course.
She ignored the insects crawling over her exposed skin, and the long,
gleaming, diamond-patterned serpent coiled on a branch above her, which she
had quickly determined was a constrictor, unlikely to bite unless she grabbed
it, and not in the least venomous.
Every day at noon, rain, shine or war, Cromwell gathered his followers about
him to preach to them. He wasn t sufficiently crazy to pull fighters off the
battle line to harangue them, though.
The Protectors were well aware of the Lord s Wa Army. The people of the temple
routinely scouted potential foes wandering into their district. They had told
Easy, laughingly, about Cromwell s preaching well before Annja arrived.
She understood his rationale fanaticism was a flame that needed constant
stoking. But any habit is a weapon to your enemies. One a huntress as skilled
as Princess Easy planned to exploit.
She d heard said of assassinations that anyone can be gotten at, no matter how
well protected, as long as his or her would-be killer doesn t care about
getting away alive.
Easy fully intended to escape. Of course, she reminded herself silently as she
wriggled a few inches forward beneath the boughs of a bush, noiselessly as the
snake who watched unblinkingly from above, between the thought and the action
falls the shadow.
But the key thing was she would take her shot. She would make her shot. And
then the chips would fall where they might.
And so the rains came, Cromwell said. And they fell and fell and fell for
forty days. And forty nights. Forty days!
Easy could hear the way he used his tone of voice, his cadence, to stir the
blood like a marching drumbeat.
The smell of the vegetation in which she hid was unfamiliar yet by no means
strange. She felt a touch and froze. A lesser snake slithered across her left
calf, then her right. She lay on her belly unmoving. She did not look back.
Best not to.
The serpent moved on. She couldn t hear its rustling for the preacher s
declamations and the fervent responses of his congregation. Within a few
heartbeats she forgot it. She focused her thought, her intent, her entire
being on her stalk and its target.
She had penetrated well inside the Wa main camp. In itself that was small
challenge, especially since she crossed the perimeter in the twilight half an
hour before dawn, when human metabolism ebbed lowest and the guards were
likely to be least attentive. The camp had been laid out without conspicuous
regard to security. Apparently the great man believed his God would provide,
or at least make up any shortfalls in his arrangements. Probably he couldn t
take seriously that anyone might dare to threaten him here, in the midst of
his bloodthirsty flock. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
mistaken?
No, Annja said, drawing it out, shaking her head. I d call it a pretty
spot-on assessment. Even if a little uncomfortable.
We can never be a great team, Easy went on earnestly, precisely because
we re so much alike. Our strengths and weaknesses overlap, rather than
complement each other. In the present case, however, two women who are our
precise kind of crazy may be exactly what s needed.
And if it s not, Annja said, we probably won t live long enough to worry
about it much.
Here, now! Easy said sternly. I thought you were in charge of positive
thinking.
Me? I thought it was your job! Annja exclaimed.
They laughed. Probably, more than it was worth. But it kept them from
breaking&
28
The neighbors mocked him. Jerry Cromwell s voice rang through the camp of
the Lord s Wa Army, pitched in the middle of an ancient plaza. He had sworn to
eradicate it as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Lord, how they
mocked! But Noah worked on. He trusted in the Lord! The Lord of Israel, the
Lord of Hosts!
His voice, which sounded to Easy lying on her belly in the underbrush at once
strained and over-enunciated, had electronic assistance. Dragging a generator
up here made at least some sense. But who knew what possessed Cromwell to lug
along speakers and microphones for a public-address system.
Apparently his followers felt reverence for his strident voice as it echoed
among the crumbled massive cliffs of stone. In any event his actual sermon had
to be translated by Wa translators with their faces hard beneath their
distinctive yellow head wraps.
Their painfully young faces. Easy guessed the fallen preacher s translators,
like the dozen bodyguards who stood flanking him with M-16s leveled at their
own fellows, ranged from twelve to fourteen. It didn t make them any less
dangerous, she knew her own continent s recent history bore ample witness to
that.
Easy lay scarcely fifty yards from the nearest of them. Sixty from their
gangly, pasty-white messiah.
It isn t the marksmanship that makes the hunter, you see, she thought. It s
the stalk.
Elephant Calf Ngwenya had been born into a culture which, for all its pride in
its modernity, was very different from the one in which Annja had been brought
up. Although an upbringing in a Catholic orphanage in New Orleans, Easy
reckoned, was likely to be considerably more Darwinian than girls of Annja s
race and class usually underwent. To Easy s mind that probably accounted much
for the fact that Annja was a heroine, and not another ineffectual,
overeducated wimp.
Warrior-princess though she was she had always tried, not always successfully,
not to be too smug about that Easy harbored strong ethical standards when it
came to killing people. It was not all right unless they were actively
committing aggression. Then they became not only legitimate targets, but it
was also an act of virtue to kill them.
Jerry Cromwell and his fanatics fell into that category as far as she was
concerned. Easy still felt bad about the lion after all these years. He was
Page 91
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
mighty, a truly impressive beast, guilty of nothing more than doing what was
natural for him.
She would dampen her pillow not at all over Jerry Cromwell. In the unlikely
event she survived, of course.
She ignored the insects crawling over her exposed skin, and the long,
gleaming, diamond-patterned serpent coiled on a branch above her, which she
had quickly determined was a constrictor, unlikely to bite unless she grabbed
it, and not in the least venomous.
Every day at noon, rain, shine or war, Cromwell gathered his followers about
him to preach to them. He wasn t sufficiently crazy to pull fighters off the
battle line to harangue them, though.
The Protectors were well aware of the Lord s Wa Army. The people of the temple
routinely scouted potential foes wandering into their district. They had told
Easy, laughingly, about Cromwell s preaching well before Annja arrived.
She understood his rationale fanaticism was a flame that needed constant
stoking. But any habit is a weapon to your enemies. One a huntress as skilled
as Princess Easy planned to exploit.
She d heard said of assassinations that anyone can be gotten at, no matter how
well protected, as long as his or her would-be killer doesn t care about
getting away alive.
Easy fully intended to escape. Of course, she reminded herself silently as she
wriggled a few inches forward beneath the boughs of a bush, noiselessly as the
snake who watched unblinkingly from above, between the thought and the action
falls the shadow.
But the key thing was she would take her shot. She would make her shot. And
then the chips would fall where they might.
And so the rains came, Cromwell said. And they fell and fell and fell for
forty days. And forty nights. Forty days!
Easy could hear the way he used his tone of voice, his cadence, to stir the
blood like a marching drumbeat.
The smell of the vegetation in which she hid was unfamiliar yet by no means
strange. She felt a touch and froze. A lesser snake slithered across her left
calf, then her right. She lay on her belly unmoving. She did not look back.
Best not to.
The serpent moved on. She couldn t hear its rustling for the preacher s
declamations and the fervent responses of his congregation. Within a few
heartbeats she forgot it. She focused her thought, her intent, her entire
being on her stalk and its target.
She had penetrated well inside the Wa main camp. In itself that was small
challenge, especially since she crossed the perimeter in the twilight half an
hour before dawn, when human metabolism ebbed lowest and the guards were
likely to be least attentive. The camp had been laid out without conspicuous
regard to security. Apparently the great man believed his God would provide,
or at least make up any shortfalls in his arrangements. Probably he couldn t
take seriously that anyone might dare to threaten him here, in the midst of
his bloodthirsty flock. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]