[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
meat, we don t bother to fight our way out. Not worth it. They have peculiar
summary ways of dealing with murder charges here, and I don t see the need for
any of us to end up as spare parts in Ryoval s tissue banks. We wait for
Captain Thorne to arrange a ransom, and then try something else.
We hold a lever or two on Ryoval in case of emergencies."
"Dire emergencies," Bel muttered.
"If anything goes wrong after the butcher-mission is accomplished, it s back
to combat rules. That sample will then be irreplaceable, and must be got back
to Captain Thorne at all costs. Laureen, you sure of our emergency pickup
spot?"
"Yes, sir." She pointed on the vid display.
"Everybody else got that? Any questions? Suggestions? Last-minute
observations? Communications check, then, Captain
Thorne."
Their wrist comms all appeared to be in good working order. Ensign Murka
shrugged on the weapons pack. Miles carefully pocketed the blueprint map cube,
that cost them a near-ransom from a certain pliable construction company just
a few hours ago.
The four members of the penetration team slipped from the van and merged with
the frosty darkness.
Page 65
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
They slunk off through the woods. The frozen crunchy layer of plant detritus
tended to slide underfoot, exposing a layer of slick mud. Murka spotted a spy
eye before it spotted them, and blinded it with a brief burst of microwave
static while they scurried past. The useful big guys made short work of
boosting Miles over the wall. Miles tried not to think about the ancient pub
sport of dwarf tossing. The inner court was stark and utilitarian, loading
docks with big locked doors, rubbish collection bays, and a few parked
vehicles.
Footsteps echoed, and they ducked down in a rubbish bay. A red-clad guard
passed, slowly waving an infra-red scanner. They crouched and hid their faces
in their infra-red blank ponchos, looking like so many bags of garbage no
doubt. Then it was tiptoe up to the loading docks.
Ducts. The key to Ryoval s facility had turned out to be ducts, for heating,
for access to power-optics cables, for the comm system. Narrow ducts. Quite
impassable to a big guy. Miles slipped out of his poncho and gave it to a
trooper to fold and pack.
Miles balanced on Murka s shoulders and cut his way through the first ductlet,
a ventilation grille high on the wall above the loading dock doors. Miles
handed the grille down silently, and after a quick visual scan for unwanted
company, slithered through.
It was a tight fit even for him. He let himself down gently to the concrete
floor, found the door control box, shorted the alarm, and raised the door
about a meter. His team rolled through, and he let the door back down as
quietly as he could. So far so good; they hadn t yet had to exchange a word.
They made it to cover on the far side of the receiving bay just before a
red-coveralled employee wandered through, driving an electric cart loaded with
cleaning robots. Murka touched Miles s sleeve, and looked his inquiry -
This one?
Miles shook his head, Not yet.
A maintenance man seemed less likely than an employee from the inner sanctum
to know where their quarry was kept, and they didn t have time to litter the
place with the unconscious bodies of false trials. They found the tunnel to
the main building, just as the map cube promised. The door at the end was
locked as expected.
It was up on Murka s shoulders again. A quick zizz of Miles s cutters loosened
a panel in the ceiling, and he crawled through -
the frail supporting framework would surely not have held a man of greater
weight - and found the power cables running to the door lock. He was just
looking over the problem and pulling tools out of his pocketed uniform jacket
when Murka s hand reached up to thrust the weapons pack beside him and quietly
pull the panel back into place. Miles flung himself to his belly and pressed
his eye to the crack as a voice from down the corridor bellowed, "Freeze!"
Swear words screamed through Miles s head. He clamped his jaw on them. He
looked down on the tops of his troopers heads.
In a moment, they were surrounded by half-a-dozen red-clad black-trousered
armed guards. "What are you doing here?" snarled the guard sergeant.
"Oh, shit!" cried Murka. "
Please
, mister, don t tell my CO you caught us in here. He d bust me back to
private!"
"Huh?" said the guard sergeant. He prodded Murka with his weapon, a lethal
nerve disrupter. "Hands up! Who are you?"
"M name s Murka. We came in on a mercenary ship to Fell Station, but the
captain wouldn t grant us downside passes. Think of it - we come all the way
to Jackson s Whole, and the sonofabitch wouldn t let us go downside! Bloody
pure-dick wouldn t let us see Ryoval s!"
The red-tunic d guards were doing a fast scan-and-search, none too gently, and
finding only stunners and the portion of security-penetration devices that
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Murka had carried.
"I made a bet we could get in even if we couldn t afford the front door."
Murka s mouth turned down in great discouragement.
"Looks like I lost."
"Looks like you did," growled the guard sergeant, drawing back.
One of his men held up the thin collection of baubles they d stripped off the
Dendarii. "They re not equipped like an assassination team," he observed.
Murka drew himself up, looking wonderfully offended. "We aren t!"
The guard sergeant turned over a stunner. "AWOL, are you?"
"Not if we make it back before midnight." Murka s tone went wheedling. "Look,
m CO s a right bastard. Suppose there s any way you could see your way clear
that he doesn t find out about this?" One of Murka s hands drifted
suggestively past his wallet pocket.
The guard sergeant looked him up and down, smirking. "Maybe."
Miles listened with open-mouthed delight.
Murka, if this works I m promoting you....
Murka paused. "Any chance of seeing inside first? Not the girls even, just the
place? So I could say that I d seen it."
"This isn t a whorehouse, soldier boy!" snapped the guard sergeant.
Murka looked stunned. "What?"
"This is the biologicals facility."
"Oh," said Murka.
"You idiot
," one of the troopers put in on cue. Miles sprinkled silent blessings down
upon his head. None of the three so much as flicked an eyeball upward.
"But the man in town told me -" began Murka.
"What man?" said the guard sergeant.
"The man who took m money," said Murka. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
meat, we don t bother to fight our way out. Not worth it. They have peculiar
summary ways of dealing with murder charges here, and I don t see the need for
any of us to end up as spare parts in Ryoval s tissue banks. We wait for
Captain Thorne to arrange a ransom, and then try something else.
We hold a lever or two on Ryoval in case of emergencies."
"Dire emergencies," Bel muttered.
"If anything goes wrong after the butcher-mission is accomplished, it s back
to combat rules. That sample will then be irreplaceable, and must be got back
to Captain Thorne at all costs. Laureen, you sure of our emergency pickup
spot?"
"Yes, sir." She pointed on the vid display.
"Everybody else got that? Any questions? Suggestions? Last-minute
observations? Communications check, then, Captain
Thorne."
Their wrist comms all appeared to be in good working order. Ensign Murka
shrugged on the weapons pack. Miles carefully pocketed the blueprint map cube,
that cost them a near-ransom from a certain pliable construction company just
a few hours ago.
The four members of the penetration team slipped from the van and merged with
the frosty darkness.
Page 65
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
They slunk off through the woods. The frozen crunchy layer of plant detritus
tended to slide underfoot, exposing a layer of slick mud. Murka spotted a spy
eye before it spotted them, and blinded it with a brief burst of microwave
static while they scurried past. The useful big guys made short work of
boosting Miles over the wall. Miles tried not to think about the ancient pub
sport of dwarf tossing. The inner court was stark and utilitarian, loading
docks with big locked doors, rubbish collection bays, and a few parked
vehicles.
Footsteps echoed, and they ducked down in a rubbish bay. A red-clad guard
passed, slowly waving an infra-red scanner. They crouched and hid their faces
in their infra-red blank ponchos, looking like so many bags of garbage no
doubt. Then it was tiptoe up to the loading docks.
Ducts. The key to Ryoval s facility had turned out to be ducts, for heating,
for access to power-optics cables, for the comm system. Narrow ducts. Quite
impassable to a big guy. Miles slipped out of his poncho and gave it to a
trooper to fold and pack.
Miles balanced on Murka s shoulders and cut his way through the first ductlet,
a ventilation grille high on the wall above the loading dock doors. Miles
handed the grille down silently, and after a quick visual scan for unwanted
company, slithered through.
It was a tight fit even for him. He let himself down gently to the concrete
floor, found the door control box, shorted the alarm, and raised the door
about a meter. His team rolled through, and he let the door back down as
quietly as he could. So far so good; they hadn t yet had to exchange a word.
They made it to cover on the far side of the receiving bay just before a
red-coveralled employee wandered through, driving an electric cart loaded with
cleaning robots. Murka touched Miles s sleeve, and looked his inquiry -
This one?
Miles shook his head, Not yet.
A maintenance man seemed less likely than an employee from the inner sanctum
to know where their quarry was kept, and they didn t have time to litter the
place with the unconscious bodies of false trials. They found the tunnel to
the main building, just as the map cube promised. The door at the end was
locked as expected.
It was up on Murka s shoulders again. A quick zizz of Miles s cutters loosened
a panel in the ceiling, and he crawled through -
the frail supporting framework would surely not have held a man of greater
weight - and found the power cables running to the door lock. He was just
looking over the problem and pulling tools out of his pocketed uniform jacket
when Murka s hand reached up to thrust the weapons pack beside him and quietly
pull the panel back into place. Miles flung himself to his belly and pressed
his eye to the crack as a voice from down the corridor bellowed, "Freeze!"
Swear words screamed through Miles s head. He clamped his jaw on them. He
looked down on the tops of his troopers heads.
In a moment, they were surrounded by half-a-dozen red-clad black-trousered
armed guards. "What are you doing here?" snarled the guard sergeant.
"Oh, shit!" cried Murka. "
Please
, mister, don t tell my CO you caught us in here. He d bust me back to
private!"
"Huh?" said the guard sergeant. He prodded Murka with his weapon, a lethal
nerve disrupter. "Hands up! Who are you?"
"M name s Murka. We came in on a mercenary ship to Fell Station, but the
captain wouldn t grant us downside passes. Think of it - we come all the way
to Jackson s Whole, and the sonofabitch wouldn t let us go downside! Bloody
pure-dick wouldn t let us see Ryoval s!"
The red-tunic d guards were doing a fast scan-and-search, none too gently, and
finding only stunners and the portion of security-penetration devices that
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Murka had carried.
"I made a bet we could get in even if we couldn t afford the front door."
Murka s mouth turned down in great discouragement.
"Looks like I lost."
"Looks like you did," growled the guard sergeant, drawing back.
One of his men held up the thin collection of baubles they d stripped off the
Dendarii. "They re not equipped like an assassination team," he observed.
Murka drew himself up, looking wonderfully offended. "We aren t!"
The guard sergeant turned over a stunner. "AWOL, are you?"
"Not if we make it back before midnight." Murka s tone went wheedling. "Look,
m CO s a right bastard. Suppose there s any way you could see your way clear
that he doesn t find out about this?" One of Murka s hands drifted
suggestively past his wallet pocket.
The guard sergeant looked him up and down, smirking. "Maybe."
Miles listened with open-mouthed delight.
Murka, if this works I m promoting you....
Murka paused. "Any chance of seeing inside first? Not the girls even, just the
place? So I could say that I d seen it."
"This isn t a whorehouse, soldier boy!" snapped the guard sergeant.
Murka looked stunned. "What?"
"This is the biologicals facility."
"Oh," said Murka.
"You idiot
," one of the troopers put in on cue. Miles sprinkled silent blessings down
upon his head. None of the three so much as flicked an eyeball upward.
"But the man in town told me -" began Murka.
"What man?" said the guard sergeant.
"The man who took m money," said Murka. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]