[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Yermak raspberried again.  He slummed, condescended.
Elayne said,  He did not slum.
Yermak stood up and knocked his chair down again.
 Such drama, Elayne said. She turned away disdainfully.
 Fap you, Vermak said blithely. Jacob Welsh leaned his head back and
stretched.
 We ve had enough, my friend, he warned Yermak with barely concealed
approval.  Two upheavals are quite enough.
 I will not sit again not with these, Yermak said.
 Time to leave then. Welsh stood.  Your news is useful, Richard, and I
suppose that s enough. Your loyalty is admirable but we do not share it.
 I don t think it s loyalty, Richard said.  If he s murdered he should be
therapied 
 But we don t therapy even our worst enemies, Richard, Yermak intoned,
leaning over him.  I wouldn t put anybody through that. Better he were dead.
Better still if he had never come near us.
Richard nodded not in agreement but to wish them off.
 Don t forget the reading, Elayne Sandhurst said cheerily.  Bring your best.
 I don t write anymore, Yermak said, sneering.
 Then read something from your dark past, Ultrima suggested. When Welsh and
Yermak had left she turned to Richard.  Honestly. Such children. We ve never
really liked them here.. . they are so close, so weird.
 Like brothers or lovers yet they are neither, Elayne Sandhurst said.
 They need help, Sandra suggested and at that all but Richard laughed. Help
Page 22
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was not something the untherapied sought. Help was a kind of death to those
who cherished their flaws.
+ We should all live in shade not in the sun. Like insects.
My first name means god is with us. My last name means worker in golti I
choose words instead; they are muck more valuable for being so common, and so
misused and misunderstood. As for having god with me; I don t think so
somehow.
9
Elevating alongside South Comb Two Mary Cboy watched the great mirrored arms
rotate to focus the low sixteen sun on Pasadena. She took an external
expressway, spending one of her municipal emergency transit credits to get a
car to herself.
Exploring the Colonel Sir John Yardley connection would be perilous. She knew
enough of federal politics to see the Janus face the United States turned
toward Yardley.
Embraced by Raphkind, openly shunned now but in the closet perhaps still
silky. Yardley might be federally useful and ultimately LAPD answered to the
federals. The department was more than half funded by the National Public
Defense. To go any further without departmental approval would not be politic.
Mary wanted that approval before the day was over.
Los Angeles Public Defense Command occupied a three tier block on the favored
west side of South Comb Two. The long beanpole of the expressway, in
proportion very like a taut stretched human hair, with no visible means of
support but its own ten meter hexagonal cross section, carried three express
elevators. These stopped at levels chosen only by their passengers, unlike
most of the internal arteries of elevators and transports within the comb.
She took her seat in the carefully cushioned chair and endured the rapid
acceleration. In the moments before the door opened as the elevator slowed she
felt as if she were floating. This was only slightly less unpleasant than the
weight.
The west side looked out across the old communities of Inglewood Culver City
and Santa Monica, now covered with great reddish brown slashes as the old city
was leveled and new combs encroached upon shadow. In the maxdense hills of
Santa
Monica layer upon layer of what some netwit thirty years before had called
insulas grew like cave wall crystals, dazzling white at noon but now blue gray
in the
onset of evening. Here and in the stabilized deep sunk pads of Malibu was
where the notyetchosen waited for vacancies within the combs. Vacancies were
becoming more and more rare as rejuvenators plied their controversial trade,
turning good citizens into multicentenarian dci. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]