[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]about that?"
"Not until now."
There were intervals when it seemed that Scurlock, at least, was
trying to come to terms with the other couple. Carol seemed
too disconnected to care whether she came to terms with anyone or not.
Scurlock: "Look here, we're all prisoners together."
Hoveler nodded warily. "Has the machine given you any idea of what it plans to
do with you? Or with us?"
"No." Then Scurlock put on a ghastly smile: "But Carol and I
are going to play along. That's the only course to take in a
situation like this."
Meanwhile, in the hours and days immediately following the theft of the
station, all of the various bases, populous cities, and settlements upon the
habitable planets of the Imatran system were frantic with activity. Much
of it utterly useless, all of it too late to save the station. Word of
the berserker attack had of course been dispatched at light speed to
the authorities who governed the system's sunward worlds. The news
had reached those planets within a few hours of the event. Hastily they had
dispatched what little help they had readily available toward the ravaged
planetoid.
Page 40
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Following established military doctrine, a unified system command was at
once set up, and under its aegis the big worlds coordinated their efforts as
thoroughly as possible.
There would be no more in-system fighting-if for no other reason
than because the Imatrans had nothing else in space capable of
challenging the victorious enemy. The captured station was being ruthlessly,
inexorably, but carefully, gently, hauled away.
Within a few hours after the beginning of the raid, all that
remained in the Imatran system as evidence of the outrage was a modest number
of dead and wounded, scattered marks of damage on the surface of the
planetoid, some swiftly fading electromagnetic signals, including light
waves&
A small amount of debris drifting in space, wreckage from
human ships and small berserkers, the result of the brief, fierce combat.
And a number of recordings, affording reasonably complete documentation
of the outrage.
THREE
In a dream that seemed to her both prolonged and recurring, the Lady
Genevieve beheld the image of her rescuer continuing to drift before her
eyes. The suited figure, faceless inside his protective space helmet,
had the shape of a tall man, ruggedly strong, who held out his arms in
an offer of succor from disaster, of salvation from-
From everything, perhaps, except bad dreams.
And her rescuer's voice, issuing from his suit's air speaker, had spoken his
name to her again, just before&
Yes, Nicholas Hawksmoor. That was his name.
Lady Genevieve aboard the dying courier had been welcoming her rescuer. In
pure joy of life triumphant she had spread out her arms to embrace the
superbly capable, the blessed and glorious
Nicholas Hawksmoor. For just a moment he had given her an impression
of hesitation, of surprise. And then his armored arms had come round her
gently, carefully, returning the hug.
A moment later, pushing herself back to arm's length from the tight embrace,
Genevieve had demanded eagerly: "Can you get me out of here? I don't have a
suit, you see. It seems there are no suits aboard."
Again his voice-Nick's voice, the voice she remembered from the
holostage-issued from the suit's air speaker. "That's quite all right, my
lady. I can get you out safely. Because-"
And then-
As she recalled the flow of events now (however much time had passed)
from her present place of safety (wherever that
might be), it seemed to the Lady Genevieve that the whole world had exploded
at that point.
She now even had her doubts that that last remembered explosion had
been quite real. But very real and convincing was her present sense, her
impression, that after that moment the course of her rescue had somehow
gone terribly wrong.
Only the fact that these memories of wreckage and explosions seemed remote
kept her now from being still utterly terrified.
The embrace, with her body clad only in the shreds of the white
dress, pressed against the suit's unfeeling armor. And with the courier's
smoky atmosphere steadily bleeding itself thin around them. Then the
last explosion. Yes, very real, as convincing as any memory of her entire
life.
And following the last explosion, dreams. A whole world of peculiar
dreams, dreams evolving into a strange mental clarity, true vision
Page 41
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
bringing with it terror. And now she was living that experience
again-unfocused and unshielded terror, the helpless sense of onrushing
death, the certainty of obliteration.
But this time, for the Lady Genevieve, the period of clarity and terror was
mercifully brief.
Again unconsciousness claimed her for an indeterminate time.
A blackness deeper than any normal sleep, like the complete cessation
of existence.
Then she was drifting, carrying up out of nothingness with her the single
thought that the courier, really, had somehow been demolished, with her
still aboard. An event of some importance, she supposed. But now it seemed
remote from her.
Then, finally, blessedly, real awareness of her real surroundings. Her
present environment, gratefully, was one which proved by its mere
existence that she had been rescued, brought to a place of safety. She
occupied a bed, or rather a narrow berth, which seemed, from several
background
indications, to be aboard a ship. Close above her, passing only a few
centimeters from her face, moved the thin, efficient, obviously
inhuman, tremendously welcome metal arms of a medirobot, which must be
in some way taking care of her.
And there, only a little farther away, just beyond the clear
sanitary shield guarding her berth, loomed the handsome face of the volunteer
pilot-his was one name Jenny was never going to forget-Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Hawksmoor was looking down at her anxiously.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkajaszek.htw.pl
