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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
like a runner at the mark, but she felt every one of her forty-eight years as a weight on her shoulders,
dragging down on her arms. Forty-eight years, she thought. Half a century that somehow had never
given her the words or way in which to touch her sister. She waited for the familiar wash of bitterness,
but it didn't come. Only a tang, as if she bit her lip and tasted blood.
She did not think about the biochips. She did not consider
Kurvan. The cold that radiated from the stone made her shiver, and she drew her burned blunter more
closely around her ex-hausted body, then hunched against the rain and shoved her hands in her pockets.
The sharp edges of the safety cubes pressed against her fingers, and she glanced at Nitpicker. She ought
to give them back to the pilot now, she thought with irony. If blackjack had its way, she'd have no
chance to return the datacubes later.
Daya, she had no energy left to think. She should be plan-ning, thinking of how to escape, but she could
not seem to fo-cus. Her sister's name was like a cry that echoed and split the thoughts in her mind. Even
above the background hum of the cats or over the snarling of the cougar, or around the splashing,
dripping sounds of the rainwater washing in, her sister's name was a sharp knife in her skull. Shjams&
Doetzier's voice was still low. "Did you get inside to the corns?"
Tsia tried to focus. "No."
"Zyas, Feather." His voice was sharper. "Did you do any-thing at all?"
Daya, it was hard to form the words. "I yanked everything I could from the maintenance bays," she
managed finally. Somehow, it seemed like weeks had passed, not simply twenty-eight hours. And still it
rained, as if the sky shed the tears that Tsia could not. She glanced at Bowdie. Poetic justice, she thought
with gallows humor. It rained so that she could drown her sorrows with the very breath in her lungs. A
fitting image that she drowned in the tears of the world she tried to save.
"From what bays did you pull the gear?"
She could still see Shjams standing there, smelling of cat and packing crates; of the perfume she had
used when they were young&
"Which bays?" he repeated urgently.
file:///K|/rah/Harper,.Tara.K.-.Collection/Harper,%20T...20-%20Cat%20Scratch%2002%20-%20Cataract(1995)[UC].html (205 of 256)14-7-2004 1:24:03
Tara K Harper - Cataract
She dragged her thoughts back to the present. "The aft bays just behind the wing slots."
"How much damage did you do? What did you pull out?"
"I don't know," she returned sharply. She closed her eyes and took a breath and lowered her voice again.
"I'm a guide, not a shiptech," she whispered finally. "I just grabbed every-thing in reach sensor boxes,
power strips, datacubes. I cracked a few honeycombs and tore out a length of pressure tubing."
"And they didn't see the mess?"
"I closed the bays before they got there. Threw the gear in the forest."
Doetzier swore quietly under his breath. "Blackjack will be able to scan out that gear inside ten minutes."
"They'll find nothing before they lift."
He shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Every sensor box has a repair call sign built in. You can
trigger its location through the scannet here at the hub. Datacubes too they're no exception."
"Grounded scannets have a limited range."
"They're not as limited as your throwing arm."
"You don't understand," she said tiredly. "They will not find the gear."
He actually looked at her. "You got it outside the scan range?"
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "Trust a guide to hide the path beneath your feet," he quoted. "If they
can't lift off& " He seemed to straighten. "Did you get all three ships?"
"No only two. They caught me at the transport."
"Sleem take them, that's the one they'll fly out on, too& " He thought for a moment. "If the transport was
out of commis-sion, we'd have a good chance of keeping the zeks contained long enough to get help or
to recover the chips before they lift off," he added, more to himself than to her.
"Zyas, Doetzier, don't you ever give up?"
"Not while there's breath in my family line."
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Tara K Harper - Cataract
"At least you could tell me what that is," she whispered sourly back. "Your family name, I mean so I
can die with my curiosity sated."
He gave her a wry grin. "Death isn't reason enough to give up the power of a name."
Tsia could not smile in response. She shoved herself away from the wall and paced the small pit like a
tiger, shouldering past the other meres as if they were not there. In an hour, she and Doetzier would be
fighting to stay afloat in an r-con field, not scheming to get back the chips. One hour, maybe two, and
the zeks would, if the meres survived that long, kill them all like rats in a bucket. Her hands itched to
climb up the slick sides of the pit, but her mind could see no way out. If she could image the node, she
could lower the lift by command as soon as blackjack left. But in an r-con field, no one would be able to
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