[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt
She certainly was the kind to have motive in this-if they were going to shut
everything down it would take away the only reason she had for still going on.
An egocentric, gorgeous psychopath, she might object to having to settle in to
one world and lose a lot of that power and maybe the means of preserving that
beauty. She was short, but if she wore really high heels she might make it,
and certainly the injection as the fatal weapon was up her alley. There were
lots of
Amazonian poisons that would kill very quickly and yet break down beyond
analysis in a very short time.
The only trouble was, I had to assume that Pandross was at least as competent
as
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I was or they wouldn't have lasted this long. Particularly if I knew her, and
knew she'd opposed the plan, I'm not sure I'd have turned my back on her if
the two of us were ever anyplace together with nobody else around.
Still, I didn't underestimate her. Anybody who deliberately made themselves
that conspicuous obviously had no problems making themselves-look very
inconspicuous indeed when they wanted to.
"Salvatore Mancini, fifty-two, five feet ten inches tall, a physicist," the
computer went on, showing a picture of a guy almost straight out of The
Godfather, any part, with drooping moustache, craggy face, graying hair, and a
bit of a pot belly, but looking about as Sicilian as Hollywood thinks they
look.
"Mancini was a fierce nationalist as well as having an enormous extended
family of his own, and thus took the destruction of his world very hard
indeed. More than that, he took it personally. Although a doctor of physics
and a specialist in high energy storage and control, Mancini still came from
an area where family and clan were all-important and revenge is obligatory,
the price of the soul's salvation. There is no indication that he is
particularly religious but his thoughts and patterns were shaped by his
inseparable ancestral religion and culture. He was perfectly willing to go
along with the plan and raised no serious objections. In fact, it appears that
Yugarin consulted with him in its formulation and that his support was a
foregone conclusion."
The figure came to life. "Hey! Maglia! Bring that over here!" he growled, and
his voice was somewhat deep and had just a touch of gravel in it. He was close
enough to the right height to fudge it, and while the accent was wrong, it
wasn't beyond belief that he could mask it or alter it if he suspected he was
being overheard. The accent wasn't Italian, at least not my kind. It was
possible that on his world it was far closer to Latin still than the current
tongue back home, or had gone off on a slight tangent. Who knew?
The next figure was a tall, thin, yet tough-looking woman, with dirty blonde
hair cut short in a man's style, with strong, sharp features and a confident
stance. She was wearing what looked like some kind of jungle outfit and her
face and hands seemed weathered, as if she spent most of her time in the bush.
"Stacy Cutler, age forty-five, height five feet eleven inches," the computer
informed us. "Cutler is a zoologist. Although she's had little formal training
beyond undergraduate studies, she has lived all her life in wilderness areas
where her parents were also scientists. She is tough, muscular, could exist
without aid in almost any wild area that supports life, and carried on her
parents' work after their death by hiring out as a guide and mercenary soldier
to finance it as needed. She has overseen most of the exploration,
development, and preliminary studies on safe worlds and abandoned line
junctions. Of them all, she has shown the least injury and the least emotion
regarding her lost world and seems to accept it, using the network as a means
of furthering her own studies in many areas. She opposed the plan because it
includes the concept of shutting down the Labyrinth, and she dislikes the idea
of having to settle on one world forever. She was the most difficult to
persuade and finally went along because she saw it was something the majority
was bent on doing. She apparently extracted a series of concessions for her
support, although what those were is not part of my data."
Even more interesting. Opposed, brought around only when it seemed futile to
continue to go against the more passionate rest-I kind of wondered what would
have happened to anybody at that meeting who hadn't finally come around. If
she had an insincere conversion, and if she still opposed it, she'd be
particularly
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%2...%203%20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20t
he%20Mirror.txt (63 of 150) [1/19/03 4:21:15 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20G.O.D.%20Inc%203%
20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt nervous of Pandross, who would be
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
looking at the opponents very hard and constantly. She was also tall enough,
strong enough, and skilled enough. A real possibility.
She came to life on the screen and said, "You! Put that crate over there and
drop it at the cost of your hide!" The English was definitely her native
tongue, but it held a strong and odd accent- closer maybe to South African,
with its
Germanic undertones, but not quite.
The picture changed again. "Dilip Kanda, fifty, five foot five, a
mathematician and electrical engineer," the computer informed us. The man
certainly looked either Indian or Pakistani, if there was such a difference
where he'd come from;
a bit pudgy but darkly handsome for all that.
"Kanda lost family, children, friends, clan, tribe -all of it," the computer
continued. "A firm believer in reincarnation, with the discovery of infinite
alternate worlds simply reinforcing that belief system since now there's
really room for it, he was saddened, even grieving, for his loss but appears
to hold the Company less in hatred than in contempt. A sincere Hindu, he has
become increasingly strict and very much an ascetic, indulging in few
pleasures and much contemplation, abstaining from sex, from meat, from most
worldly pleasures, with the exception of an abiding taste for elaborate
pastries the results of which are evident and the reason for which he will
explain at length but which are beyond the logic abilities of any other human
or computer to follow.
However, he has in the past come up with many of the most successful
operations against the Company that have been conducted, his plans rarely if
ever compromised or discovered, and he treats going against them as an
intellectual challenge. He was, however, quite willing from the start to go
ahead with the
Great Plan, on the grounds that some metaphysical symmetry would be achieved
and that the Company race should have to be reborn again at the bottom."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]