[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

clump, clump...
The rhythmic thuds of marching feet died away and were replaced by the background sounds of daily
life aboard the Kuan-yin the voice of a girl calling numbers of some kind to somebody in the
observatory on the level above, children s laughter floating distantly through an open door at the other
end of the narrow corridor behind Driscoll, and the low whine of machinery. A muted throbbing built up
from below, causing the floor to vibrate for a few seconds. Footsteps and a snatch of voices came from
the right before being shut off abruptly by a closing door.
Driscoll was feeling more relieved. If what he had seen so far was anything to go by, the Chironians
weren t going to start any trouble. He d had to bite his tongue in order to keep a straight face back in the
antechamber by the ramp, and it was a miracle that nobody important had heard Stanislau sniggering next
to him. The Chironians were okay, he had decided. Everything would be okay...provided that ass-faces
like Farnhill didn t go and screw things up.
What had impressed him the most was the way the kids seemed to be involved in everything that was
going on just as much as the grown-ups. They didn t come across like kids at all, but more like small
people who were busy finding out how things were done. In a room two posts back, he had glimpsed a
couple of kids who couldn t have been more than twelve probing carefully and with deep frowns of
concentration inside the electronics of a piece of equipment that must have cost millions. The older
Chironian with them just watched over their shoulders and offered occasional suggestions. It made sense,
Driscoll thought. Treat them as if they re responsible, and they act responsibly; give them bits of cheap
plastic to throw around, and they act like it s cheap plastic. Or maybe the Chironians just had good
insurance on their equipment.
He wondered how he might have made out if he d had a start like that. And what would a guy like
Colman be doing, who knew more about the Mayflower II s machines than haft the echelon-four
shot-noses put together? If that was the way the computers had brought the first kids up, Driscoll
reflected, he could think of a few humans who could have used some lessons.
His debut into life had been very different. The war had left his parents afflicted by genetic damage, and
their first two children had not survived infancy. Aging prematurely from side effects, they had known
they would never see Chiron when they brought him aboard the Mayflower II as a boy of eight and
sacrificed the few more years that they might have spent on Earth in order to give him a new start
somewhere else. Paradoxically, their health had qualified them favorably in their application to join the
Mission since the planning had called for the inclusion of older people and higher-risk actuarial categories
among the population to make room for the births that would be occurring later. A dynamic population
had been deemed desirable, and the measures taken to achieve it had seemed callous to some, but had
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
been necessary.
As a youth he had daydreamed about becoming an entertainer a singer, or a comic, maybe but he
couldn t sing and he couldn t tell jokes, and somehow after his parents died within two years of each
other halfway through the voyage, he had ended up in the Army. So now, though he still couldn t sing a
note or tell a joke right, he knew just how to use an M32 to demolish a small building from two thousand
yards, could operate a battlefield compack blindfolded, and was an expert at deactivating optically
triggered anti-intruder personnel mines.
About all he was good with outside things like that was cards. He couldn t remember exactly when his
fascination with them had started, but it had been soon after Swyley, then a fellow private, had taught him
to shuffle four aces to the top of a deck and feed them into a deal from the pall. Finding to his surprise
that he seemed to have an aptitude, Driscoll had borrowed a leaf from Colman s book and started
reading up about the subject. For many long off duty hours he had practiced top-pass palms and
one-handed side-cuts until he could materialize three full fans from an empty hand and lift a named
number of cards off a deck eight times out of ten. Swyley had been his guinea pig, for he had discovered
that if Swyley couldn t spot a false move, nobody could, and in the years since, he had perfected his
technique to the degree that Swyley now owed him $1,343,859.20, including interest. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]