[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.But what she wanted was tomake him fall for her.She had succeeded.No wonder she had givensuch a mocking answer when he asked why she had not precoggedthe failure of her trick.Was this a regular custom at Dyoto? He feltanger surge in him for a moment, then calmed down.Since the dawnof time women had set snares for men.It was one of the facts of human existence, and one couldn t blame them.He thought: I should have left her to rot in Veran s camp andlearn that men have tricks of their own! But he would not have donethat.It was in the camp that he had genuinely come to loveher, when she kept such a cool head, and still more on the mausoleum planet, when she had shown herself both human and terrified.Besides, he had no choice.He would snatch her and himselffrom Veran s grasp.He would set down a bag of provisions on a blueroad.So far, his part was scripted.He could not avoid that withoutcreating a timequake in his past.But afterward? When he had sentthe message, would he still have to furnish the recruits and theequipment demanded by Veran, the fugitive from Aergistal?It made no sense.Why should the other Corson, after their escape,have led them to the mausoleum world? Was that a compulsory stopover, the site of some kind of temporal interchange?But Corson was coming to know the paths of time well, and hewas fairly certain nothing of the kind existed.When he carried outhis rescue operation he could just as well bring the escapees here tothis beach where the Council was based and leave for Aergistal byhimself if his stay there proved to be indispensable.He knew that itwas.He had changed at Aergistal.And he had learned much whichwas necessary to the success of his plans.He recalled the metal plate laid so conspicuously on the ration bagbefore the mausoleum door.At the time its message had seemed unclear to him.Searching the pockets of his suit, he found the platewas there even though he had changed clothes many times.Sheerhabit must have made him transfer it from one outfit to another.Part of the text had been erased, although the letters appeared tobe deeply incised in the metal.EVEN EMPTY WRAPPINGS CAN STILL BE USEFUL.THERE IS MORE THANONE WAY TO MAKE WAR.REMEMBER THAT.He whistled softly between his teeth.Just suppose empty wrappings meant the undead women in the mausoleum! The Overlords of War155He had wondered whether they might be endowed with artificialpersonalities and used like robots.He had even thought they mightbe plastoids until he realized they were too perfectly detailed.Theyhad been alive.Now they were dead, even though the slow activityof their bodies might make one assume the contrary.He had estimated there might be a million of them even in the small part ofthe mausoleum he had seen.They represented a formidable potential army, numerous enough to match the maddest ambitions ofVeran.Bar one thing they were women.The colonel had judged itnecessary to tighten discipline when Antonella entered his camp.Hetrusted his men only up to a certain point.He did not expect themto betray him for money or by ambition.But there were biologicalimperatives he dared not infringe.Corson put his hands to his neck.The collar was there still, solight he often nearly forgot about it.Solid cold motionless, yetmore dangerous than a cobra.But the snake slumbered.The ideaof using the undead as recruits ought not to amount to an overt declaration of hostility.Shaken by nausea, he bowed down to the sand, aware of Antonella watching him.The idea of making use of the undead appalled him.But it was much in the style of Those of Aergistalto make use of the leftovers, the war criminals or their victims, toavert a far worse calamity.They were casuists who adhered to theprinciple of the lesser evil or rather they were total realists.Becausethose women were dead, dead for good and all.Empty wrappings!No longer capable of reason, or imagination, or even of suffering except on the most basic level.Perhaps they could still breed; that wasa point he d have to bear in mind.But to give them artificial personalities would be a crime far pettier than to annihilate a city fullof intelligent beings by pressing a button.On reflection, it was noworse a transgression than an organ transplant, and surgeons onEarth had settled that problem long ago: the dead must serve theliving.He scraped sand over what he had vomited, swallowed painfully,wiped the corners of his mouth. I m better now, he told Antonella, who was still staring at himin dismay. It s nothing.A a fit. She had offered no help, or even sympathy.She had not made amove.Too young, maybe, he thought.Brought up in the silken safetyof a world unaware of disease and pain
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
