Harper, Tara K Cataract

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was slow. The cat, who flicked his tail, growled constantly in her mind, and his feet seemed to pad
across her thoughts so that she could not concentrate.
Doetzier looked at the water. "The frame that Kurvan dropped," he asked Tsia. "Was it close enough to
fish out?"
She shook her head.
"And Wren's pack?"
"It sank. It's far below the grass mat now."
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Tara K Harper - Cataract
She caught Kurvan's dark expression as he watched her from the side. Doetzier eyed her in silence. She
could feel the hostility in his gaze, and it made her edge away. "It had antigravs," Doetzier said softly.
"Wren said they cut out just before he went down. I didn't think to try them."
He did not nod.
"I was more concerned with getting Wren," she snapped, "than checking on his gear."
He shrugged and turned away to collapse the makeshift raft.
Tsia stared at him and got to her feet. "Damn you," she breathed. "Damn you all to hell." She did not
even know who she cursed.
16
It took them twenty minutes to break down the gear and get back out of the brash. No one mentioned the
scame that was lost with Wren's breaker and the pack. His gear& The enbees& Uneasiness grew with
every step Tsia took down the muddy trail. The skimmer crash& The antigravs& Since the moment the
meres landed on the platform at dawn, they had been pared down, she realized suddenly. Twelve meres
thirteen, counting Tsia and now there were seven left. Jandon had taken five shooters; the ocean had
taken Tucker. Nitpicker almost went down in the lake. Kurvan would have gone off on the bridge. Of
the two packs that were left, one carried only configuration gear, the other Kurvan's scannet. No manual
corns were left in the packs. No e-gear or wide-range weapons. Only one handscanner on Bowdie's belt,
his parlas, and the flexors on the hips of the other meres. It was like surgery where, in a predefined
pattern, the pieces were cut away, so that all that was left were the bones and the biofields.
She paused and stared at the slick, gray water that still sat like harmless puddles. When she looked back
at the other meres, only Doetzier met her eyes. The tightness of her jaw made her shudder till she
welcomed the chill of her skin. It was three hours before dawn.
Kurvan saw her pause, and pushed past the other mere to catch up with her on the trail. He motioned
with his chin back at Wren. "I thought you said you couldn't sense a human through your gate."
She didn't answer for a moment. "I've known Wren for a long time," she said finally. "I'm familiar with
his energy."
"So you knew he was alive."
"He was a shadow, like any other. Like you."
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Tara K Harper - Cataract
"And like me," the man retorted sharply, his voice gathering and projecting the fury that his biofield hid,
"he almost died because of your inaction."
Tsia stared at him. "What?"
"You may not have meant to push him down when you grabbed for him, but it would have been a hell of
a lot better to let me finish bringing him up with the pole." He nodded at her expression. "I had him," he
repeated coldly. "You pushed him down. I could have brought him up long before he lost consciousness
if you hadn't made me lose my grip with the pole."
She stared at him in disbelief. "It was you not I who pushed him down. I had him. I dug my fingers
into his hand as if he was my own brother."
"And you also almost drowned him in place. Just like Tucker. And" Kurvan's voice was harsh now
"perhaps, Nitpicker, too, before Bowdie swam down to help you back in the lake?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. A snarl grew in her throat. Ahead, in the forest,
Ruka paused and turned back.
Kurvan eyed her as if she were a parasite that had crawled out from a pore in- his skin. It had been a
long time since any-one had looked at her with such revulsion, and she took an in-voluntary step back at
the vehemence of his expression. "Makes me wonder," he said with a cold, deliberate tone, "why these
things occur only when you are there to& help. Do you really lead us to the freepick stake? Or do you
work to keep us here? Away from the biochips, and away from the manual corns?"
He eyed her for another moment, then brushed past along the trail. She stared after him without moving.
There was a snarling in her ears, and she could hear it resonating in her bones: It was her own throat that
made those sounds. She shut her lips abruptly, but she could not move from her stance. It was not until
Doetzier reached her frozen form that she real-ized the wind had carried Kurvan's words to the other
mere as clearly as if they'd been spoken in his ears. Doetzier shot her a single look, then spat deliberately
to the side. She could only glare at him till he passed.
"Goddam digger-spawned worm of a dith carcass," she cursed. At that moment, she didn't know which [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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