Страница 64 из 73
Suddenly the driver dropped the travel cube to the ground. “This is as close as I’m going,” he said. “You heard the adjudicator. If you want to go further in, you’ll have to do it on foot.”
“Damn you,” said Mary, but Christine didn’t translate that. Then: “How far are we?”
The driver pointed. “That’s Konbor Square over there.” Off in the distance, Mary could see a series of low buildings, a short stack of travel cubes, and an open area.
Mary was furious, but she pushed up the starfish control that opened her side of the cube and got out. Louise and Reuben followed. As soon as they were clear, the travel cube rose again and began flying back the way they’d come.
Mary started ru
Jock had on a typical mammoth-fur coat and was carrying the metal box the Canadian Forces officer had described—presumably his aerosol bomb. He turned around, looking surprised. “Mary? Louise? And—my goodness! Dr. Montego, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”
“We know about the Surfaris virus,” said Mary. “You can’t get away.”
To Mary’s astonishment, Jock gri
Chapter Forty
“The dawn of the Cenozoic, the famed Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary when the dinosaurs died out, was marked by a layer of clay, found on both versions of Earth. The begi
Ponter and the three adjudicators were in the largest viewing room at the alibi-archive pavilion, watching everything unfold from multiple points of view. Not only had the adjudicators switched Jock Krieger’s Companion over to judicial scrutiny, they had also done the same for Mary Vaughan’s, Louise Benoît’s, and Reuben Montego’s. Four meter-wide holographic bubbles floated in the room, each one showing the surroundings of one of the four Companions on the scene.
Ponter and the three adjudicators were at risk, too, of course. Although the archive pavilion was located on the periphery of the Center, it was still far too close to where the standoff was occurring. “The female Gliksin with the dark hair was right,” said Adjudicator Mykalro, a chunky 142. “You must leave, Scholar Boddit. We all must.”
“The three of you go,” said Ponter, folding his arms in front of his chest. “I’m staying.”
And then Ponter saw Jock pull his gun. His whole spine stiffened; Ponter hadn’t seen a gun since he’d been shot by that would-be assassin outside United Nations headquarters. He relived the moment of the bullet tearing into him, hot and piercing and—
And he couldn’t let that happen to Mare.
“What sort of weapons are stored here?” demanded Ponter.
Mykalro’s white eyebrow went up. “Here? At the archive pavilion?”
“Or next door,” said Ponter, “at the Council chamber.”
The Neanderthal woman shook her head. “None.”
“What about the tranquilizer guns enforcers use?”
“They’re kept in the enforcement station, in Dobronyal Square.”
“Don’t enforcers carry them?”
“Not normally,” said another one of the adjudicators. “There’s no need. Saldak’s Gray Council only authorized the acquisition of six such units; I suspect they’re all in storage right now.”
“Is there any way to stop him?” asked Ponter, pointing at one of the floating images of Jock.
“Not that any of those puny Gliksins could manage,” said Adjudicator Mykalro.
Ponter nodded, understanding. “I’m going to help them. How far away are they?”
The second adjudicator squinted at a status display. “About 7200 armspans.”
He could easily run that. “Hak, have you got the exact location noted?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Companion.
“All right, Adjudicators,” said Ponter, “get to safety. And wish me luck.”
“You can’t just shoot us,” said Mary, trying to keep her voice from quavering, unable to take her eyes off the gun. “There will be a record at the alibi archives.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Jock said. “A fascinating system they’ve got here, I must say: remote black boxes for every man, woman, and child. Of course, it’ll be easy enough to find the archive blocks for the four of us, and once all the Neanderthals are dead, there will be no one to stop me from waltzing into the pavilion and destroying those blocks.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw that Reuben was inching away from her. There was a tree a few meters beyond him; he might be able to get behind it, meaning Jock wouldn’t be able to shoot him without changing position. Mary could hardly blame Reuben for trying to protect himself. Louise, meanwhile, was somewhere behind her and presumably off to her right.
“You can’t expect your virus to have a worldwide effect from one deployment,” said Mary. “The Neanderthals don’t have the population density to support a plague. It’ll never get past Saldak Center.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Jock, hefting the metal box. “In fact, I have you to thank, Dr. Vaughan: it was your earlier research that made this possible. We’ve changed the natural reservoir for this version of Ebola from African shoe-bills to passenger pigeons. Those birds will carry the virus all over this continent.”
“The Neanderthals are peaceful—” said Louise’s voice.
“Yes,” said Jock. As his eyes shifted to Louise so did his gun. “And that will be their downfall—here, now, just as it was 27,000 years ago, the last time we defeated them.”
Mary was thinking about making a run for it, and—
And Reuben did just that, bursting into motion. Jock swung toward him and squeezed off a round. The report startled a flock of birds—passenger pigeons, Mary saw—into flight, but Jock missed, and Reuben was now behind the tree, safe at least for the moment.
When Reuben had made his break to Mary’s left, Louise had seized the moment and torn off to the right. Like most of Northern Ontario in either universe, the ground here was strewn with erratics: boulders deposited by glaciers that had receded at the end of the Ice Age. Louise ran, then dove, making it behind a lichen-covered boulder barely big enough to conceal her body.
Mary was still caught in the center, both the tree on her left and the boulder on her right too far to reach without being picked off by Jock Krieger.
“Ah, well,” said Jock, shrugging to convey that he felt Louise’s and Reuben’s temporary shelters were nothing but a minor inconvenience. He aimed the pistol back at Mary. “Say your prayers, Dr. Vaughan.”
Ponter ran faster than he ever had before, legs pounding up and down. Although there was a lot of snow on the ground, there were many walking paths that had been cleared, and he was making good progress. He took care to breathe solely through his nose, letting his vast nasal cavities humidify and warm the crisp air before it was drawn into his lungs.