[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
in the very same conference room they were using. A twist of a dial focused
entirely on one and blew it up to full screen. It showed a very hand-some man
of clear Latin American ancestry, his hair in the process of going gray,
dressed in casual but clearly expen-sive clothes.
That s all right. Just one at a time, thank you, Mavra said.
Another twist, and the picture showed a woman, very frail although by no means
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
old, with short hair in a prim bun and thick horn-rimmed glasses. She was in a
wheel-chair.
Another twist, and a third man came into view, dressed more casually than the
other but still quite well.
He was a small man, not merely short but thin and wiry, with a large nose and
deep-set eyes that seemed almost black and neatly trimmed black hair. He was
clean-shaven, but Mavra recog-nized him in an instant and a clear memory of
his face, his voice, his personality filled in inside her mind. There was no
question, no doubt about it.
Nathan Brazil had returned to the Well World before her.
You say it has been a fairly long time since they came through, she noted.
Has he returned to South
Zone at all since arriving?
I couldn t say. Those records would not be here, if any records of such a
visit were actually kept at all.
He d be dealing with his hex ambassador in any event.
But does it say what they became? The man and the woman in particular?
Well, that would be appended here for informational purposes the race has an
embassy here and the if if ambas-sador bothered to register them. Let me
check. Ah, yes. Two of them, anyway. The first man went to Zumerbald, the
woman to Dillia, and the third well, there s no record on him, although that
means little, as I said.
I know where he went, she thought, and I know just what he looks like.
The picture changed, and two other men came up on the screen, neither
familiar.
This is the colonel and the captain?
Yes, if you prefer. A close-up of the older man, the colonel, showed a gruff
middle-aged man with gray hair and dark complexion but with distinctly
Germanic rather than Brazilian features not uncommon in Brazil, although Mavra
would not know that. The close-up of the other showed a much younger and quite
handsome man with thick brown hair and a medium complexion which sug-gested he
hadn t been in the tropics very long. His uniform was khaki-colored and had
nothing on it but a name tag and captain s bars on the shoulders.
The older man went to Nanzistu, the ambassador told her, and the younger
went to odd, it s not there, but I could have sworn somebody or other said he
went to Erdom. Well, they don t keep a permanent ambassador here, and they re
a tribal people, so perhaps they didn t do much updating. But that s the lot.
He looks familiar somehow, Lori said, looking at the handsome man. I wonder
if I met him somewhere. I wouldn t forget a face and body like that.
It s an American uniform.
Well, perhaps you will remember; it might be useful, Mavra replied, then
turned to the ambassador.
And one other favor, she reminded him.
Eh? What?
Your translator. I would like to speak directly to my companions for a
moment. A few minutes, no more.
Well, you can do that now, can t you?
It would be easier if I didn t have to shout. May I just borrow it for a
moment and place it right here?
Where are we going to go?
Oh, very well. He lifted it from around his neck, and she went and took it
from him. Be careful with it, though!
She took it over and knelt beside Gus. Gus, can you hear me?
Um . . . Huh? Yeah. Been listenin to this bullshit. Still hung over from
them drugs, though. I d swear that guy over there was a giant pink talking
dinosaur.
You re not hung over, and he s more or less exactly that, Lori assured him.
Look, Gus, you heard it.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Whether you believe it or not, they re going to force us through, and who
knows where or even what we ll be if he s telling the truth?
Believe it, Gus, Mavra said firmly. But that s not the point right now. The
point is what happens after.
I m going to tell you all right now that I will not change. I am already
registered here. I m going to
Ambreza, the old Glathriel, and so did that small fellow up there. You heard
my ques-tions about the legends?
Lori frowned. Yes, but I don t see
You don t have to. That man is Nathan Brazil. The one in the legends. The man
who can work the
computer that runs not only this place but every place. Sooner or later that
is going to get out. Sooner if I
have anything to do with it. And although I doubt he s even started yet,
sooner or later he s going to head north, to the equator, and go inside. When
he does, he is going to become like one of the an-cient people that built this
place. He ll go down into the guts of this world, check it out, then he ll do
a reset.
A
what
! Juan Campos and Lori almost said together.
A reset. It won t affect this world, but it will affect Earth. Drastically.
Time, space, everything will be changed. They had few rules, those ancient
people. In the end he ll bring Earth and the other inhabited planets back up
to speed, to where, in our case, true humans develop. But ev-erybody now alive
on
Earth, and everybody who s lived up to that point, will be destroyed first. It
will all start out from scratch.
I I
think that they ll all be stored here in the memory banks of the Well World.
But all of it, everything and everyone you ever knew, will be gone.
Lori shook her head in wonder. I m still having trouble with this place. I
can t really handle that
.
Yes, how do you know this to be true? Juan Campos added.
I was there the last time he did it. I helped. It was necessary, I swear. It
was do that or the entire universe would die forever, even this place. But
when we started it back up, nothing was made better.
Everything developed exactly as it had before. All the suffering, the misery,
the evil. I don t know if this crisis is as serious as that one. I don t think
it is. Lori, you trusted me enough to come this far, and I
wasn t lying, was I? Trust me on this one, too. I want to stop him this time.
I want to see if it s necessary to destroy the universe and reset it when a
few minor re-pairs and adjustments will suffice. Maybe this time I can save
everybody and make things a little better. I can do that, but only if I beat
him inside, to the master control. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
in the very same conference room they were using. A twist of a dial focused
entirely on one and blew it up to full screen. It showed a very hand-some man
of clear Latin American ancestry, his hair in the process of going gray,
dressed in casual but clearly expen-sive clothes.
That s all right. Just one at a time, thank you, Mavra said.
Another twist, and the picture showed a woman, very frail although by no means
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
old, with short hair in a prim bun and thick horn-rimmed glasses. She was in a
wheel-chair.
Another twist, and a third man came into view, dressed more casually than the
other but still quite well.
He was a small man, not merely short but thin and wiry, with a large nose and
deep-set eyes that seemed almost black and neatly trimmed black hair. He was
clean-shaven, but Mavra recog-nized him in an instant and a clear memory of
his face, his voice, his personality filled in inside her mind. There was no
question, no doubt about it.
Nathan Brazil had returned to the Well World before her.
You say it has been a fairly long time since they came through, she noted.
Has he returned to South
Zone at all since arriving?
I couldn t say. Those records would not be here, if any records of such a
visit were actually kept at all.
He d be dealing with his hex ambassador in any event.
But does it say what they became? The man and the woman in particular?
Well, that would be appended here for informational purposes the race has an
embassy here and the if if ambas-sador bothered to register them. Let me
check. Ah, yes. Two of them, anyway. The first man went to Zumerbald, the
woman to Dillia, and the third well, there s no record on him, although that
means little, as I said.
I know where he went, she thought, and I know just what he looks like.
The picture changed, and two other men came up on the screen, neither
familiar.
This is the colonel and the captain?
Yes, if you prefer. A close-up of the older man, the colonel, showed a gruff
middle-aged man with gray hair and dark complexion but with distinctly
Germanic rather than Brazilian features not uncommon in Brazil, although Mavra
would not know that. The close-up of the other showed a much younger and quite
handsome man with thick brown hair and a medium complexion which sug-gested he
hadn t been in the tropics very long. His uniform was khaki-colored and had
nothing on it but a name tag and captain s bars on the shoulders.
The older man went to Nanzistu, the ambassador told her, and the younger
went to odd, it s not there, but I could have sworn somebody or other said he
went to Erdom. Well, they don t keep a permanent ambassador here, and they re
a tribal people, so perhaps they didn t do much updating. But that s the lot.
He looks familiar somehow, Lori said, looking at the handsome man. I wonder
if I met him somewhere. I wouldn t forget a face and body like that.
It s an American uniform.
Well, perhaps you will remember; it might be useful, Mavra replied, then
turned to the ambassador.
And one other favor, she reminded him.
Eh? What?
Your translator. I would like to speak directly to my companions for a
moment. A few minutes, no more.
Well, you can do that now, can t you?
It would be easier if I didn t have to shout. May I just borrow it for a
moment and place it right here?
Where are we going to go?
Oh, very well. He lifted it from around his neck, and she went and took it
from him. Be careful with it, though!
She took it over and knelt beside Gus. Gus, can you hear me?
Um . . . Huh? Yeah. Been listenin to this bullshit. Still hung over from
them drugs, though. I d swear that guy over there was a giant pink talking
dinosaur.
You re not hung over, and he s more or less exactly that, Lori assured him.
Look, Gus, you heard it.
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Whether you believe it or not, they re going to force us through, and who
knows where or even what we ll be if he s telling the truth?
Believe it, Gus, Mavra said firmly. But that s not the point right now. The
point is what happens after.
I m going to tell you all right now that I will not change. I am already
registered here. I m going to
Ambreza, the old Glathriel, and so did that small fellow up there. You heard
my ques-tions about the legends?
Lori frowned. Yes, but I don t see
You don t have to. That man is Nathan Brazil. The one in the legends. The man
who can work the
computer that runs not only this place but every place. Sooner or later that
is going to get out. Sooner if I
have anything to do with it. And although I doubt he s even started yet,
sooner or later he s going to head north, to the equator, and go inside. When
he does, he is going to become like one of the an-cient people that built this
place. He ll go down into the guts of this world, check it out, then he ll do
a reset.
A
what
! Juan Campos and Lori almost said together.
A reset. It won t affect this world, but it will affect Earth. Drastically.
Time, space, everything will be changed. They had few rules, those ancient
people. In the end he ll bring Earth and the other inhabited planets back up
to speed, to where, in our case, true humans develop. But ev-erybody now alive
on
Earth, and everybody who s lived up to that point, will be destroyed first. It
will all start out from scratch.
I I
think that they ll all be stored here in the memory banks of the Well World.
But all of it, everything and everyone you ever knew, will be gone.
Lori shook her head in wonder. I m still having trouble with this place. I
can t really handle that
.
Yes, how do you know this to be true? Juan Campos added.
I was there the last time he did it. I helped. It was necessary, I swear. It
was do that or the entire universe would die forever, even this place. But
when we started it back up, nothing was made better.
Everything developed exactly as it had before. All the suffering, the misery,
the evil. I don t know if this crisis is as serious as that one. I don t think
it is. Lori, you trusted me enough to come this far, and I
wasn t lying, was I? Trust me on this one, too. I want to stop him this time.
I want to see if it s necessary to destroy the universe and reset it when a
few minor re-pairs and adjustments will suffice. Maybe this time I can save
everybody and make things a little better. I can do that, but only if I beat
him inside, to the master control. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]