Outlanders 23 Far Empire by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Within a minute of Kane's departure, Brigid, Nora and DeFore all found pretexts to drift away, leaving Lakesh alone with Quavell. Bry reappeared at the far side of the command center, pretending to run a diagnostic on the Comsat eavesdropping system. A few months before, Lakesh and Bry had created a communications scanner with ville radio frequencies and channels, involving the redoubt's satellite uplinks. They hadn't heard much about the reaction of the rank-and-file ville citizen to the rule of the imperator—most probably knew very little about it, but they had picked up signals confirming Quavell's report of civil unrest in some of the baronies.

For the majority of the ville-bred citizens, the concept of living outside a narrow, structured channel would be akin to insanity. Lakesh knew the people of the baronies wouldn't be as resilient as Kane, Grant and Brigid Baptiste, when their entire belief system collapsed into the rubble of lost dreams and meaningless dogma.

Bry sensed Lakesh looking his way, and turned his attention to the mainframe output ports. The central control complex of Cerberus had five dedicated and eight shared subprocessors, all linked to the mainframe behind the far wall. Two hundred years ago, it had been the most advanced model ever built, carrying experimental, error-correcting microchips of such a tiny size that they even reacted to quantum fluctuations. Biochip technology had been employed when it was built, protein molecules sandwiched between microscopic glass-and-metal circuits.

The information contained in the main database may not have been the sum total of all humankind's knowledge, but not for lack of trying. Any bit, byte or shred of information that had ever been digitized was only a few keystrokes and mouse clicks away. Lakesh continued to stand beside Quavell, groping for something to say. She stared at the vid images on the monitor screen, as if she found them utterly enthralling. He tried to put his hands in his pockets, remembered his white bodysuit didn't have pockets, just flapped pouches, and settled for drumming his fingers atop a nearby computer terminal.

Quavell suddenly spoke, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible over the hum of drive units. "Do not feel compelled to remain in my presence, Dr. Singh. I understand the discomfiture I cause."

Lakesh was startled into smiling. "You don't make everyone uncomfortable, madam. Darlingest Domi, for example, often seeks out your company." "Yes." The word issued from her small mouth in a sardonic whisper. "The novelty of a pregnant hybrid has yet to wane with her."

"I'm sure it's more than that," Lakesh assured her Quavell shifted around in her chair, looking up into his face. Her crystal blue eyes were as placid as the surface of a frown-over lake. "Perhaps so. Perhaps the sight of the dying babies in the nursery at Area 51 is still strong in her memory, and she associates my condition with that tragedy."

Lakesh tugged at his long nose contemplatively, an absentminded habit that hadn't changed since his age reversal. He remembered Domi's tale of

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