The Complete Inheritance Trilogy: Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human. Ian Douglas
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Название: The Complete Inheritance Trilogy: Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human
Автор: Ian Douglas
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Книги о войне
isbn: 9780007555505
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“That is … unfortunate,” the woman’s voice said, and Lee cursed to herself. Apparently, the PEs had managed to establish quite a deep communications link through her implants, enabling them to read most of her surface thoughts. If Terry or Chesty had been operational, they would have been able to block the intruding channel; hell, Terry would have not only been able to block the intrusion, he’d have been able to impersonate Lee so closely over an electronic net that her interrogators would never have been able to tell the difference. That, after all, was what personal AI secretaries did, among other things.
“We have quite a few different means of getting the information we want,” the woman’s voice went on, relentless. “And we will have it. If you choose to voluntarily cooperate, you will be permitted to return to your people within a few weeks, at most.
“If you refuse, the alternatives could be … distressful. Just think about it. We could vivisect you very slowly, peeling away your skin, your muscles, your tissue bit by bit, and with enough control of your nervous system that you would not be able to lose consciousness at any point in the procedure. And throughout it all, you would never know if what was happening was a virtual simulation being played into your brain … or a horrible and very bloody reality. That is the nature of direct mental feeds, you know. You have no way of knowing what is simulated, and what is real.
“The trouble is, such techniques also violate interstellar treaty, as you know well. Sooner or later you would break and beg us to let you tell us what we wanted to know … but either way, whether we’d tortured you only in your mind or actually cut your body to pieces, we could never allow you to return to your own people. Even a total mindwipe would not remove all of the emotional scarring from such torture.
“Or … consider this. We could fashion for you an elaborate simulated fantasy … one involving you being rescued by your comrades. You would be freed, be taken back to Earth, and there you would undergo a perfectly natural debriefing by your superiors. Again, how could you tell if what you experienced was real, or a simulation downloaded into your brain?
“And there are other alternatives as well. We have medinano that could suppress your own will and hijack your implants. We could rape your mind and your memory, take from you what we want by force. Unfortunately, I very much doubt that Lieutenant Tera Lee would have much of a personality left when we were done. And, again, that entity, that living shell, could not be permitted to return to Earth, ever. I imagine that shooting it would be a mercy.
“So, think about it, my dear. Imagine the possibilities. Cooperate voluntarily and you will see your home and family again. We might even see our way clear to recompense you generously. The alternatives, you must agree, are far more … unpleasant.”
And then Lee was alone in the hospital room, alone with her thoughts, and her fears.
Where were Major Tomanaga and the rest of the Marines stationed at Puller? Where was Fitzie?
And there was something else, something her interrogator had omitted … and it was suddenly vitally important that Lieutenant Lee not think about it, given that they might well be monitoring her thoughts. …
2411.1102
USMC Skybase
Dock 27, Earth Ring 7
0950 hrs GMT
“General?” Cara said within his mind. “I think the AI search has found something.”
Lieutenant General Martin Alexander had been seated at his office desk, going over an unsettling report from Intelligence. A Marine—specifically, the Marine who’d gone through the Puller Stargate and discovered that the Xul at Starwall knew of Humankind’s recent activities—was missing.
Worse, it seemed likely that the PanEuropeans were behind the disappearance.
But Cara would not have interrupted his work if this hadn’t been something important. The MIEF staff constellations had been hard at it for almost a week, now. Six days ago, at the ops planning session, he’d given them the outlines of what he wanted, but they still had to churn out the hard data. Actually, he’d not expected any real progress for another week or two yet, so complex was this strategic problem.
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Whatcha got?”
“You requested an AI search of astronomical databases, specifically seeking information that might reveal unexpected or unknown links between known Stargates and known areas of deep space.”
“Yes.”
The worst problem the planning team faced at the moment was the lack of hard data on stargates and exactly how they interconnected across the Galaxy. Several ongoing database studies were being carried out by astronomical institutes on dozens of worlds, both in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. Alexander had hoped that the staff planning constellations might be able to mine data from those studies, acquiring a better understanding of just how the various stargates were linked together.
“You also requested,” Cara went on, “a list of anomalies associated with areas we researched … anomalies that might indicate Xul presence or interest.”
“Yes. What did you come up with?”
“The Aquila Anomaly. The information is very old … pre-spaceflight, in fact.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“The name is relatively recent. The information, however, was first gleaned from an astronomical compilation known as the Norton Star Atlas before such information was even available on electronic media. While we can’t be certain at this point in the research, the anomaly is significant enough that we felt it necessary to bring it to human attention.”
“Show me.”
A window opened in his mind, opening on to a view of deep space, scattered with stars—one bright star, five or six somewhat dimmer stars, and a background scattering of stardust.
“This is the constellation of Aquila, as seen from Earth,” Cara told him.
“The Eagle,” Alexander said, nodding. He hadn’t recognized the pattern of stars when it first appeared, but he knew the name.
Lines appeared in the window connecting the brighter stars—a parallelogram above, a triangle below, both slanting off to the right. With great imagination, an observer might imagine a bird of prey, wings raised in flight.
“As with all constellation groupings,” Cara told him, “the identification with a person, animal, or object is problematical, at least from the AI perspective. But an eagle is the historical designation, yes.”
“Beauty, and eagles, are in the eye of the beholder,” Alexander quipped. “That bright star is Altair—Alpha Aquilae.” It was, he knew, a shade over sixteen and a half light-years from Earth, and was one of the nearest outposts of СКАЧАТЬ