[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
traffic volumes and more than one exit.
If their data system were good enough, they could track anyone from the two
tube stations that were equidistant from the Herklonn home and compare the
names against addresses. That would take a few minutes, but not many, and
would certainly narrow the focus of the search.
That possibility was the reason why the credit card he had used did not bear
the name or credit codes of Lak Volunza, but those of a newshawk association,
the kind of card given to people who traveled on business too frequently to be
justified as personal use. Such cards were registered in both individual names
and in the names of the organization. His card represented the state news
organization, FPNS.
Brisk steps took him up the inclined ramp to street level, where he turned
southward along the boulevard lined by squat and oversize dwellings of gray
stone, presumably the homes of well-paid functionaries of some sort.
Volunza checked the time. Only midafternoon, far earlier than he would have
wished to be less conspicuous.
At the next corner he turned westward, keeping an eye open for uniformed
DomSecs and anyone else. He passed a young woman wheeling a buggy, in which a
sleeping infant lay, covered with a light, but bright red blanket.
He nodded, somberly, without smiling, as he passed.
Surprisingly he received a tentative smile in return.
He reached the green expanse of the Novaya Park without passing another soul
on the broad streets, and with just two or three electrocars humming past.
The park had no gates and presented a series of grassy areas interspersed with
dark conifers and the heavy trunks of the ancient and imported oaks. The size
of the trees, if nothing else, confirmed the age and stability of Varenna.
112
As he headed toward the permanent summer pavilions, he wished he had made his
hair even grayer. Then he could have joined the group of older men at their
endless games of chess.
While the cool breeze felt warm enough for him, he suspected most Imperials
would have found
Forsenia far too chilly, especially in any season besides the too-short
summers.
A whining sound tickled his hearing, coming from the road to his left where it
wound toward the common area a hundred meters in front of him. Volunza set his
case down by an oak and wiped his forehead, leaning against the tree as if to
rest for a moment. Then he sat down.
From the base of the old oak, he had a clear view of the men at their stone
tables, as well as of the women playing cards at a second row of tables. His
position also kept him shielded from direct observation from the perimeter
roads around the park.
The electrovan continued to the common area and the summer pavilions, where it
stopped. A
uniformed man and woman climbed out and walked over to the men playing chess,
stopping by an older man who was watching, standing in the kiosk that sold
drinks and dressed in a gray tunic. The seller nodded as the three talked for
several minutes.
The two security officers walked into the section of tables shaded by the
pavilion roof. The female
DomSec pointed to a white-haired man, then looked back at the man in gray, who
nodded.
The white-haired man, the object of her attention, bolted upright. Despite his
Page 79
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
obvious paunch, he charged the male DomSec, bowling him into another table,
and scattering chess pieces in the process.
Both DomSecs turned, but did not draw weapons, as the paunchy man careened off
the immobile stone table, pounded past the kiosk, and threw himself through
the still-open driver's door of the electrovan.
The door slammed closed.
The van began to whine, picking up speed and volume as it whipped back down
the road toward the far side of the park.
Wsssh!
The man who temporarily called himself Volunza blinked.
A searing flash of light flared across the grass, so quickly it cast no
shadows.
Volunza blinked, rubbing his eyes to regain his vision.
The first thing he saw, when he could see again, was the seething lump of
metal that had been the
DomSec electrovan. He turned his head slowly to survey the park, but could see
nothing else.
"Booby-trapped," he observed to no one in particular.
He watched the group in the center of the park. All but a few of the older men
and women returned to their cards and chess. Those that did not merely sat and
stared blankly.
The gray-haired kiosk attendant and the two DomSecs strolled casually up the
winding road toward the hot metal that had once been a paunchy man and an
electrovan.
Volunza quietly eased himself farther down at the base of the oak, nearly
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]