Cataract Tara K. Harper

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words had been aimed at her. She studied the two she stared at. Blackjack& Doetzier's questions were
far too careful, but what would a wipe have left to lose?
"Names are power," Doetzier returned calmly. "And power is not traded away for nothing."
Bowdie snorted. "He probably has a dozen names and needs two temple links just to transfer them from
line to line."
"As if you knew enough about temple links to use them if you had more than one." Kurvan dumped his
pack on the floor and rolled his shoulders to ease them.
"My family's responsible for the development of the links," Bowdie drawled. "I know more about them
than you do."
"The temple links came out of the cyberdad generation," Striker said, "not out of a single family line, no
matter what the contribution by the techs in your past."
"I can't believe you know any history but the Fetal Wars," Bowdie teased ungently. "Try this: Yahtra
Kalakar Kuhrto."
Striker's black eyebrows raised. Even Doetzier did not bother to hide his flicker of surprise.
"My great-great-et-cetera-grandfather," Bowdie added with satisfaction. "And the Kuhrto Conduit the
biochemical trans-fer of charge. A molecule shaped like a hollow helix. Ions pass through its middle, like
peas through a boost chute. The node sends a signal to your temple link. Your temple link sends a charge
through the conduit. The charge triggers your brain. Ev-ery image you build and project is translated into
an electrical pattern, which can then be passed on to the node."
"Gawd," drawled Wren in an imitation of Bowdie's speech, "you're either practicing to be like Striker, or
you've inherited the old man's mouth to patter on like that."
"They say I have his eyes& "
Tsia watched him sharply. Bowdie slouched and drawled as if he belonged more on a trail than a
starship, but his tech rat-ing was as high as Doetzier's. She had seen his ED a few years back, when he'd
first come down to Risthmus. He wasn't a line-runner, but he was as hot on a tech job as Kurvan was on
a ghost. She tried to focus on Bowdie's biofield, but his eager-ness was a blurring heat that almost
completely hid the other tiny lights of his emotions.
Silently, she moved to the mouth of the overhang. She closed her eyes, and the sense of her gate swept
in. Slick, cold rock seemed to grip her fingers. Her eyes opened and her pu-pils shrank with the light.
Her lips stretched as if she had fangs, and her nostrils flared. Striker touched her arm, and she twisted
with a snarl. The other woman backed off, and Tsia, with a shudder, turned her back on the shallow cave
and stalked out, climbing quickly off the trail.
She tried to unclench her hands from their clawlike posture, but her fingers did not want to obey. It was
not the cold. She licked her lips with the same movement the cougar made, two meters away&
Two meters. She looked up and met the golden, glowing eyes in the figure that crouched on the rock, out
of sight of the meres. Tsia's lips stretched in a humorless grin. Let the node keep its ghosts, she thought
with sudden violence. And to hell with the guilds let them keep the Landing Pact for those who needed
its fences. Wren was right; the cats did not reject her. She broke no law to speak with them not when it
was they who pressed their voices onto her. It was not she, she thought, who created this contact; it was
the virus in her body, and the cats themselves who forced their way in. Like a mold, they crawled into her
skull. Bound themselves to her memories. And with the node near silent, she could taste the cats like sour
fruit strong and sharp and harsh on her lips. She licked her lips again, and then became still.
"Daya," she whispered to the cub. "Six hours with you, and I now justify my crimes as if I did not commit
them. No won-der the meres don't trust the guides I hardly trust myself." She stared at the golden eyes.
"You follow me like a dog, and I don't know if it is you or I on the leash."
Ruka's nose touched her hand. She caught her breath to close off the sense of his mind, so focused on
her movements. He fought her withdrawal, keeping the gate open by himself. Tsia struggled for a long
moment, then shuddered. Whatever cloth was woven between them by her biogate, it was not something
she could tear.
Nitpicker moved to the mouth of the overhang to catch Tsia's eye, and Tsia regarded the woman blankly
before shak-ing herself to respond. The node those threads of ghost lines& She gave Nitpicker a
meaningful look, then glanced deliberately downtrail. The other woman nodded.
A moment later, they met under a tree, while Kurvan and Striker watched from the cave. Tsia didn't
mind; it would have been strange had not someone kept watch on the trail.
She studied Nitpicker's face carefully, but the woman's irises were hidden by the black contacts of the
darkeyes, and her expression was blank and waiting. "There's something wrong with this setup," Tsia said
after a moment. "I've got ac-cess to the node. It's not full access," she said quickly, "nor is it through
anything but a ghost web, but I'm imaging the node right now and have been for almost ten minutes."
The other woman stared out from the trail and let her gaze roam across the steep hill to the lake far
below. "Go on," she said softly. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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