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 Who are you? Where s Leo?
 Kennilworth Troon, at your service. Or, I suppose it would be more precise to
say, at Leo s. I m representing him. You could say, as a kind of attorney.
 Whatever this is, I don t want any part of it. Elaine s reaction was
automatic. What she meant was that she didn t want to be involved in anything
deeper than she was in already. Before she had registered any conscious
decision, she had turned and started opening the door. And then she stopped.
He had called no warning, done nothing to stop her. She could sense him
watching her. If she had been happy with the existing situation, she wouldn t
be here. If Troon s appearance meant there was a way to change it for better
or worse as the case may be there was only one way she was going to know. His
manner was telling her that she was the one who stood to be affected. It was
up to her. She closed the door and turned back. Troon waved again at the
chair, still smiling, as if he had been waiting for her to arrive at the
inevitable for herself.
 Would you like something? he asked again as she sat down. Elaine shook her
head.  Probably best. I d imagine you ve had enough stimulants and depressants
today already, one way or another.
It s the stress of these situations, you know. Plays havoc with the nervous
system.
Elaine s faculties were regrouping after her initial confusion.  What kind of
attorney are you?
she demanded.  Who ever heard of meeting for business in a place like this?
 The owner is an old friend of mine. I can recommend him personally if you re
ever interested in getting a good deal from inside the trade. You d need to
know how to bargain, though. Troon looked around.  Actually, you re right. It
was something of a psychological ploy, I suppose. You d hardly have expected
Leo to suggest some public place, would you?
How much did this man Troon know? Where did he fit in? Elaine couldn t even
begin framing guesses.  Where is Leo? she asked again.
Ignoring her question, Troon recited,  Elaine Lydia Corley. Current residence,
14B Watergardens, Embarcadero. Profession, nursing practitioner with a
specialty in neural physiology. The clear blue eyes fixed on her, losing a
shade of their playfulness.  Just the person who d know how to resuscitate a
body from stasis suspension and substitute one that was past caring; also, how
to tell a monitoring computer to carry on reporting what it s supposed to be
seeing . . . if anyone should want to do something strange like that. But
there s no saying what some people might get up to, is there?
Cold, clammy feelings slithered down Elaine s spine. Knots tightened in her
stomach, and for a moment she thought she was going to be physically sick.
When she tried to lick her lips, she found that her mouth had gone dry. She
opened her purse on her knee, rummaged for the tube of  tigers,
and shook one of the yellow-and-black capsules into her palm. Troon unfolded
from the chair and walked across the office to pour a cup of water from a
dispenser by the window. He was tall, powerfully built, but moved lightly with
catlike economy of effort. Elaine popped the capsule into her mouth and took
the cup when he offered it, but her hand shook, spilling some of the contents.
Troon took the cup from her and held it while she sipped and swallowed. She
nodded in acknowledgment.
He set the cup down on the desk, went back around to the other side, and sat
down.
 Also, the professional working partner of Henry Balmer, he resumed as if
nothing had happened.  You know, I ve always been fascinated by hypnosis. Can
it really do all the things you hear about deaden pain, make people ten times
stronger, enable them to recall things they thought they d forgotten? It s
supposed to be capable of doing the opposite, too: people can be made to
forget a whole chunk of their life, just on experiencing a posthypnotic
trigger . . . Troon shrugged, as if trying to think of an example.  Maybe a
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
graphic design that they ve been programmed to respond to.
Do you think it s possible, Elaine? Can Henry do things like that? He paused,
pointedly.  Or could the popular beliefs be overrating things a bit? Might it
not work as well as it s supposed to sometimes?
Elaine felt any inner resistance she might have mustered collapse in defeat.
There was no point in trying to bluff or evade. He knew everything. And the
only way he could have known was as he had
just intimated: the posthypnotic suggestion hadn t worked properly; the other
Sarda had come out of the process remembering. The whole scheme was blown. . .
. She looked up to meet Troon s eyes as the implication hit her. He seemed to
be waiting, as if reading her thoughts and giving her time to put the obvious
conclusion together. At least, in his own strangely capricious way, he had
shown grace enough to spare her a direct conflict from the beginning.
 He was the other Leo the one that I talked to, she whispered.
 Of course. You ve got your one hidden away somewhere. We ve no way of tracing
him.
The call had been a trick. She stared at the cup in front of her on the desk,
and considered her options now. Troon waited. She could get up and leave,
putting herself back in the situation that had been getting more unbearable by
the hour; or she could wait and see what kind of alternative there was. Put
that way, it didn t leave a lot of choice.
 Very well, Mr. Troon, she acknowledged.  What do you want?
He nodded in a satisfied way; at the same time, his manner became
businesslike.  I think you ve worked out for yourself what happened. I can t
guarantee anything, but obviously your best way to make things easiest for
yourself would be to cooperate and come clean. We need to know where the
original Sarda and Henry Balmer are now, and how far they ve progressed with
the rest of the plan. . . .
Elaine had stopped listening somewhere around halfway through what Troon was
saying. She gasped barely audibly and slumped back in the chair, shaking her
head in protest. For what it meant was that the Leo she thought she had
glimpsed again briefly on the screen less than an hour ago, the person she had
felt for and wanted to preserve, was the one who now knew her only as a
betrayer.
Revenge would be his only motive now; restitution, his object. The only Sarda
she had prospects of sharing the future with was the one at present in
hiding the one she had come to despise and reject.
All she knew was that she couldn t face the Leo that Troon was presumably
intending to confront her with now. Somehow she was on her feet, as if another
power had taken over her body and she were just a spectator of its movements.
 I m sorry, I can t . . . She clutched a hand to her mouth.
 It s too much. . . .
Troon watched, his eyes reading her intently; yet he remained sitting,
unmoving. She turned, and the surroundings blurred into a tunnel of confused
impressions leading her toward the door; then she was outside in sudden
darkness beneath the flashing colored lights, and climbing into her car. She [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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