[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
much time was slowed down. If it takes you a tenth of a second to blink, then
I was cranking along at about one five- or six-
hundredth of the normal rate.
I didn't think about zombi at the time. I thought this was what you got when
you died.
A woman I vaguely remembered from the hospital crawled into view and stared at
me for a long time. I
tried to make myself blink, but no go. With infinite slowness she reached down
to touch my face, my chin; I think she wiggled my head. The part of the
ceiling I was looking at rocked back and forth gracefully. She growled
Page 122
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
something and picked me up, all six pounds of me. Two and a half kilograms.
We proceeded to the clinic. I am the universe's authority on East
Thirty-fourth Corridor, having studied it for a month or so as this woman ran,
towing me toward Tsiolkovski. I know a lot about those two blocks of the main
drag, too.
It dawned on me that this was something other than death, or she wouldn't be
in such a languid hurry.
Zombi slows down your reasoning somewhat, and blocks out big chunks of
memory I should have remembered about zombi from magazine articles, and I even
had a German business partner who'd been kidnapped with its aid a couple of
dozen years before; but those were blanked-out areas.
Weeks of running down hospital corridors. A blood test that I unfortunately
could watch, longer than a
Wagnerian opera and even more tiring. They leaned me up in a corner and
finally a guy I recognized as a blood doctor crept into the room. Seasons
changed while he surveyed a wall monitor. Then he studied a trayful of
poppers, looked at one for a long, long time, then ambled over and gave me a
pop.
The world came back in a blast of smell and pain: the
antiseptic/cotton/alcohol/blood/cold metal hospital smell; tiny pain from the
popper and big ache on the top of my head. I reached back and felt an egg-
sized bump; no blood on my fingers.
"Somebody popped you with zombi," the doctor said. "The effect is like "
"Yeah, I know. Where's Maria?"
He shrugged and looked at the other people. "You were the only one there,"
said the woman who had
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Haldeman,%20Joe%20-%20Buying%20Time(1989)[v1].htm
(167 of 219)15-8-2005 0:24:35
BUYING TIME - Joe Haldeman brought me to the clinic. "You and that corpse you
spread all over two rooms. What did you use, concussion grenade?"
"Shattergun, Maria used it."
"There were footprints in the blood," a man said. "Somebody was walking around
right afterwards."
"It sure as hell wasn't me."
We hurried back to the villa and did find a few footprints, easy to
differentiate from the investigators', since the blood was partly dry by the
time they showed up. There were three small footprints going toward the bed,
then several overlapping while he stood at the bed and did something, two
footprints leaving; three in the hall. The woman who'd noticed I was still
alive pointed out that these footprints were slightly more distinct; he was
probably carrying Maria.
We followed the footprints up the ramp and into the living room, where six of
them besmirched the
Persian rug. They led to the air lock and stopped.
"He couldn't have been wearing a space suit downstairs," I said. "They don't
make boots that small."
"Maybe he had one stashed inside the air lock," the woman said. "Maybe one for
her, too."
"I don't see how. You can't open it from the outside."
"Maybe he had an outside accomplice."
"But where could they take her?"
"Maybe they just wanted to dispose of the body." I looked at her. "Oh. Sorry."
Report of Outside Investigation ad hoc Vigilante Committee
Big Dick Goodman, head
21 apryel
This is a sketch of what we saw outside of the air lock on top of 220 34th,
being rented by Cassius Donato and Selena Vaughn, who have one big
housecleaning bill ahead of them.
Page 123
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The disturbed area on the other side of the rise could of been caused by a
small spacecraft landing and taking off. We got a call in to the Akademia Nauk
sizemolo-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]