Читать книгу Reborn - Vin Ph.D. Jackson - Страница 11

This was wrong, thought Vallande. I am wrong. The rules concerning transients were clearly defined - immediate return. Only the dead of the other world could enter Lonfay. The living had no place here. As soon as he'd recognised these two initiates for what they were, he should have summoned the duty executioner, ordered them terminated on the spot.

But he hadn't. Admittedly, transients weren't an everyday occurrence. Vallande himself had only come across seven in all his years as a recorder, so no-one would expect his response to be immediate. But to take five minutes to institute a course of action....? He couldn't justify such a delay by pleading a simple lapse in concentration.

He had wanted them to live. Otherwise he wouldn't have offered them advice. Advice! Such a consideration was unheard of. The Recorder General would never understand. Worse: he wouldn't even try.

So why now? Were these two any different to the seven he'd already returned? He could think of nothing specific. Just a feeling really. There was an aura about the woman which engendered hope, revived youthful impetuosity. And time, he felt, was no longer on his side. If it ever had been. To pass up yet another opportunity, to continue ignoring intuition in favour of waiting for a perfect solution which might never present itself, that was cowardice.

After all, hadn't he been preparing for this very occurrence these twelve months past? Of course he had. He'd doctored his log to sideline the mere hint of a transient so that the information wouldn't be transmitted immediately back to Central. Then, at least, the choice was his - to re-input as fresh data, or cut and paste into his own personal epsilon memory. Once there, no-one would know it had ever existed. Easy, provided he didn't delay too long.

Which he had already. So, why the doubt? He'd decided, hadn't he? His moment of glory had arrived and all he had to do was....

His eyes widened as he watched his hand descend on the log. The fingers trembled, hovered momentarily, then dived. Tap, tap, tap. The read-out flickered, returned to normal.

He swallowed, closed his eyes, praying. There was no reassurance forthcoming, no voice in his head to tell him he'd done the right thing. Or whether it had worked. So he hopped back onto the Network and called up the status of the two new arrivals to find out.

Just numbers - an arrangement of zeros and ones interspersed with the odd space, dot, or dash. Nothing to the uneducated; a readable language to Vallande and his fellow recorders. Interpreted simply:

reborn 729581....female....22yrs....mireille

reborn 725588....male....27yrs....laroche

Reborns! Both of them. Who would know anything different?

The old man took a deep breath, felt a young man within dancing a silly jig around his fluttering stomach. Then he exhaled and the rattle in his chest brought him back to reality. The die was cast. There was no alternative now but to see it through to the end.