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wouldn t let the young man offer something that wasn t good.
 Thank you very much. I bowed.  I do appreciate the information.
 I do also, the weathered stonesmith replied.  It s good to know that work
remains valued.
After another bow, I turned and stepped out into the breeze. The wind helped
some in cooling me, although some of the effect was blocked by the body
screen. I thought about turning it off, but decided against it. After glancing
around, and seeing only a couple strolling toward the point overlooking the
ocean, I began to walk the two klicks toward the center of town and the tube
station. That was one more netlocator I might not alert.
Although forcing myself to scan in all directions, I nonetheless enjoyed the
walk, and the stretching of legs and other muscles, and before long I was
nearing the center of Helnya, and the older dwellings and the ancient blue
oaks that surrounded them. I walked a trace slower, studying not only the
path, but the dwelling on my left, a hacienda-like structure. Ahead, the oak
limbs arched over the path, creating a shade welcome to me. The area beneath
was clear, with only low beds of nasturtiums that were still recovering from
the mild Calfya winter.
My head jerked forward at the sound of feet crushing the nasturtiums, and I
froze, if but for a moment, as a vacant-faced man in a dull brown singlesuit
lunged at me, a shimmering blade in his right hand.
Even as my ingrained defense modules reacted, the vacant expression on the
man s face bothered me.
He seemed to move so slowly, as I slid left, letting his lunge carry him past
my body. Then one hand took his wrist, and a snap-kick staggered him. My
strength wasn t what it should have been, and he spun toward me, trying to
free the hand with the shimmering filament knife, against which the body
shield was useless.
I managed to hold the knife arm long enough  just long enough  that a
knee-elbow combination  and a last kick  left him on his back in the
nasturtiums, convulsing.
I looked at him, as if I were again frozen, before my sensors told me his body
heat was rising. The vacant face registered fully, and I turned, and sprinted
away, as fast as my legs could carry me.
The explosion was enough to give me a shove, but not much more, and I slowed
to a rapid walk, ignoring the doors that opened a block behind me.
The attack and explosion had occurred under a heavy oak cover, for very good
reasons, but enough energy had been released that the CAs would be there
shortly, and I didn t want to be around when they were.
I was starting down the steps to the tube station when the CA gliders whined
toward the oaks and the hacienda. Ignoring them, I kept moving.
I d seen enough. My attacker had been a monoclone, programmed to seek me, to
kill me, one way or another. The nanite suit barred something like a laser or
a hand-held projectile weapon, but not a filament knife  or a large explosion
close to me.
Someone was still trying to eliminate me  in ways that couldn t be traced.
How could anyone track a clone that self-destructed, probably leaving little
but a standard cellular pattern, and probably the most common one  the one
used for the monoclones dealing with radioactive waste?
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Sweat was dripping from every pore when I swung onto the train, and I wanted
to turn off the protective fields of the bodysuit. I didn t dare. Instead, I
sweated all the way back to my own villa.
Once home, I checked on all the systems, then purged everything, all the
oddities, snoops, and dumps. Only then did I shower and clean up & and think.
Cup after cup of Grey tea helped, in a way.
Whoever was after me not only had resources, but access to clone production
and full genetic mod facilities.
That started me on another search, and the results were quick  a list with
nineteen names on it. Most of them I didn t know, except for Eldyn Nyhal, but
several had become familiar, like Cari Seldyn, Grant Escher, Imayl Deng,
Darwyn TanUy, and Mutumbe Dymke. All that they had in common was wealth, and
connections to universities, research institutions, or hospitals with full
genetics facilities.
Some, like Seldyn, I was pretty sure I could eliminate, since she was
basically a rich woman who d inherited the credits and used them widely and
philanthropically, and didn t have personal expertise in the field. That
didn t mean she didn t have intent, but it did mean she would have needed
accomplices, perhaps a large number, and that would have left some sort of
track  I thought.
The next search was a different sort, one to see if I could find a common
factor that any shared. Several were on advisory boards, and the like, of
charitable organizations, but no more than two on any one organizational [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]