William Shatner - Tek War 1 - Tek War

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2024-12-20 0 0 727.59KB 350 页 5.9玖币

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Tek War

He didn't know he was about to come back to life.

Up in the orbiting penal colony he slept, unaware of anything. Time

had passed, days and weeks and then months and years, and he kept

sleeping that long sleep. Suspended in a coffin like plastic cubicle

in the great orbiting prison that passed endlessly around the Earth,

passing over Greater Los Angeles again and again.

Today that was all going to change, but Jake Cardigan didn't know

anything about it. Not yet.

The gleaming, broad-shouldered robot was wearing a spotless white suit,

and his chrome face and skull were freshly polished. He came striding

purposefully through the crowds of wayfarers on the clear-plas colored

ramps that interlaced within the vast see thru domes of the Greater Los

Angeles Spaceport.

It was a hot, hazy morning in the spring of the year 22o and the

sectors of GLA that rose up around the port already had a blurred,

sooty-orange hue. The fuzzy sky was full of motion. Aircabs, sky

cruisers, air vans and sky buses all flickered through the blur, sleek

monorail trains went whizzing silently by at a dozen different levels,

and both the crisscrossing pedestrian ramps and the sharply curving

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motor ways were crowded. All the drone and roar of it was kept out of

the domes of the spaceport.

A sudden barking broke out two ramps above the hurrying robot. One of

the small mechanical sensor-dogs had spotted some sort of smuggler, a

slim dark young man, and started to chase him. They went zigzagging

along a green-tinted ramp right overhead, toppling some travelers and

leaving assorted sounds of surprise and outrage in their wake.

The robot ignored the chase, pushing his way around the space tourists

who'd paused to gaze upward and rubberneck.

A skinny ten-year-old Japanese boy, just home from a Moon camp

according to his pullover shirt, bumped into the white-suited robot and

steadied himself with candy-smudged fingers.

The robot lifted him out of his way with both chrome hands, then

brushed the small sticky smears from his breast pocket.

Gradually the crowds thinned and the colors of the walls and ramps

dimmed and eventually everything was gray and the robot was in a less

frequented section of the port. A human porter, a fake-legged veteran

of the Brazil Wars, recognized the robot as they passed each other on a

gray ramp. "Going up to the Freezer again, huh?"

"Obviously," answered the mechanical man in his deep metallic voice.

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"Hell of a place to visit."

"Yet better to visit it than remain there."

"Yeah, I guess." The porter gave a shivering shrug, got a fresh grip

on the handle of the luggage cart he was guiding and continued on.

The access door the robot wanted had a pale green light screen

suspended over it. The screen blanked as the white-suited robot

approached. Then words appeared--sHUTTLE FLIGHT 16 TO PENAL

COLONY NOW READY FOR BOARDING. ALL PRISONERS SAFELY LOADED.

NO DANGER TO PASSENGERS.

The robot brushed again at the place where the boy had touched him,

made a sound in his metal throat that resembled, slightly, a laugh.

Spreading the chrome palm of his left hand open wide, he touched the

thumb with his right forefinger. The palm hummed faintly for exactly

four seconds, then a slip of bright yellow paper came whirring out of a

thin slot in his hand.

Jerking it free, the robot handed it to the gray-uniformed young woman

who'd appeared in the open access doorway.

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She took the special ticket a bit gingerly, scanned it. "Oh, you're

Winger (M6)/SCPS-3PB," she said, checking his name off: the short

passenger list.

"We met on a shuttle flight up to the Freezer just eleven months ago,"

he reminded her. "You ought to make a better effort to memorize

passengers. Especially those who work for theSouthern California

Parole Authority."

The shuttle attendant said, "Yes, I should've remembered the suit."

Winger brushed at his coat yet again. "If you'll stand aside," he

suggested, "I'll see about getting aboard."

She pushed herself back against the wall, gesturing him into the

boarding tunnel.

The prison bound shuttle roared and vibrated as it went climbing up

through the blurred orange morning and away from Greater Los Angeles.

Winger recrossed his metal legs and glanced casually around the gray

cabin. There were only three other passengers sharing this section

with him. All going up to visit prisoners, judging from the forlorn

look of them. "Very one-sided experience," he remarked to himself

inside his metal skull.

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Back in the rear section, safely locked behind a dirt-smeared sheet of

tough plastiglass, sat five new prisoners heading up to the Freezer.

Among them were a cyborg veteran of the Brazil Wars who'd been rated an

incurable thief and sentenced to fifty years in suspended animation; a

lank black man convicted of smuggling the illegal electronic brain

stimulant called Tek and given a twenty-five-year sentence; a

twice-convicted Hispanic rapist set to do five years; a plump

thirty-one-year-old blonde woman convicted of unlicensed

) prostitution and given four years; a youthful telekinetic thief

arrested for a series of shop liftings at the Malibu Sector Underwater

Mall and sentenced to seven.

Winger had data on the whole lot, but none of them especially

interested him. Making that sound that wasn't exactly a laugh, he

turned away from the prisoners.

One of the visitors had brushed against Winger as they were

disembarking and gotten tears and some sort of magenta eyelid stain on

the right sleeve of his coat. He was still rubbing at it as he entered

the A-C section of the Administration Offices of the prison colony.

He walked rapidly across the gray, ribbed flooring to the large

half-circle gunmetal desk at the oval room's center. He seated himself

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in the steel visitors' chair and waited, drumming chrome fingers on

both chair arms, while the re cog camera that was mounted on the desk

looked him over.

"Winger (M6)/SCPS-3o PB," said the desk's voxbox after he'd been

recognized. "What can we do for--"

"My name is Winger (M6)/SCPS-J PB," he corrected as he unzipped his

jacket and then unzipped his paisley shirt. "Noted. And what can we

do for you today?"

"I have a Special Parole Release order plus all the standard Parole

Forms required." He touched three spots on his bare chrome chest and

forms of various shades and shapes started whirring out of a thin slot.

When he had the sufficient amount, the robot spread them out atop the

desk and closed his shirt and coat. "I'm requesting the release of

Prisoner :9,587: Cardigan, Jake."

The re cog camera read the assortment of official forms, voxbox

muttering slightly. "All seem to be in order.""

"As always," said Winger, allowing some impatience to show. "Now will

you, please, initiate the Resurrect Processing?"

"Cardigan, Jake," said the desk. "His sentence of fifteen years wasn't

supposed to be up for another eleven years, was it?"

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"It's up today, right now," said the robot. "Therefore, I'd appreciate

your acting on my request for his immediate reactivation."

"Of course, Winger (M6)/SCPS-3o PB." The desk made three Low chime

sounds. "Resurrection Processing for Prisoner # 9,587 has been

formally requested and will begin shortly."

Winger didn't bother to correct the desk about his name the second

time. "I'll go wait in the Resurrect Wing," he said and rose.

The robot left the room and entered a long, curving, gray corridor.

Before he'd covered even half its length a side door came hissing

open.

A frail, dark-haired man whose skin was nearly the same shade as the

gray walls came rolling into the corridor, riding in a dark metal servo

chair "I want to talk to you, Winger," he said. "About why you're

taking Jake Cardigan away from here."

Winger watched the chair come rolling quietly toward him. "Dr.

Goodhill," he said. "You're looking well."

Goodhill touched a control panel at the side of his chair, causing it

to brake to a halt. "Spare me the bullshit," he said in his thin,

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weary voice. "I'm dying and that's obvious. I won't even be in this

hole much longer."

"One more example of the folly of using inferior materials to build

with." Tapping his metal chest, the big gleaming robot squatted beside

the dying doctor. "How long before you retire?"

"Fairly soon. This began as a sort of retirement--I came up to the

Freezer as an Admissions Therapist when I realized I couldn't hold down

my job with the Southern California State Police any--"

"I have access to your bio, Doc," cut in Winger, "if that's all you

wanted to chat about."

Wheezing slightly, the frail psychiatrist touched the controls again. A

jointed metal auxiliary arm snaked up from the side of his chair to

dangle a sheet of pale blue paper in front of the crouching robot's

face. "Why's Jake being releasedT" asked Goodhill.

"I happen to be, as you well know, only a functionary," replied

Winger. "I deliver special prisoners up here. I also come to spring

certain ones who've been granted an early resurrect."

"Does this mean he's been cleared?

The robot didn't immediately reply. Instead he shut his chrome eyelids

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and a faint murmuring hum came spilling out of his skull. "Ah, yes.

You and Prisoner # 19,587 were once colleagues," he said fourteen

seconds later. Letting his eyes snap open, he looked into the

therapist's gray face. "In better times you were both dedicated lawmen

together--and now look what you've both come to."

"I've always been certain that Jake was framed on those Tek-dealing

charges."

"You're really starting to sound like your patients, each and every one

of whom swears he's innocent as a lamb."

"He was a good cop--for a hell of a long time. I never believed any of

that crap about his being tied in with the Tek runners."

"Remind me to print you up a transcript of his trial sometime." The

robot rose up to his full height and frowned down at Coodhill. "After

reading over that with an open mind, you won't have any doubts about

his guilt."

"I've already read the damn transcript. Once down there, twice since

I've been working up here in the Freezer. And it still doesn't

convince me," said the doctor. "When I was alerted that you'd come to

revive Jake Cardigan, I thought maybe our esteemed SoCal law system had

finally gotten its head out of its--"

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"That hasn't happened, Doc. To the best of my knowledge his premature

release has nothing to do with any new findings having to do with his

guilt or innocence." The robot shrugged his wide shoulders. "But,

say, since you're so interested in him--why not come along with me?

That way you can be right there on the spot when Prisoner # 9,557

returns to the world of the living, Doc. He'd certainly like to see a

friendly face upon--"

"I know what I look like now," said Dr. Goodhill, anger giving

strength to his voice. "I wouldn't want Jake to see me." The robot

nodded. "Then if that's all .. . ?" "Yeah--thanks for the

information."

"I was built to serve." The robot remained, unmoving, waiting until

the chair had taken the frail man out of the corridor and away. Then

he made his laughing noise and continued on his way.

Light replaced darkness. Very gradually at first, then with an almost

explosive brightness.

He felt pain. It throbbed in his head, went shooting through his

entire body. Air, rasping and raw, came rushing into his lungs.

Jake Cardigan gave a convulsive jerk, groped out with his left hand.

Everything turned cold all around him and he began to shiver.

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摘要：

TekWar Hedidn'tknowhewasabouttocomebacktolife. Upintheorbitingpenalcolonyheslept,unawareofanything. Timehadpassed,daysandweeksandthenmonthsandyears,andhekeptsleepingthatlongsleep. SuspendedinacoffinlikeplasticcubicleinthegreatorbitingprisonthatpassedendlesslyaroundtheEarth,passingoverGreaterLosAngel...

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William Shatner - Tek War 1 - Tek War

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