Caliphate полностью

"At least I can read and write. Well," she admitted, "I can read. My writing is not . . . good."

"That's okay," he said. "You could learn."

"Like you learned German?" she asked. "Yours is so much better than mine, so much more formal and correct. I was just a country girl, you see and . . .

"And this isn't even my country anymore."

Hamilton shook his head in agreement. No, it wasn't her country anymore.

"I've read of back when it was," Petra said. "My great-grandmother kept a journal. It's the only thing I really own for myself. I'd like to have lived back then. I wouldn't have done what she did. I'd either have fought, back when we could still fight, or I'd have left. She knew she should have done one or the other, too. By the time she knew that, though, it was too late."

"All right. Enough!" Ling said. "I believe you."

Yes, we do, said the voice in her head.

Hans stopped his gleeful dancing atop the Koran and said, "Okay. Now what was this all about?"

Tell him. Bring him to our side.

Ling exhaled heavily. "Where to begin?"

At the beginning is usually a good spot.

She nodded.

Stop nodding. You know how annoying that is to watch on a viewing screen back here. Now tell him.

"Your sister doesn't know any of this, but I'm not human," Ling said. She laughed at the expression on Hans' face, an even mix of disbelief and horror. "I mean I'm not human the way you are. Not born of woman. No father. I'm a genetically engineered being."

Hans' horrified look was like a dagger to her heart. She hastened to add, "I am one hundred percent human genes. But surely you noticed my skin and my breasts. Those are not normally found where I came from . . . where I was sold from. But Hans, I am all human inside. I can have children, provided that my pregnancy blocker is removed or allowed to run down. I feel. I think." She shrugged and let her head fall to one side. "What more do you want?"

"I'm sorry," he apologized, forcing his face to something less objectionable. "It was just a shock. You're wonderful. Please go on."

"Okay. I'm also a chippie. I have a thing planted in my brain."

My, this is a day for shocks, thought Hans.

"The reason I have a chip in my brain, and the reason I was genengineered, and the reason I was sold here, is that I am an enemy agent."

"Here to work against the Caliphate?" he asked. "Be still my heart."

"Yes," she admitted. "And that man you attacked . . . "

Hamilton spread out the thin blanket he'd found in the picnic basket, then walked to the lakeshore to look for some rocks to tack down the corners with. He was lucky to find two and an old brick; it just wasn't that kind of lake. He returned with these, adjusted the sheet slightly, then tacked down the three corners that were most into the wind. He invited Petra to sit.

She kicked off her shoes—more slippers than shoes, really; that was part of what had made the walk down "murder"—and stepped lightly onto the blanket. Moreover, she sat with a sheer grace he found utterly delightful, like a film of a growing tulip shown in faster than real time but in reverse.

Hamilton looked at the girl, sighed and said, "You really are incredibly lovely, you know."

"They tell me that sometimes. For myself, I don't know. Ling says I am."

"Ling?" He really didn't need to ask but it would have been odd not to have.

"The girl who was with me when my brother attacked you."

"That was your brother?" Hamilton suddenly had an altogether too kinky hint of something. It must have showed on his face.

Petra laughed. "No, no, no. It's nothing like that. He and Ling are . . . special to each other. It happens sometimes, even with houris. I, on the other hand, am going to have to go to some pains to make sure no one from my brother's new command ever sees my face. It would be a great shame to him."

This girl's brother and my contact have the hots for each other? Is this a good or a bad thing?

"He's not a slave trader?"

"No," Ling said. "Yes, he's had to put on a show and yes, those children really were sold, but no—and my control tells me this De Wet person was up in arms over the whole thing—he's not really a slave trader."

"Do you know what those children were sold for?" Hans asked. "Does he?"

"We've got a pretty good idea, Hans, yes. But if they're the price to pay for saving a world?"

"No one asked them if they were willing to pay it, did they?"

"No one asked me either, Hans, when they sold me to this place."

He nodded and said, "What a perfect Hell of a world. What now?"

"I'm not sure," she answered. "How far are you willing to go to hurt the Caliphate?"