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Читать онлайн «Cascade Point»

Автор Тимоти Зан

She turned slightly so that she was facing me—keying on my voice and footsteps, I presume—and waited until I had reached her before speaking again. "Can you tell me where I am? I'm trying to find a town called Hemlock. "

"You've got another five miles to go," I told her. Up close, she wasn't as beautiful as I'd first thought. Her nose was a little too long and her face too angular; her figure—what I could see of it beneath the blanket and mismatched clothing—was thin instead of slender. But she was still nice-looking, and I felt emotions stirring within me which I thought had died years ago.

"Are there any doctors there?"

"Only a vet, but he does reasonably well with people, too. " I frowned, studying the fatigue in her face, something I'd assumed was just from her journey. Now I wasn't so sure. "Do you feel sick?"

"A little, maybe. But I mostly need the doctor for a friend who's up the road a few miles. We were traveling from Chilhowie and he came down with something. " A chill shook her body and she tightened her grip on the blanket.

I touched her forehead. She felt a little warm. "What were his symptoms?" "Headache, fever, and a little nausea at first. That lasted about a day. Then his muscles started to hurt and he began to get dizzy spells. It wasn't more than an hour before he couldn't even stand up anymore. He told me to keep on going and see if I could find a doctor in Hemlock. "

"When did you leave him?"

"Yesterday afternoon. I walked most of the night, I think. "

I nodded grimly. "I'm afraid your friend is probably dead by now. I'm sorry. "

She looked stricken. "How do you know?"

"It sounds like a variant of one of the bacterial diseases the Russians hit us with in the war.

It's kind of rare now, but it's still possible to catch it. And it works fast. "

Her whole body seemed to sag, and she closed her eyes. "I have to be sure. You might be wrong. "

"I'll go and check on him after we get you settled," I assured her. "Come on. "

She let me help her to her feet, draping the blanket sari-style around her head and torso and retrieving the small satchel that seemed to be her only luggage. "Where are you taking me?"

That was a very good question, come to think of it. She wasn't going to make it to Hemlock without a lot more rest, and I sure wasn't going to carry her there. Besides, if she was carrying a Russian bug, I didn't want her going into the town anyway. Theoretically, she could wipe the place out. That left me exactly one alternative. "My cabin. "

"I see. "

I had never realized that two words, spoken in such a neutral tone, could hold that much information. "It's not what you think," I assured her hastily, feeling an irrational urge to explain my motives. "If you're contagious, I can't let you go into town. "

"What about you?"

"I've already been exposed to you, so I've got nothing to lose. But I'm probably not in danger anyway—I've been immunized against a lot of these diseases. "

"Very handy. How'd you manage it?"

"I was in the second wave into Iran," I explained, gently pulling her toward the slope leading to my cabin. She came passively. "They had us pretty well doped up against the stuff the Russians had hit the first wave with. "