Read Halo: First Strike for Free Online Page A

being of
    enormous interest but wish to have a certain insulation between
    them and these matters, given that certain tricky legal issues
    will have to be skirted."
     
    "Or trampled on," said Gonzales.
     
    "As you wish," said Traynor.  "The important point is this: 
    from the board's point-of-view, Doctor Heywood cannot be trusted.
     
    Gonzales said, "So you need a spy, and I'm it."
     
    Traynor shrugged.
     
    The Advisor said, "You represent properly vested interests in
    a situation where they would not otherwise be adequately
    represented."
     
    Gonzales said, "That's a good one, 'represent properly vested
    interests.'  I'll try to remember it.  Okay, I'll do my best."  He
    turned to face Traynor and said, "To get you on the board." 
    Traynor laughed.  Gonzales asked, "How long will this thing take?"
     
    "Not too long," Traynor said.
     
    The Advisor said, "Once Chapman's state has been stabilized
    "
     
    "Or he dies," Traynor said.
     
    "Highly probable," said the Advisor.  "Once he is stable
    alive or deadyour job will be finished."
     
    Traynor said, "But until then, your job is to let me know
    what's happening.  You'll be in machine-space along with them, and
    you'll see what they're doing."
     
    "Fine," Gonzales said. "So what do I do now?"
     
    "You fly to Berkeley and talk to Doctor Heywood," Traynor
    said.  "Introduce yourself.  Make a friend."
     
     
     
     
    5. So Come to Me, Then
     
     
     
    Gonzales arrived at Berkeley Aeroport, a collection of
    cracked cement pads at the edge of the water, by mid-afternoon. 
    He stepped out of the swing-wing into blazing sunshine.  Across
    the bay, the Golden Gate and Alcatraz Island danced in the glare;
    the water glittered so intensely his sunglasses went nearly black.
     
    A Truesdale rental waited for him in the parking lot.  He
    stuck a SenTrax i.d./credit chip into its door slot, and the door
    retracted into its frame with a muted hiss.  The Truesdale's
    windows had opaqued against the dazzle, and its passive a/c had
    been working, so the dark brown velvet seat was cool to the touch
    when Gonzales slid across it.
     
    "Do you wish to drive, Mister Gonzales?" the car asked.
     
    Gonzales said, "Not really.  You know where we're going?"
     
    "Yes, I have that address."
     
    "Then you take it."
     
    Diana Heywood lived in the Berkeley hills, in a Maybeck house
    more than a century old.  The car drove Gonzales through streets
    that wound their way up the hillside, then stopped in front of a
    house whose redwood-shingled bulk loomed over Gonzales's head as
    he stood on the sidewalk.  Sun glinted off the lozenged panes of
    its bay window.
     
    Her door answered his knock by saying she was a few blocks
    away, at the Rose Gardens.  The door said, "It is a civic project: 
    volunteers are rebuilding the garden, which has fallen into
    disuse.  Many of the local"
     
    "Thank you," Gonzales said.
     
    He told the Truesdale where he was going and set off on foot
    in the direction the memex had indicated.  To his left hand,
    streets and homes sloped down toward the bay; to his right, they
    climbed up the steep hillside.
     
    Gonzales came to a hand-lettered sign in green poster paint
    on white board that read:
    BERKELEY ROSE GARDENS RECLAMATION PROJECT
    He looked down to where broken redwood lattices fanned out along
    terraced pathways threaded with a clumsy patchwork of green pvc
    irrigation pipes.  Halfway down stood a cracked and peeling
    trellis of white-painted wood with bushes dangling from its gaps.
    Next to the trellis, a small gardener robot, a green plastic-
    coated block on miniature tractor wheels, extended a delicate arm
    of shining coiled steel ending in a ten-fingered fibroid hand. 
    The hand closed, and a dark red rose came away from its bush. 
    Clutching the blossom, the little robot wheeled away.
            Gonzales walked down the inclined pathway, his feet crunching
    on gravel, past the bushes and their labels stating