[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
The man said words words everyone had been told would be uttered if their
boss ever showed up.
No one knew what to do and cowered for their jobs.
The man asked to be taken to his room. He showered, changed, and asked for
a simple meal. Then he buzzed and asked to be shown to the library.
In the huge hall he politely told the librarian that he would appreciate it if she
remained on standby. He unlocked the door to the second sysop station, and
the madness started.
He seemed to scan everything and want more. She had to hire assistants. He
appeared insatiably curious. Again, the librarian thought of someone raised
from the dead. No, she corrected herself. Someone who had been in
longsleep, like the starships in ancient times before AM2 drive.
It went on, the man ate sparingly, slept little, but soaked up information like a
sponge. Once, when the door opened for a moment, she saw that he had five
screens scrolling simultaneously and a synth-voice giving a sixth stream of
data.
The librarian prayed for sleep.
Then it stopped. The man walked out of the room, leaving the door open.
He said he was sleepy.
The librarian agreed blearily.
He told her he would shut down the system.
Yes. The woman and her equally zombied assistants stumbled for their
quarters. The librarian noticed but it did not register until days later as she
passed the room where the second sysop station was, that the computer
seemed to be punching up files and then deleting them en masse.
It did not matter.
All that mattered was sleep.
The man slipped out an ignored side gate to the mansion onto the road. He
walked down the road, briskly. He wore nondescript clothes just another of
that world's blue-collar workers.
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
He stopped once. The walls of the mansion's grounds stretched solidly down
the road.
He felt slight regret.
The computer had told him that when he left the staff would be paid off with
handsome bonuses and encouraged with larger bonuses to relocate offworld.
The mansion, the library, and the outbuildings would be razed within two
weeks. Then the bare grounds would be donated to the planetary government
for whatever purposes it saw fit.
A pity. It was beautiful.
The computer told him there were ten others like it scattered around the
Empire.
He now knew six years of history. His plans no. Not yet. But he had been
given another destination.
Lights blazed behind him. A creaking gravsled lofted toward him, laden with
farm produce for the early markets. The man extended his hand.
The gravsled hissed to a halt. The driver leaned across and opened the door.
The man climbed inside, and the gravsled lifted.
"Dam' early to be hitchin'," the driver offered.
The man smiled, but did not answer.
"You work for th' rich creech owns that palace?"
The man laughed. "No. Me an' the rich don't speak the same tongue. Just
passin' through. Got stranded. Dam' glad for the lift."
"Where you headed?"
"The spaceport."
"You're light on luggage. For a travellin' man."
"I'm seekin' a job."
Snorted laughter came from the driver. "Golden luck to you, friend. But
there's dam' little traffic comin' in or out. Times ain't good for spacecrew."
"I'll find something."
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
"Dam' confident, ain't you? Like a fellow who thinks like that. Name's
Weenchlors." The driver stuck out a paw. The man touched thumbs with him.
"You?"
"I use the name Raschid," the man said.
He leaned back against the raggedy plas seats and stared ahead toward the
lightening sky toward the spaceport.
BOOK TWO
IMPERATOR
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A
n hour after dawn, Security let the five members of the privy council out of
their shielded bunkers into the fog-hung compound. They looked at the
craters where the assassins had exploded as they died, the two rows where
the dead Security beings lay covered, the torn wire, and the shrapnel-ripped
buildings. They could not see the hilltop, where smoke trailed up from the
N'Ran's launch site, and the warship Alex's blind-launched Goblins had
flambéed was a radioactive cloud, drifting and contaminating its way inland.
Four of them shared anger how could this have happened? The other, Kyes,
was trying to label what emotion he did feel. In all his years, no one had ever
tried to harm him physically. Destroy his career and life but that was in
bloodless executive chambers.
All of them were outraged. Who and why?
The Kraas, hardly strangers to physical violence, were pure rage, but with
something else behind it: the instinct of cunning.
"We want the bosses. This un's a conspiracy, not a buncha wildcats on a bust-
out."
"I agree," Kyes put in.
"The real bosses c'n wait," the thin one said. She had understood exactly what
her sister was hinting. "Till Monday, anyway. What we want are th' evil beings
who planned this atrocity. Nobody else but th' Honjo."
"Clot that clottin' tacship," the fat one said. "We got us some real bodies now."
Lovett, as always, reached the bottom line. "Conspiracy. Indeed. Far superior
to any violation of territorial limits by a tacship."
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
"I will issue the orders to the fleet," Malperin snapped, and was inside.
"Righto," one Kraa said. "First we snag the AM2. Then we kill slow whoever
actually come a'ter us.
"Them," her sister agreed, "an' some others. We've been needin' an excuse for
some housecleanin'."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
