Fred Hoyle Comet Halley
Fred Saberhagen Vlad Tepes 09 A Sharpness on the Neck
Fred Saberhagen The Book of the Gods 01 The Face of Apol
Fred Saberhagen Berserker 00 Earth Descended
Suzanne Carey Us
Higgins Clark Mary śÂmierć wśÂród róśź
Lawrence Block Keller 4 Hit and Run (com v4.0)
Dziewica Deveraux Jude
MA16_ _The_Empire_of_Glass
Jeffries Sabrina Taniec zmysśÂów Stare panny Swanlea 04
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"Damn. I thought they had him in confinement, near the base."
"A search of the designated area failed to locate the life-unit Chen Shizuoka. A wider search is
proceeding, as rapidly as possible under the constraints that you have placed upon my operations."
"Those constraints must be observed. Carry on." The Prince turned away from the thing, and went to
Beatrix where she was sitting on the floor in one corner of the large and almost empty room. Maybe
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he thought, trying to rouse her from her shock, he should have sent her off with the wounded
Templar girl. But Harivarman had mental reservations about the flyer's being allowed into the
base, whether it stayed on the ground or not. Most likely the Templars would shoot it up.
"Life-unit Harivarman." The Prince turned, slowly. He had never ordered the controller to call him
sir.
"What is it?" He had the feeling that it was about to tell him that the game it had been playing
was over now, that he and those with him were about to die.
"Why," it asked him, "are you especially interested in the life-unit Chen?"
He stared at it. What next? "What do you care why? If it makes any difference, I think he may have
information that I'm going to need."
"It is only that I must allocate resources and set priorities among the various commands that you
have given."
"Carry on as best you can. Right now I have yet another job for you. Setting up some
communications."
And presently, through a juggled communications relay that he hoped would be impossible to trace,
the Prince, sitting in his new command post, managed to make contact with the base commander in
her headquarters.
"I'm back at my post somewhat early. I keep my word, you see."
"Harivarman, where are you?"
"In a safe place, for the time being, Commander. As you are."
"What do you mean by that?"
"That you won't be hurt, and that no more of your people will be hurt, as long as you follow my
orders from now on. But you're good at following orders, so you should survive."
Realization grew on her only slowly. "You've done this, then. Somehow. Damn you."
"It became necessary, Commander. You see, I really had no choice. I understand that necessity, a
lack of choice, excuses anything." It gave him great pleasure to throw some of her own words back
at her.
It came as no surprise to find that the pleasure did not last.
Chapter 13
"I never got to go to a university," Olga Khazar was saying, almost wistfully.
"I'm not sure you missed much," Chen Shizuoka said. His feeling at the moment was that his own
efforts to obtain an advanced education had never done him any particular good.
He was into practical learning now. He had discovered that if he set one chair on top of another
and then leaned the tall double mass of them against the control of the door-intercom of the hotel
room that was his prison cell, he could keep the intercom unit turned on steadily. Olga Khazar had
again been left on duty outside, and she was willing to talk to him almost continuously. None of
the other guards who had so far taken their turns watching over him in his various rooms of
confinement had been anywhere near as communicative as Olga was, and she was not going to stay on
guard forever. He wanted to benefit from her presence while he could. For Chen, having some kind
of regular contact with the world was practically a necessity.
"Looks quiet out there in the hall now," he commented. "Where's everybody?" He had been locked up
in this room for several hours now, and had already realized that at least some of his fellow
recruits from the transport were being housed in nearby rooms; Chen had been able to hear some of
their voices, half-familiar, passing his door from time to time.
Olga, trim-looking as usual in her uniform, mean-looking pistol on her hip to show that she was on
guard duty, was leaning against the wall outside. Through the intercom Chen could see her little
image complete from head to toe, along with a little bit of wall on either side. Her posture was
unmilitary, he supposed, but right now probably no one could see her but himself. She said: "Right
now I think they're all out on the firing range."
"Already? They've only been here a couple of days. I thought that kind of thing came later."
"It's three days now since your ship got here. We like to start people early with weapons. It's a
big part of being a Templar. What were you studying at the university?"
"I thought I was going to be a lawyer."
"I wish I had a chance like that. I come from Torbas."
"Aren't there any lawyers on Torbas?" Chen knew it was perhaps the poorest of the Eight Worlds.
Olga only shrugged and looked sad. Chen tried to think of what he might say to Olga to console her
for being born in poverty and missing out on a university education, but at the moment he felt too
envious of her to be able to come up with anything useful along that line.
He was the one who needed consolation. She, after all, was not locked up. Nor was she suspected of
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some insane crime that she would never have committed. Nor-no, he wasn't paranoid-was she the
victim of an involved and ominous plot.
Chen was still trying to think of the best thing to say next when conversation was interrupted by
a distant blast, a faint vibration racing through the floor. In the little intercom screen, Olga's
image turned its head away, distracted by the noise.
"More remodeling," Chen decided. "Clearing the slums."
"I don't know. It didn't sound& "
"Didn't sound what?"
"I don't know." Then she surprised him. "Wait, I'll be right back."
"Leaving your post? Oh, I'll wait, all right."
She was back in about five seconds, properly at her post again, standing up straight in a military
way and using her communicator. "Post Seven here. Officer of the day?"
Olga repeated the call. Apparently she was having trouble getting anyone's attention. She called
again, several times, but Chen could tell that no one was answering.
She paused to look into the intercom at Chen. "I don't think that was blasting," she said, and
then went back to trying the communicator on her wrist to hail her superiors. But still nobody
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