Resurgence

“If you have any thoughts of starting up another rebellion against the Phemus Circle government—”

“Of course I don’t. At least, not as my top priority. I’ll want to settle a few personal scores first with the people who sentenced me to death and locked me away. From now on you’d better watch your back, Minister. Every minute of every day.”

Rebka turned away without waiting for Schramm’s reaction, but Jeremiah Frole saw the instinctive movement of hand toward belt.

He shook his head. “Not this time, Minister, or you may not care for the result. We’ll be clear of Candela orbit and make our first Bose transition in half a day. After that you can do as you like—but it won’t be to this prisoner.”

He followed Hans Rebka out of the room. As they moved along the corridor he noticed for the first time the condition of the naked man’s legs and bony back.

“You were tortured!”

“I was?” Rebka turned his head and saw what the councilor was staring at. “Oh, you mean the sores. That wasn’t torture.”

“Then what was it?”

“Just what you expect when you have no clothes on, and they chain you to sit in an iron chair for a few weeks.”

“They did that to you? That is torture.”

“Not by Phemus Circle standards it isn’t. I’ve slept in worse beds. But don’t get the wrong idea, Councilor, I’m really happy that you came along when you did. I was beginning to wonder just how I was going to make it out of there. Gratitude doesn’t begin to express it.”

They had reached ground level and begun walking to a waiting car. They passed half a dozen men and women, but only Jeremiah Frole seemed concerned about Hans Rebka’s nakedness.

“We will provide you with clothing as soon as we are on board the ship,” he said. At the car he hesitated. “Your file describes you as a problem solver and troubleshooter. I hope that remains true.”

“Why? Seems to me you just got me out of trouble.”

“Perhaps. I notice that you have not asked why I came here to take you to Miranda. That is just as well. For if you were to ask, I am not at liberty to tell you.”

The councilor held open the car door for Rebka. “However, when you do learn the reason why you are being removed from Candela, I hope that your feeling toward me and the Council will still be one of gratitude.”

CHAPTER TWO On Xerarchos, at the far end of the Zardalu Communion

For the full three weeks while Hans Rebka sat naked in a rusty iron chair, Louis Nenda had lived the good life. Thirteen hundred lightyears away from Candela, he sat now in lordly ease and surveyed the arid surface of Xerarchos.

True, the planet beyond his ship’s ports was not most people’s idea of a garden world. The dust storms came every season and raged worldwide for months on end. The air was thin and dry and tasted like powdered iron. If you went outside without a suit, fine grit worked its way into your teeth and eyes and every body cavity. Water was so scarce on the scoured surface that no gemstone or precious metal could match it in value, ounce for ounce. The natives were warlike and bloodthirsty. An honest man was defined as one who stayed bought for more than a day or two.

But now you had to look on the good side. Louis Nenda had come here voluntarily, knowing that his ship was well-armed and if it came to a fight he could kick the ass of any native group. He did not have to breathe Xerarchos air, or eat food grown on Xerarchos. Best of all, the water generators on board the Have-It-All made him the richest being on the planet. The locals would die to learn their secret. And if that’s what it took to keep control, Nenda was quite willing to let them do it.

He placed his boots on the lip of the rounded observation port, leaned back, and scratched his hairy rib cage. He yawned. A few more weeks, to squeeze out the limited best that Xerarchos had to offer, then the Have-It-All would lift off and seek another source of commercial advantage. The local arm of the galaxy was full of them. There was a new sucker-world born every century.

Pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a faint sound from behind. He jerked around, and confronted a nightmare. The creature stood on one pair of its six dark-brown legs, rearing twice the height of a man. The segmented underside was dark-red, rising to a short neck banded by scarlet-and-white ruffles. Above that sat a white, eyeless head, twice the size of Nenda’s own. A thin proboscis grew out from the middle of the sightless face and curled down to tuck into a pouch on the bottom of the pleated chin. Yellow horns in the middle of the broad head constantly scanned whatever stood before them. A pair of light-brown antennas, long even in comparison with that great head, were unfurled to form two meter-long fans that quivered delicately in the ship’s warm, moist air.