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\iIf you smile, they don't know they got to you.\i "Me. Back at the
Slaughterhouse."
\b215\b
There was more to it, and long before Tregare could admit it out loud, he
accepted her need to be off the ship, away from him. If that's how she
felt-\ihow many hours 'til we land and she gets the hell off?\i She was
talking and talking, off into the kind of diatribe that never says what it's
\iabout.\i By the chin, not hard, he grabbed her. "Erdis? You got more on your
mind, for peaces sake get to it!"
Not pulling away at all, she tilted her face up to the angle he'd always found
the most lovely.
"I'm not leaving you behind entirely, Bran. Part of you stays with me."
To cover his puzzlement, he said, "Nothing I'll really need, I hope?"
She shook her head. "Hardly. Just your child."
\iBut how-\i? "But how-?"
"Coming out from Shegler's I didn't renew my contra implant. Because I've
loved and valued you, Bran-for some qualities you may not even know you have,
by now. But you've let yourself be warped;
Shegler's showed me that."
\iLet? Butcher Korbeith? The Slaughterhouse? LET?\i
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But he held silence as she said, "So I can't be with you any longer. But your
child, Bran, won't carry your hate." Trying to smile, she almost made it. "You
understand?"
Almost gently, he said, "No. No, I don't." Suddenly thirsty he poured bourbon
and gulped half of it too fast, but kept himself from coughing. "But you don't
understand, either,"
How to say it? "It's nice you and my kid can live peaceful on a Hidden World
and not hate. Nice.
But I can't do that. I had it from Arbogast and Channery and Korbeith and-" He
shook his head.
"Never mind that. What it is, somebody has to \ido\i something about those
bastards, and it's not going to be any nice bunny rabbit. It's going to be
people like Derek Limmer and Jargy Hoad and
Kickem Bernardez-and like \ime.\i From here it doesn't look like what you say,
but I guess I have to live with that. If I'm a monster, as you call me, I had
a lot of help getting there."
His gaze unfocused. Looking back in time he said, \i"I\i thought when I got
away from Korbeith, and then from UET itself . . . but I expect you're right.
The longer it goes, the meaner it gets."
He stood. "You better move into Seconds quarters. I'll have your stuff brought
over." He had another thought. "The ship can't pay your shares off all in
cash, but I'll see you get good marketable cargo for the rest-and maybe I know
a connection
\b216\b on the planet that can help you handle it the best way." Yes, his
family owed him that much, even though they'd deal through intermediaries. If
they didn't think so, he'd show them different.
Offering no kiss or handshake, she said, "Goodbye, Bran." He nodded. "That's
right. Except on business, we won't see each other again." He watched the door
close behind her.
He felt he should want another drink, but lay down without one. After a while,
Jargy called on
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ong%20View%2001%20-%20Star%20Rebel%20v1.0.txt intercom. Tregare anr swered,
"I'm busy. I expect to be that way for some time. You and Gonnelson do the
hails and landing; don't call me unless there's a problem. All right?" All
right, so he lay back again.
\iI'll take Stronghold, that's what. Don't know how yet, but I will. Kickem's
data, that's the key. . . .\i
What was it with him and women? Murphy, now-with the raw-scarred face and the
eyepatch-catch
\iher\i bleeding tears over any dead Uties? Not hardly. Or Janith Reggs on the
scoutship? Well, maybe. Salome Harker . . . and where was she, by now?
Escaped, Bran hoped. Either way, they were probably years out of synch with
each other. But she'd been a fighter, and likely still was.
Without volition his mind scanned ahead, and his gut clenched. Phyls Dolan,
tumbling frozen between stars, forever. No matter what he did to Uties, he'd
never pay them back for Phyls. But
Erdis couldn't see it that way; she hadn't been there. On the ship itself,
yes, but not where it happened.
Headshake. \iAfter Stronghold-\ithere'd be more of a move he could make, some
way.
\iMy family.\i Well, they'd dumped him, so that was th#t.
With the lights softened, he squinted into dimness. The way things were, no
point in worrying about people who couldn't see what the problem was. The way
things were . . .
\iThe hell with it. I've got a job to do.\i
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\cABOUT THE AUTHOR
\cF. M. BUSBY'S published science fiction novels include \iRissa Kerguelen,\i
the related \iZelde
M'Tana, All These Earths,\i and the now-combined volume \iThe Demu Trilogy
(Cage a Man, The Proud
Enemy,\i and \iEnd of the Line).\i Numerous shorter works, ranging from
short-short to novella length, have appeared in various SF magazines and in
both original and reprint anthologies, including \iBest off Year\i collections
edited by Terry Carr, by Lester Del Rey, and by Donald A.
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