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unreasonable decision to decoy Marvis away from Arbora when I left. If I
hadn't tried that, I wouldn't have gotten wise to you."
"Well," he said confidently, "jealousy on your part was hardly expected. And,
of course, feeling that way, you'll surely return."
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"Meaning I love you?" she sneered. "Hah! If I did, do you think I'd fret over
competition from Marvis?
I'd just blow a hole through her! I was trying to prevent a competition I
didn't care about enough to win!
Love you? Hell, Holm, I don't even like you!"
With that she warped for home. She had meant what she said, but, golly, how
she was going to need a male when she reached Marvis' age!
* * *
Hours later, and far from Arbora, a voice piped in her left ear: "Nice going,
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Gweanvin Oster."
"Huh? Who's that?"
No response.
Who could it have been? It had sounded like the voice of a boy, perhaps twelve
years old. But what would a kid be doing way out here, and how could he have
known of her?
She guessed the answers, of course, long before she knew them for sure nearly
a decade later. By then the boyish voice had deepened and matured.
Gweanvin never returned to Arbora. Her children did.
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Framed
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- Chapter 45
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Questor
Morgan's position in the fighting formation of the Lontastan raid brigade was
well back, but on what would be the Earthward flank. Certainly he was not out
of harm's way, but neither was he particularly in it. It was important that,
when the Primgranese defenders studied the records of the coming skirmish,
Morgan should not look special in any way.
His left ear hissed softly as the ultralight carrier came on, and he heard the
voice of the brigade's navigator: "Delay in warp exit, three point four two
seven seconds. Reset cut-outs for delay in warp exit of three point four two
seven seconds. . . . Exit now due in eighty-five seconds. Prediction: Combat
will commence four point five seconds after exit."
Morgan reset the timing of his warp cut-out and twisted his head for a moment
to gaze toward the navigator's position. He couldn't see him, of course. The
distance between the two men was something over twenty-three hundred miles,
and also normal vision was of scant use at superlight velocities.
But he looked anyway as he thought half sympathetically of the navigator, as
burdened with equipment as an ancient was with clothing. Morgan glanced down
at his own well-muscled body, bare and exposed to space except for his black
minishorts, his weapons belt, and his low boots.
For an instant he entertained himself with his daydream of encountering a
famed ancient, mysteriously transported forward in time about a thousand years
from the Early Interstellar Age, back when men still traveled in ships. How
astonished that worthy would be to see almost naked men zipping routinely
about the galaxy! And how puzzled by the microchemical mysteries of a modern
life-support system!
The thought made him aware of his breathing, and of the pounding of his heart
which was speeding up in anticipation of the coming battle in spite of his
efforts to think of other things. He inhaled deeply and slowly, conscious of
the oxygen and nitrogen coming out of combination with the chemicals lining
certain nasal passages to fill his lungs. Then he exhaled, and other doped
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surfaces, mostly in the lower throat, quickly absorbed the gases and almost as
quickly broke down the carbon dioxide. After three breaths, he would be using
the same oxygen over again.
Meanwhile, he had not neglected to draw both of his zerburst guns and wave
them about a bit to loosen his arm muscles. His comrades of the brigade,
randomly spaced with an average separation of fifteen hundred yards, were
doing the same thing. Most of these men would fight the Primgranese
Commonality defenders of Earth for fourteen long, furious seconds . . . and
probably live to tell about it.
Morgan expected to be out of the fight within six seconds.
* * *
The brigade made warp exit less than a million miles out from Earth, and
automatically went semi-inert.
A quick glance at the ancestral planet assured Morgan that the navigator
hadn't blundered; the brigade's trajectory was carrying it Earthward in a
slanting, curving power dive that would peri at maybe two thousand miles from
the surface.
And the defenders were coming in a swarm! Satellite bases were ejecting
Primgranese Commonality guardsmen like slugs from antique machine guns,
precisely aimed to intercept and parallel the course of the raiders of the
Lontastan Federation.
The battle was quickly joined. Zerburst terminals flowered in deadly beauty in
both formations as the
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first shots were exchanged. Pale purple lances of light . . . the beams along
which zerburst energy poured from gun to terminal point . . . criss-crossed
the narrowing gap between the formations.
Morgan got off a few shots in rapid succession, less conscious of his aim than
his position relative to the rapidly swelling Earth. Also, he needed a
terminal for cover one not close enough to terminate him, but one sufficiently
near that, with luck on the side of the Primgranese gunner, some vital area of
his life-
support could conceivably be knocked out.
He felt the glare on his back of the terminal he needed two seconds before the
time to make his move.
That time came.
Instantly he went full inert and tumbled Earthward from the raider formation,
a pinwheel of flailing arms and legs that quickly spread-eagled as if his
pressor system were giving way and exposing him to the effects of space
vacuum. In fact, the pressors did weaken sufficiently to assure the
spread-eagling did not look faked.
That far, all was according to plan. But then came the unexpected . . . the
statistically possible but improbable accident.
He was holed by a zerburst lance. It could have been fired by friend or foe,
and could not have been aimed at him. It terminated too many hundreds of miles
away for him to pick out its flare among all the others. He felt the intense
burning pain as it drilled a neat quarter-inch hole in his side, and looked
down to see blood spraying out of him.
His life-support went to work on the injury immediately. Localized pressor
intensity stopped the blood loss, and internal reagents threw up sturdy walls
of pseudo-tissues to contain organ ruptures for the hour that would be needed
for normal healing.
But that lance of energy had punctured more than human flesh. From the way the
injury felt, Morgan suspected it had also holed a major life-support packet
carried in that part of his body.
Which could prove disastrous.
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* * *
When he hit the upper fringes of the atmosphere he discovered what the damage
was. His re-entry field came on full, taking up the heat of impact with the
air and braking his fall. But he did not go semi-inert for even an instant!
The inertial unit had been smashed.
It could have been worse, he told himself. With his re-entry field fully
extended for maximum atmospheric retardation he could slow for a reasonably
soft landing. But he was going to take a battering from G-forces on the way
down.
At least his life-support wouldn't let him black out, and would give brain
damage priority attention. He had to remain alert to pick out a landing site
where he might expect some privacy for a while, since he was going to be in
bad shape.
His target area was in the northern Rockies, on the dawn line and just
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