By Force of Arms Read Free Page B

extinction, and natural resources looted to feed the fleet. Slowly, reluctantly, Henry returned with the news.
    Jepp listened to the report, asked to hear it again, and felt an almost overwhelming sense of joy. He’d been right! God had a plan. Why else would the Supreme Being direct the fleet to Long Jump? The very planet from which Henry and he had lifted so long ago?
    The human literally danced around the compartment, chortled out loud, and slapped the robot’s alloy back. “Here’s our chance. Alpha! We’ll minister to the godless and build the flock! Praise be to the lord.”
    “Praise be to the lord,” Alpha echoed dutifully.
    Henry was silent.
    The Hoon transferred a portion of its consciousness from one ship to another, scanned the orb below, and considered its options. Yes, it could consume the metal on the planet below, and thereby fuel the ,fleet, or, and this was more intriguing, allow the soft body to interact with its peers and take the food afterwards.
    Evidence had been found suggesting that the AI’s quarry had traveled into that particular sector of space—and it wanted confirmation. If the soft bodies knew anything about the Thraki, they would tell the one called Jepp, and he would tell the Hoon. Or would he? Based on data gleaned from the biped’s navigational entity, this was the biological’s planet of origin. Perhaps he would run. No great loss, the Hoon concluded, none at all.
    Jepp boarded the Sheen shuttle, followed by his robots, each one of which progressed by its own means of propulsion, which meant that Alpha walked. Henry rolled, and Sam scampered about. The human had been given grudging use of smaller ships in the past, but this felt different, as if the Hoon actually wanted him to go. Form has a tendency to follow function—so the control room looked like what it was. The presence of two pedestal style chairs confirmed the fact that the ship’s architects, whoever they might be, liked to sit down once in awhile.
    There was a view screen, a stripped-down control panel, and a joystick. Did that mean the creators had a preference for simplicity? Or that the controls were regarded as little more than an emergency backup? Jepp favored the second theory but had no way to know if he was correct.
    The exprospector sat down, wished the chair was more comfortable, and felt the ship lift off. It hovered for a moment, scooted out through the enormous hatch, and fell into orbit. The sight of Long Jump brought a lump to his throat. It looked like a chocolate ball dusted with powdered sugar. There were people down there, lots of them, and he hungered for the sound of their voices Could the ship patch him through? There was only one way to find out. “Contact the surface,” Jepp ordered, “and tell them I wish to speak with Neptune Small.”
    Three minutes passed while the robots communicated with the ship and the ship communicated with someone on Long Jump’s surface.
    Then, much to the human’s amazement. Alpha touched a section of the control panel, waited for a small cover to whir out of the way, and removed a curvilinear tube. “Here, you can speak into this.”
    Jepp recognized the device as some sort of handset and heard a voice issue from a hole. “Jepp? Is that you?”
    The sound of the merchant’s voice was enough to trigger unpleasant memories. The prospector remembered what it had been like to wait for hours while Small sat in his office. And then, he was very, very lucky, to be given five minutes in which to make his case. Why the existing loan should be extended, why he would strike it rich, why Small should be patient. And how, when the whole humiliating ritual was over. Small would part with a tiny fraction of the money he’d made during the last five minutes, and Jepp would slink away. But not this time Jepp thought to himself. “Yes,” Jepp said out loud. “It certainly is. How do you like my fleet?”
    Small, who had taken the precaution of draping a handkerchief