Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) Read Free

file
cabinet, her knees holding the chart book where the course to Konapar was
scrawled out in red ink.   She closed the
big folder of charts and pushed it into the cabinet between her knees without
getting down.   Her eyes were half-shut,
and the mate figured she was thinking about the women who ruled Phira and what
was going to happen shortly to them.   He
chucked her under her pretty, round chin and asked:   “Are you worried about the Amazons,
chicken?   We won’t hurt them if they
behave themselves.”  
    She shook
her head, gave him a peculiar smile.   Then she qualified the gesture with a confidential whisper the Cap
couldn’t hear.   “I’m really thinking
about the women, but it’s because I’m worrying about what will become of
Captain Alain when he gets mixed up with a city full of nothing but old
women.”  
    To Elvir,
any woman over eighteen was old.  
    The
inference behind her words tickled Chan so that he laughed.   She grinned too, her eyes sparkling up at
him, woman-wise in a child’s face.   It
hit him suddenly.   “Don’t worry about the
Cap where women are concerned.   He can
take ‘em or leave ‘em alone.”   He eyed
her with wonder in his gaze.   The scamp
was actually jealous, and not with any childish jealousy, either.  
    She shook
her curls again.   “You don’t know about
the Priestesses.   I do!   I was to be a slave in the Temple of
Myrmi-Atla, the glorious All-Mother.   The
other slaves talked about them all the time.   They’re not ordinary women; they’re sorceresses.”  
    The mate
pooh-poohed the idea.   “There’s no such
thing as sorcery, child.   Not on Phira, anyway.”  
    “You’ll
see,” she predicted direly, knowingly with the all-wisdom of a child.   “They’ll wind the captain around their
fingers.   And I don’t want to see it.   I like him too much to see him made a fool
of.   If I was elder, I’d do something
about it.”  
    Chan
wanted to say bluntly:   “What?” but sight of her serious face made him think better of it.   Instead he said:   “Tell you what, Elvir; you and I can look
ahead a little.   We can plan to outfigure
them.   If some of the Matriarchs get
under his skin, we’ll fix them, eh?”
    She put
her child’s hand in the mate’s horny paw and shook.   “It’s a deal, Chan.”  

CHAPTER THREE

 
    THE
PHIRANS must have had plenty of warning of the attacking fleet, for their
armada was sighted some four hours out of their solar system.   Their ships were old, a style obsolete for
half a century, which is a long time in the growth of galactic science.   However, they had obviously been recently
refitted and newly engined, for those blunt, clumsy power hogs were fairly
splitting the ether when Konaparian telescopes identified them.  
    They split
their forces right and left, which could be taken either for feminine thinking
or stupidity, for no man would have divided his power that way.   Tor Branthak took immediate advantage of the
weakness and blasted his forces into the opening between and poured fission
bombs and detonator rays right and left into the Phiran fleet.   It looked to Chan as if the battle were ended
before it had begun.   The women had
lost.  
    Gan Alain
kept the Warspear right on the Regent’s tail where he could see what was
going on and be ready to repel attack as per agreement.  
    Then the
Phirans, old and dilapidated as their fleet seemed, sprang a surprise.   They had opened in the center just wide
enough to get out of the way of a huge dark shape coming up from their
rear.   They had kept a screen of ships
between it and the Konaparians or it would have been seen before.   Now it was too late.   Chan recognized her after a minute and sang
out a warning.  
    “That’s a
Mixar ship, Cap!   She carries potent
stuff!”
    Chan knew
Mixar was on the outer rim of the Dires cluster, and that this ship must have been
a year making the trip to Phira; thus her presence