Matadora Read Free Page A

but he wasn't stupid. "I didn't know you were coming until they told me to come collect you," he said, "but there are people who keep track of such things at the Villa."
    "People? Villa?" She wasn't afraid, but she was definitely curious. There was no sense in Bork being here.
    "Yes ma'am. Look, I've got a track waiting, I can tell you what I can on the way. This sun'11 dry you out if you stand around too long. What say we ride?"
    Dirisha thought about it for a few moments. She shrugged. Might as well; she had a feeling whatever Bork was into was the reason she'd come to this planet. She picked up her bag.
    The track was a squarish vehicle which squatted on triple rails of what looked like weathered aluminum. Inside, the air was twenty degrees cooler.
    There were comfortable, if thin seats, and a dispensing unit for water sat under one long window. Bork activated a control and the track moved smoothly off, gathering speed until it was travelling at a good eighty or ninety klicks per hour.
    Bork turned away from the control panel and grinned at Dirisha.
    "Automatic driver," he said. "I really am glad you're here. Sleel and Sister will be glad to see you, too."
    "Sleel is here? And Sister Clamp? Come on, Bork, what is happening?"
    Bork scratched at the back of his left hand with a thick finger. "Stuff itches,"
    he said, pointing at the plastic flesh which joined the spetsdod to his own skin.
    Dirisha repressed an urge to sigh. He was going to get to it in his own time, she supposed. She pointed at the spetsdods. "Why are you wearing them? Is it dangerous here?"
    Bork laughed. "Dangerous? Nah, I'm only carrying stingers. Everybody at the Villa has to wear them. Pen's second rule."
    "Bork, you're giving me more questions when what I need is answers."
    "Okay, it's like this. Sleel and Sister and I and a bunch of others are all working here, at the school. It's called Matador Villa and it's a kind of...
    training center put together in honor of a guy we used to work for, before he died." "Emile?"
    Bork's grin grew larger. "There are people who'd kill to be able to say that name the way you just did. Those of us who actually knew him are looked upon as kind of blessed." "What are you talking about?" "You remember what happened on Greaves." "Of course I remember."
    The rail car rounded a long curve at that moment, and the earth seemed to drop away to Dirisha's left. The sea was a hundred meters below all of a sudden, and the view was incredible; there was a pattern to the land ahead, almost like giant stair-steps to the water. She hadn't realized they'd been climbing. A series of buildings sat in the middle of one of the steps, terra cotta blocks against dry brown grass. It was hard to tell how large the complex was, there was little to scale it against, but it looked sizeable. "Nice, huh? I always like this part of the trip." "Let's get back to the story, Bork.
    Khadaji was part of an underground resisting the Confed on Greaves and they finally caught up with him."
    "Oh, there's much more than that. He was all by himself, did you know that?"
    Dirisha nodded. "I heard that rumor."
    "No rumor. Did you know what the military found out, after it all wound down? Our boss nailed over two thousand troopers, from bottom-grade line up to the Befalhavare Himself."
    "I heard that, too. Not a rumor, I take it?"
    "Nope. He did it, and every one of them with spetsdods. And that during the whole time he was darting troopers all by himself, he never once blew a shot. Not one time. And that's according to the Confed military itself."
    Dirisha blinked and stared at Bork. "I didn't know that." . "They call him The Man Who Never Missed, Dirisha; he's the inspiration and idol of all the students. One man, who stood up to the Confed, who only let himself be taken when he'd done what he set out to do. On some worlds, the name of Khadaji is like a prayer for resistance fighters."
    "Is that what you're doing here, Bork? Training to be a resistance