Moonbeams and magic Read Free Page A

cut will be even larger."
    "I stay ready to comply." Starla nodded farewell and, af-

    ter selecting the four weapons she wanted from several open crates nearby, departed.
    She stepped from the trans-to at the base of the high ridge and headed toward the grid where her shuttlecraft had landed—a ten-preon walk away—leaving a landrover for Moig's use for transportation into the settlement. En route, Starla scanned the area below her still-elevated position where Tochara stretched out for a long distance in the canyon.
    Since her arrival, she had learned that Noy was a world of semi-desert to arid desert terrain in various shades of red. Nature had sculpted many rocks, cliffs, ridges, and knobs into rugged and unusual formations. The oppressive red cloak was rent only by an occasional splotch of light or dark gray rock, so hard it rarely crumbled enough to add its shade to the fiery-colored soil whose dust was a nuisance. According to the weather or the time of deega, even the sky was a pale to vivid red. In every direction, mountain ranges—whose odd configurations seemed to have ruptured the ground almost violently during an upheaval eons ago— provided boundary markers. Thick-walled structures with formidable defense weapons sat on two flat-topped bluffs. Starla glanced at those sites with a feeling of hopelessness before returning her thoughts once again to a study of the locale.
    Due to a lack of fertile soil in this wilderness, some food plants and fruit bushes were grown in containers inside enclosed domes and were watered by a crude system of pipes and pumps from sources owned and controlled by Tochar. However, the majority of supplies was imported, usually after being stolen by bands of nefariants who either lived or traded there, which created a steady flux of space traffic. Caves found inside three ridges possessed springs and pools of fresh water; they were guarded and their valuable resources dispensed by Tochar's thirty Enforcers, as were the two defense sites. Though rains were infrequent, when a

    deluge came, it sent torrents of water gushing down the upheavals and washes, and was absorbed by dried mudflats and hardy red plants.
    Tochara was one of many colonies on the secluded planet and, from what she had been told, was the best and safest place in the notorious Free-Zone; it was a vivid contrast to the mutant-roaming wastelands and other crude villages and harsh landscape where even the plants and animals were hazardous. Though noisy, the area was unlike the profound and eerie silence beyond it where only the wind was heard.
    The story was that Tochar had arrived with his large band of villites two yings ago and conquered the lesser armed and unskilled inhabitants who had created the colony after fleeing oppression in an alien world. The original occupants who were not slain were sold into slavery on other planets which still allowed the barbaric practice.
    Starla was glad there were no children here, as birth control with Hex was an easy task and these were not family people. There were few pets and none were permitted to roam free. Abode builders were wealthy because materials had to be imported and were expensive. Still, in many areas where the unkempt and less successftil raiders dwelled, it was smelly and dirty and cluttered. They lived in huts and shacks made of such usable scrap materials as metal and discarded wood. Lacking advanced technology, fuel for cooking sent gray and pungent smoke drifting upward where it was devoured quickly by a hungry red atmosphere, as were the ftimes from generator-created electricity from stolen fuel.
    Most of the inhabitants were rough and lawless men— dregs of the universe, people from many planets and galaxies, pirates, smugglers, traitors, adventurers, bijonis, and those males and females who earned their subsistence by satisfying the villites's needs. Most clustered and worked in groups for defense and profit during raiding treks, though all were ruled and