Space Eater Read Free Page A

related devices?” It was more of a statement than a question, but I cleverly answered with a long-drawn out
    “We-e-e-ll...”
    “You aren’t ... Good.”
    Good? It seemed the right time to look puzzled, and I did; also just then I registered something I’d been not quite hearing ever since I sat down, a thin whine from, probably, inside the desktop. Even money it was the charge circuitry of a laser somewhere in there. Sinclair must worry a lot about death-happy Combat men.
    “I’d better explain to you what all this is about,” she said. “There is a highly hazardous assignment—“
    “I volunteer,” I said without thinking about it. Hazardous meant you maybe got killed. So what? That was the job.
    She frowned, clicking the electrical bits in her hand. “Please. You’re supposed to be intelligent, for a Combat man: let me finish. This assignment has a security classification so high that even the classification is classified. They don’t want your killer ability or any of that nonsense; they want a Forceman with a high D rating, reasonable intelligence, good reflexes and -- what are these ?”
    She shot out her hand with the components rolling on the palm. One was an MT distortion tube just like in the manual’s pictures. I showed off my classy reflexes and didn’t hesitate before saying “Don’t know
    ... electrical parts?” with a blank look.
    “Yes. An open mind, shall we say, on MT technology.” She paused and looked at me with head a little on one side. About then I decided that what looked like woodworm this side of the desktop—a metal desk! -- must be outlets for unfriendly gas or loaded needles. So don’t go in over the top of the desk.
    That made three defenses.
    “What’s the assignment?” I said.
    “I don’t have details. Except that it involves the space program.”
    “I thought they canceled all that a hundred-odd years back. When the power started to give out.”
    “So did I. Do you still volunteer?”
    “I volunteer, Captain.” I wanted to stand up and salute snappily, but when I tensed to do that she jerked, and one small hand ran like a spider to a button set in the desktop. Captain Sinclair was still worried.
    Once in a while a Forceman goes death-happy. He doesn’t mind pain, he doesn’t mind death at all any more, and what’s left to do to him? Usually he won’t go for his mates, though; the old bad feeling about Admin comes bubbling up and he wastes a few of them . So Admin are scared of Combat, which makes things worse—the way dogs are readier to bite people they know are afraid of them. Admin would surely like to deal with Combat at a safe distance, behind armorglass walls or CC3V links—but that would be bad for morale , wouldn’t it? And so they have their little personal defenses.
    “How does all this tie in with my promotion?” I said, staying seated and very still, like a good boy. But how did I look to her? Hard muscles, wavy brown hair, baby-blue eyes and a long nose that bent a little to the left—did that add up to the identikit of a death-happy killer?
    “Yes.” (She used “yes” as punctuation, I thought.) “Briefly, the suggestion is that you assume the rank of lieutenant for the period of this assignment, to be made permanent should you return and then satisfactorily complete the course we’ve discussed. Yes. That seems to be the proposal.” She was fingering the AP components intensely; maybe being in the room with a Combat expert was getting her down all the more. Which led me to thinking how one should bounce right off the chair to start with, as ten to one there were hypos concealed in the seat, and—“Yes, sounds great,” I told her—and guessing the laser aperture to be there you’d have to dodge it and roll under the line of fire of whatever it was in the fan, around the side of the desk to avoid the gas or needles in the desktop which looked rigged to fire straight up, do it fast and she’d find there’s no time to touch