Star quest Read Free Page B

He had researched to find why the "two" was hung after the name, but he found no reason. There never had been a Basa I.
    Scoping the land masses through the cloud breakage, lie found he was on the correct side of the giant lemon (the seas were yellow, and the clouds were an amber hue). The continent of Bromida Basa lay below. The capital city, Romaghin Cap Five, was on the edge of a peninsula that stretched into the great sea. Population: three million plus. Main business: trading of stolen merchandise, slave marketing, sin. He tried not to think about Tarnilee. He did not know how long it had been since they had parted or how long it would be until she was totally beyond his grasp. Stretching his mind and studying everything Triggy Gop had to offer, he thought, perhaps, the month long period between capture and sale of a slave would be up this week. He hoped he wasn't just being optimistic. If she did come onto the platform to be sold, he knew it wouldn't take long. Not for a girl like Tarnilee.
    Breaking orbit, he plunged down through the denser and denser layers of atmosphere, hull heating, eyes out for any missiles from anyone who might have broken the radar-negative shield and picked him up. The shield had been known to fail.
    The clouds appeared to rush at him, up and up and up, though it was actually himself dropping down and down and down. He hit the clouds expecting a jolt and was plunging through toward the earth below. He splashed out analyzer waves and discovered the land below was composed mostly of loose sand. There was desert at the back of the peninsula. The sand was a hundred and two feet deep before it gave way to solid rock. He braked for a short moment, cutting his speed in half, and smashed head first into the sand, sinking immediately out of sight like a pebble tossed in a pond. He left a momentary whirlpool in the sand which eventually settled itself and lay quiet. Eighty-three feet below the surface, he slid to a halt and lay very still indeed. Minutes passed without result No missiles. No warheads. Nothing. He eased up on his nerves, allowed them to unbunch themselves, and sighed.
    He was on the planet of Basa II—
in
it, really.
    He was only a dozen miles from the fringes of the city that held his Tamilee. Tamilee of the soft lips… Tarnilee of the sweet eyes… Tamilee of the flower soul with the delicate laugh and the feet like crystal structures…
    He searched into his bowels where the shock-proof chemical tanks and laboratories were working diligently. The body seemed perfect. It was tall, muscular, blond, and handsome. The process had been suspended until he was ready to have his brain deposited in the skull via cellular welding which would connect it to the nerves and life systems of the humanoid floating in the brackish fluid.
    He was ready.
    Clipping the limited semi-brain of the computer into the controls, he set everything on automatic, ready to respond to his call for help but inert and unfunctioning unless needed. A mechanical brain could handle all functions minimally, but it took an organic brain to really operate a Jumbo.
    The servo-robot trundled into the control center where his brain hung in a nutrient sack inside an energy net which was, in turn, sheltered within a shatter-proof, blast-proof alloy bowl The brain was protected, for even if shot down, the Jumbo might provide a humanoid body for the brain—a body which would be in enemy territory and capable of doing more damage. Carefully, the robot lifted the bowl from the immovable pillar, where it had been latched, and carried it down through the decks into the operating theater. He directed it to hypo him to sleep, and he was obeyed.
    Dreams flooded his mind…
    Later, he woke with a clear mind, no traces of fogging drugs. The surgeon arms dangled above his head, all manner of instruments fitted to their metal fingers. Thin bladed knives, broad spatulas, hypos, every conceivable surgical tool hung in their nimble, steel