The Knights of the Black Earth Read Free

at
her.
    “I heard a knock,”
she said defensively. “Thought it might be for me.” She sniffed. “Another of
your ‘clients’?”
    “Nosy old bitch!”
Bosk retorted. He opened his own door wider. “C’mon in, then.”
    The stranger
entered. Bosk shut the door, took a look out the peephole to make sure Mrs.
Kasper had gone back into her apartment. She had a bad habit of loitering in
the hall, listening outside closed doors.
    Sure enough.
    Bosk flung the
door open, nearly knocking Mrs. Kasper down.
    “Care to join us?”
He leered.
    Disgusted, she
flounced back inside her apartment and slammed her door.
    Bosk shut his door
again, turned around to face his guest. The stranger was tall, well-built,
handsome if you went for older guys with hair graying at the temples, which
Bosk did not. The clothes were expensive but not ostentatious. Snaga Ohme would
have approved the choice of colors: muted blues and grays. The face was a mask.
The lines and wrinkles had been trained to betray nothing of the thoughts
within. The eyes were one-way mirrors. Bosk looked in, saw himself reflected
back.
    Having once been
close to some of the most powerful people in the galaxy, Bosk recognized and
appreciated the quiet air of control and authority this man exuded, like a fine
cologne that never overwhelms, never cloys the senses.
    “I assume that you
are the Adonian known as Bosk?” The stranger was polite.
    “I’m an Adonian
and my name’s Bosk. That answer your questions?”
    “Not all of them.”
The stranger continued to be polite. “Were you once in the employ of the late
Snaga Ohme, former weapons dealer?”
    Bosk swallowed. “I
wasn’t in his ‘employ,’ mister! I was his goddamn friend! His best friend. He
trusted me, more’n anyone. He trusted me. I knew ... all his secrets.”
    Bosk brushed his
hand across his eyes, wiped his nose with his fingers. Adonians are a sensitive
race, who have a tendency to get maudlin when they’re drunk. “I was his
confidant. Me. Not those other fops, those pretty boys—fawning and preening.
And the women. They were the worst. But he loved me. He loved me.”
    Bosk drained the
glassful of jump-juice.
    The stranger
nodded. “Yes, that is consistent with my information. Snaga Ohme told you all
his secrets. He even told you about his project code-named Negative Waves.”
    “Maybe, maybe not.”
Bosk eyed the stranger warily. “You want a drink?”
    “No, thank you.
Mind if I sit down?”
    “Suit yourself.”
Bosk wandered back to the bottle.
    The stranger
walked across the small room. Bosk watched him out of the corner of his eye.
The stranger’s movements were fluid, controlled. He was in excellent physical
condition, with a hard-muscled body, good reflexes.
    Pity he’s not
twenty years younger, Bosk thought.
    The stranger
pulled up a battered metal fold-out chair—one of the few articles of furniture
in the apartment. In front of the chair was a computer. A highly sophisticated
and expensive personal computer, it looked considerably out of place in the
poverty-stricken surroundings. The stranger seated himself in the chair,
regarded the computer with admiration.
    “That’s a fine
setup, Bosk. Probably worth the price of this whole apartment building.”
    “I’d sell myself
first,” Bosk said sullenly. He had sold himself first, but that was
beside the point. He hunched back down in the recliner. “Snaga Ohme gave that
computer to me. It’s one of the best, the fastest in the whole damn galaxy.”
    A photograph of
Snaga Ohme—bronze, beautiful, as were most Adonians—stood in an honored place
beside the crystalline storage lattice.
    The stranger
nodded, smiled in sympathy, placed the briefcase on his knees, and waited for
Bosk to resume talking. But Bosk’s attention had been recaptured by the
vidscreen. The king was speaking again, this time about the long-expected and
widely anticipated birth of the royal heir.
    “Fuckin’ bastard,”
muttered Bosk. “I hate the