Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) Read Free Page A

Magistrate.”
    “Send a dattran to Captain Brent Bogomil. Tell him I’m not happy with him. I want him to report to me immediately.”
    A pause, then Topew replied. “Your last order told him to swing by Horeb and see if Tahn needed assistance in the scorch attack there. Shall I cancel that?”
    “Yes. Tahn’s done enough of these things. I’m sure he can handle it in his sleep.”
    CHAPTER 1
     
    Captain Cole Tahn strode down the long corridor of the battle cruiser, Hoyer, absently returning the salutes of the occasional crew members he passed. Turned low to simulate nighttime, the overhead panels threw light like tarnished silver over the white walls. He grimaced at the odor that filled the hall. Level seven housed the techno-science division and they must have been performing some peculiar experiment for the air smelled acrid, like putrifying corpses beneath a searing desert sun.
    In a bitter voice, he accused, “Or maybe it’s just your own goddamned guilt you smell.”
    Though he’d just showered and changed clothes, his purple uniform clung in clammy folds to his sides and back, already drenched in sweat in anticipation of the next hour. A tall man with broad shoulders, he had brown hair and piercing blue-violet eyes that, on this somber evening, took in everything: the wall clocks flashing the hour in blue at every intersection; the depressing gray carpet beneath his boots; the dull annoying thudding of his heart.
    He rounded a corner and his steps faltered. Ahead, the numbers 955 shone in silver on the cabin door of Mikael Calas, the new leader of Gamant civilization—an innocent child caught in the midst of a government hurricane that looked certain to destroy everything in the universe in its wake.
    Tahn inhaled deeply, fighting the tide of futility and despair that rose. He’d retrieved Mikael from Brent Bogomil’s protective grasp just after Cole had finished obliterating every known population center on Kayan. Before that, the boy’s mother and grandfather had been brutally murdered. Mikael still bore deep emotional scars. Tahn had tried to befriend him to ease those hurts. Immediately after on-loading Mikael, Tahn had taken the boy to his cabin and stretched out on the floor beside him, showing Mikael his galactic stamp collection, talking, trying to get him to open up and eat something. Reports said that the boy hadn’t so much as touched a crumb of bread since the death of his mother.
    Resolutely, Tahn forced his feet forward. He lifted his hand to the black com patch outside the boy’s door. “Mikael? It’s Captain Tahn. Can I speak to you?”
    A brief pause ensued, then a frail voice responded, “Yes, sir.”
    The door slipped open. Standing stiffly in the middle of the room, Mikael was dressed in the long brown robes characteristic of Kayan Gamants. Small for a seven-year-old, he had jet black hair and dark brown eyes. Just now, those eyes glinted with fear—as wide and terrified as those of a rabbit caught in a trap. Tahn quietly took a step inside and winced when Mikael ran backward, lips pressed tightly together to stifle tears.
    The door slipped closed with a soft snick, leaving them in near darkness. He struggled to project a friendly smile as he looked around the cabin. It spread ten by fifteen feet and had a table and two chairs on the right side and a bed on the left. In the back, a desk with a computer unit filled a small niche. Only one light panel glowed, its glare sneaking around the edges of the almost closed door to the latrine.
    “Are you all right, Mikael?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You’re keeping it pretty dark in here.”
    Mikael wet his lips and didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then he pointed to the overhead panels and whispered, “Those bright lights scare me, sir.”
    Tahn nodded, silently chastising himself for not thinking of that. On Kayan, Gamants had lived in primitive caves. Oil lamps and candles provided their only source of illumination. “Would