37 Left Hand of Destiny 1 by J. G. Hertzler & Jeffrey Lang

Author:J. G. Hertzler & Jeffrey Lang [Hertzler, J. G. & Lang, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, High Tech, Games, Role Playing & Fantasy
ISBN: 9780743423281
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

9

PHARH SAT UNDER his desk and pondered fate, or, more accurately, his fate. Things were not looking good. His whole life plan (to wit: "Get away from the family. Find a scheme to extract sizable sums from witless hordes. Wallow in latinum like a stod in fungus until death at an advanced age") was not going well. Worse, he was beginning to wonder if it was a viable life plan at all and this despite the fact that it was the life plan of seven-eighths of his people. (The one-eighth who had not made this their life plan were already well into wallowing.)

It wasn't fair.

First, there had been the whole fight in the bar and his inexplicable pursuit of the angry Klingons into the alley. What had that been about? He could have been seriously injured, even robbed. It wasn't like Klingons didn't have any need for a little gold-pressed latinum, especially with the way it looked like their economy was going. A total breakdown of social mores was one of those scenarios where most people lost money and the well-prepared (or ruthless) few made some. All it required (according to a night course Pharh had taken) was a nimble mind, a total lack of scruples, and a small personal army. Most Klingons possessed only one or, at best, two of these attributes. Pharh was beginning to wonder how many he currently possessed. He was also beginning to worry that he was developing something like a conscience. It might be a side effect of spending too much time in the Ketha wastelands inspecting the mining operation. He definitely had a rash, so there was no reason to think the pangs of guilt might not be the result of toxic heavy metals leeching into his bloodstream and wearing down his immune system.

Well, if he was lucky, that was the answer.

Probably not, though.

Somewhere to the south, another bomb strike whumped into the ground and the walls and roof of his small office shuddered Flecks of paint peeled off the ceiling and pelted the top of the desk. Padds containing his contracts! bills of lading! invoices!--all were getting rattled. He wasn't certain what was going on up there, but he was pretty sure that a squadron of Klingon fighters was shelling the frinx out of three kellicams of landfill that his company was supposed to be mining. Pharh knew he should care, but he didn't really. Not about the landfill, not about the mining, not about the bombing. Well ... maybe about the bombing. If one of those things went a few kilometers astray--which, no doubt, they did, what with Klingons not being the most fastidious species in the galaxy--Pharh would be a puff of smoke blowing in an oily breeze.

Beginning with the assumption that he would survive till morning, Pharh wondered who he should complain to. Assuming there was Klingon government to appeal to, should he talk to them? He had a feeling that despite their much-vaunted honor Klingons were not averse to pointing fingers when it came to financial settlement.

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