Legion Of The Damned by William Dietz

Author:William Dietz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Metal glowed cherry red, radiated heat, and caused Sergi Chien-Chu to sweat. He thumbed the torch to a finer setting, finished the weld, and removed the protective facemask.

The sculpture, one of many that dotted the grounds around his mansion, was a fanciful melange of rusty metal plates, all flying in different directions. Each plane, each angle, was in conflict with all the others, challenging their positions and making a statement of its own.

Or so it seemed to Chien-Chu. But others perceived things differently. His wife was a case in point. Where he saw angles in conflict, she saw pieces of rusty metal, and where she saw a rainbow of color, he saw flowers dying in a vase. But such is marriage, and a happy one too, though strained by the situation on Spindle.

Each dawn brought the hope that a message torp would arrive, that the news would be good, that Leonid was alive. But each sunset made such a message less and less likely, and their spirits would spiral downwards.

Chien-Chu had taken refuge in his work, and in his hobbies, but Nola spent long hours knitting on the veranda, thinking about her son or comforting their daughter-in-law.

Natasha was a lovely young woman with huge eyes, a long oval face, and a slender bird-like body. Chien-Chu adored her almost as much as he did his son, and feared that the news of Leonid’s death would be very, very hard on her. No, he mustn’t think like that, for to do so was to tempt fate. Or so his mother had always said.

“Uncle Sergi! Uncle Sergi! Auntie Nola wants you!”

The voice belonged to a five-year-old boy. He was a chubby little thing, like the puppy that gamboled at his heels, and long overdue for a bath. Mud, his favorite substance next to chocolate cake, covered his face, hands, and playsuit.

Chien-Chu lifted the boy in his arms. “She does? And what does Auntie Nola want?”

A pair of serious brown eyes met his. “She wants you to come to the house, that’s what. There’s a woman to see you.”

Chien-Chu hung the laser torch on the sculpture and started for the house. It was a long low one-story affair and seemed part of the ground that it stood on. Ivy climbed here and there, brick peeked out between neatly trimmed shrubs, and windows winked in the sun.

“And does this woman have a name?”

The boy shrugged. “I made mud pies.”

“I made a sculpture.”

“I’ll bet Aunt Nola will like my mud pies better than your sculpture.”

Chien-Chu shook his head. “No sucker bets. I’m getting too old.”

“How old are you?”

“None of your business.”

Chien-Chu was huffing and puffing by the time he reached the veranda but too stubborn and too proud to put the boy down. They entered the living room together. It was huge, with high ceilings, dark beams, and a massive fireplace. An eclectic mix of modem and traditional furniture was scattered about.

Nola Chien-Chu and Madam Valerie Dasser sat on opposite ends of a comfortable couch. They held teacups in their hands.

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