Starfist - 04 - Blood Contact by Dan Cragg

Author:Dan Cragg [Cragg, Dan]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-07-02T10:23:55.421000+00:00

They stared at the hand-painted message on a piece of metal propped up just inside the main entrance to the administration building.

" `Grate danger' "? Snodgrass read the words. "Interesting spelling."

"Prob'ly written by an officer--sir," someone snickered. Commander Bynum laughed outright. Snodgrass whirled around but the several enlisted men standing behind him just looked innocently back at him. But Bass recognized the voice as belonging to MacIlargie. "At ease," the platoon commander said wearily to no one in particular. "I don't want any more of that talk out of you people." Page 99

"Well," Snodgrass went on, "obviously written by a pirate."

"How do you get that, Lieutenant?" Hyakowa asked.

"No scientist could be that illiterate," Snodgrass answered in an almost contemptuous tone.

"I don't know," Dr. Bynum said. "I've known some pretty inarticulate scientists. Just because a person has a genius IQ doesn't mean he knows how to spell."

"It was pirates," Snodgrass said firmly. "And they killed these people."

"I don't know, Lieutenant," Hyakowa said. "If it was pirates, what're they doing still hanging around here? And why'd they want us to know where they're at? Looks to me, sir, like some illiterate scientists might've survived."

"Ambush," Snodgrass replied positively. "The pirates want us to go, uh," he glanced back at the message, "thirty kilometers southwest of here to where they're waiting to ambush us." Everyone looked to Bass for his opinion. He stroked his chin a few times. "Two things, people," he said at last, counting them off on his fingers. "One: there are, or were when this sign was written, survivors. And two: we're going to find them if they're still alive. Let's go climb some mountains." He signaled for Dupont to raise the ship so he could tell Captain Tait what they'd found and what they were doing next.

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