Beyond the X Ecliptic by Fox B. Holden

Author:Fox B. Holden [Holden, Fox B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

THE cockiness was gone from his voice; he tried, but he couldn’t keep it as lie spoke.

“You are one of the Owners?” The girl said nothing. Her face was white, yet Cragin did not think her confidence was gone, just shaken for the moment. She had seen the hand of what seemed to be a man hurl a solar system to instantaneous destruction at will.

“I am not,” the voice said. “I serve. I am of the second rank, as are all of my race, in the service of the Owners.”

“You are here alone?”

The hand touched another stud, and a smaller screen wavered into luminescence. Cragin saw a fleet of spaceships, hovering in a geometrically perfect formation, any one ship of which would have been, by itself, capable of searing to dust the entire Stellar Patrol in a single, brief engagement. The formation of sleek juggernauts extended as far as the eye could see. It was like looking into two opposed mirrors.

“My guard,” the voice said. “Manned by a race of the third rank.”

“I think I get it. The Owners sit home and quietly rule the universe while somebody else does the—” Cragin cut himself off. It was the wrong track entirely. It must be done differently. “The woman and I, he said evenly, “would be willing servants.

For the briefest moment there was silence, save for the muffled gasp that Cragin heard at his shoulder. But the girl said nothing.

Cragin watched as the hand of the red-mailed figure grazed other banks of relays. In quick succession all telescreens went dark.

“On each screen,” the voice said, “you have seen a complete system of planets. In this control point there are exactly three hundred screens. Throughout the Owners’ domain there are perhaps slightly less than a full billion of such control points as these. And there have seldom been any which have not been so well concealed, in suitable relationship to the intelligence level of that system-group controlled, as to have yielded to discovery.

“You have not answered my proposal, Cragin retorted. “You’re as aware as I am of what’s going on in my mind or you wouldn’t bother with all the gory details. You know we could serve, even on the—the 97th rank or so . . .”

“Proceed.”

“Don’t try to cover up your own slip. You talk slow, but you get a little ahead of yourself. This outfit is supposed to be cached away with such cleverness that an Earth-mind wouldn’t be up to locating it. Only we did. We’re not as dumb as we look, even to you. Your record would get a little smeared up if you did away with a couple of potential servants. The wheels might not like that. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You think quickly. You dare to offer a proposition to an emissary of the Owners.”

’‘It’s no proposition, it’s a statement of fact.”

Cragin could feel the sweat behind his ears start to roll down his neck, and his clothes were beginning to stick to his back again. But he had been in jams before.

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