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Updated: May 12, 2025
Once the transition into hyperspace had been made, there was no need for a pilot until it was time to out-transition and land. Still at the moment, he really didn't feel like talking to his lieutenants. He returned to the controls and sat down, staring into the blank viewscreen and visualizing the morning's unexpected, perhaps disastrous, developments.
He made a quick scan to locate the weapon's operator and any backup, finding to his relief that there was none. A swift thrust of darlas, and the cannon was no longer a threat, its operator dead. It was the first death at Thark's own hands . . . but it was not the only one for long. The defending Palace Guards began to drop as the Seniors used viewscreen images to pick and focus on their targets.
The sun was glowing dull red as it slipped down behind the curving horizon of Mars, but Gregory Hunter was not able to see it. There was no viewscreen in the ship's cabin; it was too tiny for that. Greg twisted around in the cockpit that had been built just big enough to hold him, and shifted his long legs against the brace-webbing, trying to get them comfortable.
"Place could be crawling with prawns by now." He looked quickly around the living room under the big combination desk and library table, under the gunrack, under the chairs, back of the communication screen and the viewscreen, beyond the metal cabinet of the microfilm library and saw nothing.
He punched down the keys, and sat back to wait for the automatic pilot to carry him out from Earth. Somewhere past the orbit of the moon, a gong told him that the Cavour drive was about to come into play. He held his breath. He felt a twisting sensation. He stared at the viewscreen. The stars had vanished.
It was indeed a red giant; long tenuous plumes of gas spread out for hundreds of millions of miles on all sides of its glowing red core. This mammoth star did not look so cold now, as they stared at it in the viewscreen, yet among the family of stars it was a cold, dying giant with only a few moments of life left on the astronomical time scale.
Sothran Barth's voice came cut of the box. "They've just brought in Salgath Trod's servants. Picked them up as they came out of the house conveyer at the apartment building. I don't believe they know what's happened." Vall flipped a switch and twiddled a dial; a viewscreen lit up, showing the landing stage.
Ten minutes later, Tom could see their goal clearly in the viewscreen ... the place where Roger Hunter had died. It was neither large nor small for an asteroid, an irregular chunk of rock and metal, perhaps five miles in diameter, lighted only by the dull reddish glow from the dime-sized sun.
Losinj, who is accused of assaulting a Sanctioner officer. He also demands we release Entos." "Send him in," Medart said, the casualness he'd assumed for Corina's benefit vanishing. "I'll handle this myself." "Yes, sir." The viewscreen went blank. Medart turned to Corina. "Did you assault a Sanctioner officer?" "That is a matter of interpretation," she replied.
There was a moment of silence as the ship re-entered normspace and stars appeared on the viewscreen, followed by murmurs of dismay. Captain Willis slapped the General Quarters alarm, swearing briefly but bitterly. "Damn! It was a trap!" The Traiti violation of something which had been sacrosanct was almost as shocking as the overwhelming number of the angular yet graceful Traiti ships.
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