April 6: And What Goes Around Read Online Free PDF

from Home and what you tell them is up to you. If you
speak to them as rudely as you did me they may not deny themselves the pleasure
of putting you against a wall and shooting you.
    "When you
agreed to stay here you forfeited your Chinese citizenship but I won't advise
them of that. I doubt they'll be aware. I assume you kept your identity
documents. Just be happy I didn't shoot you out of hand for treason to Queen
Heather. I thought everybody understood that, but I can see the only safe
course now is to ask everyone to swear a formal oath to Heather or face
expulsion."
    "As if I'd
swear to obey a barbarian," Chao-xing sneered. "One who sends a woman
to govern us."
    "Get this
woman out of my sight before I do something I regret later," Annette
ordered Feng. "Call Central and ask them to send a hopper to take her and
Wo away. If there's anybody else who wants a second chance to leave you best go
with them now. I won't have any patience with repetitions of this
stupidity."
    "Come
along," Feng told Chao-xing and laid his hand flat on her shoulder. She turned
her head and spat in his face.
    In low gravity
it's hard to get the traction to strike. You tend to bounce apart instead of
delivering much force. That's why Feng shifted from a light touch to direct her
to a hard grip on her arm. When he struck with his fist he pulled her to the
strike with his other hand. She twisted but couldn't get away and the hit was
devastating with no block at all.
    Annette was
shocked. She'd never seen this sort of direct violence before and she was ready
to tell Feng to stop even though she had just visualized and spoke of shooting
the woman dead herself. That was somehow... different. It was obvious he didn't
intend to continue even before she could say anything. He gave a come-here jerk
of his head to one of the other observers, and in the low gravity the limp
Chao-xing was easy to carry out. 'She asked for it.' was her immediate
thought, but it still rattled her. She hadn't seen it coming at all.
    The remaining four looked frightened, and she realized they weren't
afraid of Feng, they were looking at her fearfully. Then she realized
her hand was around the grip of the laser Heather had given her. She didn't
remember consciously reaching for it. "That concludes this business for
tonight," she told them forcing a frown and turned away before they could
read the shock on her face. She couldn't afford to show anything that might be
taken as weakness now.
    * * *
    Full and
contented, April wanted something less stressful than reports about Earth. It
was always good to keep track of what was happening locally too, and usually
much more understandable. There was an official Mitsubishi web site for the
habitat. It announced such corporate news and numbers as was appropriate to a
publicly traded company, construction news and changes to services and
utilities. Sometimes it noted changes to standards such as the certification of
private airlocks, modification to viewports, how much hab supplied water could
be retained in residential cubic and what was acceptable in the return
discharge. Even what sort of wall coverings met flammability standards. On rare
occasions they posted job openings.
    What they did not
concern themselves with at all was the residents' political or social life.
Indeed they always carefully spoke of Mitsubishi 3 and never the political
entity of Home. The people had pretty much dropped the distinction between the
two in everyday speech unless they were addressing the Assembly of Home in
session or supplying an address to an Earthside supplier.
    There were a few
gossip boards, which April despised, not much different than the same sort on
Earth, except the renewal of the duel on Home had created a new level of
civility for plain statements and renewed the art of innuendo. Too blunt a slur
could result in an invitation to meet in the north corridors before breakfast. In
fact, if you didn't know the story already it could be hard to be