Balance of Terror Read Online Free PDF

Her old research partner had told her that he was willing to help her escape from the Republic’s clutches but that he wasn’t willing to risk his aid for her “drug addict” friend as well. Moon remained obstinate. The both of them came, or neither of them. Kad had then asked her what she had to trade in return for the rescue.
    “I told him I still had my research notes,” she finished, watching Srin carefully as she related the episode.
    He didn’t look happy. “You traded your stellar re-ignition work for our freedom?”
    She threw her hands into the air. “I would have traded anything else, but I didn’t have anything else. And I thought we were very close to getting caught.”
    Srin’s voice rose a little higher in disbelief. “Does he know the missile failed?”
    “Yes,” Moon admitted, trying hard not to think of that moment when the probe had launched, had penetrated the star…but failed to initiate the cascade reaction she’d hoped for. “But I told him I knew where we went wrong.”
    “So you lied to him?”
    Moon laughed, but the sound was shaky. Roughly, she ran a hand through the hair that tickled her shoulders. “Love, I would have lied to the Republic’s First President himself if I thought it would buy us a way off that rock.”
    But she wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
    Srin’s voice was measured. “And yet something makes you think that this Kad Minslok character can’t be trusted?”
    Moon looked down at the floor and clicked her tongue in exasperation before meeting her lover’s gaze again.
    “You didn’t know me when I was Moon Thadin, premier researcher at the Phyllis Science Centre.” She made her voice sound dramatic before grimacing. “To put it in a nutshell, I was an arse. No, really,” she added, when Srin snorted. ”I had run through rivers of money and I didn’t care if I ran through an ocean more, if it meant I could vindicate my research. I,” she swallowed, “I didn’t take much notice of anyone around me, except through the lens of how they could help my research.”
    “Then you met Kad Minslok and you changed?”
    “Oh no,” Moon countered emphatically. “I didn’t take any notice of Kad at all. Never asked him about his personal life, his hobbies or interests. To this day,” she shrugged, “I don’t know if he’s bonded or even if he has children.”
    “You were focused, Moon,” he told her gently.
    She shook her head. “Oh no, I was selfish.”
    Srin was silent for a moment. “So what happened?”
    Moon raised a hand and let it fall limply back to her lap. “Well, Kad went all ‘terrorist rebel’ on me and managed to evade the Security Force squad that was sent to apprehend him. I was thrown in jail under suspicion of being an accomplice.
    “Look,” she said suddenly, “the reason I’m mentioning all this is that, while I thought I hadn’t taken notice of anybody, I think my subconscious was recording…impressions of Kad.”
    “Impressions?”
    “It’s difficult to put in words,” Moon said with a sigh. “Here I am, a renowned scientist, and I’m left scrabbling around trying to explain my intuitions .”
    “I wouldn’t be so dismissive,” Srin said. “If it wasn’t for my intuition, I doubt I would ever have trusted you. And look what happened when I did? We’re freer than we’ve been in decades.”
    Moon allowed herself a small smile before continuing her story. “All right. Let’s say my intuition is worth something. What it told me is that the Kad I faced on Wessness was different to the Kad I had worked with.”
    “Different. In what way?”
    “More confident.” She sifted through her memories of that conversation. “More ruthless. There was something about him I wasn’t so comfortable with.”
    Srin looked up at the ceiling. Moon could tell from the expressions flashing across his face that he was trying to put everything he’d told her into a coherent model.
    “So,” he finally ventured, “from