Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

getting a reputation for complete fearlessness. During the Larix/Kura war, he’d fallen in love hard with one of the Forcewomen, not uncommon when romance comes late in life. She’d been killed, and Froude’s world seemed to have ended. He was still there for the Force for any desired analysis, but he was a bit distant, as if a part of him had died with Ho Kang.
    The door came open, and Garvin jumped. The man standing in front of him wore exaggerated stage makeup, the saddest man in the world, with a peculiarly obnoxious long nose. His pants sagged, his shoes were holed, and ridiculously oversize, his vest tattered as much as his archaic hat.
    “Hello, Garvin,” Froude said. “You’re looking very well.” He snuffled. “I’m not.” He began taking a large handkerchief from a sleeve, and more and more material came out, until he was holding something the size of a bedsheet. There was a flutter in its midst, and a
stobor
, one of the two-legged snakes peculiar to D-Cumbre slithered out, landed on Garvin’s desk, hissed, and fled into the outer office.
    “Oh, sorry, Garvin,” Froude said, still in the same monotone. A tear dripped from one eye, and he wiped it away. When the handkerchief was gone, his long nose had changed into a red rubber ball. He scratched it, took it off, bounced it against a wall, shrugged.
    “I don’t guess you’re going to let me come with you, are you?”
    “You learned all this in two days?”
    Froude nodded, and his pants fell down.
    “You know there’s no way I’d refuse a Willie the Weeper,” Garvin said.
    Froude snuffled, picked up his pants.
    “You’re not just saying that to try to make me smile, now are you?”
    He lifted his hat, and some species of flying object scrawked and flapped away.
    “You’re aboard, you’re aboard,” Garvin said, starting to laugh. “Now get the hell out before you produce some carnivore out of your pants.”
    “Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you,” Froude said, still in the monotone, bowing and scraping. “But I have one more boon, a small favor, just a little service, since Ann Heiser is off getting married to Jon Hedley, and wants to stay home for a while, which means I won’t have anyone to bounce my ideas off of.”
    Garvin noticed the way Froude’s face twisted when he said “married,” but said nothing.
    Froude went to the door, opened it.
    Garvin looked suspiciously at the completely undistinguished man who hunched into his office. He was short, a bit over a meter and a half tall, wearing battered clothes that the poorest of poor clerks might disdain.
    “This is my colleague, Jabish Ristori,” Froude said.
    Ristori extended a hand. Garvin reached to take it, and Ristori did a backflip, landing on his feet. He held out his hand again, and as Garvin stepped forward, the man cartwheeled against the wall, then, somehow, up onto Garvin’s desk, and against the other wall, once more came down with a graceful bounce, and solemnly shook Garvin’s hand.
    “Pleased to meetcha, meetcha, meetcha,” and Ristori turned another flip to show his pleasure.
    “Professor Jabish Ristori,” Froude said. “Nice enough guy, a colleague of mine for years, even if he does belong to one of those fields that can hardly be called a discipline.”
    “Socisocisocisociology,” Ristori said, doing a handstand, then lifting one hand off the ground.
    “Jabish became curious ten years ago about wandering entertainers, and determined to learn their tricks,” Froude went on.
    “And I never, ever, ever went back to the univee,” Ristori said with an infectious giggle. “Dull, dry, dry, dull.”
    He pushed off from the ground and landed on his feet.
    “Welcome to the circus,” Garvin said. “We can always use a tumbler.”
    “A tumbler, bumbler, stumbler,” Ristori said. “Here. I believe this is yours.”
    He gave Garvin back the identity card that, until a few seconds ago, had been clipped to Jaansma’s shirt pocket.
    “How’d you …