Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Agency had remained undetected only because of this kind of thoroughness—and that in this case, especially, with no time for the usual three days' checking to be sure, every possible precaution still might leave some chink unguarded.
     
    "All right, Mr. Blue," Puce was saying, "I think that about covers it. Now, if you'll just sketch out a situation map on this board, I think that'll be all—except for Make-up and Indoctrination, of course."
    Yes— Except for that mere trifle. Demaris twitched his upper lip as he picked up Puce's stylus and laid out the map.
    Farla was a cluster of stars shaped like a badly pitted furnace clinker. Adjoining it on the side away from Earth—which he represented by a contemptuous, zero-shaped speck at the foot of the board—was Marak, with its stars grouped like a rat's head, sniffing at the clinker. To Farla's right, Genis and her stars were a twisted, mold-eaten orange peel. Working quickly, he sketched in the profile view, which included such scattered breadcrumbs as Ruga, Dilpo, and Stain, all inextricably jumbled in by the fact that stars, unfortunately for diagramatics, occupied three dimensions, were anything but stationary, and were governed by countless dozens of little pocket empires that had seized in any and all possible directions once the Vilk yolk was taken off them.
    The pure white stars, he thought—the pure white stars live in a garbage heap.
    He turned the board around and pushed it toward Puce, who nodded approval. "Yes, that's fine. All right, that does it. Thank you, and good luck, Mr. Blue."
    Demaris grunted and stood up, taking his card. Of all the clerks at the Agency, Bill Kaempfert was the only one he could stomach, because Kaempfert was the only one who'd actually done any fighting. He almost turned around to club Puce as the man tried to prove something or the other about himself by loudly—and anything but absently—humming a chorus of "Heroes All."
    Then he shrugged and let it go. The fool was proving his adolescence by somehow making the rollicking tune acquire heroic chords.
    Demaris walked into Make-up and Indoctrination to the accompaniment of his own misinterpreted music.
     
    Make-up peeled off his skin as neatly as a glove, and put it away for his return. Scalpels clicked against his bones. Weapons sent over a last-resort personal arm that the surgeons buried in his rib cage. Make-up delved into its resources and so disguised the weapon's unavoidable metal that only the most careful comparative fluoroscopy would detect it.
    And the Monster chugged on its dolly beside the operating tank, revamping his brain.
    When he emerged, at eleven o'clock that night, he spoke English with difficulty. His tongue and vocal cords were not adapted to the language.
    The Earthman—the dakta —nodded in satisfaction as Demaris sat up groggily.
    "Nice control," the dakta said to himself, noting the weak but sure movements of Demaris' limbs. Demaris, who had to translate from English to Marakian before he could be sure of the dakta's exact meaning, was only a bit slower in reaching the same conclusion. He tested the flexibility of his double-jointed fingers, and worked his double-opposed thumbs for a moment.
    "Oh, they'll work fine," the dakta assured him. " 'Fdoo seisomysell."
    Demaris groped for the meaning of the idomatic phrase, which, like most such, had been tossed off casually. "Par-don," he said. "Would you please speak more slowly?"
    "I say—'If I do say so myself.' "
    "Oh, yes. Of course. Everything seems to be all right."
    "That's quite an accent," the dakta apologized, obviously not having caught Demaris' statement.
    Demaris strained for clarity. "I say—'Everything seems O.K.' "
    "Oh! Oh, yes, sure. We really piled it on—much more thorough than usual. A matter of costuming to lend reality to an actor who might not have learned his part too well."
    Demaris shook his head with annoyance at his own incomprehension. He sorted out the dakta's syllables