Killing Time Read Online Free PDF

law
enforcement on the way, and the federal boys won't be far behind."
    "But," I stammered as
we reached a ladder that led up through the ceiling of the passageway,
"you've only got this one ship, can it really—"
    Larissa spun around and put a
finger to my lips, her eyes now positively shimmering. "Take a peek up
there." She indicated the ladder, and I ascended.
    Above was a circular space about
fifteen feet in diameter, not unlike the turret of some fantastic tank, except
that its shell was transparent. There was an enormous gun fixed in the center,
on which was mounted an empty seat. To one side of the turret was a bank of
tracking equipment, before which sat Eli Kuperman, carefully monitoring the
many readouts. Glancing at the gun again, I noted that it looked somehow
familiar; in fact, it seemed a giant version of Larissa's sidearm.
    "They're both rail
guns," she said, again reading my face as she climbed up, squeezed tight
against me on the ladder, and drew out her smaller weapon. "It's a simple
concept, really: the projectiles are propelled by completing a circuit between
two conducting bars, instead of by a gas explosion. The electromagnetic field
behind the projectiles multiplies the acceleration—you've seen the effect. Now,
then—" She reholstered her weapon and gave my face a last touch. "I could
stay here talking killing power with you for hours, but Malcolm really is
anxious to meet you."
    "Look, Larissa," I
said, her closeness making me comfortable enough to reveal how uncertain I
felt. "What is all this? Why am I here?"
    She smiled gently. "Don't
worry. All appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, you're in one of the
last sane places on Earth. And you're here because we need you." She
slipped by me into the turret, settling into the seat on the big rail gun.
"Just keep going forward— you'll know the right door when you see
it."
    Eli Kuperman turned, his face all
business. "The first of them are moving in fast, Larissa."
    Larissa gripped two hand controls
in front of her seat. "Better get going, Doctor," she called to me
with another smile. "I'd hate to take your head off so early in
our—acquaintance."
    She tilted the controls to the
left, and suddenly the entire floor of the turret began to rotate; in seconds
it would close off the hatchway in which I was standing. I scrambled below,
landing on the corridor floor with a jarring bump. Then I pushed on forward,
past more wood paneling, more paintings, and more doorways, until I arrived at
a portal that I took to be the one of which Larissa had spoken, as it was more
elaborate than the rest and bore a legend painted in elegant gold and black:
     
    MUNDUS VULT DECIPI
     
    I ran through the medical Latin
I'd learned years before, but to no avail; and so I was left with nothing to do
but head on in and meet my host, a prospect that I found not a little daunting.
Given the vessel I was in, the sister I had met, and the actions for which I
knew he was responsible, I calculated that this Malcolm Tressalian—and again
there was something very familiar about the name—must be an intimidating,
perhaps overpowering, character, both physically and personally. But the
encounter was now inevitable, and so I resignedly knocked on the door and
stepped inside.
    The nose of the vessel was a
conical superstructure sheathed entirely in the same transparent material I'd
seen in Larissa's turret, and the three levels of the space it housed—an observation
dome up top, a helm and guidance center in the middle, and a small conference
area below—were connected by bare metallic staircases. In fact, the fittings
generally were in the high-tech mode I had originally expected to find on
boarding; but coming as it now did on the heels of the rather anachronistic
decor outside, the style was unexpected and even jarring.
    The doorway through which I'd
come was to the rear of the nose's control level. Though there was little to
see by, I could tell that there were two men