Lord of Janissaries Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    They examined their prison. There was a hot plate and an electrical outlet on a long cord. The wire ran into the wall, and the hole it came out of was sealed with the wet-suit material. The hot plate had been made by General Electric. The coffeepot was Japanese, with Japanese labels. Everything in the compartment had come from Earth. Most had come from the United States, but there were articles from many other places. Some of the gear was new, much still in packing cases. Other equipment and stores had been used. There were radios and television sets, but they produced nothing beyond a few random hisses and howls.
    After half an hour, they settled in to cook dinner. There was plenty to eat; soup and canned bacon and ham, canned vegetables, and pudding for dessert. André Parsons found a water tap—Kohler of Kohler—near the coffee urn. There was a drain beneath it. Other troops found cases of warm beer and several jugs of wine, enough so that everyone had a beer and a full cup of California red. There was plenty of coffee.
    When they had eaten, they all felt better. The troops prowled about restlessly, but eventually began making themselves comfortable, using what was in their packs and whatever else they could find to bed down. Elliot pulled two of the single beds off to one side for Parsons and Rick Galloway. No one had eaten or slept for more than twenty-four hours, and soon most of the troops were sprawled onto beds and cots, or onto air mattresses on the floor.
    The floor, Rick found, was uneven at the edges near the walls, but away from the walls it was artificially smooth and flat. It felt warm to the touch.
    Rick sat with Parsons at a table near the TV set. They ate in silence. Finally Parsons said, “I see why you did not explain earlier.”
    “Yeah. Not that I could have,” Rick said.
    Parsons shrugged. “Five hours ago, I was prepared to be killed on that hilltop. Now I have eaten, I have a cup of wine and coffee to follow, and it is warm. No one is shooting me, and there is a comfortable bed. We have been lucky.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Have you thought of the implications of your television conversation?” André asked. “A human. A human who asks interesting questions. Are we volunteers? How was Corporal Mason injured? Would we be alive if we had not boarded the alien ship? All asked by a human in a voice of authority, as if he had every right to the answers.”
    Rick nodded. “I thought of that. It means somebody cares what happens to us. Maybe not a lot, but somebody cares. I keep hoping that’s a good sign.”
    “It cannot be a bad one,” André said.
    “Dammit, you’re calm enough—”
    Parsons laughed. “I would have said the same of you. Rick, I am terrified, but it would do no good to let the men see that. Obviously you must feel the same way.”
    “Yeah. But I sure wish they’d let us know what they want with us.”
    “Perhaps nothing,” Parsons said. He shrugged again in his expansive French manner. “Perhaps they rescued us for humanitarian reasons. Are we not worth it?” His smile was broad.
    * * *
    “Captain! Cap’n, that TV’s going again. They want you.”
    Rick struggled to wakefulness. His watch showed that he had slept five hours. It seemed longer, and he felt far better rested than he would have expected from five hours’ sleep.
    A dozen men were crowded around the TV. They were trying to talk to the man—as near as Rick could tell, it was the same one who had spoken to him before—but they had no success. It was only when Rick stood in front of the set that the man responded.
    “It is time to discuss your situation,” the screen figure said. “You will not require weapons. Leave them all, and any other large metal objects, and enter the doorway which will open in the wall behind this screen.”
    As he spoke a steel plate set in the wall swung away. A rubberlike airtight door stood behind it. “Alone, please,” the screen said. “You will not be