Masters of Everon Read Online Free PDF Page B

going on here, what do you want with Mikey?"
    "Surely a prudent man can be allowed to carry an umbrella on a cloudy day, without being required to predict a thunderstorm?" Martin raised his eyebrows. "It's enough for me that your Mikey might be useful to me, in case of some such eventuality. It ought to be enough for you, shouldn't it, that my speaking when I did saved him from being impounded and destroyed?"
    Jef felt guilt.
    "Of course," he replied, "I said I was grateful to you for that."
    "Then perhaps you'll think a bit on the old adage of not looking a gift horse too closely in the mouth," said Martin. "Now that I've named you as someone in whose welfare I take an interest, the locals are sure to take note of where you go; and if I should need the use of you and your maolot, they could find you for me without delay. That's all. Indeed, perhaps you'll forgive me if I say that in spite of your mild manner, you're as prickly an individual as I've encountered in some years."
    There was probably more than a little truth in that, Jef admitted to himself.
    "I suppose you're right," he said.
    There was a small silence.
    "While I'm on the subject of speaking personally," Martin said, "it might be you'd forgive another word or two. No doubt you've your own good reasons for wanting to visit the grave of this brother of yours; but such things on a new planet sometimes give the people there the idea you're searching to stir up some trouble or other. If he was employed by the E. Corps, it might be best just to let the Corps look into the matter for you—"
    "I don't think it'd do it very efficiently," said Jef.
    Martin's green eyes watched him closely.
    "Now what makes you say that?"
    "I say that," said Jef, "because I don't think the E. Corps gives a damn about Will—or ever gave a damn about him. There were rumors floating back to us that Will's death wasn't in the line of duty at all, but happened only after he'd deserted—'gone planetary' as they call it on these new worlds. The whole business was very hard on my mother and father in the months right after we got official word of Will's death; and no one at your headquarters ever spoke up to deny the rumors, or called my parents to say they still believed in his loyalty. They did nothing."
    "But," said Martin, still watching him steadily, "they did affirm that it was a death in period of duty."
    "No. Not even that. All they'd say was that they'd carried him on the books as on duty up to the time of his death. All the details were held back because of that security of theirs—that same security they use to shield people like you from being identified."
    "There're reasons for it," said Martin softly.
    "Perhaps. But I don't see its application to the matter of my brother's death. They could at least have told us where he's buried." Jef looked back at the other man squarely. "I'm not leaving Everon until I find that out, and also enough about his last few days to answer any talk of his having gone planetary."
    "Earth-born persons have been known to do it, one time and another," said Martin.
    "Not Will."
    The deep emotion in Jef spilled out in the last two words. He heard it in his own voice, a note that sounded savage even to him.
    "I see," said Martin again in that soft voice, after a long moment of silence. "I suppose then it's no use then to warn you that that chip you've got on your shoulder against the Corps could get you into deep trouble out here on one of the new worlds, where it's a long way from Earth. —No, I see from the look on your face it wouldn't." Jef got quickly to his feet.
    "Is that some kind of threat from the Corps to keep me under control?" he asked.
    "Not at all," said Martin. His voice was level and calm. "It's a warning based on the facts. You've come out here with no doubt in your mind that you'll find exactly what you want to find. But worlds, and people both, don't always turn out the way they're supposed to. You're hell-bent to locate your brother's