My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire Read Online Free PDF Page B

is the captain, so he bosses this operation.”
    “That’s the guy who set all this up?” I asked. “You know, I follow what you said about how they can hide it, but I’m amazed that anybody could set a spaceship down and dig a base into the wall of a canyon, even in South Dakota, without somebody noticing.”
    Angel gave me a wink. “No, Carvalho didn’t build this,” he said, “although he’s not fond of admitting that. I don’t think even the Imperials could build a base here today without its being noticed; construction activity’s hard to hide. The real story is that it was built a lot of years ago by a freebooter who heisted a load of mining equipment and got the idea that it would be nice to have a hidey-hole completely outside the empire. I don’t know just when, but even seventy years ago it would’ve been easy to do without anyone noticing. How Carvalho found out about it, and what happened to the original outfit, I don’t know either. We use it now as a safe storage depot, you know, for repairs and supplies.”
    “Angel,” I said, “you’re talking about Imperials and an empire. What empire?”
    “What empire?” This time he roared with laughter. “What empire? The goddamn Galactic Empire. What’s the matter, don’t you read comic books?”
    I was going to laugh too, until it hit me: Angel meant what he said. He was laughing at me.
    “I told you this was a pirate outfit,” he said. “Well, you can’t have pirates unless there’s something to pirate. Right?”
    I conceded the point.
    “Okay. The Srihani built this great fuckin’ empire out there in space, but right now, they can’t run it for shit. You’d think that if they’re smart enough to build starships, and let me tell you some of the stuff they’ve got is unfuckingbelievable, then they would be smart enough to run a government. Wrong! They’re as fucked up as we are, maybe worse, so we do just fine.”
    I probably stared at him for a minute. Then, I said, “So, if they’ve got all this ‘unfuckingbelievable’ stuff, why don’t they just take over Earth?” (That’s what would happen in a movie.)
    Angel shrugged. “Nothing here they really want. Anyway, there’s just the one ship. They could mess us up pretty bad, but I don’t know about take over, and it would draw attention. The idea is to have a safe base.”
    “I don’t suppose these guys speak English?” I asked.
    Angel said, “I’m the only American. A couple of the officers learned a little English so they can buy supplies in the towns around here. You should see how these guys counterfeit tens and twentys.” That made me wonder about the five hundred he had given me, and I almost missed what he said next.
    “Don’t worry about the language, Danny. When you get to the main ship, there’s a machine that’ll teach you. Easy as pie.”
    “Main ship?”
    “Christ yeah!” That gave Angel an opportunity for another laugh. “You thought that dinky boat out there was our ship?” I nodded. “Danny-boy, that’s just one of the landing boats. We’d never bring down the big ship—that would be impossible to hide. The boat brings up supplies and we can bring down parts that are better fixed in the shop here. It gives us some R & R outside too, even if this place is short of pussy.”
    I was mulling over that tidbit (about the ship, not the pussy) when the guard reappeared and I lost my chance to pump Angel for more information. The guard led us around two turns of identical corridor, until we came to a door set into a wall. The door opened to the guard’s hand on the touch plate and we found ourselves in a brightly lit room. It looked like a short section of corridor that had been left unfinished at one end and then separated from the other corridor by a wall and a door. The sole furnishing was a peculiar table. It was shaped like an M or a W, depending on your orientation. We stood facing the ends of the legs. Seated at the table were three of the