Seas of Ernathe Read Online Free PDF

pedestrians in the street but almost no vehicles, except for an occasional utility van. Lambrose was laid out neatly in small town fashion, expanding away from the harbor according to the whim and variegation of the land. Home and recreational buildings were grouped generally in a northeasterly fan, while the mynella and food conversion plants were set inland at a southerly angle. The spaceport, planetary defense batteries, and satellite control all were located at the end of a road to the east—the third point in the triangle comprising Lambrose and Lernick.
    Seth and Racart turned left near the harbor and headed back inland along the "industrial park." The sun had already set over the water, and its fading light left a sheen in the sky, a mottled orange and red backdrop for ship silhouettes. Stars were prickling into view in a few cloudless patches, making Seth wish for just a few minutes of completely clear sky, so that he might see the entire spectacle.
    The mynella-mynalar facility was the final segment of a long plankton receiving and conversion plant. At the wharf was the loading pier where the harvesters emptied their slurry-cargoes. Separators divided the mynella organisms from the others; then the conveyor line split, the larger one carrying the bulk of the harvest for food and synthetics conversion, and the smaller one carrying mynella to the drug-extraction facility at the end of the line. This was a flat-roofed building surrounded by roadway and several stands of carefully nurtured trees. Early evening floodlighting cast a pleasant aura about the building.
    They were met at the door by a security man. "You'll be wanting to see the Nale'nid first, I imagine." He led the way past rows of great stainless vats, mixers, and centrifuges. Another man joined them—Andol Holme, Crew-Exec of Warmstorm , a lean but hulking blond. Seth was glad to see him; Holme was one of his closest friends and advisors.
    "Have you seen Richel and the Captain yet?" Holme inquired.
    Seth nodded. "They're not happy. Mondreau's starting with a scattergun survey—he's sending us off on a harvester as soon as we're done here, and I gather he has some of his researchers just about everywhere right now."
    Holme clucked, nodding. "You'll be busy, all right—we all will—and this sight is not going to make you feel easier." His face curled into a grimace, and as they swung into a side corridor, Seth saw why. His stomach knotted. Racart exhaled with a whisper.
    The Nale'nid stretched on the floor was a fair, slender-faced man who, but for the sleekness of his face and mossily smoothed hair, and the translucent fronds draped about him as garments, could have been mistaken for any man in the settlement. His face held a curious mixture of expressions; his forehead was silk smooth, peaceful, but his mouth was twisted in gruesome pain. His left side was cratered and fused black by the explosive heat of a pulse-weapon. The flesh, fatally destroyed by the single burst, had been so instantly cauterized that the visible damage was confined to a fifteen-centimeter concave mass of char; a severed garment frond was neatly scorched on either side of the wound. The smell of burnt flesh forced Seth to choke back a retch.
    He finally looked away, up at the Crew-Exec. Holme grunted an appreciation of his feelings and said, "No one knows why the weapon was set for a full charge, least of all the guard who was using it. Possibly with all the fooling around one of the Nale'nid themselves might have changed the setting—but that hardly makes sense does it? But then what sense for them to come in here in the first place, and to take over the border defenses and shoot off all the weapons into the air? Nothing about them makes much sense so far."
    Racart stirred but kept his silence. Seth glanced at him nervously, saw that he was strangely calm. Seth asked his question of Holme, however, and of the guard, who was standing silent. "Then they got control of all the