Secret of the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

came back. A fringe of businesses based on that two-way traffic made up Siwaki. And there were a few fools mad enough to try trapping for furs in the river valleys. But they were only a handful, the remnants of men who had pioneered Fenris before the companies fastened their strangleholds on the port and the three-quarters-frozen world.
    This morning four of those independents had paused to scan the notice of an E-ship auction posted on the government board. Two of them shrugged, one spat eloquently, but the fourth continued to read on into the fine print of the clipped code of governmental language, until one of his companions tugged at the sleeve of his outer fur coat.
    “No use trying to buck that.”
    The reader’s eyes, which were all that showed between the shielding roll of lamby wool about his hood and the frost mask covering nose and mouth, still held to the poster. Although the outdoor garb of Fenris added bulk to the body it covered, there was a hint of youthfulness in the way he shook off his fellow’s hold.
    “We’ll stay,” he spoke flatly, the authority of his tone not muffled by his mask. The man with him shrugged, but his mittened hand rested on the second belt about his middle, the one which supported the universal blaster of the frontiersman and a twenty-inch knife in a fur-tufted sheath.
    At that moment, the numbed cargo mentioned in the poster was beginning to revive. Joktar, his memories of the E-station very hazy now, heard the muted chorus of mutters, moans, and such other symptoms of distress as he had heard in the N’Yok pens.
    “This one’s breathing.”
    He was grabbed, armpits and feet, swung out on a flat surface. Swift jabs of pain, then he was flung back to the misery of full revival. For misery it was, as the torture of returning circulation carried with it a belated realization of where he must be and why.
    Sitting up, he blinked at the lights in the room, rubbing his hands over his bare body as if their pressure could relieve the tingling. For some reason he seemed to have recovered more quickly than the rest, for of the twenty men lying along the shelflike projection, he was the first to move freely. Memory supplied a name . . . Fenris. Just a name . . . he had no idea what kind of world lay outside the walls of this room.
    “Stir up!” Men appeared in the doorway, wearing coveralls with the symbol of the port service on back and breast. They worked with rough efficiency to rouse the rest of the captives. Joktar sat where he was, a dull hatred seething inside him, wise enough not to resist. But his desire for escape was fast crystallizing into a drive almost as basic as his will to live.
    The head guard reached him, gave a half-grin as he surveyed Joktar’s slim body.
    “The E’s must be baby snatching now,” he commented. “You’ll end up on the bargain counter, sonny.”
    “All right, all right! On your feet, you dead heads!” The captives were pushed into a ragged line. “Get these on.”
    A duffel bag was produced and from it the guards pulled small bundles of cloth, tossing one to each man in line. Joktar drew on the pair of shorts, snapped the belt cord about his narrow waist.
    “Mess . . .” They were pushed past the door, each handed a pleasantly warm container. Joktar felt real hunger, twisting off the top to swallow down a thick liquid, half-stew, half-soup.
    “Now get this!” The head guard mounted a platform at the end of the room. “You’re on Fenris. And this is no planet where you can go over the hill and live to get away.” He snapped a terse word to his underlings and they put up a video projector. “There’s only two places a man can live here. Right at this port, and up at the mines. You try to blast off, and this is what’ll happen.”
    At a second snap of his fingers, a series of vivid video scenes appeared on the wall above his head. If the horrors they pictured had been faked, the creator had had a very morbid imagination. Joktar did not