S.T.A.R. FLIGHT Read Online Free PDF

He’s smart,” she added, “Not many men would think to search themselves before going to an illegal rendezvous.”
    Chung Hoo made no comment. He sat, as bland and benign as a carved Buddha, the bug cradled in his hand. After a moment he looked at it and handed it back to the girl.
    “Return this to the appropriate department,” he said. “Have them check it. It could be faulty, which could be the reason he found it.”
    He’s trying to save my face, she thought. Blaming the instrument instead of me. But I didn’t bungle it. I know I didn’t. Even so he’s sweet for being so considerate. Aloud she said, “Shall I follow him?”
    “Why bother?” He appraised her with his eyes. “There is a better way. Get to know him. Get him to like you — that should not be hard. Maybe he’ll trust you. You could even join STAR.”
    “They are patriots,” he said mildly. “They believe they are working for the good of Earth. They don’t seem to understand that we cannot afford to alienate the Kaltich. We dare not.” He looked through the window as the carapproached the UNO building. It looked like a slab of mottled, dirty glass. “We are so close to universal peace,” he said more to himself than the girl. “At last all nations are becoming one. The old frontiers are being swept aside. Passports, customs, tariff barriers, all are going. The new language and the new unit of currency are uniting us all. How foolish it seems to squabble over a scrap of ground when there are worlds without number waiting to be explored.”
    “When?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” he admittted. “When we are ready.”
    “And just what does that mean?”
    “When we have outgrown the childish habit of forming secret societies,” he said. “Groups such as the Secret Terian Armed Resistance. STAR is dangerous. They want freedom for Earth, Freedom from the Kaltich. They don’t seem to realize that, but for our guests, Earth would be a smoking ruin. War was very close,” he explained. “Fifty years ago it was only a matter of time before someone started Armageddon. There were enough nuclear devices in stock to completely vaporize the planet. I do not believe in the Christian concept of God,” he admitted. “But certainly some greater power seemed to have our welfare at heart.”
    “That is the past,” she said. “Now there is no threat of war.”
    “But there could be,” he said quickly. “If it were not for the Kaltich the old rivalries and jealousies would again spring to life. Fifty years is not long enough to weld a world into a composite whole. Another hundred years and perhaps we shall not need them. Now we do. That is why STAR is dangerous,” he explained. “They may force our guests to leave. That is why you work among the zanies — turning them from the Gates when they seek to destroy. You and others.”
    “Cogs in the machine,” she said. She could not appreciate his dream — but then, she thought, I didn’t live in the old days, I didn’t know what it was like. To wonder each day,she thought, if that day was to be the last. And Chung Hoo knew more than most. His position in UNO saw to that. As permanent secretary to the Secretary General he had more power than most supposed. To him the coming of the Kaltich must have seemed like the descent of angels.
    “Cogs,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, my dear, you are correct. But what machine could work without its small but essential components? Therefore, my dear, you are more important than I.”
    She sat, hands folded, not answering as the car reached the UNO building and dived down a ramp into the underground car park. She had never thought of herself in quite that way before.
    Chung Hoo ate breakfast in the high-level canteen, a substantial meal of fruit juice, cereal, buckwheat toast, flapjacks and maple syrup with tea and a pipe of opium to follow. It was a large meal but he didn’t feel guilty. He’d been on duty since two a.m., rising at the first