Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program Read Online Free PDF Page B

the hulking alien might eat him.
    "Cheap, if we are able to end this war, aren't we?"
    The king squirmed. "You're not the only foreign soldiers in our employ who've promised the same thing� without results."
    "One of the first tasks we'll undertake," von Baldur said, "is to evaluate your other, uh, advisors, and make appropriate recommendations."
    The king brightened, as if the thought of a war among mercenaries was quite attractive.
    "Also, we propose to carry the battle to the enemy as soon as possible," von Baldur said in ringing tones.
    Riss decided Freddie should always walk point for them, since nobody else would be able to think of such horseshit, let alone talk about it convincingly.
    "That is good," the King said, an edge of excitement in his voice.
    "We can begin immediately," von Baldur said.
    "To have Khelat at peace," King Saleph said dreamily. "Something my father and my father's father were unable to accomplish.
    "Peace� and utter obliteration for those damned Shaoki!"
    The hilltop was about the only relief in a sea of green.
    King Saleph had insisted that someone from Star Risk must see the new root of the Khelat riches, and why the war was being fought.
    As Lanchester had said, it was main.
    M'chel Riss had agreed to be the Star Risk representative. Her escort was a Prince Wahfer, who looked like all self-respecting warrior-type princes should: tall, well muscled, curly hair with a thin mustache, wearing combat fatigues, a pistol, and an elaborately worked dagger.
    He wore three rings, two too many to Riss's sometimes puritanical thinking, and an old-fashioned be-jeweled watch on one wrist.
    Wahfer had piloted his own lifter, without even a bodyguard, and they'd flown for about an hour east before setting down in this plantation.
    The bush grew about two meters high and wide. Its leaf was broad and dark green.
    The bushes stretched in neat rows to the horizon. Below were mobile irrigation pumps and automated weeders.
    A tiny lifter with some sort of supervisor darted here and there, from pumps to robots, but there was nothing else to be seen.
    "Quite impressive," Riss said.
    "Yes." Wahfer walked to the edge of the hilltop and plucked one leaf.
    "This, dried and crumbled, will sell in the Alliance for about half a credit."
    Riss tried to do the math about what the plantation was worth, failed, looked impressed.
    "As far as I know," Wahfer said, "with the exception of tea, coffee, and certain illegal drugs, main provides the most credits per kilo of any natural substance. Main will make Khelat very, very rich. Once this damned war is over and Shaoki is put in its proper place."
    "Which is?" M'chel asked.
    "Their inhabitable worlds, for the most part, have more surface water than ours. Proper use of the land will mean creating plantations even vaster than the ones here."
    He frowned.
    "You don't look happy about that," M'chel said.
    "Truthfully, I am not," he said. "Not that I am one of those absurd peace seekers. I think, like you do, war should be fought for its own rewards, a testing of a man� and woman's� bravery and a system's resolve."
    Riss didn't argue with him.
    "How long would this plantation have been here?" she asked, deliberately changing the subject.
    "Oh, five or six years," Wahfer said.
    "And before that?"
    The Prince shrugged. "Some sort of farming land. Probably there would have been a village or two or three for the farmers to live on. But since all land belongs to the king, when His Majesty determined the proper purpose for this property, the people would have been relocated."
    "To where?" M'chel asked.
    Wahfer shrugged. "To a city� to another plot of earth� It matters not, now, does it?"
    "Exactly as you'll do to the Shaoki?"
    Wahfer smiled, a killer's smile.
    "When the war is finished, I doubt if there shall be that many of them to relocate."
    "Since we have not had time to check for eavesdroppers," von Baldur said, and nodded to Grok.
    They were back in the suite at the Rafar