Starfist: A World of Hurt Read Online Free PDF Page A

the methodology and rationale of colonial development was taught at every level of education from primary through undergraduate.
    On a hunch, he leaned forward and queried his console. As Minister of the Interior, he had instant access to all but the most sensitive material stored in the world's data banks. In seconds his query was answered. He let out another sigh.
    Elbrus had been a young man, not long out of university, when his family emigrated. He remembered his father, then a junior member of Parliament, protesting the founding of a chair in Human Space Expansion in the History department when Olympia College was founded.
    Samar Volga and four of the five Firstborn who'd just been in his office had minored in Human Space Expansion.
    Folly, pure folly. His father had been right. The heads of the younger generation were filled with romantic ideas about exploration, of "Going where no man has gone before." And now Elbrus was faced with the consequences of what his father had warned against.
    Anton Elbrus didn't have jurisdiction over Haltia--nobody did, except, perhaps, some obscure parliamentary subcommittee--and assembling a search party and transporting it outside Ammon itself exceeded his authority. But he knew how many weeks--or months--it would likely take for Parliament to approve and outfit a search. Olympia's chief forensic pathologist informed him that the longer they waited, the less chance there was of finding anything, so he didn't even bother notifying the President or Parliament.
    Like everything else on Maugham's Station, the search and rescue mission was organized methodically. There weren't any explorers or frontiersmen, of course, but there were botanists and zoologists who studied the flora and fauna on the fringes of the towns and cities and close beyond the borders of Ammon, and civil engineers who planned, built, and maintained the landways that linked the cities and towns. A team of twenty such specialists was assembled for the search. Of course, there were some oddballs who liked to picnic or camp in the wilds just out of sight of the towns and cities, so a dozen of them were conscripted as "guides" for the search.
    Thirty-two searchers, plus four armed policemen; a doctor; and a three-person administration team to coordinate the searchers' activities and maintain communications with Olympia. Elbrus knew that wasn't enough people to search for a missing person in so large an area, but he didn't dare assemble a larger team for fear of attracting notice on a higher level.
    It took more than a week to assemble the searchers and gather the equipment and supplies they would need. He used that time to quietly conduct an aerial search and survey the area, using aircraft and crews from Olympia's police department.
    The aerial search revealed no sign of Samar Volga or any other person in or near Haltia, though it did update the official map database, which hadn't been done since the Bureau of Human Habitability Exploration and Investigation had completed its cursory examination of Maugham's Station more than two generations earlier. That was better than nothing.
    Under the lead of Third Assistant Minister Frans Ladoga, the search party set out thirty-nine days after Samar Volga left Olympia for the wilds of Haltia.
    On the third day of the search, Jean Lonnrot knelt to peer closely at fresh growth in the ground cover under the multicanopy forest trees. She brushed her gloved fingers through a tangle of blue-tinged leaves of a type she'd never before seen, wondering what gave them their odd color. An experienced botanist, she slipped her other hand into a pouch on her field belt, where her fingers fell immediately on a specimen pack of exactly the right size and opened it, ready to receive the plant. Gently, she groped through the leaves until she found the main stem and followed it to the ground. Holding the specimen pack in her teeth, she drew the digger from its holder and barely glanced at the control