The Earth Gods Are Coming Read Online Free PDF Page B

is a floating city."
    "So it floats." Varese didn't like what he was looking at. "So we all grow water wings. This character, Abdul, coming in from space, adding load to a Prophet of Earth—who knows what happened to the capsule?"
    So he's one of those! Inglis let the thought fester in his mind. He hadn't realized it before. Strangely enough, you found few religious fanatics actually in the space service, connected with the CDB, disseminating Prophets.
    Mostly, the religious fanatics confined themselves to TV hookups on planet, fulminating against delays in the Dissemination Project, exhorting people to pay more voluntary taxes, generally rooting—if that was the right word in this context—on the bylines. The farthest into deep space they would venture would be to systems a few light years distant, drumming up the wherewithal. Admittedly, they performed a useful function. The CDB and the space services were not unaware of the increased appropriations flowing their way.
    But, actually to discover a relifan—ugly word, in such common usage now as to be ineradicable—aboard ship and in command was rather unsettling. Luigi Varese was a very good man. Inglis knew that, it was self-evident. But, to add to his own chagrin at not being given overall command of the expedition was now added the relifan's personal worry-that a Prophet of Earth had not been delivered properly-had been wasted.
    A nasty combination. Reminiscent, Inglis considered sourly, of the powder barrel and the lighted fuse.
    "Someone will have to go down," Varese was saying, his anger only just below simmering level. "Someone will have to check that the Prophet was delivered correctly and functioning."
    "What about Abdul?" asked Inglis, mildly.
    Varese was caught off balance. Quite evidently, he had forgotten all about Abd al-Malik ibn-Zobeir.
    "Of course. The despatch chief, too, will have to be found."
    Lieutenant Chung said soberly but eagerly, "I'll go." Remembering, he added, "Sir."
    Both Inglis and Varese spoke together. They stopped, and Inglis wondered with a hint of impatience why he got himself caught up in this sort of situation. Soft. He'd been worrying if he was going soft. Varese was the very man to hone him up; put an edge on him.
    "You were about to say, Commander?"
    "I was about to offer my services."
    "I see."
    Inglis had already almost decided that he was going himself. He had worked that one out on the basis of sheer experience. But if both Chung and Varese wanted to go, and as Varese was a relifan, there seemed little option. The relifans didn't worship the Prophets, of course, but their enthusiasm came too damn near that for Inglis' comfort. He shut down his expression, killing both his frown and his sigh of impatient resignation.
    This situation would either toughen him into an unthinking martinet or squeeze him into a soft lump of spineless dough.
    "Very well. Commander, you may consider yourself in charge of the landing party. Take whomever you like; Lieutenant Chung also if you wish. But get Abdul back up here fast, if he's still alive."
    "And the Prophet of the Earth?"
    "Good Lord, Varese! Of course you must look out for the capsule! But that can take care of itself. I doubt that Abdul can."
    "Very well, Colonel." Varese was very stiff, very formal about it. No doubt he would report unfavorably. So all right! Hell's bells, he was growing sick of this situation where an honest standup row was denied him. Even Laura could let her hair down and scream. Varese was too polite, too cool, too good. Well. Back at the base lay another ship and another commander. Inglis made up his mind to start off on an altogether different foot with those.
    -
    The whaler—why it was called that had never been very clear— left the lock, curving away to drop neatly on her anti grav and jets onto the planet.
    And, so far as Colonel Roy Inglis was concerned, that was that. Now he had to wait.
    Commander Varese, beside" Lieutenant Chung, had taken a third of