The Inheritors Read Online Free PDF

Aero-Space Control here," announced Lieutenant Timmins. "We've already found that out."

    "Kane knows that as well as we do," Grimes told him. "But, to judge by his record, he always maintains a facade of absolute legality in everything he does. This fits in."

    "And I suppose," said Saul, "that he's already tried to establish communication with the local telepaths, if any, just as we did."

    "Not necessarily. His PCO will have 'heard' our Mr. Hayakawa doing just that, and she'll have learned that Morrowvia is lousy with telepaths, but none of them trained . . . . Oh, they know we're here, in a vague sort of way . . . ."

    " Southerly Buster to Aero-Space Control. Southerly Buster to Aero-Space Control. Do you read me? Over."

    "There she is!" shouted Pitcher suddenly.

    There she was, in the radar screen, a tiny yet bright blip. There she was, a new star lifting above the dark limb of the planet, a tiny planetoid reflecting the rays of Gamma Argo.

    "If we can see her, she can see us," commented Grimes. He went to the transceiver, ordered, "Put me on to him, Mr. Timmins." He said sternly,"FSS Seeker to Southerly Buster. FSS Seeker to Southerly Buster. Come in, please, on audio-visual."

    "Comin' in, Seeker, comin' in . . ." drawled the voice. There was a swirl of light and color in the little screen, coalescing into a clear picture. Grimes and his officers looked into a control room not unlike their own—even to a weapons control console situated as it would have been in the nerve center of a warship. And this Southerly Buster was a merchantman . . . . Drongo Kane calmly regarded Grimes from the screen—bleak yet not altogether humorless blue eyes under a thatch of straw colored hair, in a face that looked as though at some time it had been completely smashed and then reassembled not over carefully. He said, "I see you, Seeker. Can you see me?"

    " I see you," snapped Grimes.

    "Identify yourself, please, Seeker. Can't be too careful once you're off the beaten tracks, y'know."

    "Grimes," said the owner of that name at last. "Lieutenant Commander in command of FSS Seeker, Survey Vessel."

    "Pleased to meet you, Commander Grimes. An' what, may I ask, brings you out to this neck o' the woods?"

    "You mayn't ask. That's Federation business, Captain Kane."

    The pale eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. "So you know me, Commander! Well, well. Such is fame."

    "Or notoriety . . ." murmured Maggie Lazenby.

    "Did I hear the lady behind you say somethin'?" inquired Kane.

    Grimes ignored this. "What are your intentions, Captain Kane?" he demanded.

    "Well, now, that all depends, Commander Grimes. Nobody owns this world 'cepting its people. I've asked if I could make a landing, but got no reply. I s'pose you heard me. But nobody's told me not to land . . . ."

    "What are your intentions?" demanded Grimes again.

    "Oh, to set the old Buster's arse down onto some-thin' safe an' solid. An' after that . . . Fossick around. See what we can buy or barter that's worth liftin'. There're some spacemen, Commander—an' I'm one of 'em—who have to earn their livin's . . . ."

    "It is my duty—and the way that I earn my living—to afford protection to all Federation citizens in deep space, interplanetary space, in planetary atmospheres and on planetary surfaces," said Grimes, with deliberate pomposity.

    "You needn't put yourself out, Commander."

    "I insist, Captain. After all, as you said, one can't be too careful when off the beaten track."

    Kane's lips moved. Grimes was no lip-reader, but he would have been willing to bet a month's salary that grave doubts were being cast upon his legitimacy—and, were this a less tolerant day and age, his morals. "Suit yourself," said Kane aloud. "But you're only wastin' your time."

    "I'm the best judge of that."

    "Suit yourself," growled Kane again.

    Meanwhile, Seeker's inertial drive had stammered into life and the ship was both slowing and lifting under the