The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

medical center like the others or had he taken his own life before the end?
    Her eyes closed.
    She walked through a marketplace, bright and cheerful, awnings and pennants snapping in a breeze from the sea. She recognized it instantly; Shernish portside where boats bounced next to the wharf and
    fishermen heaved baskets of wriggling silver fish to the porters to carry to the trestle tables. Blue-furred ptorix farmers trumpeted their wares, waving fruits and vegetables in the tentacles at the end of each of four muscular arms. ptorix shoppers, seeming to float in their conical robes, passed up and down
    between the stalls. And then suddenly the wind changed. Dark clouds gathered and thunder rumbled. A
    howl went up, voices raised in agony as their blue fur blackened. They seemed to melt, all of them,
    dissolving into their clothing while the roadway ran with stinking black sludge.
    A cry of anguish echoed in her skull as she jerked upright. Her own voice.
    Shernish. The thought of that virus going through her home town… Xanthor, Ceta, Bartok, Farex; all
    dead. The students at the university, their teachers.
    A nightmare. Her chest heaving, she fought for breath.

Chapter Five
    Jarrad sat at one of the tables in the square outside the tavern, already armed with a bottle of white wine and a couple of glasses.
    He stood as she approached. “Hi. Lovely to see you,” he said.
    She snorted and looked down at her black pants and grey shirt. “I didn’t bring any nice clothes. It’s the best I can do.”
    “It’s very nice. You’re very nice.” He smiled. “I thought outside would be better.”
    That was true. Sounds of laughter and loud conversation drifted through the open doors of the ‘Miner’s Refuge’, occasionally drowning out the music. Several other people also sat at the outside tables,
    probably for the same reason. Soft lights floated in mid-air, providing gentle illumination. In the warm darkness, the planet’s sweet, earthy background smell was even more evident.
    He poured the wine. It was delicious, cold and crisp with a hint of spritz.
    “How’s your work going?” he asked.
    “Work? Oh, yes, not too bad.” The story of the diary lay like a lead weight in her brain, clamoring to be shared. She wouldn’t tell Sean or any of the other people here, but Jarrad was a scientist. Besides, the horror of it all was too much to bear on her own.
    “You know what you said about the thranx venom? How it kills cells?”
    He stared at her, his hand holding his glass suspended in mid-air. “Yes?”
    He must think I’m crazy. “It’s just that… It sounds like something I read about. In my room.” She
    swallowed a shudder. Just talking about it sent worms of revulsion creeping in her abdomen.
    “What?” he said, eyes alive with curiosity.
    “You know this planet was abandoned by the ptorix?”
    “Yes.”
    “A virus killed them. All the ptorix here. It must have been terrible.” She told him what Fyysor had
    written, describing the progress of the disease.
    He frowned, his wine forgotten. “It sure sounds like a necrotoxin. Were they sure it was a virus?”
    “I don’t know. But Fyysor mentions a cough.”
    “True.” He had a cute habit of putting his head to one side when he was deep in thought. He turned the glass in his hand, round and around. “The cough suggests it’s airborne. The necrotoxins get into the nasal passages, throat, lungs. And the time period is significant. You said a few days before it developed past a cough?”
    She nodded.
    “So the cough spreads the virus, the victim breathes it in but doesn’t know he’s sick until the virus has spread sufficiently. Then,” he spread his hands like a flower opening, “it explodes.” He stared at the table top. “That would explain how it could spread easily, by people who didn’t know they were sick.”
    Allysha shuddered. Imagine the havoc that would cause on planets like Carnessa or Chollarc? “Just as
    well it didn’t get any