The Star King Read Online Free PDF Page A

leather, the result of his newly acquired and sporadically running 1984 Harley. "I didn't expect you, sweetie."
     
    "I snagged an earlier flight, dropped my bags at home. Sorry I missed the opening," he added with genuine regret.
     
    She ruffled his hair. "You'll catch it next time." She feigned nonchalance, for Ian's sake, but it hurt that Jock had scheduled his wedding on the weekend of the opening of the most important show of her career, forcing Ian and Ilana to be with him, not her. "So did you have a good time?"
     
    "You mean in Vegas?" His hazel eyes clouded over. "Dad's wedding?" He looked as if he'd rather talk about something else, anything else. "It was okay. For a Las Vegas quickie."
     
    "Jas!" Betty hung up the telephone and hurried toward them. «That was Dan."
     
    Jas smiled with a mental image of Dan Brady's easy grin. The man was good-hearted, nice-looking, and Ian's former economics professor. He'd also been the one who'd gotten Ian avidly interested in finance after a failed air force prescreening medical exam ended her
     
    son's dream of becoming a pilot. Grateful, she had cautiously let Dan into her life—on a wholly platonic level. He patiently assumed that her reluctance to date him stemmed from the recent breakup of her marriage, and she didn't correct him. It was as close to the truth as she dared get. "I thought he drove home last night," she said. "Since he's still here, let's invite him to lunch—"
     
    "He called from Tempe, Jas. He wants us to turn on the radio."
     
    Only then did Jas notice that Betty's skin looked unusually pale against her gray-threaded black hair. A quiver of worry tightened Jas's stomach. "Why? What's wrong?"
     
    "Just turn it on." Clearly agitated, Betty gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Mystified, Jas exchanged glances with Ian and flicked on the radio, wondering who had died, or what plane had crashed, or where a major earthquake had struck. Her heart sped up. Grace, her little sister, was visiting San Francisco—
     
    "This is Kendall Smith, live at the White House with this breaking story. President Talley will now address our stunned nation."
     
    "My fellow Americans," the president's voice cut in. «Today is a day we will remember for the rest of our lives, the day that changed the course of human history forever, the day we were given undeniable proof of our neighbors in the galaxy."
     
    The president was briefly drowned out by a crackle of static, drawing Jas's gaze to the cloud-sprinkled sky outside. Her emotions swirled in a storm of skepticism and disbelief—and raw, primitive fear. On the heels of that eerie vulnerability, her long-ago, discarded dream of going into space flared to life in a burst of unadulterated, almost childlike excitement. Out of breath, she turned up the volume to hear the president over the hammering of her pulse, then joined Betty on a Navajo-print settee.
     
    "This morning at three-fourteen a.m. Eastern Standard Time, as most of you slept, the United Nations received a transmission from an individual stating, in English, that he was the commander of a fleet of spacecraft. Extraterrestrial spacecraft. Every listening post around the globe, both civilian and military, has confirmed that the transmission originated from a craft in orbit around the planet Jupiter. I repeat, the transmission has been confirmed."
     
    Outside, a car roared out of the parking lot; another slammed on its brakes. There was muffled shouting, a woman and a baby crying, dogs barking.
     
    Ian wore a look of intense concentration, but the usually unflappable Betty appeared stricken. Jas took her friend's icy hand in her own and squeezed it.
     
    "As a result of the commander's conversation with me, my military advisers, and the other world leaders, I have approved his request to pursue a formal diplomatic and, I emphasize, a nonadversarial relationship with Earth. Negotiations will commence with utmost vigilance. I have placed our