The Terrorists of Irustan Read Online Free PDF Page A

the abdomen bare. She sponged the area carefully before clasping the surgical dome over it and checking to see that the approximation of skin and suction strip was perfect. She inserted her hands into the grips, fitting each finger firmly into the thin gauntlets.Maya rose for a brief moment from the sleep that was overtaking her. “If anything happens to me—will you call my mother?” Zahra could barely hear the last words. “For my baby. If it wasn’t for my baby ... he won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she slept.
    Zahra looked down at the instruments under the surgical dome, each sterile and shining, manufactured on Earth and shipped by the ESC at incredible expense. With her gauntleted fingers she reached for the sonic scalpel. Next to it a laser cutter glittered invitingly under its clamp. Her jaw clenched again. She saw herself taking the cutter in her bare hand, bursting out into the reception room, unveiled, angry, dangerous. Armed. It was a fantasy, and not the first time she had entertained it.
    She released her breath in a furious spurt, and drew one that was calmer. She glanced at the monitor, and then bent over the surgical dome. She would get very little sleep this night, but there was satisfaction in the thought that Maya’s husband would be as tired as she when the harsh Irustani star rose over the city.

three
    *   *   *
    Interference in native affairs is forbidden to all Offworld Port Force employees. This includes, but is not limited to, dispensing unauthorized Earth materiel, interfering with native culture, engaging in violence against native citizens, and fraternization with native citizens.
    — Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment
    T he shuttle waited at the end of the long runway, its arching support struts extended like the legs of a glittering insect, its gut laid open to reveal its payload. It loomed above the gray-black bitumen of the landing field, great aft engines casting long shadows. The sky above burned palest blue. Gray chimeras of heat danced away across the landing field to fade to nothing against the russet of the burnt hills.
    Jin-Li Chung drove up to the landing field with one finger in the steering wheel, left hand out, palm cupped to catch the breeze. The empty cart whined, racing with the others, dull gray vehicles spined with shelving and storage cubicles behind the driver’s compartment. No cart allowed another more than the narrowest of margins as they sped through the security gate.
    Jin-Li’s cart whipped around the tail of the shuttle and slid under the delta wing, flashing quickly from the hot daylight into the coolness of the ship’s shadow. The spacecraft towered above, a flying warehouse. The tiny cockpit stuck to its nose like a randomly blown bubble, particle shields reflecting the harsh light in blinding flashes. A ramp extended from the aft hull, the conveyor already rotating. Rocky, the foreman, was in the cargo bay, double-checking the secured stacks of materiel as the remote arms unfolded themselves and swiveled into position.
    The carts swerved to an abrupt halt near the ramp with a hissing of wide soft tires. The longshoremen parked in an untidy line and jumped out, calling to each other. They were muscular, fit, vigorous. They laughed and joked, the air hot and clean in their lungs, the star burning down on their heads. Jin-Li seized the spot closest to the ramp, just beneath the remote arm.
    Longshoremen, like all Port Forcemen who moved off port grounds, were uniformed. They wore billed caps, short-sleeved shirts, and shorts, all in beige syncel. They wore wide dark glasses issued to them the moment they arrived on Irustan. Without the filter of the glasses the brilliance of the star made everything a featureless blur of light and shadow, depthless and dazzling. Only the eyes of the native-born could cope with the full force of it, and many of them wore glasses, too. The inconvenience was offset for most of Port Force by the pleasure of