The World Wreckers Read Online Free PDF Page B

kindness,
    a restful spot in a world grown full of horror. He said: "Pretty bad, Hamilton? Is it getting worse?"
    David managed a smile, wrung out like a used mop, and said, "With all of medical science these days
    you'd think they'd manage a cure for my particular type of lunacy."
    "Not lunacy," said Lakshman, "but unfortunately no cure. Not here. You happen to be a freak of a very rare kind, David, and I've watched it killing you for over a year now. But maybe there is an answer."
    "You didn't—" David shrank; Lakshman of all people to violate his confidence? Who could he trust?
    The older man seemed to follow his thought; "No, I haven't discussed this with anyone, but when they sent out the message I thought of you right away. David, do you know where Cottman's Star is?"
    "Not a clue," David said, "or care."
    "There's a planet—Darkover they call it," Lakshman said. "There are telepaths there and they're looking for—no, listen," he added firmly, feeling David tense under his hands. "Maybe they can help you find out about this thing. Control it. If you try to go on here at the hospital—well, they can't let you go on much more, David. Sooner or later it will distract you at a crucial moment. Your work is all right, so far.
    But you'd better look into this; or else forget all about medicine and find a job in the forest service on some uninhabited world. Very uninhabited."
    David sighed. He had known this was coming, and if nine years of study and work was to be thrown
    away, it didn't much matter where he went.
    "Where is Darkover?" he asked. " Do they have a good medical service there?"
    Chapter 3
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    THEY SAW the guards lockstepped around him as he came through the crowd to the airstrip. It was icy,
    cold, near evening, only a few red clouds lingering where the red sun had been, and a bitter wind eating
    down from the sharp-toothed crags behind Thendara. Normally there would have been very few people
    on the streets at this hour; Darkovan night sets in early and is as cold as their own legendary ninth hell, and most people seek the comfort of heated rooms and light, leaving the streets to the snow and the
    occasional unlucky Terran from the Trade City.
    But this was something new, and Darkovans in the streets put off minding their own business to watch
    it; to follow and murmur that singular and ugly murmur which is, perhaps, the first thing a Terran on a
    hostile world learns to identify.
    One of the four Terran guards, hearing the movement, tensed and moved his hand closer to his weapon.
    It wasn't a threatening movement, just an automatic one, just close enough that he felt reassured that the weapon was there if he needed it. But the prisoner said, "No." The Terran shrugged and said, "Your neck, sir," and let his hand fall.
    Walking at the center of the close drawn guard, Regis listened to the muttering and knew it was directed
    as much at him as at the Terrans guarding him. He thought wryly, do these people think I like this? Do
    they think I enjoy it? I've made myself virtually a prisoner in my own house just to avoid this kind of
    display, the shame of our world; a Hastur of Hastur no longer dares to walk free in his own streets. It's my life I'm giving up, my freedom, not theirs. It's my children, not theirs, growing up with Terran armed guards standing around their nurseries. I am so constantly reminded that a bullet, a knife, a silk cord or a single poison berry in their supper can mean the end of the Hastur line forever.
    And what will they say when they hear that Melora, bearing my child, is being sent to the Terran
    Medical for her confinement? I can hear it now. I've tried to keep it secret, but I had enough trouble
    persuading her family, and these things leak out. Even if there had been much between us, this would
    have ended it. Melora wouldn't even speak to me when I visited her last, and the trouble is, I don't blame her. She just stared coldly over my head and told me that she and