Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation Read Online Free PDF Page B

his Mem-dex on the examination table, he slapped it on his wrist. Something familiar in these surroundings helped take the bite of fear out of the air somewhat. He saw the broken belt on a small workbench with a strong light pointed toward it. Two units on the belt were exactly split to show the interior parts in their complex array.
    Andrew leaned over to see the belt with its heavy buckle fastening and as he did, he heard something from the entrance. Jerking the belt up and testing the heft of the belt for a possible weapon, he ran to the side of the entrance hatch.
    He saw and heard the alien approaching about the same time Rett noticed him crouched in the entrance. Rett jerked a stubby cylinder, with a handle somewhere inside it, from his waist and pointed it at Andrew. Rett seemed to think better of shooting and lowered the obvious weapon.
    The alien had no sooner lowered his arm until he bounded toward the entrance and leaped easily into the entrance. Andrew could see that the alien was off balance and he used this opportunity to attack.
    Andrew took the borrowed belt and swung it toward the weapon hand that was rising toward his middle. No sooner than the heavy belt clanged into the weapon did Andrew notice the fist-size hole appear in the decking near his foot. With a backhand motion, Andrew swung the belt to the alien's head and heard the dull thunk as the alien staggered out of the way, to the side of the hatchway. Andrew squirmed past, jumped down and ran around the ship and toward the hopeful direction of his car and then to the university.
    Rett replaced the weapon in his holder and adjusted the covering on his already healing ear. Annoying but not incapacitating injuries, Rett thought moodily. Rescued, assaulted, and victim of a native…thoughtless to dissolve part of my own ship due to a native. It will be many years before I will tell any of my colleagues about this trip in its entirety. I will simply tell them that the solo interstellar craft I built was successful. At least, I still retain the primitive's knife and water container. These are odd enough artifacts to convince even my colleagues of my far travels.
    Rett shut the hatch and then stood by the controls to prepare to leave the planet. Rett made quick mental calculations and checked the ship's clock.
    Rett realized that his colleagues were right, at least in part. The Exploration Service would not like solo personal trips. Interstellar experimentation was best left to explorers. Established trips to civilized worlds with full indoctrination were the safest way to travel. Homemade or even the best solo traveling gear was stimulating but not conducive to long life.
    Rett also knew the prohibition about unregulated contact with an intelligent race but rationalized that no damage had been done and no one would find out about this out-of-the-way trip to the spiral arm. His intent had been to avoid the authorities who would otherwise have to approve new devices or improvements in older devices. Rett relaxed after setting the automatic directional device and activated the main drive field. He settled into the relaxed traveling state and thusly thought no more on the subject as his eyes closed and breathing became deeper as the ship sped to his home world.
     
    Andrew heard a loud hum behind him and stopped his run in time to see the craft become a translucent sphere. The craft appeared to wobble slightly, like a leaf in the wind, and then shot up out of sight so fast that it would even have been correct to say it disappeared. Explanations of the phenomenon could not be concise unless someone had experienced it for himself. Andrew looked at the slight depression in the dirt where the device (vehicle) had rested.
    No one will believe this. I don't believe this myself, Andrew thought with little actual conviction.
    Andrew then felt the water containers in his shirt and looked down at the alien's belt dangling from his strong hand. He then began the slow,