Android at Arms by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page A

rediscovery of palace secrets. There were hidden ways within the walls, spy holes through which one might watch, even chambers with secret doors in which were stacked weapons of another time, or treasure. And he made me memorize each new one he discovered. I do not know how his passion for the strange research developed, but he was certain that such knowledge would be of benefit to him who knew it. And it finally brought about his own death.”
    Andas no longer saw the Salariki’s face, the searching brilliant eyes. His attention was for a mind picture that had mercifully begun to dull a little now, but that he would never forget.
    â€œHow?” Yolyos asked. “Or is that something you do not wish to speak of?”
    â€œFor a time I could not. I know it, and one other—Hamnaki, who was my father’s personal servant. We—I had come back on leave from Pav—missed him all through one day. So at last we took torches and started hunting the ways. We found him in a newly discovered section, but it had been designed by some builder who was more suspicious of mind or had a greater and darker secret to hide, for there was a man trap set within. There was only the belief that he died instantly to comfort us. We got him out and said that he had died of a fever. Since no one any longer cared or remembered him much, was no question. They gave him a funeral of state as was his right and a lesser name-carving in the temple. Do you know, until I saw that in place, I had not even known my father had the right to wear the two plumes. He had won that during the pirate invasion of Darfur—but no one had ever told me.
    â€œWhat he gave me—and he was right that it may be of the greatest importance now—was his knowledge of the ways. Let me get to Inyanga, to even the outermost wall of the Triple Towers, and I shall be able to discover what has happened.”
    â€œAnd if Turpyn’s suspicions are true and an android is acting out your role?”
    â€œThen I will learn enough to be able to present the Emperor with the truth.”
    â€œLet us hope so.”
    There sounded a sharp signal they could not mistake. The ship was about to pass out of hyper. They were that near to their journey’s end. Andas’s hands shook a little as he made fast his safety belt. Inyanga—they were home!

4
    They landed. Andas aroused from the effects of a hard fin-in to see the visa-screen providing a view of what lay beyond the ship walls. But—
    Not Inyanga!
    At first he could not believe what he saw pictured there. They had not set down in any port. As the screen slowly changed to give them bit by bit a view of the surrounding land, he saw that there were the scars of deter rockets, yes, but old—no recent burns to show a recent visit.
    The vegetation, which appeared a massively thick wall beyond the edge of the open land, differed in shade from that he knew. It was a lighter green, broken here and there with splotches of a pallid yellow.
    Not Inyanga! Then the tape—why had the tape been listed wrongly? Andas had the same disoriented feeling he had had when he first came to his senses in that unknown prison.
    â€œI can guess that this is not what you expected.” Yolyos’s voice broke through his bemusement.
    â€œYes. I—I never saw this before.”
    â€œInstructive,” was the Salariki’s comment.
    Instructive of what, wondered Andas. He could not have been mistaken—it had been the tape marked with the symbol of his home world that had landed them here. Perhaps—perhaps those had been purposely mislabeled to prevent the possibility of just such an escape as the storm had made possible for them! Perhaps it had landed them in an unknown port where they could be easily recaptured.
    â€œBait in a trap—” Either Yolyos had read his thoughts from some change in his expression, or the Salariki’s suspicions matched his. “If so, the one for