Cauldron of Ghosts by David Weber, Eric Flint Read Free Book Online Page A

have done any lethal damage.
    As it was, with her underneath, Kabweza and her people couldn’t get to her. And since she was now driven by necessity she eschewed any dramatic stabbing and just pushed the blade as far as she could into the closest target, which happened to be the man’s left eyeball.
    Nine centimeters is not very long—but the skull of a human male isn’t much more than twenty centimeters across in the long axis from front to back. Driven by the sort of rage possessed by Takahashi Ayako, the blade went almost halfway into the slaver’s brain. And then, shrieking and cursing, she twisted and drove the blade back and forth and up and down.
    It took the Torch soldiers no more than four or five seconds to get the slaver rolled over and haul Takahashi off him, but by then she’d pretty well transformed a third of his frontal lobes into hash. The autopsy ’bot later reported that she’d carved up part of the limbic system as well.
    Modern medicine is not actually miraculous, although the term is often used. For all practical purposes, the man was gone before any aid could be given him.
    Or as now-corporalSupakrit X put it with great satisfaction over the troops’ evening meal, “I’m telling you, that fucker was dead-dead-dead.”
    He wasn’t especially upset by his lowly new rank. For one thing, he knew his demotion had been mostly done as a matter of principle, rather than because Kabweza was really mad at him. He figured he’d get his rank back soon enough.
    Besides, the way he looked at it, he’d been busted in a good cause. It wasn’t like getting demoted for being drunk and disorderly.
    “And I still say she’s cute,” he added. “Although you’d really want to be on your best behavior on a date.”

Chapter 5
    “I’d miss Steph,” Andrew Artlett protested. “Just for starters. Then there’s the lousy pay.”
    Princess Ruth Winton frowned. “Lousy pay? You’re being offered almost half again what you’re making here on Torch—and you’re getting top rate for starship mechanics.” After a brief pause—very brief; Ruth hated admitting to a lack of complete expertise on any subject—she added: “So I’m told, anyway.”
    “Well, yeah. But going back to Parmley Station to work on this project is risky as all hell.” Stoutly: “I should be getting hazard pay. That’s generally figured as a hundred percent pay increase. Double-time, that is.”
    There were so many fallacies and lapses of logic in those statements that the Manticoran princess was rendered almost speechless.
    Almost. Speechlessness was a state of affairs that was probably impossible for Ruth Winton.
    “ What? That’s insane! Every single sentence you just said is blithering nonsense.”
    She began counting off her fingers. “First off, there’s nothing at all risky for you in this deal. Your aunt Elfriede, maybe—”
    “Don’t call her that to her face,” Andrew cautioned. “She answers to Ganny. Or Ganny El, if she likes you.”
    “I have met the woman. I was just being formal. Seeing as how this is supposed to be an employment interview.” Ruth looked simultaneously cross and a bit embarrassed. “Of sorts,” she added.
    “ ‘Employment interview’!” Artlett said mockingly. “Oh, yeah. I can see it in the want ads now.” He mimicked holding up a reading tablet. “ ‘Wanted. Damn fool mechanic for desperado duties aiding and abetting Audubon Ballroom sociopaths—”
    He glanced at the huge figure of Hugh Arai, who was lounging in a nearby armchair in the princess’ suite. (Ruth called it a working office, but that was the obliviousness to luxury of someone born and raised in Mount Royal Palace in Manticore’s capital city of Landing. It was a no-fooling suite, on the top floor of the finest hotel in Beacon.)
    “Meaning no offense, Hugh, I’m just saying it like it is.” Arai smiled at him.
    Andrew resumed pretending to read a want ad: “—and Beowulfan cold-blooded killers