Dancers in the Afterglow by Jack L. Chalker Read Free Book Online Page A

on Ondine. That's what all this is about. Us. They want us to do somethin' to us. We don't know what, but wouldn't you rather be uncomfortable for a while until you know what it is they do to us before you rush down to join 'em?"
    The engineer opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again.
    "By midday, the people like us in the bush might be the only free human beings left on the planet," Rolvag said crisply.

    "We will continue broadcasting as long as possible," the newsman announced, looking as if he'd been through hell. "Machist troops are all over the city and, in fact, all over Ondine. I can't imagine why they've allowed us to remain on the air this long."
    The man and the girl had sat stunned through most of the night, watching the unchanging panorama, talking very little, absorbed not so much by the drama on the screen as by their own position in the new scheme of things.
    Finally, he turned to her and asked, "Do you have any family?"
    She smiled bitterly and shook her head. "No, nobody. That's why I came to Ondine. I've been here four years, bumming around, taking odd jobs here and there, existing." She paused for a minute. "What about you?"
    He shrugged. "Some old friends and business associates. My family's all dead. Oh, I'll be missed for a while, but it won't cause any dent in things. Nothing that ever happened to me ever did."
    Suddenly they heard distant explosions, which, while not nearby, still sent shock waves through the hotel.
    "My God!" she reacted, as much in puzzlement as in fear. "What's that?"
    There was a second explosion series.
    "The screen's gone blank," he noted. "Looks like they finally pulled the plug."
    "Can't we find out what's going on?" she asked apprehensively.
    He looked at the control panel for the window. "Yeah, here. We can swing it for a city view. Won't be as good as the 'visor boys, but it might tell us something." He punched the code. The screen flickered, then the city appeared. It took two or three tries for him to locate the distant spaceport, which was much smaller than in the 'visor, but still easy to make out.
    "The ships!" she exclaimed. "The ships are gone!"
    That was true. There wasn't a trace of activity in the spaceport," nor signs of massive traffic.
    He was just about to reply when another explosion went off, this time visible to them. A few seconds later, the hotel shook again.
    "Oh, my God!" she breathed. "They're blowing up the spaceport!"
    Explosions came in more rapid succession, and they could see huge billows of smoke and debris roar out of the spaceport. Towers collapsed, supports collapsed, then were obscured in great clouds of dust and dirt rising upward into the sky. It was past dawn now.
    "Why would they do that?" she asked him, almost in shock.
    He thought of several reasons. "Now that they've unloaded, they don't want anybody else coming in or going out. They probably will blow all of them except one, the better to control who goes in and out of Ondine."
    "But that means we're trapped!" she responded, appalled.

    The shock waves of the explosions awakened Moira Sabila. She twisted and moaned, then unplugged her ears and flipped the blinders up, a puzzled expression on her face. She looked over at the other bed and noted that Genji was gone. As a more dramatic series of explosions went through the hotel, shaking everything that wasn't nailed down, she felt momentary panic.
    "Genji!" she almost screamed. "Genji! What the hell is going on?"
    He heard her and came back into the bedroom. He was dressed, but looked as if he hadn't slept a wink. His expression was grave.
    "Genji! Thank God!" she managed. Her relief at seeing him gave him a sense of satisfaction and a slight thrill. She needed him now.
    "The Machists attacked Ondine and captured it last night," he told her. "We're under an army of occupation now."
    Color drained from her, and she was wide awake. "Good lord! Why didn't you wake me?"
    He turned his palms up. "What was the use? We're confined to