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

the hotel until further notice anyway. One of us might as well sleep."
    Suddenly her mind buzzed with all the things he'd already been through.
    "Call the spaceport! Let's get out of here!" she urged him.
    "Did it," he replied crisply. "No go. There are no spaceships anymore. They all scrammed. And those explosions you're hearing—they're blowing up the 'port. They're trapping us here but good."
    "But we have money, dammit all!" she protested. "Genji! Fix it up! Any price to get us out!"
    He shook his head sadly. He wasn't much brighter than average, but he'd been getting quite an education in the past few hours.
    "Honey, money's no good for anything anymore. Our assets are on Tinderman, anyway, and there's a lot of big, bad battleships between here and there."
    "The jewels!" she exclaimed, suddenly brightening. "They're worth something!"
    "Nothing," he replied, voice hollow. "Nothing's worth anything anymore, babe."
    She got up and went to her dressing table. Ordinarily, lust at the sight would have overcome him, but, right now, it just didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
    "What're you doing?" he asked her, almost absently.
    "Dressing," she replied, an undertone of arrogant confidence still in her voice. "Soldiers are soldiers and I was never very political, anyway."
    He sighed and sat back on the bed as the hotel continued to vibrate from the explosions. His biggest fear at that moment was that she was right—and where did that leave him?

    Several floors below the man and the woman were still in bed. There was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.
    From down the hall came the sound of three strong knocks. She trembled with fear, and he held her to him, hoping that he could comfort her, hoping that she didn't realize that he was trembling, too.
    A minute or so later the knocks were repeated, a wee bit closer now. They both knew what it was. It was fate, coming slowly, methodically to them.
    In a few minutes, it was close enough for them to hear a door slide open, hear muffled voices without being able to make but words. Whoever it was, was coming down the hall toward them.
    Finally they both stared across the room at their own door. They couldn't take their eyes from it; although solid and mute, it held them captive.
    Then, suddenly, those three powerful knocks were on their door, the sound piercing their bodies like funeral gongs.
    For a minute he could do nothing. The three knocks were repeated, nastier, more insistent this time. His mind made the door quake with their demand.
    "Who is it?" he called out timidly.
    No reply. He got out of bed and started toward the door. Suddenly he realized they were both nude, and he grabbed a hotel blanket, wrapping it around him like a skirt. He almost made it to the door before there was a crackling sound, and the locking mechanism barely missed him as it flew halfway across the room before landing on the floor. They had shot the lock off.
    It was an old-style door, the kind that opened on hinges. Someone gave it a nasty kick. The door flew back, revealing a sinister-looking little character with a nasty expression. The Machist had kicked the door so hard that it struck the wall and rebounded back as (he? she? it?) stepped in, almost smacking the soldier in the face. If the expression weren't so chilling, it would have been comic.
    The Machist angrily pushed the door back open and stepped inside. The girl, still in bed, pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness and stared in fascinated horror at the strange intruder.
    He was about 160 centimeters tall—shorter by a bit than the man, but slightly taller than .the girl. He bulged muscle everywhere, like the men in the body-building competitions. Short-cropped curly black hair framed a dark-complected face, and he seemed to have no blemishes on him of any kind. His uniform, made of a light form-fitting material and ending in boots of slightly more substantial stuff, was all black and seemed of one piece.
    His eyes