EarthRise by William C. Dietz Read Free Book Online

should be no attraction whatsoever.
    First, because his profession, which required Manning to shoot people from time to time, was completely at odds with her profession.
    Then there was the matter of his inner life, a mindscape which she assumed to be less intellectual than hers, although she knew him to be well educated. Manning had a master’s degree in geology no less . . . which might show a scientific bent.
    Why the attraction then? If it shouldn’t exist? Memories mostly, like the first time she had seen him, lurching in out of a rainstorm with an injured girl cradled in his arms. Or later, after the racialists abducted her, the manner in which he not only came to her rescue, but held her filth-encrusted hand.
    So which was he? Sool wondered. A violence-prone maniac? Or a man capable of great tenderness? And what difference did it make? Since the doctor knew the security chief had been in love with Franklin’s wife and crushed by her violent death.
    Manning, his eyes hidden by the dark glasses that he and the rest of his team wore, looked in her direction. Something, Sool wasn’t sure what, jumped the gap.
    Damn, the medic thought to herself, I’m an idiot.
    Manning smiled, and the sun came out.

     
    Mal-Dak, still hanging upside down from his cross, had never thought about crucifixion before and never contemplated how terrible it could be. Rather than simply dying, as by other forms of execution, victims lingered for days until they succumbed to exposure. A long, horrible process that stretched forever.
    The fact that the cursed black birds had already been stymied by the thickness of his chitin, and would soon attack his eyes, made the process even worse.
    Now, only hours into his own personal hell, the Fon was thirsty. Not just a little thirsty, but very thirsty, to a degree he had never experienced before. A fact that seemed especially ironic since he, like his brothers, had suffered through endless days of rain. Rain that fell as a mist, rain that blew in sideways off the water, and rain that fell in torrents from an eternally gray sky. The very thought of it made his throat feel parched. And it was that thirst, that need, which was foremost in the Sauron’s mind when Hak-Bin’s procession drew into his upside-down world. Not that Mal-Dak knew the procession had anything to do with Hak-Bin, but surmised it from the noise, color, and movement.
    Of one thing there was no doubt, however, and that was the fact that his misery, combined with the unjust manner in which he had been treated, combined to make him the very thing for which he was being punished: a rebel. A rebel who, more by luck than anything else, was about to generate an incident that would inspire real rebels, most of whom were standing around trying to look busy.
    The moment occurred just as Ji-Hoon and her team, sweating heavily after the long hard climb, bore the sedan chair past Mal-Dak’s cross. That’s when the Fon, having struggled to muster the necessary saliva, moistened his mouth, and shouted a phrase which previously had no meaning to him. “Long live the Fon Brotherhood!”
    That’s the way the English-language version came out anyway—although the original was somewhat different. The translation was picked up by the Ra ‘Na PA system and relayed to the mostly human crowd. The words were meaningless to most who continued to stare at the ground.
    But even if the vast majority of the humans remained unmoved—the challenge had an electrifying effect on at least one individual. The great Hak-Bin sat up straight, rapped the side of the sedan chair, and said, “Stop!”
    Ji-Hoon heard the command, as did the rest of the team, and they came to a halt. Hak-Bin slid backward out of the sedan chair, found the ground with his feet, and scanned the area. The citadel loomed above, crosses cut the sky into odd geometric shapes, and humans carpeted one side of the hill. The vast unwashed stink assailed the olfactory sensors located on the