Echoes of an Alien Sky by James P. Hogan Read Free Book Online Page B

surface."

    "Really? Now I'm really curious."

    Naseena sighed. "Oh dear, I'm doing this all the wrong way round. This is Mowrak, the person I'll be working with. I've only just met him today too." The white-haired man tilted his head. Naseena gestured to the a younger man next to him. "Whylen is an excavation engineer, soon to go back to digging up cities in . . . Where was it, Whylen?"

    "China." Whylen was dark-haired and sinewy, his face shadowed by several days of stubble. He rose briefly from his chair. "My privilege, I'm sure."

    The man who had sat down next to him was about the same age, thirtyish, muscular and lithe, with a florid countenance that complemented a head crowned by a thicket of copper-red hair. His features were drawn in intense, angular planes about a sharp nose, thin but firm mouth, and a pointy, determined chin. He was wearing an open black shirt and a brushed leather jacket that was at the same time stylish and durable.

    "And this is Jenyn," Naseena completed. "Just back from being in the Americas for a while. He's next door in the hostel too, waiting for permanent quarters. That's right, isn't it? . . . I'm not sure what he does, though? What do you do here Jenyn?

    "Linguist." Jenyn answered. He didn't concede to any courtesies, but regarded Kyal and Yorim unsmilingly with pale blue eyes. Kyal had the discomforting feeling of being evaluated for some prospective purpose. Jenyn cocked his head to one side. "Where are you people from back home?"

    "I'm a Ulangean," Kyal replied. "Fellow Zeestran is from Gallenda."

    Jenyn nodded. The coolness and distancing implied by Kyal's use of the titular form didn't make any visible impact on him. "How were things there when you left?' he inquired.

    Yorim's brow furrowed. "What kind of things?"

    Jenyn answered in a careless drawl. "Oh, life in general. The usual things people talk about. Prices and taxes. Who makes the rules. Are they happy with the way things are being run?"

    Naseena threw in, "He's becoming the local Progressive organizer in Rhombus already. You're running for the leadership nomination among the Terran bases, Jenyn, yes?" She looked back at Kyal and Yorim. "I suspect that probably had more to do with what he was doing in the Americas."

    Mowrak had registered that Kyal and Yorim were not responding warmly to the turn of conversation. "There's a workshop where they clean up pieces of Terran machinery and things," he said. "We were going there after we've eaten. Want to join us?"

    "We had exactly the same idea," Kyal said, happy to move the subject along.

    "Great," Mowrak said. "They've got a Terran war tank that's just been brought in, dug up out of the desert not far from here. It's going to be sent back home as a museum exhibit."

    Kyal and Yorim looked at each other and exchanged nods. "Sounds good," Yorim said for both of them.

CHAPTER SIX

    It stood in an open yard behind one of the workshops. The angled planes of its squat, heavy bulk seemed sinister and menacing—which was hardly surprising, considering the purpose for which it had been built. Though little more than a corroded hulk, it was better preserved than most similar vehicles from its times, thanks to the dry desert conditions. Fastened to a board on a nearby wall carried was a print of an engineering isometric drawing reconstructed from various sources of how it had originally looked.

    The mobile steel burial vault had run on belt tracks similar to those found on heavy construction machinery, and been powered by a hydrocarbon-fueled engine. It carried a crew of four. A somehow ghoulish swiveling turret with sloping sides like a truncated pyramid carried an enormous cannon fired by chemical explosives, along with a lighter secondary weapon. It had been destroyed by a projectile that melted a hole through its armor on impact and spewed white-hot metal liquid into the interior.

    Kyal found himself disturbed and unsettled as he stood staring at it in a silent