Eternity's Mind by Kevin J. Anderson Read Free Book Online

give him enough time to respond before she gave a small nod. “Yes, that’s your best play. I agree.”
    Iswander felt guilty to hear her response, and a heavy weight of conscience pushed down on him. He tried to recall everything he had said to Elisa, all the business discussions. Had he really led her to believe that she should kill anyone who uncovered his secret? Deep inside, was that what he really wanted? He refused to admit it to himself, but his inner hesitation told him much about what he needed to know.
    He sighed. “Thanks to Tamblyn and her companions, everyone knows the location of our bloater operations. Someone will come here sooner or later. If you are here, they will arrest you. I want you to take some private time, Elisa; contemplate how you wish to respond to this. I will leave you alone so you can consider the consequences. Take all the time you need.”
    She was surprised. “Are you saying you’ll look the other way if I just flee?”
    â€œI didn’t say that at all, but you seem to be proficient at extrapolating my implied wishes. Go!”
    Elisa stared at him for a long moment, then departed. Even after she left the conference room, though, Iswander wasn’t sure whether he had done the right thing.

 
    CHAPTER
    5
    ORLI COVITZ
    After learning how easy it was to extract ekti-X from the bloaters, clan leaders rushed away from Newstation on “urgent business.” Roamers would scramble to modify old water tankers or cargo ships so they could harvest stardrive fuel. Within a day of the clan convocation, every vessel or piece of equipment that could conceivably be converted to pumping operations had been purchased from the Newstation salvage dealers.
    Orli Covitz wanted no more involvement with bloaters and ekti, though. She and her compy, DD, settled into temporary quarters, still trying to decide what to do with themselves. The clans were well known for seizing new opportunities, but she hadn’t expected them to move so fast.
    A year ago, when she had happened upon Iswander’s original operations, she hadn’t grasped the value of the knowledge she had obtained. Of course, she had been dying from the Onthos plague at the time, but now Orli was surprised that Lee Iswander had let her go, rather than eliminating her as an inconvenient witness—just as Elisa had tried to do. Maybe the industrialist hadn’t been thinking far enough ahead.
    The Iswander facility was also where she had met Garrison Reeves, and the more she thought about it—and about him —the more she decided that the benefit was well worth the cost. She and Garrison had been apart for the better part of a month now, by mutual agreement. While he was at Fireheart Station working on the Big Ring project, Orli had joined Kett Shipping for the time being, but she missed Garrison. Taking some time had seemed like a good idea when she had suggested it.…
    Now, from her temporary quarters on the station, she looked out the windowport at the busy ships flying around the trading center. DD stood beside her, filing away details. “There’s quite a bit of traffic, Orli Covitz. The Roamers seem very excited about the new method of ekti extraction. Isn’t it a good thing we told them?”
    â€œI’m sure not everyone will be as happy, DD,” she said. “Now that their Iswander distribution contracts are out the airlock, Kett Shipping is losing a huge amount of business.”
    â€œBut Iswander Industries was an unpleasant and dangerous partner. Is it not likely that many of these new operations will hire Kett Shipping for distribution?”
    â€œI’m not a business visionary. What I like is fixing compies, and I should figure out how to get back to that. I’d be happier. We both would be.”
    â€œWe could return to Relleker,” DD said. “We had a very efficient facility there for rehabilitating unwanted compies.”
    Relleker