Forbidden Planets by Peter Crowther (Ed) Read Free Book Online Page B

intimidated by a darker sort of passion mixed with the threat of his connection to the secretive political puppet masters of the Empire. “This is stupid, de Vere. All of it. You know what to do. Everything else is just pointless theater of the mind.”
    Heminge’s voice was quiet. “The bomb?”
    The planet-buster was hardly a secret aboard my ship. It filled the number two hold, a modified reentry vehicle designed to be launched from orbit. Any man could deduce its intended use. A smart man wouldn’t comment on it. Especially not in front of Beaumont.
    “Yes, the bomb, you moron,” snapped Beaumont.
    “So whatever is in our secret orders—” Heminge put his hand up, palm out. “And don’t get excited, we must have secret orders, since we’re not carrying that thing on a cargo manifest. As I was saying, whatever is in our secret orders must be very important indeed, for you to take such disregard for the lives of two commissioned officers of the Imperial Navy . Not to mention crew and dependents, regardless as to their number or sanity.”
    “They’re dead.” Beaumont’s voice was flat. “They’ve been legally dead since Broken Spear was taken off the ship list. Lehr and Cordel are walking around breathing, but their commissions lapsed twenty-eight baseline years ago.”
    “So whatever it is, this great, terrible secret is worth their lives, regardless of their legal existence?”
    I stood, took a deep breath. “Yes. Though it burns me to agree with my good Lieutenant Commander Beaumont.” I cast him another sidelong glare, sickened by the look of triumph on his face. “Our view of the outcomes may be the same, but our view of the process differs. I prefer to dance a few measures in this theater of the mind. Our Captain Lehr holds secrets behind the marble of his blind eyes, gentlemen, and I propose to have them out of him if possible. They might just save his life at that.”
    Heminge nodded, his eyes still on Beaumont as he spoke. “How long, Captain?”
    “On my authority,” Beaumont said, one hand straying to the pistol at his belt, “a day.”
    “No.” I stared him down. “I command here. You may have my commission when we get home, but until then the decision is mine.” The orders had been clear enough. We weren’t to spend time on site, lest we become contaminated too. I’d already consigned Six Degrees and her crew to extensive quarantine on our return simply by landing and approaching Lehr in person—a fact as yet understood by no one but Beaumont, though I suspected Marley of either knowing or deducing it for himself. “As long as it takes.”
    Beaumont refused to flinch. “A time limit, de Vere.”
    Sadly, he was right. “Seventy-two hours, then.”
    Deckard walked across the wardroom, slammed his shoulder into Beaumont, knocking the political officer backward, though they were of a height and build. “Excuse me, sir . My clumsiness.” He turned back toward me. “If time is short, we should be working.”
    “As you were, Beaumont,” I shouted, before he could spring up off the deck. “We’re going back out. I want to speak to Cordel.” About these daughters, I told myself. The old man himself was useless, lost in the hallucination of a green world and decades of blind introspection.
    “I’ll bet you do,” Beaumont muttered, picking himself up with a slow, false dignity. “I’ll just bet you do.”
     
    We trudged across the dry crystal beds, gravel washed down from the distant cliffs. They smelled like talcum, with the astringent overlay of this world’s native organics, stirred by the hot winds to a sort of dehydrated atmospheric soup that would eventually damage our lungs if breathed too long. The sun glinted hot, mauve steel in the sky, hiding the mysterious Ray Gun somewhere behind its glare.
    Ray Gun had to be inhabiting Broken Spear ’s missing command section. I glanced upward, shading my eyes from the daystar’s killing brilliance. Where was she?
    It.
    Of