Into the Slave Nebula by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A

down to absolute concentration on the fight, Horn caught the sound of a unison sigh of—pleasure? relief?—something crazily askew from normality, anyhow, uttered by the faceless cluster of watchers who had come in the hope of seeing a man die in slow agony. He decided that he was not going to pander to that unnatural lust any longer than was necessary. And in fact the time was so short he barely believed it even when the duel was over.
    The challenger, carried away, overreached himself. In the fraction of a second when the trick was safe, Horn employed the same device which had won his championship match the year before, changed hands on his sword and stroked the tip up his opponent’s body from crotch to rib-cage. At the end of its course he thrust it home and let it go.
    His belly opened like a half-peeled banana, the man in white and gold reeled backward and slumped gurgling to the floor. Horn didn’t bother to look at his work. He merely headed for the door.
    Goggle-eyed, the proprietor hurried from the desk to bar his way, demanding who was going to pay his fee. Horn shrugged.
    “He challenged me! Let him pay, however he is!”
    Who
was
he, anyway? Fighting nausea at the sightof his third corpse within twenty-four hours, and a still stronger wave of it due to his half-awareness of the disappointment the watchers were exuding at the shortness of the fight, he returned to strip the mask from the face of the dead man.
    No wonder the voice had struck a chord in memory, although now he realized it had been disguised with deliberate deepness and an affected formality of speech.
    He had killed Superintendent Coolin of the lawforce.
    Restlessly, Horn tossed in his superbly comfortable bed. He was physically exhausted—the tension of the duel had drained during his return to the hotel and left all his limbs numb—but he could not dig his way into the dark mine of sleep. It was not merely that whenever his eyes were closed he saw visions of Latchbolt’s face, beaten into ruin; of Talibrand’s, composed and hideously vacant; of Coolin’s, contorted in agony; and that these images would inevitably haunt his dreams.
    It was simply that he could not foresee himself ever sleeping soundly again on a world which committed responsibility for the maintenance of law and order into the hands of a man who could boast of having killed at every carnival since he was twenty.
    What had attracted Coolin into his job, anyhow? The chance of being able to feast his eyes every now and then on the consequences of a rare crime of violence?
    That question was unanswerable, at least so long as carnival went on.
    At length the little booklet belonging to Talibrand floated into his mind’s eye, and he saw the pages turn to reveal proof of visits to one after another of the worlds that had later attested their gratitude in that amazing certificate at the beginning of the document. What could this Lars Talibrand have done? What could Derry Horn dream of doing that might be equally honored andpraised? Certainly nothing that belonged to the pattern his grandfather had mapped out for him, which he had scarcely questioned since he grew old enough to talk.
    That elderly autocrat had certainly accomplished a great deal in his long life. He had supplied the population not only of Earth but of several outworlds with more, and more efficient, robots than any competitor. They might not be as versatile as androids, but they were far more reliable, and immune from the almost human nervous breakdowns which occasionally afflicted very highly strung specimens of android. (Not that these ever went so far as violent outbursts against their owners—there was a guarantee in all contracts of sale that the worst which could happen was catatonic withdawal from reality.)
    Yet was this commercial achievement anything likely to bring him recognition as a universal benefactor, a “citizen of the galaxy”? Of course not. He already had all the benefits he could imagine,