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

and in his old age he was growing crotchety—so his grandson had often suspected—through lack of new incentives.
    What would happen when the old tyrant got to hear of the events of the past day? Probably he’d take his grandson severely to task, like a schoolboy, for being so stupid as to get mixed up in things which didn’t concern him. Then he would proably make some inquiries and grease a few palms by way of insurance for the family’s good name, and nothing more would ever be heard of the affair.
    His father? He’d probably offer gruff compliments on the victory over Coolin and then go see
his
father in a fit of agitation about possible complications. His mother, on the other hand, would certainly flutter woollily about him risking his life, before going away and boasting of her boy’s fighting skill to her friends.
    His sister, who was four years younger than he, would perhaps have another fit of that wide-eyed hero worship he had basked in until a year or two ago. By now, though, she was likely to be growing out of it, having found it as pointless as he had already decided. And, according to their ages, the rest of the family—of whom there were seemingly myriads scattered across the face of Earth—would either loudly wonder what the younger generation could be coming to these days, or scornfully condemn the exhibitionism of their relative, keeping their envy of him secret.
    Last afternoon he had been dismayed at the prospect of not enjoying carnival this year. It was infinitely worse to find himself not expecting to enjoy the rest of his life.
    The sun was high in the sky, invisible behind the opaqued windows of his suite, when he at last managed to doze off into unrestful slumber. When he awkened, he knew the instant he opened his eyes not only that someone had been into his room while he slept, but who that person was.
    Dordy.
    For, on the table beside him where he had left nothing but a pack of smokehales and a kerchief when he went to bed, there now also reposed the grey woven-metal wallet which had belonged to Lars Talibrand.
    He sat up, ordered the windows to clear, struck a smokeshale and slipped the booklet out of the wallet agan, thumbing the pages. The names of the many worlds on which Talibrand had been a welcome guest rang in his head as he studied them.
    What were they like? He had been told, doubtless, many times in school; now he had to corrugate his brow in an effort to unite facts with names, almost as he had done last night when looking up from the bubbletaxi at the stars. Creew ’n Dith: something about the soundsuggested sharp cold gales blasting around a fastness on the crest of a mountain. Arthworld: again, this had evocative echoes, like waves breaking on the sand of a long white beach …
    All that, out there! Millions of individuals with personal identities, ruling, serving, loving, hating, doing all the human things—but not as he himself did them, at one well-cushioned remove from reality. The thought caused a wrenching change in his mental perspective, as though something had kicked his awareness off down a path at right angles to its accustomed one. He pictured Earth, the parent world, as a dowager like his deceased great-grandmother, content to relax and play with her lapdogs while her son went out and carved himself a financial empire to keep her in luxury.
    Now this man Talibrand
…
    He turned to the solido at the beginning of the booklet. It had faded to uniform greyness now. Lars Talibrand was finished. Only … well, if he had made himself so important that enemies hunted him from world to world, and even to Earth where his safe-conduct of galactic citizenship no longer protected him, then the chances were that he must have been equally keenly loved, and have left behind countless thousands of friends.
    The beginnings of a decision sprouted in Horn’s mind, like a shy flower putting forth green to test the climate of spring. He turned to the last page of the booklet on