Star Bridge by James Gunn Read Free Book Online Page B

color, betraying the infinitesimal power loss of the unitronic field that lifted and drove it.
    Wu squalled and jumped to his feet. With one hand, Horn dumped him unceremoniously into the brush and held him there.
    â€œShut up and stay down!” he shouted above the whine.
    Wu shivered helplessly, his face pressed into the dirt. “My ancestors, preserve me!”
    Gently the giant stern lowered, passed them not a hundred meters away, and slowed to a stop on the field below. Colossal, tripod landing skids unfolded and bit into the mountain. The ground quivered under them. From behind them came the rumble of falling rock. Horn thought of the tunnel and hoped, briefly, that it hadn’t been blocked.
    He raised his head above the wall, shaken now so that it was only half as high. He could still see the monument and the platform in front of it. The ship served him instead of Eron; it gave him a shield from casual observation.
    He glanced upward at the black tower, and Lil fluttered across his vision. For the first time he realized that she had been gone.
    â€œGuards are as thick as lice on a beggar’s bed,” she reported. “But that monster is nothing to worry about. A man in armor pays no attention to ants underneath his foot.”
    Wu groaned, unappeased. “Can’t a man pick up a wretched handful of diamonds? Must the Company send ships enough to blow the whole planet into atoms?”
    Horn unclipped the pistol from the cord around his shoulder. There was little to go wrong with it, but even that little was a chance that need not be taken.
    With the quick efficiency of the Guard, he stripped it down. Out of the butt he shook the small, flat dynode cell. Its molecule-thin films stored the energy of a ton of chemical explosives. The little magazine of fifty bullets was well oiled; the projectiles slid easily. The helix-wound barrel was clean and untarnished.
    It was in perfect working order. When he pulled the trigger, a bullet, armored against atmospheric friction, would leave the gun with the velocity of an ancient cannon shell.
    Wu looked at the dismantled gun and shuddered. “It seems as if all these precautions are for you,” he said slowly. “I urge you: don’t use that pistol! One man’s death means nothing—except to himself. And the death that gun holds is yours.”
    Horn stared silently across the mesa toward the monument and thought again: Why am I here? To kill a man , he told himself, to do a job no one else could do.
    â€œThe man of violence,” Lil said suddenly, “is a dangerous companion.”
    â€œYou are right, Lil, as usual,” Wu said.
    Before Horn could stop him, the fat, old man had grabbed his suitcase and vaulted the little wall with surprising agility. As Horn listened to him slithering down the other side, his hands were busy snapping the pistol back together.
    He pointed the pistol over the wall—and lowered it slowly. Wu and the parrot were already mingling with the throng below. A shot would accomplish nothing now but betrayal.
    And yet— Horn indulged in a rare moment of self-reproach. This was the price of softness. It was obvious that the yellow man was going to sell him to save his own ancient skin.
    Horn shrugged. There was nothing to do but wait.

 
    THE HISTORY
    Secrets don’t keep.…
    The facts of nature are written duplicate in atoms, which reveal them with the same phenomena everywhere, for intelligence to see. Intelligence can’t be monopolized.
    Yet one secret kept for a thousand years.
    Men died to learn Eron’s secret: scientists, spies, raiders. The theory, the mathematics, the technical details were all available in thick manuals and thicker textbooks. Captured technicians could build Terminals, but they couldn’t link them together. One thing was missing: the imponderable, the unguessable. The secret.
    Of the many ways to keep a secret, only one is perfect: tell nobody. But some