The Death of Sleep by Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye Read Free Book Online Page A

They always traveled in threes. "There was the rumor of Epsilon Indi not long ago. All its satellites were attacked at once. Phoenix is just the most recent dead planet brought to light."
    "What happened to the colonists assigned to Phoenix?" a blond woman asked.
    "No one knows," the communications tech said, manipulating the controls at the base of the holofield. "Maybe they never made it there. Maybe the Others got 'em. Here, I'll run the 'cast again for those of you who missed it. I'm patching down files as quickly as I can strip them off the beacon." The crowd shifted, as viewers who had already seen the report went away, and others pressed closer.
    Squeezing between a broad-shouldered man in coveralls and a lizardlike Seti in an Administrator's tunic, Lunzie watched the report, which featured computer imaging of the new colony's living quarters and their industrial complex. What had happened to the other colonists? They must have relatives who would want to know. Humans weren't raised in vacuum. Each of these was somebody's son. Or somebody's daughter.
    "The FSP's official report was cool, but you could listen between the lines. They are horribly upset. Something's breaking down in their system. The FSP is supposed to protect nascent colonies," the blond woman complained to the man standing beside her.
    "Only if they prove to be viable," the Weft corrected her. "There is always a period when the settlement must learn to stand on its own."
    "It was their gamble," the Seti said, complacently, tucking its claws into the pouch pockets on the front of its tunic. "They lost."
    "See here, citizens, if the heavyworlders can make a go of it, let them have the planet." This suggestion was promptly shouted down, to the astonishment of the speaker, a florid-faced human male in coveralls.
    "It's a good thing the FSP don't have an attitude like yours," another growled. "Or your children won't have anywhere to live."
    "There are plenty of new worlds for all out there," the coveralled man insisted. "It's a big galaxy."
    "Look at us, we're all acting like this is news," the red-haired man grumbled. "Everything we get is months or years old. There's got to be a faster way to get information from the rest of civilization."
    "Speed of light's all I've got," the tech smiled wryly, "unless you want to pay for a regular FTL mail run. Or talk the Fleet into letting us install an FTL link booster on the transmitter. Even that's not much faster."
    Lunzie peered into the tank at the triumphant face of the Phoenix colony's leader, a broad-faced male with thickly branching eyebrows that shadowed his eyes. He was talking about agreements made for trade between Phoenix and the Paraden Company. All that was needed for a colony to be approved by the FSP was a viable population pool and proof that the colony could support itself in the galactic community. ". . . although this planet appears to be poor in the most valuable minerals, transuranics, there are still sufficient ores to be of interest. We have begun manufacture of . . ."
    "The heavyworlders shouldn't claim that planet, even if the first colonists didn't survive," Satia declared. "There are many more planets with a high gravity than there are ones which fall within the narrow parameters that normal humans can bear."
    "In my day," Lunzie began, then stopped, realizing how ridiculous she must sound, using an elder's phrase at her apparent physical age. "I mean, when I left Tau Ceti, the heavyworlders had just begun colonizing. They were mostly still on Diplo, except for the ones in the FSP corps."
    "You know, there must be a connection there somewhere," the red-haired man mused. "There was never planet-pirating before the heavyworlders started colonizing."
    A huge hand seized the man's shoulder and spun him around. "That is a lie," boomed the voice of a heavyworld-born man in a technician's tunic. "Planets have been found stripped and empty long hundreds of years before we existed. You want to