The Overlords of War by Gérard Klein Read Free Book Online

lips trembled.
    “That’s a private reason,” Corson said. “But why is the Council interested in me?”
    “They didn’t say. I think they believe Uria will have need of you. They’re afraid some danger threatens the planet and they’re convinced that only you can avert it. Why, I just don’t know.”
    “I have some idea,” Corson said. “Can you take me to them?” Antonella seemed dismayed by the question.
    “That might be rather difficult,” she said. “They live three hundred years ahead, and I myself have no means of traveling in time.”
    Corson broke the subsequent silence with an effort.
    “You’re trying to tell me you come from three centuries in the future?”
    She agreed.
    “And what assignment does this Council of yours plan to give me?” She shook her head, her hair swooping around her shoulders. “None that I know of. They simply want you to stay on this world.”
    “I can prevent the disaster just by sticking around?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Very comforting. And at this moment, while we’re talking, nobody is exercising any direct responsibility on this planet?”
    “No. The present Council supervises a period of a little over seven centuries. It’s not very much. I’ve heard of Councils on other worlds which have to look after a millennium or more.”
    “Well, at least that has the advantage of guaranteeing a stable power structure,” Corson sighed. “And how do you intend to get back to your own age?”
    “I don’t know. The idea is that you’re supposed to find a way." Corson whistled. “They’re landing me with more and more problems, aren’t they? Well, we have this much in common, anyhow: we’re both lost in timel”
    She took his hand.
    “I’m not lost,” she said. “Let’s go back. The light’s failing.”
    They returned to the floater, deep in thought and with bowed heads.
    “One thing at least is definite,” Corson said. “If you’re telling the truth, I’m going to find some means I don’t yet know about to reach that period of the future that you hail from, and up there I’m going to meet you even before you come to give me this warning. You’ll see me for the first time, I’ll see you for the second. I shall make advances that you’ll find incomprehensible. And at the end of that trip perhaps I’ll make sense of this unfathomable muddle.”
    He dropped on the cushions, and sleep overcame him while they flew toward the airborne city, its pyramidal splendor licked by the violet tongues of the sunset.
CHAPTER 11
    He was awakened by cries, grinding noises, the clumping of boots on a rough surface, orders shouted in a snarling voice, the spiteful clatter of weapons. It was absolutely dark. The floater was swaying from side to side. He turned toward Antonella, whose face he could not even discern in the inky blackness.
    “Has there been an accident?” “No, we're being attacked. I didn’t cog anything but this black cloud, and I couldn’t work out what it was.”
    “And what’s going to happen next?”
    “I can’t see anything. Just darkness, utter darkness.” There was despair in her tone.
    He reached out and squeezed her shoulder for reassurance. But in this total obscurity, no contact, however intimate, could dispel the sense of separation.
    He whispered, “I’ve got a gun, you know!”
    And in a single continuous movement he drew the weapon from its holster and swept the space around, trigger hard down. Instead of the fierce silver ray he was used to, a weak beam of violet shone from the muzzle. Two hands’ breadths away, it faded into nothing. This must be a force field, tuned to absorb not only light but even the most penetrating types of radiant energy. Within his very body Corson felt a nasty prickling sensation, as though his cells were threatening to lose their grip on each other.
    A voice so deep and powerful it was like a blow in the belly boomed from an incredibly distant cave.
    “Corson, don’t shoot—we’re