The Robert Silverberg Science Fiction MEGAPACK® by Robert Silverberg Read Free Book Online Page A

of Wazzenazz XIII stepped in.
    “How did you get in here?” I demanded.
    “Your man happened to be looking the wrong way,” he said cheerily. “Change your mind about me yet?”
    “Get out before I have you thrown out.”
    Gorb shrugged. “I figured you hadn’t changed your mind, so I’ve changed my pitch a bit. If you won’t believe I’m from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I tell you that I am Earthborn, and that I’m looking for a job on your staff.”
    “I don’t care what your story is! Get out or—”
    “—you’ll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second. Corrigan, you’re no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours outside is. He doesn’t know how to handle alien beings. How many times today has a life form come in here unexpectedly?”
    I scowled at him. “Too damn many.”
    “You see? He’s incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead. I’ve been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to know about alien life forms. You can use me, Corrigan.”
    I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of the office before I spoke. “Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is, I’ve had a hard day. There’s been a Kallerian in here who just about threatened murder, and there’s been a Stortulian in here who’s about to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it’s troubling me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up, and go home to Earth. I don’t want you hanging around here bothering me. I’m not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to claiming you’re an unknown life form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is that I’m not looking for any of those either. Now will you scram or—”
    The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian, came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster he was wielding a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately on to his belt.
    “Sorry, Chief,” Stebbins gasped. “I tried to keep him out, but—”
    Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out with a roar. “Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!”
    Sitting with my hands poised near the mesh-gun trigger, I was ready to let him have it at the first sign of actual violence.
    Heraal boomed, “You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the death of a life form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!”
    “Watch it, Chief,” Stebbins yelled. “He’s going to—”
    An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the mesh-gun trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
    Before I could react to the big life form’s hara-kiri, the office door flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the green sashes of the local police force.
    Their golden eyes goggled down at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
    “You are J. F. Corrigan?” the leader asked.
    “Y-yes.”
    “We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint being—”
    “—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the untimely death of an intelligent life form,” filled in the second of the Ghrynian policemen.
    “The evidence lies before us,” intoned the leader, “in the cadaver of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several minutes ago.”
    “And therefore,” said the third lizard, “it is our duty to, arrest you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than a hundred thousand dollars Galactic or two years in prison.”
    “Hold on!” I