master was.
The prefab warehouse catered to the sort of misfits that used Long Jump as a base of operations, and was subdivided into a labyrinth of heavily screened cubicles. It was difficult to see in the murky corridors, but most of the compartments seemed to crammed with semi-worthless junk. The owner, a weasel nicknamed “Pop,” dogged the merchant’s steps. He was as small as the other man was large and dressed in property confiscated from his nonpaying customers. A two-thousand credit spydersilk robe napped around his tiny body as he walked. “He’s down this way Mr. Small... along with some of his infernal machines. They just walked in and took over.”
The twosome turned a comer, passed under a dangling light wand, and located their quarry. Jepp was there all right—along with a clutch of robots. A silver globe bumped into Small’s wellshad feet, transformed itself into something that resembled a spider, and attempted to scale the merchant’s right leg. He bent over to peel the device off. Sam took exception. “Hey1 Watch it buster! Hands off.”
Startled by the robot’s use of standard, the merchant took a step backward. The robot lost interest and dropped free. Jepp, who had chosen to ignore the businessman up till then, scanned the title of a holo disk and dropped it into a box. “Don’t mind Sam . .. he’s harmless enough. I wondered when you would show up.”
Small, who felt inexplicably nervous, was shocked by the sound of his own voice. He sounded weak, and a little bit subservient, like those who worked for him. “Really? Yes, I suppose you did.”
“Of course I did,” Jepp said matter-of-factly. “So what did your friends say? Get rid of him? And do it fast?”
“Something like that,” Small admitted lamely.
“So what will you give me?” Jepp demanded, hands on hips.
Small shrugged. “Whatever you want. So long as you leave and take the machines with you.”
“ ‘Whatever I want,’ “ Jepp mused. “I like the sound of that. . . One can imagine all sorts of things. The sort of worldly garbage that a man like you would ask for.
“But God has no interest in such things . .. and neither do his servants. I ask only two things, one for the Hoon, and the other for myself.”
Small felt a small, hard lump form in his throat He had no idea who or what the Hoon was ... but wasn’t sure it mattered. As with all business deals, the price was what mattered. “Yes? What do you want?”
“The Sheen are looking for a race known as the Thraki.
Have you heard of them?”
The merchant shook his head. Chins jiggled. “No, but we don’t get much news out here. You know how it is ... The Feddies don’t care about us, and we don’t care about them.”
Jepp looked unimpressed. “You have contacts ... use them. Talk to the smugglers. They know what’s going on ... they have to. I want a report by this time tomorrow.”
Small nodded weakly “It shall be as you say. And the second request?”
“Five years’ worth of the best ship rations you can lay your hands on, fifty thousand gallons of purified water, a class one autodoc with plenty of supplies, ten dark blue ship suits, ten sets of underwear, two pairs of size twelve boots and ten thousand bibes. At the spaceport by tomorrow night.”
The fact that the list didn’t involve large quantities of money or other valuables granted Small a tremendous sense of relief. ‘That sounds doable . .. Everything but the Bibles. I doubt there’s more than 100 on the entire planet.”
“Then print some more,” Jepp replied sweetly, “or Judgment Day may arrive a little bit early.”
The Hoon was both annoyed and amused by the supplies that the soft body wanted to bring aboard. Not that it made much difference since there was plenty of room.
Of greater significance was the fact that the biological had clearly decided to stay. A thoroughly disagreeable prospect except for one thing: Prior to quitting the planet’s surface, the human had acquired some valuable intelligence. It seemed that this particular world was little more than an outpost for a much larger multicultural civilization. A society still struggling to cope with the fact that the Thraki armada had dropped out of hyperspace, seized control of a planet, and taken up residence there. An extremely important development—assuming it was true.
The information had been culled from soft bodies that Jepp considered unreliable, nonfunctional, and in some cases outright hostile. In fact, based on observations the computer intelligence had carried out while monitoring its robots, some of the data had been obtained under physical duress. Still, the claims were consistent with each other plus other data stored in Hoon’s banks, and not to be ignored. The Sheen would proceed, albeit cautiously, to avoid any sort of trap. As for the planet below, well, there were ships to feed, and even though the city would offer little more than a snack, something is better than nothing.
