What I saw there was a deep green. A green that reminded me of our own earthly blue, just as full of color and glowing light. I wondered what atmospheric elements might make one sky blue and another red, or green like this one.
That’s what did it for me, the sky. I felt like an idiot. It was so obvious. I’d seen this place, off and on, for years. I’d even visited here several times. Once, decades back, I’d led a commando mission onto these islands and killed a Wur scientist of sorts.
“Green sky, green sea…” I said aloud. “Green World…”
There was an endless ocean out there. No other land was in sight. Just like every other time I’d been here, or caught a glimpse. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn’t much land on this planet. It was mostly covered in oceans—or at least that was my impression.
Tearing my gaze away from the sea and sky, I began scanning the beaches. I didn’t see anyone around, but there had to be someone here.
There were other hulking buildings nearby. Each was large—as big as the warehouses on the docks back at Central City. Were they all full of stolen goods? There was only one way to find out.
Gripping my pistol firmly and trying to look every which way at once, I walked across rocks and sand to the next massive building. This one had an open doorway which yawned wide to reveal the cavernous interior. I slipped around the massive door, careful not to make it swing or creak, and I walked into the quiet interior.
-6-
The second warehouse was just as chockfull of stuff as the first had been. This was way too much theft to be done for easy profit—it was the kind of stash I’d seen at supply depots on legion bases.
What was more important was the different kind of goods I found in the second building. Instead of science and survival gear, I found weapons. Lots of them—and some of them were weird.
In general, the rifles looked to be the size of rocket launchers. They appeared to fire plasma bolts, but I passed on the idea of shooting one off to confirm my suspicions. Whoever had built up this massive stockpile would doubtlessly react in a negative fashion to a man like me poking around in here.
There were rebreathers, too. Stuff built for underwater work. And larger, automated gun turrets. I had a fair amount of experience with this sort of thing. You could set them up like automatic sprinklers, and they would sense, track and destroy any target that failed to transmit the correct friend-or-foe codes. They were nasty things. As an infantryman I hated them just on principal.
After spending a good half-hour fooling with the gear, I came to a realization: this equipment wasn’t meant for a human army. The stuff would hardly fit on a man. Not even a heavy trooper from Blood World could carry this kind of kit easily. The rifles alone had to weigh damn near a hundred kilos.
“Found anything you like, yet?” asked a feminine voice from behind me.
I spun, lifting my pistol, but she had a bead on me already.
“Ah-ah,” she said, taking aim at my face. “Don’t make me shoot you, James. I’d feel bad.”
It was Abigail Claver. She was a woman of ill-repute by anyone’s standards. For years, I counted her as a friend, but today…
“What’s all this for, girl?” I demanded. “You’ve got enough stuff to outfit an army—an army of giants, that is.”
Abigail looked thoughtful. “Of all the people I didn’t expect to find out here in my warehouse, you have to top the list. I saw the sensor readings, and they said you were human, but I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it with my own eyes.”
I smiled and lifted my hands in a shrug. “Well… I do get around.”
“That you do. Now, before I send you back to whatever casting device you came out of, James, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Uh… like what?”
“Is Central watching this right now?”
There was an edge to her voice. I could hear it plain as day. She was pretending not to care much one way or the other, but as a near-professional liar myself, I knew she was bullshitting.
The trouble was, I wasn’t sure how to answer her. If I told her Central was watching, well then, she would have no qualms about offing me immediately. The casting device worked that way, sending spies to ungodly places so they could look around, then watching them die and printing out a new man when the death was confirmed.
The difficult part was no one was watching me today. I had no guardian angel looking over my shoulder. If I died out here on Green World, I would be most soundly permed. No one knew I was here except for Abigail, and I couldn’t count on her kind heart after I’d gone and trespassed and snooped around and everything.
Although it hurt my thinker to even contemplate it, I thought I was going to have to come clean and tell her the truth—most of it, at least.
“Well… that’s a tricky point. I’m not supposed to be here. You see, I discovered your operation at the docks at Central city. After a little bit of… convincing… I got the sailors aboard one of those big ships to send me here to check things out.”
“Really? And why would you be doing that, pray tell?”
I shrugged. “That should be obvious. You’ve been stealing lots of stuff, Abigail. That has been noticed. Investigators found your setup with the containers and the x-ray-looking machine. Anyways, I was sent to find
