The Lani People by Jesse F. Bone (types of ebook readers txt) 📕

It was the last trip. Kennon loaded the jeep with the last-minute items he would need. The four reactor cores in their lead cases went aboard last and were packed inside a pile of lead-block shielding.

He helped Copper in and looked back without regret as the bulk of Olympus Station vanished below him in the dusk. The last of the work crew had left that afternoon. The station was ready for occupancy. His assignment had been completed. He felt an odd pleasure at having finished the job. Alexander might not be happy about his subsequent actions, but he could have no complaint about what he did while he was here.

“Well—say good-bye to Flora,” he said to Copper.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “I don’t want to leave.”

“You can’t stay. You know that.”

She nodded. “But that doesn’t make me any less regretful.”

“Regretful?”

“All right—scared. We’re going to try to make the God-Egg fly again. Not only is it sacrilege, but as you’ve often said, it’s dangerous. I have no desire to die.”

“You have two courses—”

“I know—you’ve pointed them out often enough,” Copper said. “And since you decided to go I’d go with you even though I knew the Egg would blow up.”

“You’re quite a girl,” Kennon said admiringly. “Did I ever tell you that I love you?”

“Not nearly often enough,” Copper said. “You could do it every day and I’d never get tired of hearing it.”

The jeep settled over the lava wall. “We’ll leave it in the passageway when we’re through,” Kennon said. “Maybe it will survive blast-off.”

“Why worry about it?” Copper asked.

“I hate destroying anything needlessly,” Kennon said.

“And since we have plenty of time, we might as well be neat about our departure.”

He was wrong, of course, but he didn’t know that.

* * *

Douglas Alexander checked the radarscope and whistled in surprise at the picture it revealed. “So that’s where he’s going,” he said softly to himself. “Cousin Alex was right as usual.” He grimaced unpleasantly. “He’s up to something—that’s for sure.” His face twisted into an expression that was half sneer, half triumph. “This is going to be fun.” He moved the control, and his airboat, hovering silently at five thousand meters, dropped toward the ground in free fall as Douglas loosened the Burkholtz in the holster at his waist. “But what is he doing?” he muttered. The question hung unanswered in the still air of the cabin as the airboat dropped downward.

Douglas hadn’t been impressed with Blalok’s attempt at a delaying action. Normally he might have been, but his fear of his cousin was greater than his respect for Blalok. The superintendent had only succeeded in accomplishing something he had not intended when he had tried to dissuade Douglas from visiting Kennon. He had made Douglas cautious. The airboat and long-range surveillance had been the result. For the past two nights Douglas had hung over Olympus Station, checking the place—to leave at dawn when the new day’s work began. For two nights Kennon had been lucky. He had departed for the Egg shortly before Douglas took up his station, and had returned after the watcher had called it a night and had returned home. But this last night, Kennon left late—and his departure was noted.

“Wonder who’s the girl with him?” Douglas said as the boat plunged down. “Well, I’ll be finding out in a minute.”

Kennon’s head jerked upward at the sound of air whistling past the airboat’s hull, and a wave of icy coldness swept through his chest. There was no question that he was discovered. His shoulders sagged.

“Well—it was a good try,” he said bitterly as Copper looked at him with sudden terror on her face.

“I don’t want to die,” she wailed.