Read Fool's War for Free Online Page A

“That’s great! We must be getting an upgrade this run.”
    “That’s what I’ve heard.” Dobbs spread her hands. “But who knows what a Fool might have heard? So, tell me.” She made her eyes large, round and innocent and blinked rapidly. “Do you always shout at walls and passers-by?”
    Lipinski blushed an extraordinary pink color. “Actually, I do. Lousy habit, but there it is. Get me tense and I’ll yell at anything that doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.” He arched a knowing eyebrow at her. “I’m death to apprentice comm-officers. They can’t run.” His grin spread into a leer.
    Dobbs cowered behind her hands. “Oh, spare me,” she pleaded, all the while deciding she liked this man. “Please, spare me.”
    “Okay.” He shrugged and turned his attention back to the order terminal. “I’ve got to finish getting this order in anyway. Al Shei will not thank me if I keep us here contemplating our navels while there’s deadlines to be met.”
    “Is there something wrong with the data hold?” Dobbs stood on tip-toe and peered over his shoulder.
    “Yes.” He pulled out his pen and bent over the terminal board. “But there wouldn’t be if our fearless leader Katmer Al Shei wouldn’t keep letting Marcus Tully try to commit felonies with her ship.” He started scrawling orders across the memory board. The station AI must have had his handwriting on file. The screen kept printing out ACCEPTED even though Dobbs couldn’t make heads or tails out of the scribbles on the board.
    “I thought they had a time share,” she remarked, lowering herself back onto flat feet.
    “They do, sort of…   I shouldn’t be talking like this.” He scanned the acceptance notifications on the screen and punched the TRANSMIT key. “All I know for sure is that Dr. Amory Dane has a complicated load he wants us to carry to The Farther Kingdom. Lots of interconnected, self-referencing programs and a cart-load of background data. Tully’s guys burned out three main wafer stacks and reconfigured another four with whatever it was they were doing out there.” He shook his head. “This is why I’m yelling at walls.”
    “And Fools,” said Dobbs with a grin. “Don’t forget the Fools.”
    “I don’t think you’d let me.” His smile took on a contemplative air and Dobbs found herself thinking it might be time to make an exit. But Lipinski just sighed and turned back to the terminal. “And, since no one’s ever gotten a direct brain-to-computer interface to work, I can’t just crawl into the lines and see what’s going on in the hold for myself. So, I’ve got to rent all kinds of extra tracers and an AI coordinator, and Al Shei is going to be furious when she sees what I’m doing to her credit balances.”
    “Only if the data doesn’t get where it’s going,” said Dobbs.
    Lipinski gave her another thoughtful look. “You’re not half the Fool you ought to be.”
    “Shhh!” She waved him to silence. “You want me to get fired?” She glanced around frantically.
    As she did, Dobbs saw a woman push herself away from the wall and turn deliberately towards them. It would have been difficult to miss her. Her golden-brown skin was mottled with masses of purple and black bruises. Her tan sleeve had been rolled up to expose a blood blister that spread across her forearm like a spoiled rose. Her other arm was encased in the beige plastic form of a stasis tube. A sterile patch covered her right eye. Her good hand clutched the handle of a wafer case so tightly her knuckles had gone white and she walked with the care of someone who didn’t really want to make the pain any worse.
    “Sorry to pry, Fellows.” Her language was English but her accent had a nasal drawl to it which could have come from Australia, Cornwall, or the southern reaches of Northern America. Her greeting, though, marked her as a Freer. “I heard you say you were under contract to Katmer Al Shei?”
    Lipinski’s adam’s apple bobbed