Read STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS for Free Online Page A

just a few more months? I like the games you teach me.”
    “Well, you’re very good at math, Cal, good at these sorts of games. I’ve recommended you for advanced computer interface, did you know that?”
    “No!” the little boy said, unable to hide his excitement. “Thank you.”
    “And I must go because I must go. This is my job, Cal. I do it not out of any feeling for you children, but because it is my obligation to you as part of this Microstate.” The words were soft and considerate … touched with the very feeling they denied. Cal saw a gleam of wetness in the Dayfriend’s eye for just a moment, and then she was under control again.
    “I think the state can go to hell and toast to pure carbon!” Cal said viciously.
    “Cal, that’s treason talk, and we’ve spoken about treason talk before. I won’t report it. We’ve had a good time together, and I don’t wish to see it end on a sour note.”
    “I’m sorry,” the little boy murmured.
    “Of course you are. Now, I am already late.”
    “I’ll never see you again.”
    “There’s no rule against seeing each other again, Cal. But I will be placed on different planets, so it is unlikely.”
    The little boy could not look at the pretty Dayfriend as she rose to leave. Cal could see the struggle to fight back tears in the little boy’s face, and suddenly he vividly remembered that moment in his past as though it were happening again.
    As the hologram faded away, he found tears leaking down his face, tears that had been stored away, fermenting a long time. “Goodbye, Friend Mirg,” he whispered.
    All at once he was angry again. He jumped off the slab and shook his fist upward. “Okay, you jerks. Alien scumbags! You made me cry. Does that make you happy? You want a drop of the stuff for your specimen box? All it is is salinated H2O, you pathetic morons!”
    There was no response to his ranting, and so his rage spent itself. Realizing he was strangely tired again, Cal crumpled down to a sitting position on the floor.
    “No more show, huh? Got all the info stored away in the psyche files, right? Good. You know, I’m kind of hungry. Does this boat have dinner service?”
    Again no answer.
    “How about a good book? I’m getting pretty damned bored. In fact, I … ”
    The clouds solidified, opaqued. The ceiling was just a ceiling again.
    With a whir, an outline of a door appeared in the far wall. The door began to slide open.
    Cal jumped up. He wanted to run. But he controlled the emotion and stood his ground.
    When the door fully opened, only darkness lay beyond. Then a figure separated itself from the darkness.
    “Oh, my God,” said Cal Shemzak.

Chapter Five

    T he building in Upper Pan-America was a plain, functional sort: blocks on blocks; adhered stone, metal, glass. However, if its sprawling mass was architecturally plain to the casual Denver stroller or motorist, its interior was undeniably remarkable, not merely in context but in content. The plainness concealed the most advanced security system of the human universe: a complex gridwork not merely of alloys and rock but of force fields and energy bafflers. Guarded by a crack military division specifically bred and trained for the task, the Big Box, as it had been dubbed, was also paid special attention by the space weaponry array that guarded the home of humanity in this its most hazardous period in a long and spectacularly troubled history. This was the kernel of Federation government; it was here that the Overfriends—snidely called “the Best Buddies” by the Free Worlds they did not control—kept their offices.
    Overfriend Chivon Lasster was, at thirty-three standard Earth years, the fourth youngest member of the august body that guided the course of the Second Galactic Empire. Overfriends were the only group not specifically developed for their particular positions by the sociocultural machinery. Rather, they were the cream of their fields, elected by the other Overfriends after