Read The Altar at Asconel for Free Online

to buy a ship, but it doesn’t cost anything to run one, for they’re self-fueling and almost indestructible. The Argian fleet numbered one hundred million vessels at the height of Imperial power, and there must have been almost one thousand times as many as that in service throughout the galaxy. Yet now—as you just said—there are so few ships you may wait a month for passage on what used to be a flourishing Imperial star-lane.”
    “We’re building some ships of our own, though—”
    “Where? Not in Imperial space, Vix. Out on the Rim, where the Imperial writ never ran. I sometimes think I’d like to go out there, to see what human endeavor can do by itself, without accidental help from a vanished race.”
    “A long trip without much prospect of reward,” Vix said. “Me, I’ll stick around the hub. Numbers like a hundred million can’t mean much to a man unless he’s prepared to think of planets as grains of dust and human beings as less than bacteria. And no one raised on a world as sweet as Asconel could do that.”
    Spartak shifted his heavy load to the opposite shoulder. He was a little relieved at what Vix had just said. In the years since they last met, this fiery older brother of his had clearly matured as Tiorin had done, and there was agood chance, he reasoned, of their becoming friends at last.
    “Want me to take over one of those bags?” Vix offered now, forgetting his downright refusal to help in carrying them.
    “Hm? Oh—no thanks. They’re not as heavy as they look. If I do get tired, I’ll tell you.”
    But Vix hadn’t lost all his former touchiness; at the declining of his help, he put on a scowl and left it there for the next several minutes.
    “How did you—how did you come by your ship?” Spartak asked eventually, after casting around for some way of keeping the talk moving.
    “Took it as my pay after we put down the rebellion of the old Twenty-Seventh Fleet.”
    Spartak remembered Father Erton’s accusation against the fighting order to which Vix had pledged himself; he swallowed dryness and was glad when the other left the subject where it lay.
    “That’s not all I’ve picked up, by any means, though most of what I’ve had I’ve spent as fast as I got it. Matter of fact, I guess there may be some problems if you’ve fallen into the ways of these sexless monks you’ve kept so much company with.”
    “You have a girl with you?” Spartak suggested.
    “That’s right.”
    “A slave?”
    “I don’t like the tone of your voice,” Vix said sharply. “I don’t pay her regular wages, if that’s what you mean, but I keep her, feed her, clothe her—and she does the chores for me that a woman usually does for a man. But there are other reasons why a girl keeps company with a man without being enslaved. Have you forgotten, cooped up in your hermitage here?”
    “Have you been together long?” Spartak inquired peaceably. He was tempted to correct Vix’s mistaken idea of the life led by his order, but after the row with Father Erton he felt he no longer held a brief to defend it.
    “About five years altogether.” Vix brightened a little; they were in full sight of the transport terminus in the village. “Ah! From here we can get to the spaceport in under the hour.”
    “There she is,” he exclaimed, throwing up a proud arm to point. “The smallest vessel in sight, but mine. Go over and stow your bags. I have to pay port dues and get clearance—they still observe all sorts of old-fashioned rules and regulations here.”
    “Ah—this girl of yours,” Spartak ventured. “What’s her name, for when I meet her?”
    “Vineta. Don’t worry—she knows it’s you coming back with me if anyone off this world does.”
    Spartak shrugged and made off across the hard gray surface of the port. A great deal must have changed in the last few years, he reflected, for his brother to have secured a ship of his own. Governments of planets, great trading enterprises, and other