Read The Chaos Weapon for Free Online Page A

source.”
    “That makes some sense,” said Tun Tse. “But the Sensitives have a reputation for being highly insular, and Mayo has now become a forbidden world. So it may be difficult to get the cooperation of their seer.”
    “But consider their position. Mayo’s stuck right out on the fringes of the Milky Way. They’ve everything to lose if the Federation falls to pieces because, like it or not, the Federation ships are what keeps the aliens at bay. If our defenses began to crumble, the inhabitants of Mayo would be nearly the first to go. And alien races don’t take prisoners …”
    “That argument sounds convincing to us, but I doubt if it would cut much ice on a Rim world before the alien threat became a reality. Remember, they have never seen any of the action for themselves. They don’t even
know
what things are waiting for them out there.”
    “Then it’s upto Marshal Wildheit to convince them. Jym, that’s your first job. Go to Mayo and secure yourself a Chaos Seer.”

FOUR
    FOR his journey from Terra to the galaxy’s edge where Mayo 4 orbited its own substantial sun, Wildheit was fortunate that both planets were situated on the same edge of the Milky Way’s great sprawl. Even so, the traversing of some seventeen thousand light-years in a vessel as small as the patrol-ship was no minor undertaking. Five days out of Terra in the
Gegenschein
, he made the first jump from the sub-light speed into subspace and emerged a mere six days later with nearly ten thousand light-years already behind him. The first leap had not been a critical one: its function had merely been to bring him to a point from which more careful jumps could place him finally within sub-light range of his objective.
    From that point on, observation and calculation occupied the majority of his time. A further three-and-a-half-light-year subspace jaunt left him with barely the similar distance yet to travel. He calculated each successive jump to halve progressively the remaining distance. Unfortunately, there was a minimum distance in a subspace leap which the little ship could undertake, and if he overshot or undershot his target by too great a margin he might easily find himself with six months’ sub-light travel before he could make planet-fall. In this respect he envied the great spaceliners which, on a routine trip, could regularly drop out of subspace after a single leap that usually put themwithin a few days out from their intended ports of call.
    He envied, too, the recreational facilities of the great liners. The single cabin of the
Gegenschein
and the ladders to the store and engine decks below provided the only area available for movement and exercise. Furthermore the light artificial gravity allowed his muscles to slacken to such a degree that he knew contact with a world of terrestial-norm gravity would be tiring and painful until his body had reestablished its tone. At such times of reduced efficiency, the symbiotic attachment of the god, Coul, on his shoulder would become a conscious, nagging ache that penetrated through to the very narrow of his bones.
    Coul himself was always more restless when in space. The unchanging scene offered no sustenance for his insatiable curiosity about things human. He would flicker on his ceaseless excursions across other dimensions and return despondently to Wildheit’s shoulder with the heavy-clawed twist of psychic feet. The pulse which marked each beat of his return was a fresh stimulus to a set of sensitive nerves in Wildheit’s upper arm.
    Despite all the discomfort, however, several reasons justified the man’s acceptance of the symbiotic god’s tenure on his shoulder. As they dropped into real-space and Wildheit began to make the calculations for the next jump, Coul suddenly crouched in quiet contemplation.
    “Marshal, I’m in communion with Talloth. Marshal Hover wishes to speak with you through him.”
    “Strange! We’re still in FTL transmission range. But I suppose he may