Read The Third Claw of God for Free Online Page A

human beings, and could simulate the look when they wanted to. He could just as easily be showing teeth for the other traditional reason. I certainly didn’t like the looks of that staff. Deadly as a Claw of God could be, I wasn’t any more enthused about the prospect of going down to an old-fashioned blow to the skull. A pair of well-dressed human beings, in their late teens or early twenties, stood behind him. From the young man’s resemblance to the famous Hans Bettelhine, I assumed him to be one of the Bettelhine “youngsters” Arturo Mendez had mentioned. He had a chiseled jaw and an aristocratic nose and a physique so slight it bordered on the unhealthy. I wondered if he’d been ill, or if this was some local affectation I didn’t know about, akin to the one that had once required the royalty of Ancient China on old Earth to grow their toenails and fingernails to a length designed to render them utterly dependent on their servants for everything from feeding themselves to basic hygiene. His attempt at a reassuring smile held back just enough to establish he’d known enough suffering to take a few degrees of warmth off any happiness he’d ever know. You expect to see looks like that on the faces of the poor. When on the rich, it usually evidenced a past that included failed attempts at self-destruction. The young woman was a different story. She resembled the princess of so many fairy tales, her skin porcelain, her shoulder-length hair a shade of gold that rendered the mere metal a gaudy pretender. She wore a loose ankle-length silver gown, just translucent enough to accentuate the difference between its comfy shapelessness and the shape of the curves underneath. She didn’t look like she’d ever suffered at all, though her concerned glance at the young man I assumed to be her brother suggested that she had been touched, in some way, by whatever had happened to him. There was a story here, one that might reward a closer look.
    But not now.
    Not with a Bocaian in the room.
    I said, “Stay right where you are.”
    The Bocaian cocked his head. “Forever? That would be tiring.”
    “I have as much time as you do, sir.”
    The haggard young man stepped away from the Bocaian and held both his hands out palm-first, in a placating gesture. “Counselor Cort? I’m Jason Bettelhine. This is my sister, Jelaine. I believe we can straighten this out, if you’ll just calm down and let us explain.”
    I laid on the chill. “This is calm, sir, and an explanation is exactly what I was about to demand. Your Mr. Pescziuwicz just turned Layabout upside down looking for Bocaians. He said that the two who attacked me were the only ones he’d ever seen. Now you waltz in here with another. Was your Mr. Pescziuwicz lying or incompetent?”
    “Please,” Jelaine Bettelhine said, her voice so soft that only breeding and immense personal will could account for the way it commanded the room. “Can we at least sit down while we discuss this? The Khaajiir hasn’t been well. He shouldn’t be forced to stand for too long.”
    I hadn’t taken my eyes off the Bocaian, but I assessed him again with this claim in mind, and took special note of his tight grip on that staff. He rested as much weight on that as on his own two legs. This didn’t remove him from consideration as a special threat; I’d known a petty criminal, once, who could barely walk but whose arms were deadly weapons. But neither could I see any pressing reason for the Bettelhines to drag me all the way to their world, if all they wanted was to place me in the same room with such an unlikely assassin. “Very well.”
    The Bettelines escorted the Khaajiir to the nearest sofa, which was rich enough and plush enough to make me feel somewhat safer, as even the most able-bodied human being might have had to struggle for a few seconds to escape from its decadent comforts. The cushions beneath him whooshed with escaping air when he surrendered to local gravity. He rested the