Destroyer of Worlds Read Online Free

scanned her where she lay. He lifted her from the pod and set her on her feet, running more scans as she stood shaking.
    â€œAcceptable,” Qweklothk said. That concluded their business, and he turned to leave. Almost as an afterthought, he snapped the breeder’s neck.
    Comet dwellers had resources to build starships and flee the oncoming radiation, but that would only prolong their extinction. Even at near lightspeed and measured in ship’s time, the flight to safety in the outer galactic reaches would be an epic endeavor. Without cold sleep, most of all for the children and breeders, the comet dwellers could not possibly survive the trek.
    Living quarters on a ramscoop were limited and austere. In less perilous times, it had been thought cold sleep would allow clan Rilchuk’s migration to a new home—a world distant enough that rivals without cold sleep would not follow. How ironic, Thssthfok thought, to have found such a world only to abandon it. And that one hundred light-years once seemed a great distance.
    Now cold-sleep technology might save his bloodline in another way.
    Many comet dwellers would die rescuing breeders from Rilchuk, in exchange for cold-sleep technology.
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    THE ARMADA DESCENDED ON PILLARS of fusion fire. Airplanes and spaceships rose to intercept. Beam weapons, missiles, and railguns lashed out from every vessel. Plummeting like stones or bursting like fireworks, mortally injured craft disappeared from the sky. The evacuation fleet fought its way ever closer to the island of Rilchuk. At the appointed time, encrypted in clan codes, ships radioed the prearranged radio call signs.
    From the developed end of the island, protectors unleashed their weapons to cover the landing of their rescuers. On the opposite, primitive end of the island, children and breeders cowered from the noise and chaos.
    After massive losses to both sides, the enemy ships broke off their attack. The surviving evacuation ships, still broadcasting family recognition codes, vectored toward landing zones at the island’s unpopulated waist. At the last moment, the oncoming ships swerved—
    Incinerating with fusion flames the Rilchuk protectors on the ground. The comet dwellers could hardly rely on Rilchuk protectors to stand by passively while strangers captured their breeders.
    Thssthfok would have done the same. Protectors were always—except, possibly, to themselves—expendable.
    Through comm relays and by remote sensing, from the comparative safety of far-off
New Hope
, Thssthfok watched the comet dwellers round up, gas, and load children and breeders.
    The comet dwellers now held Rilchuk breeders as hostages. Clan Rilchuk had been granted an ample supply of comet-dweller breeders as its ownhostages. One clan needed cold-sleep pods and expertise. The other clan needed additional ships. Apart, they would surely die. Together, they might survive.
    Thssthfok wondered how long the alliance could last.
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    THE RILCHUK/COMET-DWELLER FLEET RECEDED into the void. Thssthfok’s final glimpse of Pakhome, before he lost it in the sternward glare, was of the southern hemisphere. At this distance, the Library complex was no longer visible. The stamped metal pages of the Library would survive the catastrophe soon to kill everyone left on the planet.
    Thssthfok redirected
New Hope
’s telescope forward. Toward the galactic arm, and beyond.
    Toward, if the fleet had one, its future.

IMPENDING DOOM

4
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    Sigmund Ausfaller always knew he would die horribly. Oddly enough, he had been optimistic. He had died horribly—twice. So far.
    Modern medicine being all but miraculous, he was, all in all, pleased with how things had turned out.
    That worried him.
    Familial chaos surrounded Sigmund. Like a third lease on life, domestic bliss had taken him by surprise. He took a moment to bask in the commotion.
    Hermes was tall for his age and skinny as a rail, with masses of dark curly hair. He had