Heirs of Earth Read Online Free Page A

amusement. “The others can’t hear me; I’m speaking only to you, because right now yours is the only opinion that matters.”
    “And I’m supposed to be flattered by that, Frank?”
    She heard a low chuckle. “Is that animosity I detect, Caryl?”
    “I don’t know. Why should I harbor any ill feelings toward you?” She couldn’t restrain her sarcasm. “That stunt you pulled back at Beid didn’t hurt us at all.”
    While she spoke, she ramped up her internal processing speed to its fastest setting, determined to outthink the man who’d brought so much death and destruction to humanity and its allies. But he was telling the truth: he wasn’t at the meeting. There was no sign of him in the assembly nor in any of the networks attached to it. The array of hole ships docked in the upper orbits of Rasmussen was empty of his spoor, as were the gifts themselves. The only other possible place in orbit around the planet was the Marcus Chown, looking boxy and antiquated against the superior technology of the Spinners. It hung innocent and isolated at a lower altitude, glinting brightly in the sunlight.
    “Got you,” she said. His transmission was coming from the gutted survey ship, the relic of Earth that had been abandoned as soon as the Gifts arrived.
    “You think I’m that stupid, Caryl?” Axford replied. “It’s just a relay. I could be anywhere in the system.”
    “You can’t be far away: your transmission lag is low.”
    “And what would you do if you found me, Caryl? Take me out? I’m only one of many, remember? You’d still be left with hundreds more Frank Axfords to contend with.”
    “That sounds like a threat, Frank.”
    “Listen, Caryl: either you’re going to hear what I’ve got to say, or I’m going to leave.” His voice was cool behind the amusement
    “And why should I—or anyone, for that matter—care if you stay or go? You’ve done nothing but hurt us in the past: stolen from the colonies, used the Starfish to cover up your thefts, sent the Yuhl almost to their deaths—”
    “ And saved your collective ass,” he interjected. “You just don’t know it yet.”
    Hatzis laughed at this. “I must have missed that part. I guess I was too busy fighting off the Starfish you set upon us.”
    “You seemed to do all right.”
    “Christ, Frank, do you even know how many people we lost because of you?”
    “Of course I do. I was watching. The data I gleaned were exceedingly valuable.”
    “I’m glad the massacre gave you some amusement.”
    “Oh, come on, Caryl! Put your hostilities to rest and just listen to what I have to say. We’re all in the same boat here. If we go down, we go down together.”
    “So your threat to leave was empty?”
    “I need you nowhere near as much as you need me,” he returned. “In a few days, we’re all going to be on the run from the enemy, and from that point on, there’ll be no turning back. Trust me, I’m your only shot at deflecting the Starfish.”
    No turning back, she echoed in her mind, tasting the notion and finding its bitterness appalling. The Yuhl had run, and were survivors as a result—but they were also scavengers, slowly devolving to the status of superstitious pirates. They practically worshiped the Spinner/Starfish migration, which they referred to in combination as the Ambivalence. Did a familiar fate now await humanity?
    “Okay, Frank. I’ll listen.”
    “But are you open to suggestions?”
    She sighed to herself. “If you’re going to suggest that we attack the Starfish again—”
    “Fighting back is our only chance of survival, Caryl.”
    “You saw what happened when you forced us into doing that before.”
    “Look, I’m not stupid, Caryl. I know you won’t stand any chance at all if you try going head-to-head with the big guns. I mean, that new ship of theirs—the Trident—that thing’s so big you could use it to skewer the Moon! There’s no way we’d be able to take one of those things out with anything