Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War Read Online Free Page A

you be selling yourself on every streetcorner, no reasonable offer refused?" He could see he was embarrassing the Kaempferts, but what he was saying was true.
    Bill Kaempfert grinned uncomfortably. "That's a point, Thad," he admitted. "But you don't knock your bread and butter."
    Demaris thumped his empty glass down on the side table. "Would we starve?" he asked. "Would we really wind up begging in the streets? You especially; couldn't you get a job as a personnel manager with any company you wanted?"
    Kaempfert shrugged. "Maybe. If I could think up some explanation for not having any references. It's been ten years since I've held a legal job."
    "O.K. So you'd have a little trouble. But not that much. Besides, we're off the point."
    Kaempfert raised his eyebrows inquiringly. Demaris inhaled raggedly.
    "Let's face it, Bill—we're bad enough off now, but we'd cut our throats if we gave it all up and tried to live in this teashop society. We just don't fit. Our personal frontier doesn't stop at Pluto." He grimaced.
    "Here we sit. Two prime representatives of a race that used to have guts to spare—that scared the universe half-silly the first time we pushed a rickety tin can to Sirius. And here we sit now—the backwash of the Wave of the Future!"
    Kaempfert put up a restraining palm. "Easy, Thad. Most people would figure Pluto was plenty far enough. Most people don't ever even leave Earth. And we may have scared the universe, but we sure didn't impress the Vilks."
    Demaris brushed Kaempfert's palm down as effectively as though there'd been a physical contact. "All right. So the barbarians licked us. That was when the TSN was fifteen ships and a handful of cranky torpedoes. Now the Vilks are gone for good. It was an Earthman that licked 'em, too."
    Kaempfert nodded. "Old Connie Jones."
    " Exactly! Connie Jones—an Agency man hired by Farla. So who got the territory an Earthman won? Who moved in where Earthmen should have been the conquerors? It would have been Farla, buying its military brains from an Agency run by Earthmen. It happened to work out that Farla bled itself to death. So who does move in? Who takes the territory that's open by default? Does Earth have even that much ambition?
    "No, it has to be rabble like the Maraks, or the Geneiids! A pack of jackals. And what does Earth government do about it? Earth government isn't even interested. And what do individual Earthmen do—the ones who still care? Why," Demaris suddenly simpered, " we work for Mr. Sullivan's Agency, and we'd be only too happy to hire out to one of the jackals, wouldn't we? We're for sale; lock, stock, and barrel, soul, body, and birthright. We do the dirty work for every stinking little race in the galaxy, and meanwhile Earth government sits primly on its solar system and keeps its hoopskirts dry."
    "Thad?"
    "Yes, Leni?"
    "Thad, what you're angry at is that Bill and I don't protest as much as you do. But we aren't arguing. Bill thinks you're right, and so do I. Still, there's no way we can change Earth's present attitude. And we've at least got this substitute.
    "And tell me this, Thad—honestly, now, and no heroics—will you quit? Will you ever quit, and settle for a life here on Earth? Going from one duel to the next until nobody dares associate with you and you blow out your own brains for lack of some other man to fight?"
    Demaris looked at her helplessly. "No," he admitted.
 
"Though we are men, at the Agency,
We fight in peculiar skins.
Aptly taught, we're not caught—
We've been thoroughly trained,
In the lore of exotical sins."
 

Chapter Three
    The Agency building was dingy. Demaris and Kaempfert walked down the grimy hallway and up the splintered stairs to the second floor. They pushed through the chipped glass door labeled "Doncaster Industrial Linens" and were in the Agency's front office.
    Demaris still felt the irritating memories of last night's adrenalin. He looked around and shook his head. "There's no place like home