Judge Read Online Free Page B

nowhere on Eqbas Vorhi he couldn’t go, which was a strange situation for a prisoner; he’d stopped thinking of himself as one except for the times he felt an urge to contact Earth, which he was banned from doing because Shan had once told Shapakti that he was a slimy bastard who should never be trusted with a link, especially now that he had detailed knowledge of c’naatat. Shapakti, scared shitless of her and always mindful of an isan ’s advice, made sure that Rayat didn’t. Eqbas technology was nothing if not thorough. Wherever he went on the planet, the communications systems identified him and prevented his sending messages.
    He had not yet given up.
    Rayat waited on the walkway, looking out onto a city of impossible and breathtaking beauty. If anyone had pointed out Surang to him when he first arrived and told him that the structure was a vast ivory bracket fungus or coral, he might have believed them. But it was a city every bit as constructed as Moscow or Brussels. He took out his virin and checked the news feeds.
    FEU ON HIGH ALERT AS ALIEN FLEET REACHES EARTH
    Ah, Eddie. A dream headline for you, except you’ve already done them all now.
    Rayat could access all the incoming information that he wanted, all the Earth channels still being picked up by the local ITX node, but eventually he’d stopped wanting to know what was happening back home. He almost had to force himself to check the daily digests. But now that the fleet had arrived, and Earth was in turmoil, he wanted to know what was happening very badly indeed.
    I started this. I was tasked to investigate c’naatat long before Frankland ever stuck her bloody nose in. I was the one who opted for the cobalt bombs. I’ll finish the job.
    Nobody took any notice of Rayat as he leaned on a curved retaining wall and studied the selection on his virin. He’d been here so long that most Eqbas knew all about him, the exiled gethes who committed genocide and—somehow—had been spared the usual wess’har justice. He flicked through the news feeds, gazing at the image that filled his palm like a face frozen under ice.
    An evangelist was in full cry. “Judgment day is coming!” he roared. “Look at the signs—who’ll be saved? Only the few—”
    â€œYou’re not wrong there, friend,” Rayat muttered. “Stand by for downsizing.”
    It wasn’t as if Eddie’s incessant torrent of documentaries hadn’t given Earth the handbook for an Eqbas occupation. Humans just didn’t take any notice.
    Rayat worked through his options while watching the paskeghur boarding point. He liked to think of it as the metro. The transport route snaked through and under the city like a digestive tract, largely unseen, while the passengers within had the impression of being in a shallow boat skimming the tops of the vines that covered the heart of the city, with no sense of being in a subterranean tunnel. It must have been a similar technology to their transparent ships’ hulls and solid sheets of microscope; but even after twenty years here, he still didn’t quite understand how it worked.
    And I don’t understand how they think, either. Just when I feel that I do…I really don’t.
    Rayat glanced back to the headline feed on his virin. The FEU, Sinostates, African Assembly and the South Americas had now put their armed forces on the highest state of alert. Warships blockaded key waterways; fighters patrolled borders. Rayat thought it was a forlorn hope to try to stop the Eqbas that way, but then realized it was mostly to deter refugees who had already started fleeing.
    There was nowhere to go, but they didn’t seem to realize that.
    He switched off and waited. It was easier than watching the wheels come off when he could do nothing. Eventually Da Shapakti stepped out of the paskeghur looking happy with life—Rayat could read Eqbas wess’har very easily