Mutiny on Outstation Zori Read Online Free Page A

get back to you on this."
    "Fine," Bright nodded. "Now, please go with Zaxt. And try to see if you can pinpoint where Janssen might be; it'll make a difference regarding where your team is sent."
    "I said I'd think about it."
    "Good," the woman said, as Jamie and the bot walked back into the hall. "There's a lot riding on your memory, Mr. Clamber."
    * * *
    Jamie was pretty sure he remembered where Cast wanted to go.
    The two pilots had been lounging in a pleasure bar on Thomastation, soaking up too much good leisure and bad wine. Cast had sat hunched over, elbows on the checkered table, chewing a straw down to a glob of mangled plastic, and recounting adventures from his misspent youth.
    "You see my point, right?" Cast had asked earnestly. "A person can't begin to know what they want out of life until they're at least forty." He held up four pale, webbed fingers. "Everything before that age is influenced what other people want you to be. Sooner or later, you realize that there's more to life than they'd have you believe, and you start looking around for what's in it for you."
    Jamie had stretched his legs out across an empty chair and tilted his head back to stare at the paddle-fan rotating far above their heads. He asked casually, "Are you speaking from experience, or is that just the wine talking?"
    "I'm serious, you lout," Cast claimed indignantly. He kicked at the chair that held Jamie's legs. "When you get to be my age, you'll start trying to get some importance in your life. You'll see all the empty promises and decide that you'll do almost anything—any old thing—to satisfy your yearning for happiness."
    "I'm happy right here," Jamie said dreamily, and gestured for another round of whatever they were drinking.
    "I can see that," Cast shrugged. "And I'd expect that sort of comment from a third-rate circuit-jockey like you. But I know a place that would be far better than this dive."
    "Great. Let's go."
    Cast laughed. "Not so fast, partner. I'm talking about an Outstation in FZ13; you'd be sober by the time got there."
    "Then to hell with that!" Jamie received his drink from the serving droid. He had downed it without a breath, and the room began to tilt, as if he were seated on a long sliding ramp.
    "But I'm going there someday," Cast had continued to speak through Jamie's mellow haze. "I owe it to myself."
    "Fine. Fine. Just help me get a firm hold on the table before you go."
    The rest of the evening had been a blur. The conversation hadn't seemed important at the time, but now Jamie thought there might have been more significance to it than just bold bar talk.
    The only problem now was that Jamie felt unsure about telling any of this to employees of PANIC, Inc. There was something about the organization that bothered him. For that matter, he mused while walking along the seemingly endless corridors, there's something about all big organizations and corps that bothers me. Must be why I like working alone so much out in the frontier zones.
    He followed the bot through a maze of hallways, arriving at last before a small vator which they rode to a sub-basement. When the doors slid open, Jamie thought they were entering a large gymnasium, the kind he'd viewed on tactical adventure vids.
    The room was paneled with hundreds of hatches and access doors, several of which were in operation above, under and around the two combatants who were confronting each other with electro-staffs. Beneath the bright lights, one of the hatches thrust forward a series of buzz-saw tentacles, while another belched a stream of cloying red smoke.
    To the right of the two battling figures, a panel fired randomly spaced and timed thermal pulses that ricocheted off the floor. Both combatants bounded and dodged, making only occasional but forceful contact with each other.
    Zaxt observed offhandedly, "Low level child's play," and stepped over to a blinking control console. He thumbed in a sequence with remarkable speed and the activity in the room