Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

your homeworld, Halcyon.”
    His skin was gray from age between the rough-barked orange wrinkles, under a layer of dust. His nose slits opened and closed as he drew in labored breaths. “Briertrush.” His voice was as hollow as a kwaii already on flight to another lifebind. The usual pleasant Kubraen aroma of maple syrup had bittered with age and too much work to a sour smell.
    He paused with the empty shovel and staggered back a few steps as he tried to straighten up. “Oh, yesh! Briertrush, good oversheer. A fine Kubraen. Yesh.” He nodded. “Briertrush,” he repeated dully and returned to work.
    The slaves around us, cracking and hauling the salt crust while pumps sucked precious lithium from underground, slid me frightened looks and returned to work.
    “Get back to shoveling, Havthror,” a BEM slave called to the Kubraen. “This one will get you into trouble!”
    “Not from me,” I told the BEM.
    I held Toby's reins in the midday heat. It lay like a soggy blanket across the land. The taste of dust was heavy in my mouth.
    The old Kubraen's twin breathing slits flared with each painful breath that rasped in his throat. Sweat ran down the brown creases of his arms. His slab feet were braced apart as he tried to dig the shovel under a large chunk of salt crust with his long fingers. His sunken chest heaved with effort as he lifted it to the waiting cart.
    I tied Toby's reins to a broken pick axe and took the empty shovel gently from his hands. “Here, old father. Let me help you.”
    He blinked at me with reddened eyes. “Oh, you are Terran Jules, Lisha's progenitor. I remember you when you helped my people on our homeworld. Oh. Does the young one live fine?”
    “Lisa's fine.” I dug through hardened salt and hefted a shovelful into the cart. “She's back on Earth. How's Briertrush? Is he OK?”
    "Oh, yesh. Leader now Briertrush. Now that Gwis in greth state.
    “How long have you been here, old father?”
    “Oh.” He rasped out a dry chuckle. “Maybre two lifetrimes.”
    I glanced up at the high tower and saw Boss Slade's shadow behind the bars of the blinds.
    I'll catch hell for this,
I thought, and lifted another shovelful while the old Kubraen sank to the ground and sat, hunched forward, his head hanging.
    “Do you want to get Havthror killed?” the BEM slave asked me in his metallic voice and swung his axe into the salt with four tentacles.
    I heard murmurs from the slaves as the click of a horse's hoofs grew closer.
    Azut stared at me from his mount, his coiled whip gripped in a tight hand. “Put down the shovel, overseer.”
    I did, and wiped my forehead.
    “Ye like to walk the edge, don't ye?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” I threw back. “It's where I live!”
    * * *
    “What in the name of the Sacred Idols of Altair is that fool doing?” Boss Slade shouted from his window in the high tower as he watched Jules take the shovel from the staggering Denebrian.
    “I-I would say he's trying to help that slave,” his secretary Zora said and wiped spittle from her chin.
    Boss Slade swung to face her. The elongated scales on his back lifted into spikes until Slade towered over the petite, female Altairian.
    “Anyway, from how it looks, sir,” she whispered and seemed to shrink into herself.
    “And what brought you to that clever conclusion, Secretary Zora?”
    Zora glanced around, her data pad clutched to her chest, as though to seek escape from this conversation. “Boss Slade,” she whispered with lowered snout, “ye physician advised ye not to maintain an agitated state of mind…if possible.” She dipped into a curtsy. “Remember ye heart, my superior.”
    “And yesterday he was down there watering the ponies.” Slade slammed a fist against the wall. Chips of plaster flew. “He tasks me!” He strode across the office and turned, a meaty fist extended. “Have I not given him everything he could ask for?”
    Zora nodded quickly and stepped back against the wall, her golden eyes