Swords of Waar Read Online Free Page A

your time. I just want to see if—”
    She looked like she was going to cry, she was so sorry. “But I’m afraid there isn’t anything to see. I auctioned off all of my grandfather’s effects five years ago. It was in the news. If you want to see them, you’ll have to go to—” She frowned. “Oh, I don’t know where it went—Iowa or some place like that.”
    I stared at her, open-mouthed. “Iowa?”
    “Iowa. Idaho. I don’t remember now. I’m terribly sorry. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you.”
    She gave me another sad smile and started to close the door. I stopped it with a hand.
    “Please. Just one more question. Did they take everything? Are you sure they didn’t leave anything behind? Something that might have looked like a—a glowing clock, or a hood ornament, or a lamp?”
    Her lips pursed like she was going to get mad, but then she pulled up short and looked at me again, kinda uneasy. “Are you talking about the transmigration ray?”
    My heart leapt. That’s what Norman Prescott Kline had called the teleport gems. “Yes! The transmigration ray! I need to find one! Do you have one?”
    I realized as soon as I said it that I should have been more discreet. That uneasy look spread all over her face and became the same kind of smile Eli and Delia had given me when I was telling them about going to another planet—that tight little, “Get the net!” grimace. I was getting sick of it.
    “You do know that my grandfather wrote works of fiction. There is no such thing as a transmigration ray. He made it up.”
    Maybe I could have played it off and said I knew it was fake, that what I meant was that I was looking for a “prop,” as a memento, but I could tell, like a transvestite can tell when the red-necks in the corner have clocked her as a guy, that there was no putting the cat back in the bag. Nothing I could say now was going to convince Leigh Gardner I wasn’t crazy, so I went for it.
    “That’s not true, and you of all people should know it! Norman Prescott Kline went to Waar, and he used the transmigration ray to do it!”
    She backed up like I was going to hit her. I eased back, holding up my hands.
    “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to shout, but come on. Even if you don’t believe it, I bet there were rumors. Family stories. He must have told somebody. Was it you?”
    Her face got very stiff. I’d hit a nerve. She started to close the door. “I will not discuss my grandfather in this way. He was a very sick man. Goodbye.”
    “Sick? Ha!” I shoved my foot in the door. “So there were stories! He did say he’d gone to Waar. Did he say how? Did he say he had a transmigration ray?”
    Her pink face was turning red as she tried to crush my foot and close the door. “Please, if you don’t leave, I will call the police!”
    I was practically crying with frustration. I swear I put my hands together and pleaded like a schoolgirl begging for a pony. “Lady, Mrs. Gardner, please. I don’t want to scare you, and I don’t want to steal anything. I just want to look at the transmigration ray. If it doesn’t do what I think it will, I’ll leave. If it does… I’ll leave even quicker. Please. It’s the quickest way to get me out of your hair.”
    Leigh stopped pushing on the door and looked me in the eye. “Nothing like that was found among Grandfather’s things. He claimed he had one, and said he intended use it to go to Waar and live forever before he got old and frail, but he never produced it. He died in his bed at eighty-one.”
    My heart sank. “And nobody’s ever found one?”
    “Never. Now would you please go?”
    “Okay, okay. Sorry.”
    I pulled my foot out and the door slammed. I sighed and just stood there, head down, boiling with frustration. Was she lying? Did she know where the teleport gem was but didn’t want to tell me? I kinda doubted it. She didn’t seem like the lying type. Kline must have hid it before he died. Or maybe he lost it. Either way,