Read Online A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) by Robert Taylor - Free Book Online Page A

units I had to try and learn a little about what had happened during the war between the Humals and my kind. It was difficult. Your ignorant species knows next to nothing of the Humals. All you seem to be interested in is the technological gains you can make from them. Suffice to say I had to send my own ‘experts’ to look into the matter. Their findings convinced me that I should consider keeping your species around for a while.”
    “Why was that?”
    Walsh shrugged. “It’s not very clear what happened. We were winning in that war. The Humals were on the ropes, so to speak. Then…nothing. It’s as if everyone just vanished. Humal and Jada-Ko-Vari alike. Very perplexing, wouldn’t you agree?”
    “Well, I’m sad the Humals vanished…” Hamilton smiled.
    “Ah, Hamilton. Now who’s trying to needle who?”
    “Anyway,” Hamilton continued. “So you got your people back here. Then what?”
    “Always fishing for information. Children are always so inquisitive.”
    “Just tell us what you’re doing, why you sent this communicator here, what you intend doing with us. The whole nine yards!” Hamilton growled.
    “I’m getting to it!” Walsh shook his head. “Very child-like, getting upset so easily. You should maybe seek some sort of counseling for that. I hear they have very good programs for that sort of thing where you’re going.”
    “And where might that be?” Hamilton sighed. He was tired of playing with Walsh already.
    Walsh grinned. “In a moment. Allow me to have my fun, first! As I was saying, I collected my people from that world where I abandoned you. Then we went on to gather more of my kind from other worlds I knew about. Then we came back here to begin our preparations. As I mentioned, I had already decided it might be prudent to hang onto your species for a while, until I discovered what had happened in the war. So we did other things. We insinuated ourselves into your computer systems and took over your people – the important ones anyway – as a precaution. Occupied your capital ships, your system communications nets. In fact, we’re pretty much everywhere now. There isn’t much that happens anywhere now that we are not made almost immediately aware of.”
    “Great. I’m very happy for you.” Hamilton sighed.
    “Thank you!” Walsh continued, ignoring the sarcasm. “In fact, the minute the Ulysses log transmissions made it to Tantalus Station I was aware of your return. I must say it sent a warm glow through me when I realized you were still alive. I thought of all the fun we’d had aboard the Hope’s Breath. I hoped we might enjoy some more such moments. But I assumed you’d simply tell the local authorities what had happened and then there’d be a problem.”
    “I figured as much.” Hamilton admitted.
    “To my surprise, however, you decided to lie and hide the truth. I assume you didn’t trust your own kind not to meddle. Very wise of you. Of course, they’d have found nothing at the Humal world we went to. I’d already cleaned it out and obliterated the evidence. However, that obliteration would have been evidence that something had gone on. As you no doubt surmised, questions would be asked, people and systems would be examined and so on. Eventually your species would have discovered us, or one of our slaved humans. Then it would mean all out war which, you appreciated, wouldn’t go at all well for your species.”
    “You might be surprised at how well we fight!” Rames said angrily.
    Walsh shrugged. “Oh you’d fight! I know that. But you’d die anyway. I and my nearly ten thousand cohorts, have had five years to prepare, after all!”
    There was a silence that greeted his numbers.
    “Yes. Ten thousand. As I said, we’re everywhere now. Shall I tell you how it would go? First we’d kill that StellarNet of yours. All your systems become isolated. You’d send ships to act as messengers. Those we controlled would simply vent their compartments to space and