Read Online Sidney's Comet by Brian Herbert - Free Book Online Page B

big chair. Slipping into their unspoken conversation mode, he mentoed: It’s a subliminal transmitter, too, Arturo.
    Munoz brightened. Yeah? It’ll change votes in Tuesday’s election?
    You bet. As you know, every consumer-issued brain implant has a subliminal receiver, originally for the purpose of picking up advertising suggestions from Harmak and from National Home Video. Hudson noticed Munoz looking out the window, added: Now we don’t have to worry about retaliation from the Black Box to a military attack. You can take power peacefully.
    Uncle Rosy was a crafty bastard, Munoz mentoed. I still think he spread that retaliation story as a bluff.
    “What time shall I arrive for dinner Sunday?” Hudson asked, making harmless conversation for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping.
    “Six or six-thirty. We’ll play a little Knave Table afterward.”
    Hudson took the old cross and chain to a wall-mounted disposa-tube, dropped it on a shelf door which opened as he approached. I thought you would be pleased with the new cross, he mentoed. But you don’t seem to appreciate it.
    The shelf door snapped back into place. Machinery inside the wall whirred.
    It pleases me, Munoz mentoed. But wait until you hear what popped out of the trash can in my office this afternoon. You know how you’re always telling me I should reconnect my disposa-tube? Well, listen to this. . . .

    That night, Sidney mentoed his bedside dream machine, instructing it to take him on an ego pleasure space fantasy. He fell asleep within minutes, imagining a wonderful, magical adventure. . . .
    “Fsssing! Fsssing! Fsssing!” Death rays from his one-man gunship, the Galilee, cut though space, making sounds that were only possible in fantasies. Three exploding balls of orange and purple ahead marked the dream-precise hits: three Slavian warships!
    “Half-human monsters!” Captain Malloy cursed under his breath. He mento-banked the gunship, headed back to astro-port.
    “Captain Malloy!” the speakercom blared. “The President wishes to speak with you!”
    In his dream, Sidney listened as President Ogg explained: “The Slavians have diverted a great comet, Captain! It’s on a collision course with Earth!”
    “How diabolical, Mr. President!”
    “The reason they are masters of the Humboldt Star System, Captain. There is strength in being evil!”
    “What are my orders, sir?”
    “The comet will pass near you in sixteen minutes,” Ogg’s dream voice said. “Stop it, Malloy. You’re the only force between us and destruction!”
    “I’ll do my best, sir.”
    “If you succeed, there’s nothing you can’t have . . . riches, beautiful women . . . even the AmFed Presidency!”
    “I don’t want any of those things,” Sidney’s imagined self told the President. “I’ll do it because . . . because . . . duty calls!”
    Sidney saw his dream ship now from a detached vantage point, watched it bank gracefully and slide through frigid black space toward a huge rainbow-colored fireball that was bearing down on Earth. Then he saw himself lying in bed with a determined but contented expression as he experienced the dream.
    “Awaken, fool!” a voice from afar said. Then another voice, equally distant and echoing, said, “We refuse to tolerate the stench and degradation of AmFed garbage! Take it back and die, fleshcarriers!”
    Sidney turned in his sleep, flailing and kicking as he struggled desperately to awaken. After what seemed an interminable period, he opened his eyes. Sticky and hot with perspiration, he stared into the blackness of his room.
    Those voices again, he thought. Am I losing my mind?
    Unable to return to sleep, Sidney mentoed for his pleasie-meckie. He heard the closet doors open, and the smooth whir of machinery as the meckie approached. It’s not Carlo, he thought, feeling the bed shake as the meckie got in and climbed under the covers. But at least I’m not alone . . . .
    * * *
    In the privacy of his rock-walled