Read Online The Devil's Nebula by Eric Brown - Free Book Online Page A

he realised it was yet another ploy of the authorities: give the criminal time in which to dwell on what travails might be awaiting him.
    He wondered where Lania and Jed might be, and if he would ever see them again. He thought not, as the judiciary was not a service designed to keep old friends connected: they would no doubt serve their time separated by light years, linked only by common memories.
    The prolonged darkness within the tube fostered images he would rather not have experienced. He tried to dwell on happier times, on the wrecks he had salvaged and the people he had helped to throw off the shackles of oppression, but always images of his childhood came swimming into his mind’s eye. He was twelve again and the Vetch – making an example of Temeredes, lest any other human colony exhibit such tardiness in evacuating their citizens – were landing on the planet in wave after wave of assault ships. Then their shock troops were razing his hometown and killing his parents.
    The tube rattled jarringly, but he found the physical pain of being shaken like a rat in a pipe a welcome respite from the nightmare images.
    Abruptly, the tube was tipped vertically and he slid until his feet made contact with the flat base of his prison. Faint light illuminated the tube. He looked down to see a circle of white light encompass his bare legs like a fallen halo as the shell of the tube lifted and released him.
    He was in a small white room which boasted, surprisingly, a screen through which he could see limitless deep space, specked with stars. He stepped from the base of the container, his legs cramped after so long a confinement, and hobbled over to the viewscreen.
    He peered down, then up. He was in a holding cell in the face of a colossal star station, the like of which the Expansion maintained all along the length of the disputed territory with the Vetch. The stations were vast floating cities inhabited by soldiers and spacers, who flew face-saving missions along the disputed territory, a futile rattling of sabres, more a sop to human public opinion than any real threat to the truculent Vetch.
    He wondered why he was being held here, instead of in one of the many judicial holding centres where criminals were more normally incarcerated while awaiting trial.
    A sudden din sounded above him. He cowered instinctively, covering his head with his hands, and watched as first one sleek grey torpedo dropped from the ceiling, and then a second.
    As he stared, the case of the first tube lifted to reveal a pair of dark, shapely legs and then an ill-fitting shift identical to his own.
    Lania blinked, and a second later she was in his arms.
    He eased her away, kissed her forehead like a father, and together they turned and watched as the case of the second tube lifted and Jed stared at him in amazement. He stepped off the disc into Lania’s embrace. Then Carew held the small man by the shoulders, staring into his eyes.
    “I can safely say, my friends, that I thought I would never see your smiling faces again.”
    Lania laughed. “I never thought I’d admit to missing you, Ed.”
    Jed turned and stared through the viewscreen. “Where are we?” the engineer asked.
    “A star station on the edge of disputed territory,” Carew said. “But precisely which one, I don’t know,”
    Jed stared at him. “Not a judiciary holding station?”
    “No. Very strange.”
    “But stranger still, Ed,” Lania said, “is that we’re together. Why? I mean, I never expected to see you two reprobates again.”
    Carew smiled. “A processing error? Or perhaps it’s another sadistic ploy, to make us think we’ll be allowed to stay together.” But he thought not. He shook his head. “No, this isn’t going by the book at all, my friends.”
    Jed said, “Perhaps they have nothing on us, boss? They might not have seen us lift-off from Hesperides.”
    Lania grunted. “Use your head, Jed. We were caught red-handed. And they have the Poet , remember?