Read Online The Kassa Gambit by M. C. Planck - Free Book Online Page A

He can plot a multihop course more efficiently than a computer. They used to call it idiot savant. He’s not stupid. He’s just wired different than the rest of us.”
    “Like you told me, Pru, we all have our own special talents.” Jorgun smiled.
    “Tell me what you see, Jor.”
    Kyle could tell from her voice that she already knew the answer. But she was letting him go as far as he could. Pushing him gently.
    “Eight.” Jorgun announced, but then fell silent. That was all it meant to him, but Prudence nodded in agreement.
    “Eight places to put your feet. Whoever flew this ship had eight feet. The absence of passive grav-plating tells us they don’t suffer from inertial sickness. And that they’re strong—that fusion nozzle must be capable of at least two or three G acceleration. They could stand up through that acceleration, spinning around, looking for visual contact—that’s why there’s so much glass. Which tells us they have impossibly good eyesight, too.”
    “Who has eight feet?” Jorgun asked, confused.
    “Nobody we know,” she said.
    “Fleet needs to see this.” Kyle found himself hoping that authority would know what to do about it.
    “The okimune needs to see this.” Prudence used the old word for the collective human realm, the sum total of civilization, wherever and whatever it might be. A normal person would have said “the world,” meaning his own planet; a sophisticated person would have said “Altair,” the biggest society around. But Prudence thought in wider terms. Like an outsider.
    For the first time in his life, Kyle felt provincial, a country rube fresh off the farm. The feeling wasn’t pleasant, but the novelty of it was astounding.
    “Fleet first,” he said. “We can’t just put this on the evening news. Can you imagine the panic?”
    “Maybe people should be panicking.”
    He stared at her. “How would that help?”
    She waved her hand, in no particular direction, indicating the ruined world around them. “How did this help?”
    “Running scared won’t make it better. You know that.” Was this their plan? To plunge every world within a hundred hops into mindless terror? Oppression always followed fear, like rain after the lightning. He’d studied enough history to know that.
    “We don’t know that, Commander. We have no idea what we are up against. This wreck could be the blow that frightened them off, made them retreat in such a rush they only stopped to grab the pilot. Or it could be such an inconsequential prick that they haven’t even noticed it’s missing yet. Maybe running scared is the only thing anybody can do. Maybe Altair is already dead.”
    “What about Jelly?” Jorgun’s face was creased with worry and concern. The death of civilizations meant nothing to him, only the death of individuals. Kyle was struck by the difference. There were no individuals for him to mourn. Only the ideal of community, not the fact of it.
    “I’m sorry, Jor. We haven’t found her yet. I don’t think we will.” She broke the news to him while he had this shiny new toy to distract him, like a mother to a child.
    The giant puzzled over her words, his lower lip trembling, but he did not cry. Like a boy trying to be a man. Kyle started to reach out to comfort him. Like a father, he stopped.
    Let the boy show his strength. Let him grow into it.
    “Did they take her?” Jorgun asked. “Did they take Jelly?”
    But this child would never grow any taller.
    “No, Jorgun.” Kyle used his most reassuring voice. “They didn’t take her. They didn’t take anyone.” There had been no reports of sightings from any of the refugees. The attackers had been as insubstantial as ghosts. Bombs from the sky, but no follow-up; destruction, but no looting.
    It was inhuman. But that was the point.
    “I’m fucking freezing up here.” Melvin, complaining again over the radio. “What the fuck are we gonna do?”
    “Can you fit this in the cargo bay?” It was the first thing