Read Online Writers of the Future, Volume 29 by L. Ron Hubbard - Free Book Online Page B

my arm.” Lester pulled a bandage from his medkit and strapped my arm to my waist. “Let’s go.”
    We traveled as fast as the terrain and my arm would allow. At a bend in the stream, Lester peeked around. The aliens greeted him with a volley of rocks. We spotted a number of the creatures hiding behind trees. One of them was making forays—taunting us. It had a wicked arm. Lester’s helmet got hit, but held. He tried shooting at the trees, but the creatures wouldn’t give up ground. Finally, Lester turned the gun to a high setting and waited. When the brave one came out, he blew it to bits. The others scattered. We ran the rest of the way to the ship without interference.
    When we were in space, Lester patched up my shoulder as best he could. He didn’t say a word. “Thanks for taking care of me, Lester.”
    â€œJust doing my duty, sir.”
    â€œCall me Aidan. We’re partners.” I sat down beside him. “I feel too formal calling you by your last name. What’s your first name?”
    Lester didn’t say anything for a long time. “Aloysius.”
    â€œDamn! I’ve shot people for smaller insults than that.”
    â€œThe name is part of the reason I started lifting weights. I had to be big to deal with the teasing.”
    â€œOk, I’ll call you Lester. So what’s bugging you?”
    â€œI killed an intelligent, self-aware creature.”
    â€œAnd saved two. Probably more than two, ’cause I wasn’t going down without a fight.”
    Lester looked kind of pitiful. “Why are we doing this?”
    I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not the first one to ask that question. Here’s another fact they don’t tell you about in the Academy: you know there are other highly developed species in the galaxy.”
    â€œSure. They teach that.”
    â€œRight, but what they don’t teach is that some of them have developed faster-than-light drives. The Scouts only tell you if you happen to encounter one of their leftover probes. Turns out that all of those civilizations eventually came to the conclusion that it’s either too expensive to terraform a dead world or that life on better than 90% of the non-dead ones will kill you, so they settled down and made the best of their home planet. Humans, on the other hand, have an itch to move, and that logic hasn’t dampened. Before the Scouts, people could explore wherever they wanted. They brought back horrible plagues and accidentally killed off intelligent life on some of the planets they explored. So the Planetary Council created the Scouts. We’re supposed to make sure humanity doesn’t destroy other intelligent creatures or pick up something nasty enough to kill us off. We do the job all neat and proper and businesslike.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound very heroic.”
    â€œYou watched too many space operas.”
    â€œI grew up on a mining colony. We lived in the tunnels once they finished mining them. We were a bunch of troglodytes. There was one dome on the surface at the spaceport. I went up there once to look out the window—you couldn’t see anything but blowing sand. What else was there to do but watch space operas?”
    â€œThere’s girls.”
    â€œThey only hook up with guys who have a sure way out.”
    I tried to shrug and regretted it. “Sorry to be the one to disillusion you.”
    â€œGuess it needed to be done.” He sat awhile. “Ever think of running?”
    â€œWouldn’t do any good. The contract we signed is recognized on every world in the Planetary Council. Once they issued a warrant, I’d have no place to go. My credit chit would be canceled, and I’d be stuck. I could try living in the wild, but that would only last until all my spare parts ran out of juice. You might last longer, but what kind of a life would it be? Finish your twenty-five and you’re set.”
    Lester