I am not yet falling,” admitted Haviland Tuf.“Can you truly help us?” asked the round-faced woman at Namor Control.“Why must I always be doubted?” Tuf asked the small grey kitten.“Lord Guardian, we must give him the chance to prove what he says,” insisted Namor Control.Tuf looked up. “Threatened, insulted, and doubted as I have been, nonetheless my empathy for your situation bids me to persist

The Ark is a seedship of the Ecological Engineering Corps,” said Haviland Tuf with stiff formality. “I am an ecological engineer and a specialist in biological warfare.”“Impossible,” said the old man. “The EEC was wiped out a thousand years ago, along with the Federal Empire. None of their seedships remain

stroked the kitten. “Always I must truckle to suspicion,” he told it. “They are fortunate that I am so kind-hearted, or else I would simply depart and leave them to their fate.” He looked up, straight into the viewer. “Sir,” he said. “I am the Ark. I am Haviland Tuf, captain and master here, crew entire. You are troubled by great monsters from the depths of your seas, I have been told. Very well. I shall rid you of them.”“Ark, this is Sunrazor. How do you propose doing... Continuar leyendo

Hold your fire, Sunrazor,” said the elderly man. “Ark, if your intentions are truly peaceful, explain yourself. What are you? We are hard-pressed here, Ark, and Namor is a small, undeveloped world. We have never seen your like before. Explain yourself.”Haviland Tuf

I have come all this long way from Braelourn to offer you my aid and solace, and you meet me with threats and hostility.” A kitten leapt up into his lap. Tuf scooped it up with a huge white hand, and deposited it on the console in front of him, where the viewer would pick it up. He gazed down at it sorrowfully. “There is no trust left in humanity,” he said to the kitten.

This is Namor Control, Ark,” said the round-faced woman. “We are closed to trade. Repeat, we are closed to trade. We are under martial law here.”By then the slender woman on the ship had composed herself. “Ark, this is Guardian Kefira Qay, commanding NGS Sunrazor. We are armed, Ark. Explain yourself. You are a thousand times larger than any trader I have ever seen, Ark. Explain yourself or be fired upon

round-faced woman was still saying, “state your homeworld and your business, please. This is Namor Control.”Haviland Tuf cut into the other conversation, to talk to all three of them simultaneously. “This is the Ark,” he said. “I have no homeworld, sirs. My intentions are purely peaceful-trade and consultation. I learned of your tragic difficulties, and moved by your plight, I have come to offer you my services.

One showed a slender young woman with a large, crooked nose on a ship’s bridge, the other an elderly man before a console. They both wore green uniforms, and they were conversing animatedly in code. It took the computer less than a minute to break it, so Tuf could listen in.

I am the Ark,” Haviland Tuf told Namor Control.Namor Control was a round-faced woman with close-cropped brown hair, sitting at a console and wearing a deep green uniform with golden piping. She frowned, her eyes flicking to the side, no doubt to a superior or another console. “Ark,” she said, “state your homeworld. State your homeworld and your business, please.”The other ship had opened communications with the planet, the computer indicated. Two more viewscreens lit up... Continuar leyendo

to slap at each other. Tuf paid them no mind.A water world, Namor had only one landmass decently large enough to be seen from orbit, and that none too large. But magnification revealed thousands of islands scattered in long, crescent-shaped archipelagoes across the deep green seas, earthen jewels strewn throughout the oceans. Other screens showed the lights of dozens of cities and towns on the nightside, and pulsing dots of energy outlay where settlements sat in sunlight... Continuar leyendo