Free Retaliation by Bill McCay

Barbara was not about to miss that show. They reached the hall of the StarGate just as the energy backwash billowed out of the energized torus, an au-roral vortex of light seemingly turned liquid.
    The field stabilized into a rippling lens of light like a pool of water somehow standing perpendicular to the pull of gravity. Then the surface of the pool became disturbed, as if somebody were diving in. A silhouette appeared in the shimmering field, turning into a hu-man form in silvery bas-relief, then finally becoming a person as the star traveler stepped all the way through to Abydos. “Well, that was intense,”
    said the bearded young man staggering drunkenly as he tried to overcome the vertigo of his trip. With a beret cocked at a jaunty angle on his head, he looked like a road-company Che Guevara. “Storey!”
    Barbara burst out, running to hug him. She had spent several months cooped up with Special Operator Technician Mitch Storey, and appreciated him both for his sense of humor and his expertise in electronics and controls. He grinned at her. “If I’d known I would get this kind of a welcome, I’d have volunteered to go first all over again.”
    A new figure formed in the shimmering StarGate lens, resolving into a face and body that Barbara didn’t know. The man managed a shaky smile as he saw Barbara’s arms around Storey. “Isn’t there anyone to catch me?” “Dr. Barbara Shore, meet Pete Auchinloss. Or should I say Professor Peter-“ “I know who Professor Auchinloss is,” Barbara said. “One of the hottest shots in the world of mainframe computing.”
    More men and women came through, a baker’s dozen of experts from technicians to designers of ex-otic weaponry.
    “Wait a second,” Barbara said, counting. “Haven’t we got one more?”
    “Your translation expert,” Charlton said.
    “Yeah, he was a little nervous at committing himself to the StarGate,” Storey said with a grin. “Hold on, here he comes.”
    A bulky figure appeared in silhouette against the ra-diance of the StarGate. It resolved itself into a tall, stocky man with heavy features and an Oliver North haircut. Barbara instantly recognized pompous Dr.
    Gary Meyers, on loan from Harvard to the original StarGate project. Barbara always figured Harvard had given Meyers to the government to get rid of a pain in the ass around campus. But for once the professor’s face wasn’t set in its usual expression of complacent condescension. Meyers gulped, took a couple of shambling steps, then vomited all over the floor.
    “Thanks, Gary,” Barbara said as she jumped aside. “Nice to see you, too.”

CHAPTER 5
FINDS AND BARGAINS
    The room was dark and stuffy as Gerekh sat on a low stool behind an empty counter. Most merchants of Nagada conducted business beneath awnings in the marketplaces. The bargains Gerekh made, however, could not be carried on in the open.
    Gerekh was mildly surprised as his bulky door-keeper brought three customers in. They stood blink-ing in the difference between burning sunlight and the shadows inside. Almost unbidden, the merchant’s hand slid to the butt of the handgun he kept under the counter.
    Then he recognized his visitors-a family group, led by his old friend Ipy. Not so long ago Gerekh and Ipy had labored together in the mines of Nagada, wresting bits of golden crystal from the surrounding rock. They’d slaved for Ra, then worked for the Earth-men. But after the great battle that left equipment strewn across the desert, both men had figured there was an easier way to make a living.
    They’d started from the same place, and Ipy considered them to be the same-independent busi-nessmen. Gerekh, however, considered Ipy to be a fool. At the start of their prospecting, when there was the most money to be made, Ipy had turned his finds in to the Elders and the Earthmen, earning a paltry bounty. But Gerekh had found other buyers, who paid in stacks of the shining silver coins the strangers had brought to