Free The Super Barbarians by John Brunner Page A

him, because at age fifteen he was just as much a silly young boy as any Earthly teen-ager—maybe more so, because he was far less bright than either of his parents. I had always been privately convinced that Pwill and Llaq were going to see their hopes unrealized.
    Still, it would be better, probably, for Earth if he were to attain his inheritance and then bungle matters, than if he were to be disposed of in the traditional way and be succeeded by one of his brighter half-brothers. There were five of these to reckon with; all five were at the Vorrish equivalent of a military academy where they had been sent when Pwill Himself departed for Earth.
    This was no longer a silly young boy, though; aged twenty, Pwill was a nasty young man.
    “Don’t stand there gloating!” he barked suddenly.
    I gave an inquiring look.
    “You know what I mean! Why in the name of seven gods have you no coffee?”
    “It’s expensive, even on Earth. And it would have been impossibly bulky to bring a supply with me.”
    “They have it in the Acre!”
    “Perhaps.” I tried to recall what I had known back homeabout shipments for the people of the Acre. “They are allowed—if I remember rightly—one shipload a month of necessaries. Possibly coffee is sometimes included in one of the crates.” It was the only explanation I could think of, though I wondered why coffee should be sent when the worst need was for diet supplements, vitamins, antihistamines, antibiotics and other medicines.
    Abruptly Pwill got to his feet and began to pace the floor, not looking at me. He said, “Having saved your life today, I want you to get me a fresh supply”
    “With respect,” I said, “saved my life…?”
    “Of course!” His eyes flashed at me and then he was staring at the floor again. “Don’t you think my father would have shortened you to the shoulders if I’d done as you deserved and said it was your fault I’d learned to like coffee?”
    He probably would. I shivered. In actual fact, I had never to my knowledge tried to make Pwill like any Earthly food or drink; that was outside my province. In any case he wouldn’t have liked it on principle. Things of Earth, to his dogmatic way of thinking, were fit for Earthmen and not for the superior Vorra.
    “Why didn’t I say that?” he pursued. “Because you’re an Earthman; you can go and come in the Acre. And you’re going to. Whatever my father offers you to buy the cooperation of your fellow sneak-thieves in the Acre, I’ll match it. I know what a stupid thing I’m doing. I know you could take the chance to poison me, or anything! But nothing, not even death, could be worse than—this!”
    He took his hands from his pockets and held them out towards me. They shook. Each finger shook differently from its neighbor, as though his muscular co-ordination had gone completely. Above the wrists, the muscles were knotted withtension as he struggled to hold his hands still and failed. Sweat crawled out of his hair and down his face; his lips went pale with effort.
    “That!” he said at last. “What devil’s seed you make the drug from, I don’t know. But it’s wrecking my body to do without it. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t move my bowels, I can’t throw a harpoon, and I can’t take a woman! There on the table, son of an unpedigreed ox! You’ll find ten platina, enough for two handfuls of coffee beans. Get me that much tomorrow, understand, or else—”
    He snatched up a knife from the sheath dangling on his belt, and presented the point to me, bright and deadly, a few inches from my face.
    One moment, and the point began to waver and swing from side to side. At first he fought to control it; then, with a howl like an animal’s, of sheer despair, he dropped his arm to his side and went hurrying from the room.

CHAPTER X

    I KNEW WHAT I was doing this time. Before entering the Acre, I slipped my house shield into the bag I carried; I let the fingers which I had remembered to