Free The Winds of Altair by Ben Bova Page A

the stars. I never want to see Congo again. I never want to see the land, the people, who have killed my father, my mother, and my only brother."
    "You don't want to avenge their deaths?"
    She shook her head. "I leave vengeance to you, Keno. I only hope that you will not be as unforgiving a ruler as I think you will be."
    She left him in the shabby little flat, standing there beside the unmade bed with his fists clenched at his sides. She did not even bother shutting the door behind her. She went to Gatwick Airport, boarded the hypersonic rocketplane and arrived in steaming, muggy St. Louis half an hour later. She was met at the plane by a representative of the Church of Nirvan, a smiling, well-scrubbed young American woman. That was Amanda's first inkling that the star mission she had been assigned to was to be run by the international Church.

    When Amanda and Jeff got to Bishop Foy's office, he was sitting hunched behind his long black desk like a troll glowering from beneath his bridge. Seated in front of the desk, looking uncomfortable, were Dr. Carbo and two other scientists: Harvey Peterson, chief of the anthropology group, and Louisa Ferris, the Village's ethicist.
    Foy did not bother with introductions. He gestured Jeff and Amanda to the two vacant chairs before him.
    "You let that animal kill a creature we have never observed before," the Bishop said to Jeff as he sat down.
    Jeff almost laughed, he felt so relieved. All through their hurried walk from Amanda's apartment to the administration dome, he had been terrified that he was in trouble with the Church for allowing himself to be in Amanda's apartment with her without even a security camera to watch him.
    "Well?" Foy demanded.
    "He had to eat, sir," Jeff said simply.
    Looking over at Carbo, Foy snapped, "Wasn't he given orders not to harm the ape?"
    Before Dr. Carbo could answer, Jeff replied, "The ape was almost dead anyway. The scavengers would have been tearing it to pieces in another few minutes."
    Dr. Peterson, the anthropologist, was gray-haired, lean, tall, with kindly blue eyes and a wrinkled, sun-browned face that looked as craggy as a weathered rock. He said softly to Jeff, "But it's a new species, you see. It might be the Altair equivalent of a pre-hominid ape."
    "There must be others," Jeff said.
    Bishop Foy shook his head angrily. "That's not the point! What I want to know, Dr. Carbo, is whether you gave this student an order or not, and if you did, why he disobeyed that order."
    For the first time, Jeff noticed that Dr. Carbo looked very tired. There were pouches under his eyes. His round shoulders slumped even more than usual.
    "There was no time to give an order," Carbo said.
    "No time? How can that be?" Foy demanded.
    "Sir, have you ever seen a hungry wolfcat?" Jeff asked.
    "Certainly not!"
    "Well, when you starve a wolfcat for two days and then put him in front of a few tons of meat . . ." Jeff was slightly shocked to hear himself speaking so informally to a Bishop, but he went on, "well, just don't get in his way."
    Bishop Foy glared at him. The others in the office stirred uncomfortably.
    "Dr. Carbo told the truth," Jeff went on. "There was no time to give an order, and Crown wouldn't have obeyed an order to ignore that food."
    "Food?" shrilled the ethicist. "That was a primate ape! It might even have been intelligent!"
    Dr. Louisa Ferris was round-faced, round-bodied, a ruddy-cheeked gray-haired lady who reminded Jeff of his favorite aunt. She was the only person in the entire Village who was not responsible to Bishop Foy. Dr. Ferris represented the world government, and reported directly to the Bureau of Colonization, at the world capital in Messina. Her assignment was to make certain that Bishop Foy and his staff followed the laws laid down by the world government. If she found those laws were not being obeyed, her reports could terminate the work at Altair VI, dissolve the contract between the world government and the Church of Nirvan, and