Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [75]
The chink in the armor of powerful beings was that they believed power made them smarter, as well as blaster-proof. It had been Atour Riten’s experience that neither of these things was true.
He wove a complicated two-handed pattern at the computer cam, which began scanning comm frequencies, looking for a ride. Eventually, it would find one. There was no hurry.
Meanwhile, it was time for lunch.
35
EXERCISE SUITE, EXECUTIVE LEVEL, DEATH STAR
Motti prided himself on keeping fit. Stripped to a speed-strap and drenched in his own sweat, he was working out in the executive officers’ heavy-gravity room, which he’d set at a three-g pull. Just standing in such a field was an effort. Every movement required three times the energy it normally did. Even jumping was risky—land at a bad angle and you could break an ankle. Trip and fall and the impact could fatally crack your skull.
Motti picked up a trio of denseplast workout balls, each the size of his fist. Anywhere else on the station they would weigh about a kilo each; in the HG room they were three apiece. Juggling them caused his muscles to quickly burn. His shoulders, arms, hands, back—all were protesting the effort as he tossed and caught the balls. He could manage the three most basic patterns: the cascade, which was the easiest; the reverse-cascade, a bit harder; and the shower, in which the balls all circled in the same direction. If he dropped one it was usually during the shower pattern, and the first thing he had learned when juggling in the HG room was to move his feet out of the way quickly if he dropped a ball. Three kilos moving three times faster than normal could easily break bones or crush toes.
Today, despite the burning in his muscles, he was a machine, moving perfectly, and the balls stayed aloft, moving in sync without any flaw. He was aware that a couple of other senior officers were watching him from one corner of the room, and he smiled to himself. Being fit was important. If you were physically stronger than the men around you, it made them look upon you with the most basic level of respect: Cross me, and I can break you in half. He was not, nor would he ever be, some fat and out-of-shape form-chair officer who’d wheeze and run out of breath if he had to climb a flight of steps.
He began to juggle the three heavy balls faster, shortening the arcs, bringing his elbows in closer to his body, tightening the pattern. The balls, which had been flying over his head, settled lower, and persistence of vision made them almost look as if they were a wheel rotating on an axle in front of him. Soon he would be able to add another one to the circle and juggle four. It might seem a trivial thing, but it wasn’t. It was a metaphor for how to live one’s life. A man could do almost anything he wished, if he wanted it enough.
THE HARD HEART CANTINA, DEATH STAR
Sergeant Stihl didn’t spend much time in pubs or cantinas. Now and again he’d go, mostly to show he was a regular trooper who didn’t mind having a couple of brews with the other men, but not all that often. An evening spent in a cantina would be one in which he could have been working on his fighting art or reading some epistemological treatise. Also, mind-altering substances did bad things for your motor skills, and it was hard to overcome the inertia of a few ales or some brain-fogging