Adam-Troy Castro - The Third Claw of God

Jason, Jelaine, and their father were almost upon me now. But their smiles were now faltering, as they saw how much I was struggling.

It would be so easy to stay.

But what had the Porrinyards said?

After everything, it all came down to this.

Remember who you are .

I’d refused to endure another elevator ride, so Jason and Jelaine had one of the family retainers fly me back up to Layabout.

I made it to my personal transport, still waiting for me at the VIP facilities, less than two hours after my brief return to and stormy departure from Jelaine Bettelhine’s estate.

The Porrinyards were sitting together at the control panel, looking more lost than I’d ever seen them. They didn’t notice my entrance until I tossed my satchel on the floor behind them. Given the changes in my appearance and my uncharacteristic clothing it took them all of half a second to recognize me before they leaped up and embraced me with the shared fervor of lovers who had not known whether they’d ever be seeing me again.

“I’m sorry,” they wept.

I held them tight. “It’s all right. I understand.”

They had figured out the whole thing, up to and including the nature of the hold Jason and Jelaine had on Hans, when we were still on the Royal Carriage and they were reviewing the files in the Khaajiir’s staff. The truth had repelled them, even more than the prior history of the Bettelhines had already repelled them.

“But this was your family,” they continued, the tears drying on their cheeks, their shared misery too much for the small space between them. “You’d already lost it twice: once before you were born, and then again on Bocai. Given everything I knew, I couldn’t remain with you if you decided to return to them, but I couldn’t make myself take them away from you a third time. I had to let you decide what was yours… and what wasn’t.”

I’d misinterpreted their attitude on the carriage. Their shared horror at my treatment of Colette Wilson had been less about my anger and revulsion at the moment (bad as that had been), than what I could become.

Ever since determining that I’d recover from my injuries and giving me the freedom I needed to make my decision, they’d been sitting here, unable to return to New London and unable to return to me, waiting for word, resting all their faith in my ability to make the choice they hoped I’d make, and wondering whether they’d made a terrible mistake.

I’d be wondering the same thing, for different reasons, a great deal in the days to come. There’d be sleepless nights and hopeless days. But right now I had no doubts whatsoever. I knew .

“I’ll want the first available departure window.”

In all the universe, there’s no sun brighter than the special kind of smile only found on loved ones who think they may have lost you forever, and now find out they’re wrong. I was lucky enough to get it from two faces at once.

It was another couple of minutes before Skye could separate herself from me long enough to go prepare the bluegel crypts, and Oscin could return to his seat and start calling up our nav program.

When I sat down next to him, feeling more at home in that tiny space than at any point in the few hours that I’d experienced the bonds of family, he gave me another appraising look and said, “Nice outfit. Nice hair.”

I punched his shoulder. “Shut up.”

With each book I write, I ask the same pressing question. To wit: does anybody, anywhere, ever read this page if they don’t have some pressing reason to expect their own names to appear? And how can casual readers know that I’m not making stuff up? Seriously, would you even have any reason to suspect that I was pulling names out of my nether regions were I to testify to the sterling example of one Gordon Mung, who lent me money, cleaned my clothes, spent six months on a cot in his garage so I could move into his bedroom and sleep beside his wife for that period, and who generally proved such a model of generosity, courage and moral rectitude that I despair at the very thought of ever living up to his standard? I gotta tell you, Gordon’s an absolute saint. You want him as best friend.

That said, this book would not exist if not for my lovely wife, Judi. I must also thank Brad Aiken and my webmaster Dina Pearlman, who tolerated tuckerizations; Michael Burstein, Jack McDevitt, Jerry Oltion, Joey Green, and Rob Sawyer; the various members of the South Florida Science Fiction Society writing workshop, including Chris Negelein, Wade Brown, George Peterson, Dave Dunn, the aforementioned Brad Aiken, Cliff Dunbar, Ben Burgis, and Melinda Galy, who read and critiqued the MS in progress; good guys Stanley Schmidt, Scott Edelman, Johnny Atomic and Harlan Ellison, for other forms of support; agent extraordinaire Joshua Bilmes and editor extraordinaire Diana Gill. There are also the various regulars of my newsgroup on www.sff.net , who provide distraction on a daily basis. If there are any names I left out, blame the Unseen Demons.

ADAM-TROY CASTRO’s short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards. The acclaimed author of the previous Andrea Cort novel, Emissaries from the Dead , he lives in Florida with his wife, Judi, and their four cats.

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“The most powerful science fiction novel of the year.”

“ Emissaries from the Dead is SF at its best: Silence of the Lambs as Larry Niven might have written it. A clever, thought-provoking page-turner. Bravo!”

“With its creepy background and complex plot, Emissaries from the Dead offers an intriguing combination of SF and detective story, spiced with moments of danger that raise the perils of cliff-hanging an exponential level.”

“A brilliantly executed novel, fully successful as both science fiction and murder mystery…. Powerfully compelling…. One of the best science fiction novels of the year so far.”

“Adam-Troy Castro has given us the ultimate high-wire thriller.”

Cover art by Chris McGrath

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE THIRD CLAW OF GOD. Copyright © 2009 by Adam-Troy Castro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Microsoft Reader

January 2009

ISBN 978-0-06-177349-5

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