The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Destroyers, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: The Destroyers

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: January 4, 2008 [EBook #24166]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE DESTROYERS

[Illustration]

BY RANDALL GARRETT

_Any war is made up of a horde of personal tragedies--but the
greater picture is the tragedy of the death of a way of life. For a
way of life--good, bad, or indifferent--exists because it is dearly
loved...._

[Illustration]

Illustrated by van Dongen

Anketam stretched his arms out as though he were trying to embrace the
whole world. He pushed himself up on his tiptoes, arched his back, and
gave out with a prodigious yawn that somehow managed to express all the
contentment and pleasure that filled his soul. He felt a faint twinge in
his shoulders, and there was a dull ache in the small of his back, both
of which reminded him that he was no longer the man he had been twenty
years before, but he ignored them and stretched again.

He was still strong, Anketam thought; still strong enough to do his
day's work for The Chief without being too tired to relax and enjoy
himself afterwards. At forty-five, he had a good fifteen years more
before he'd be retired to minor make-work jobs, doing the small chores
as a sort of token in justification of his keep in his old age.

He settled his heels back to the ground and looked around at the fields
of green shoots that surrounded him. That part of the job was done, at
least. The sun's lower edge was just barely touching the western
horizon, and all the seedlings were in. Anketam had kept his crew
sweating to get them all in, but now the greenhouses were all empty and
ready for seeding in the next crop while this one grew to maturity. But
that could wait. By working just a little harder, for just a little
longer each day, he and his crew had managed to get the transplanting
done a good four days ahead of schedule, wh