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Letter of the Law, by Alan Edward Nourse
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Title: Letter of the Law
Author: Alan Edward Nourse
Release Date: January 14, 2008 [EBook #24275]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Letter of the Law
by Alan E. Nourse
The place was dark and damp, and smelled like moldy leaves. Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard down the slippery flagstones of the corridor, sniffing the dead, musty air with distaste. He drew his carefully tailored Terran-styled jacket closer about his shoulders, shivering as his eyes avoided the black, yawning cell-holes they were passing. His foot slipped on the slimy flags from time to time, and finally he paused to wipe the caked mud from his trouser leg. "How much farther is it?" he shouted angrily.
The guard waved a heavy paw vaguely into the blackness ahead. Quite suddenly the corridor took a sharp bend, and the Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure fold of his hairy hide. "I still don't see any reason for all the fuss," he grumbled in a wounded tone. "We've treated him like a brother."
One of the huge steel doors clicked open. Meyerhoff peered into the bla