Free Earthblood by Keith Laumer, Rosel George Brown Page B

blood.

Chapter Six
    Roan awoke with a foot digging into his side.
    "So here you are," Nugg growled down at him. "Let me tell you I got better things to do than look all over the ship for you, Terry! Here!" He dropped a box on the floor by Roan.
    "Chow's been over for an hour. What do you think this is, a vacation cruise?"
    Roan sat up, rubbed his eyes, feeling the cold, early-morning feeling, even here in a ship in space, far from any sun, with a temperature controlled by machines so that it never varied, year in and year out . . . He picked up the box Nugg had tossed to him, got the lid off. Inside were two lumpy-shelled eggs, a slab of coarse, gray bread, a fruit that looked like a small purplefruit; there was also a lump of raw, greenish meat and a red, coagulated pudding that almost turned his stomach in spite of the sudden hollow hunger feeling.
    "Thanks, Nugg—" Roan started. But Nugg cut him off with a snort.
    "If you don't eat you'll be too weak to work. Hurry it up." While Roan ate, Nugg went on grumbling about dangerous Freaks, malingerers, and interference with discipline by privileged characters. Roan finished, then pulled on his tunic, feeling the pain as he stretched his wounded flank. It hurt more than a deeper wound might have, and it reminded him of Ithc. The feeling of hatred warmed him. It made his heart thump and his body ache. He hated Ithc worse than he loved Stellaraire—
    Love, he thought loudly. That's what love is.
    He stood, doing up buttons and thinking of the slender mule, and how it felt to love a girl who was human, or almost human—
    "I'm taking you off scraping. You'll work in Stores. It's only a short hop to Chlora, and there's inventory to take."
    Roan buckled on his belt. It made him feel strong, the hard embrace of the belt, and he wondered if this were why there were so many stories of magic belts, like the ones Uncle T'hoy hoy used to tell him.
    "If I have to work all the time," he asked as he followed Nugg out into the corridor, "when do I practice my wire-walking act?"
    "Practice? What's that?"
    "I need to get ready for the show. Gom Bulj said—"
    "You're supposed to be a Terry who can walk a wire like a vine-rat; that's why Gom Bulj took you on. You either can or you can't. Practice! Hah!" Roan followed Nugg through the din of the Freak Quarter, past the bumps, hisses, shouts, the dragging of boxes, and the commotion of people doing things in a hurry. He stared at furred and scaled and feathered faces, massive bodies that clumped on short legs, and lean ones that jittered on limbs with too many joints, tiny things that scuttled, and here and there the bald, clumsy-looking shape of a Minid or a Chronid, or some other creature with some faint claim to a trace of natural Terran or humanoid blood.
    He looked around for Stellaraire but there were only strangers everywhere, all hurrying and shouting to each other, their faces hot and busy-looking. He passed Gom Bulj at the center of a crowd, snapping out orders and smoking two cigars at once. The entrepreneur saw him, waved a nine-fingered hand, and called out something Roan couldn't hear. They went down, down, into smellier and less crowded levels. In a vast, noisy storeroom, Nugg pointed out a skinny, scruffy being like an oversized and wingless gracyl.
    "He's foreman of the shift. Do what he tells you. And stay out of trouble." He walked off and left Roan standing alone.
    The foreman had been watching from the corner of a moist eye. He stalked over to Roan, looked at him, then gave a shrill cry. The workers who had been crawling over the heaped goods stopped what they were doing and gathered around. Others appeared from aisles. Altogether there were fifteen or twenty of them, no two alike. They all stared at Roan.
    "What are you?" the foreman whistled. "Never saw one like you before."
    "I'm a Terran," Roan said.
    Somebody hissed.
    The foreman clacked his shoulder blades together and ruffled out a fringe along the side of his neck.