Free Changing Vision by Julie E. Czerneda

to a new entry. “Bah. Another devil in the dark—no more real than any other make-believe monster. Pick one and we’d have found just as many species using it to scare their offspring. I’ll believe Kearn’s a born hero before I’ll swallow that one.”
    He’d arranged his office-cum-cabin on the
Russ’
to suit himself, the renovations dating from the moment he’d realized the depth of Kearn’s desperation to have a captain last more than one tour of duty. If he turned his head, he’d be able to see his imported and expensive Latasian jelly-bed in the far corner, with its multiple coverlets and pillows tossed, as usual, into a heap as restless-looking as his sleep. On either side were Dokecian tentacle-cast ceramic tables, not a match but together costing more than a year’s pay. The rest of the long L-shaped room’s furniture was equally out of reach for an ex-patroller from Botharis.
    And all unimportant, for in front of him, busy under his touch, was the one bribe Lefebvre had been after from the start. The rest was camouflage aimed at Kearn’s ego. “What else do you have for me today, Timri?” he wondered out loud, tapping the control that sent a very special bit of communication technology tunneling through the
Russell’s
comp-tech’s confidential records and reports, sifting names and places with inhuman speed.
    “Confirming key words,” Lefebvre told the machine. “Largas. Megar Slothe.” He paused. “Paul Antoni Ragem.”
    Ragem. Traitor to his species and to all civilized beings, an infamy kept quiet by government embarrassment and inaction, lost in sealed records if not from the tongues of those who had known him. The Human who had brought the monster on board his own ship, endangeringhis friends and crewmates; who had sided with the creature against his own kind only to lose his life. A figure long gone and to be forgotten.
    “Not by me,” Lefebvre reminded himself, momentarily losing sight of the screen to stare through memory at a face he remembered very well indeed. “Not until I know why, Paul. Not until I know it all.”

5: Restaurant Morning
    BY Human standards, Captain Chase was an attractive individual. Short, but attractive. Arrogant and too sure of herself, grasping and overbearing, but attractive. I showed a polite tusk with an effort and took the seat she offered to me with as much grace as I could.
    Paul gave me another of his “behave” looks before inspecting his own chair and sitting down cautiously. The last time we’d been here, my friend had sat in the remains of some being’s meal—post-digestive remains. It hadn’t been a happy moment. I’d reminded Paul, on the way here, we’d received our meal for free. He’d countered he hadn’t been able to eat it anyway. Point taken.
    The Circle Club’s management might not be particularly fastidious, but I adored the place. There were few truly multispecies restaurants in Fishertown, despite its sizeable non-Human population. Most folded after poisoning or insulting some being or other. Somehow, by the simple tactic of offending everyone without prejudice, this place thrived.
    Our table squatted in a back corner, too near the varied fragrances of the kitchen for my delicate first and fifth stomachs, and too distant from the main dining area for my famed hearing to pick up anything truly interesting. Paul had standing reservations here for meetings with his couriers and captains, despite my quite justifiable concern that the setting gave Cameron & Ki Exports all the gloss of a smugglers’ ring. I looked wistfully beyond the forced intimacy of the portlight hovering overhead—low enough to endanger all of our foreheads and far too dim to show my vision much detail beyondthe pale features of my companions and the table’s mottled surface—at the brighter, livelier, Chase-less tables beyond. Being so occupied, I completely missed the start of our conversation and snapped my attention back at the sound of my name. On