Free Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series by Chris Bunch Page A

more, and they were back at their perch.
    “ ‘Kay,” Ben Dill said. “Half the troupe’s human or looks it, anyway. What species are those octopot-lookin’ types?”
    “They call themselves
ra’felan
,” Garvin said. “The troupe master says they’ve got about the same intelligence as a low-normal human.”
    “Interestin’,” Erik Penwyth drawled. “With half a dozen legs to punch buttons with, and no particular intelligence, we ought to recruit ‘em as pilots.”
    “Watchit,” Dill warned.
    The
rajelan
had rather tubular bodies, with tentacles dangling at paired intervals. Their eyes bulged ominously from the center body.
    “Can they talk?” Dill asked.
    “If spoken to politely,” Garvin said.
    “
Both
you bastards are being cute today,” Dill complained.
    “I assume you signed them,” Penwyth said, ignoring Dill.
    The
rajelan
swung back and forth on his trapeze three times, then jumped straight up, toward a rope that crossed between the two high poles. He … or she, or it, for Garvin never found out their sexes, if any, went tentacle over tentacle on the rope across to the other pole, then hooked a trapeze, swung once, and somersaulted down, spinning, into the net.
    “Damned straight I did,” Garvin said fervently. “You should’ve been here a couple of minutes ago, when they were throwing ten people around like they were paper aircraft.”
    “If they were real fishies,” Dill said, “y’ think they’d be working for scale? See, now I’m getting to your level.”
    “I say again my last about pilots,” Penwyth said. “Except p’raps, I was overly kindly about their intelligence being low-normal.”
    • • •
    “Hit it, maestro, it’s doors, and the crowd’s a turnaway,” Garvin shouted. He was resplendent in white formal wear of ancient times, including a tall white hat, black boots, and a black whip.
    Aterton obeyed, and music boomed through the hold, and Garvin touched his throat mike.
    “Men, women, children of all ages … Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the Circus of Galactic Delights. I’m your host for the show. Now, what we’ll have first …”
    Half a dozen clowns tumbled into view, began assaulting Garvin in various ways, some trying to drench him with water, others to push him over a kneeling clown, still others throwing rotten vegetables. But all missed, and he drove them away with his whip.
    “Sorry, sorry, but we’ve got these strange ones who’re completely out of control with us …” Garvin lowered his voice, cut out of his spiel. “When we get a full complement, we’ll have carpet clowns working the stands. Next will come the spec, with all kinds of women on lifts, on horses, on elephants if we get elephants, the candy butchers working the stands, the cats coming through …
    “Maestro, sorry to put you through this, but we’ll need bits for each act as they enter.”
    “Of course,” Aterton said haughtily. “I, at least, know my business and am hardly a first-of-Mayer.”
    Garvin made a face, decided to let it pass.
    “Then, after the spec goes out the back door of the tent, or the hold, or the amphitheater … I don’t have the foggiest where we’ll be playing … then we’ll have the first act, which’ll be something I haven’t decided on, maybe some flyers, maybe have some little people working the ground, maybe some pongers, ‘though I haven’t seen nearly enough acrobats.”
    He seemed quite at home amid the confusion.
    • • •
    “Earth cats?” Garvin asked.
    “At one time,” the chubby, rather prissy man with a moustache said, a bit mournfully. “Since then, they’ve apparently mutated … and the perihelion of the species are with Doctor Emton’s Phantastic Felines, Who’ll Make You Wonder If You’re Really Superior and Dazzle You. A Fine Act for the Whole Family.”
    Garvin looked skeptically at the six lean but well-brushed animals sitting on his desk. They regarded him with equal dispassion.
    “Ticonderoga,”