Hellflower (v1.1)

Free Hellflower (v1.1) by Eluki bes Shahar Page B

Book: Hellflower (v1.1) by Eluki bes Shahar Read Free Book Online
Authors: Eluki bes Shahar
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction
son-an-heir? For sure Firecat went up out of quarantine on Wanderweb and someone saw me stuff ‘I’iggy inboard. If I dock wonderchild alive and well at Azarine Guildhouse on Kiffit we have no problems. Mercs’re honest." And a hellflower merc wouldn’t turn around and sell Tiggy to someone else instead of handing him back to his original owner.
    Paladin didn’t say anything.
    "Bai, I got to be able to point to live Tiggy Stardust when hellflower trouble comes calling. It’s not like beating kidnap-rap. Hellflowers won’t stop."
    "He is a liability." Did Paladin think he was going to change my mind, or did Libraries get tired too? We both knew all the sides of all I he arguments and we could go roundaround them forever.
    Ice kinchin-bai-not because he was dangerous, but because he might be.
    Not good enough.
    "He’s kinchin-bai, Pally-a fourteen-year-old kid. This is his first I i me out. He’ll clear me a rap, and he won’t have anything else to tell anyone that’ll make any sense at all."
    "You’re guessing, Butterfly. I’m not."
    We both knew I knew I was guessing, and we both knew the percentages in my being right. Low. But there wasn’t any other thing to do Nut wake Tiggy up and shove him out the air lock-and then follow him myself.
    "Once we get to Kiffit I’ll toss my kick and drop Tiggy-bai at Azarine Guildhouse. We’ll be gone before the heat drops, Pally. We’ll leg it straight back to Coldwater without waiting for a load. And we can find a hat trick to do in the Outfar for bye-n-bye until the heat dies down. Won’t cost us anything."
    "Except a Free Port. Except air, and water, and food, and power to Kiffit. Except, if you are not lucky, your life."
    I knew all that and I wasn’t happy about any of it.
    "Is my life, bai-isn’t it?" But it wasn’t. It was Paladin’s too, and he was too polite to say, but he couldn’t make it in the Outfar-or anywhere-alone.
    And neither could I. How many years ago would I of been dead without Paladin to cover up for everything a Interdicted Barbarian didn’t know?
    "It was bad luck. It just happened. But we’ll ace this and get straight, you’ll see. Drop Tiggy-bai and have the good numbers again." I tried to tell myself I was trying so hard to keep Tiggy alive only because I knew his hellflower kin wouldn’t let the matter drop.
    "Leaving aside his oxygen requirements, Valijon Starbringer is an outsider. He is an aristocrat—" Paladin listed all Tiggy’s shortcomings again. The only thing he didn’t do was ask me to put Tiggy out the lock to make him safe.
    I don’t know what I would of done if he had.
    Killing Tiggy was the smart thing. I knew it was. Raise my chances of getting to Kiffit alive. Lower the chances of anybody being able to cry Librarian. I was going to have to run for the edge of the Outfar either way, so keeping him alive wouldn’t get me anything.
    And I couldn’t do it any more than I could Transit to angeltown without a ship. I didn’t know why. I didn’t like not knowing why.
    I sat and stared out at angeltown and wondered what it would be like to just open the lock and step out. It wasn’t like realspace. Paladin tried to explain it to me once-something to do with time and relative dimensions in space-but I didn’t understand it. I didn’t need to understand it to fly through it, anyway.
    "What about documentation?" Paladin said after awhiles, and I knew I’d won whatever I’d been fighting for. "Your pet cutthroat hasn’t got any ID on him."
    If Paladin was thinking about that, he wasn’t thinking about making me put Tiggy out the air lock.
    "Think there’s still couple sets of blank around somewheres. You do something to get him off=Port for me, bai?" ID wasn’t all Tiggy didn’t have. Wanderweb had stripped him to the skin. I’d have to see what Firecat could do for him in the way of clothes.
    "Counterfeiting ID is not the problem, Butterfly."
    No, problem was lots of other things, but none of them was hauling

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