Free The Darkside Of The Sun by Terry Pratchet

hunched up in the pilot couch. He looked up.
    ‘I have your grandmother on the line, chief. Are you in?’
    ‘Does she sound angry?’
    ‘No, very cool.’
    ‘Chel, that’s even worse.’ He switched on the intercom.
    ‘I have got very little to say to you, Dom, except to remind you of your duty to the planet. Doesn’t it mean anything to you? You may be killed.’
    Dom took a deep breath. ‘I may be killed anyway. At least there’s no false sense of security here.’
    ‘Fool! You are just seizing the chance to jaunt off on an idiot quest. And incidentally, there’s a shape-war brewing down here. Half a squad of guards have been slaughtered in the buruku . The one at Tau City is on fire—’
    ‘Samhedi took his men in with stunners. You know guns are against all phnobic law.’
    There was a pause. Dom glanced at the screen. The pall over Tau City had grown. As he watched, a point well to the west of the City suddenly flashed into a streak of blinding light. The sunlight had reached the Jokers Tower.
    ‘That was … foolish,’ said Joan slowly. ‘Nevertheless, officers of the Board are entitled to some respect. I’m declaring a State of Emergency. A ship will pick you up within the hour.’
    Dom cut the connection and spun round to Hrsh-Hgn.
    ‘Can you get through to the leader of all the burukus ? The Servant of the Pillar, isn’t it?’
    ‘You know not what you assk. However—’
    In three minutes Dom was looking at a screen holding the image of a small, lightly built phnobe, wearing a silver collar. A female? Phnobes were generally reticent about their sex.
    ‘On behalf of the Board,’ he said, ‘what may we do to repair this grievous hurt?’
    The Servant hissed. ‘The soil of the buruku has been disgraced.’ Dom nodded. The bururu was covered to a depth of several inches with Phnobic soil, specially transported.
    ‘We could replace it,’ he said.
    They haggled. Finally Dom concluded the conversation with a suitable expression of regard and said: ‘It’ll cost us several hundred thousand standards in haulage charges alone.’
    ‘Can you authorize Board expenditure?’
    ‘Board expenditure nothing. It’ll come out of the Sabalos personal account.’ He sat back, suddenly tired.
    ‘There is another problem,’ said Isaac from his seat. ‘Like, where are we going? And how are we going to get there?’
    ‘Hrsh?’
    The phnobe pinched his nose. ‘The First Sirian Bank would make a good starting point. According to legend he was created by the Jokers.’
    ‘Oh. I hadn’t heard that. And he’s my godfather.’
    ‘Well, it issn’t true. He iss at least three billion yearss old, ass far as he knows.’
    Isaac whistled. There was something on the deep radar, drifting purposely towards the ship.
    ‘It’s a sundog, touting for business,’ said Dom. ‘There’s our passage to Sirius.’
    ‘Count me out!’ shrieked the phnobe. ‘I’m not travelling on one of thosse animalss! I thought this sship had an interspace matrix!’
    ‘It had,’ said Isaac calmly. ‘It probably worked real good in Dom’s great-great-grandfather’s day but now the settings are all anyhow. Fancy ending up inside a star? Think of the loss to letters.’
    ‘Very well then. But under sstrong protesst.’
    Twenty minutes later a shadow eclipsed the stars. The sundog stopped a few hundred metres from the ship, a fat lozenge flashing like a beacon as it turned slowly in the sunlight.
    Isaac peered into the scope.
    ‘It has orange, purple and yellow markings, boss, with a black band across the yellow.’
    Dom sighed with relief. Not all sundogs were friendly, or bright enough to realize what would follow if they forgot themselves and engulfed a small spaceship.
    ‘That will be the one who calls itself Abramelin-lincoln-stroke-Enobarbous-stroke-50.3-Enobarbous-McMirmidom,’ he said. ‘He’s okay. He does haulage work for us.’
    A thought stole unbidden into his head.
    Hullo, spaceman. You wish to travel,