[04] Elite: Mostly Harmless Read Free Page A

closer to broke than she’d ever been … she didn’t need a machine to tell her that.  A couple of minutes later Anna bustled up to the booth and smoothly replaced her empty with a full.
    ‘That was quick. Are you going to eat?’
    Angel pulled the full glass towards her and stuck a grease-stained finger into it, jangling the ice cubes.
    ‘At your prices? ‘Fraid not.’
    She took her dripping finger out of the glass and sucked it noisily.
    Anna frowned in a very un-Zen-like way and wiped off the droplets of alcohol Angel had spilled on the shiny table.
    ‘Nice. Elegant. No wonder you’re still single.’
    Angel made an uncomplimentary noise.
    ‘Just don’t get too drunk. I don’t want to have to get Roland to pull you out of the meditation pool again.’
    ‘That wasn’t because I was drunk …’ Angel raised her damp finger to object but Anna was already on her way to serve the next customer, uninterested in feeble excuses. She lifted the deep red liquid to her lips, this time transporting it by glass rather than finger, and sucked peevishly at the rim. She was already starting to feel the buzz of the liquor and this was only her second drink. That was one of the good things about living in zero-g for so long; your bones and cells got weak and fragile but you were a very cheap date for a few weeks when you got home. Nonetheless she resolved to book in for a spin in the morning and went back to sucking on the rim of her glass.
    * * *
    Several hours and at least three-too-many Hullstrippers later Angel made her way back to the spaceport, ricocheting off the walls as she tried to remember which hatch opened onto her ship’s airlock. Most of the berths were full now so there was hardly anyone around. Still on duty though, Rachel was working on a sketch of the Imperial Cutter in bay three when Angel stumbled onto the control deck, tripping over the first aid crate and tumbling into the room like a Moscatelli dust devil in the reduced gravity. She came to rest eventually in an angular heap at the controller’s feet.
    ‘Mission accomplished then?’
    Rachel put aside her tablet and reached across to the coffee machine to punch in the code for ‘sober up’.
    Angel took a moment to figure out which way was up – it was funny how gravity could play tricks on you when it had been absent for a while – then untangled her arms and legs and struggled to her feet
    ‘Your mother has been here looking for you.’
    Angel grimaced at both the thought of her mother and the strong black coffee Rachel handed to her.
    ‘How sche know where I’m am?’
    ‘Your Spacebook status I guess.   You know when you post stuff there it can be seen by everyone, across the galaxy? Location co-ordinates and everything?’
    ‘Ahh sheet, Shpaybook.’
    Gravity finally won the argument with Angel’s legs and she stumbled backwards into a swivel chair, spinning around gracelessly while spilling coffee everywhere.
    ‘Yeah, well you might be in luck. She said she had a buyer for your cloth. She had me open the hold for one of her men.’
    This news sobered Angel up like a slap round the face.
    ‘You did what?’
    ‘I opened your hold and she had one of her men take the cloth…’
    Angel sat there goldfishing at her friend, trying to make sense of things through the fog of booze.
    ‘Rachel … my mother ... why would you?’
    Rachel’s brow pulled down into a cross-looking ‘v’; her face appeared to be working its way through the alphabet today.
    ‘Let me think about that for a moment … oh yeah. She’s scarier than a radioactive bra and, by the way, happens to be my boss’s wife ! What did you think I was going to do?’
    ‘I can’t believe … this is … my rep …’ Angel’s words trailed off as she considered the consequences of dropping two reputation levels in one hit as well as being flat broke. ‘I have to find her before she sells it,’ she said as she lurched to her feet and stumbled clumsily back towards the