AngelsHaveNoWings Read Free

alley. “Please pick up that trash,” he told the tall youth.
    W’pard hurried to carry out his instructions with an occasional glance toward the front of the building. He scooped up several items at once in both hands and tossed them in a nearby dumpster. Not seeing any more trash present, he hurried back to the front of the building to watch the sad but exciting events.
    From doorways all around the area, Falory came outside to see what was going on when the emergency vehicle pulled up in front of the print shop.
    The attendants rolled the body from side to side to see if there were any visible external wounds.
    “No external reason for all this blood,” one of the attendants said. “This much blood, means internal injuries.”
    The technicians loaded the female into the vehicle to return to the Sharpak Life Hold. There, a medical team would find out the reason for her death. With the back doors closed, the emergency vehicle pulled away.
    With the unusual excitement over, the Falory business owner shooed away the onlookers and instructed his helper how to clean up the pooled blood on the sidewalk. Once that task was finished, the business owner looked around the front of his business and the alleyway. “That’s much better,” he said giving W’pard a friendly slap on the back.
    Together, they entered the shop and closed the door.
    * * * *
    The arrival of the CAVNET Warship Zicata at Prin, after an extended science mission at a far off quadrant border, meant needed down time for the Falory crew and a break for Zicata from the endless needs of the crew and the mission. Zicata warmed to the idea of a good shell scrub from the robotic maintenance scrubbers to remove the particles of space debris she’d accumulated, then taking a swim in any of the nine deep oceans on Prin and sitting on a beach in the warm sun.
    In the captain’s office, Scona A’ger, a female of the mountain lion family, worked on a mission report as she waited for Pilan D’ger, Zicata’s chief life holder, to arrive. They were going to the planet together to pick out a Life Day gift for her mother.
    The back door of her office opened. Pilan entered, wearing his CAVNET uniform. “I am ready, how about you?” he asked as he walked toward the desk where Scona sat.
    “Just a few more words here, then I will be ready.”
    “Good, because I want to go while it is still somewhat cool, and I want to be back onboard before midday. My family line prefers cooler weather. This planet gets hot.”
    Scona looked at him. “What is your family line again?”
    “Snow Leopard,” Pilan said. “On Earth, they prefer high altitudes and cooler weather. At least that is what the information on my family line says.”
    Scona finished her work and closed the file. “I am ready now. Before we do any shopping, I need to take a walk through the new neighborhood on the southeast side of town. Command wants a personal observation of the area there to make sure the supplies sent for the project are there and not somewhere they are not supposed to be.”
    “Walking is a good exercise. It will be nice to smell fresh air and feel real ground below my feet again. How long were we out this time? I lost track.” Pilan waited for Scona to step around the desk and stand beside him.
    Scona thought a moment. “We were out three months this trip. No wonder Zicata was getting crabby.”
    “Seemed the longer we were out past a month, the worse the accidents became. Some were real stupid, like the crewmember that put a saw down on his foot before the blade stopped rotating. Granted, he was using a saw that did not have a safety shield on it. He said it was the only one in the maintenance equipment room.”
    In the next moment, they were standing on the planet, at an intersection of streets.
    Scona turned to Pilan. “First off, that saw should not have been in maintenance. When he found it there and found it did not have a shield on the blade, he should have red-tagged the