Creation Read Free Page B

for no more than two people, lined the walls. Lud made a sharp turn into one of them, pulling Sam along with him. The oddity of floating weightless made securing the harness around his body a challenge, but following Lud’s example, Sam strapped himself to the contoured chair.
    Lud let out a deep breath as he secured the door to the cabin. “It’s relatively private in here, but watch what you say. The captain is an associate of mine. His home base is a little rock called Chiron. If there’s a pirate base in the solar system, it’d be Chiron. From there, we should be able to secure transport to the space junkyard of the Kuiper Belt.”
    The big man’s smile calmed Sam’s frayed nerves. “Get some rest, and finish reading up on Leviathan . Oh, and don’t trust anyone out here.”
    Sam’s gaze moved on to the pointless effort of deciphering what little information the military had declassified regarding their attempted override. His mind, however, played back the strange set of events that represented his life.
    People always talked as though there were choices in life. There were no choices. Not really. All the successful businesses, good jobs, and qualified employees had moved off Earth to planets where the need and pay were the greatest, leaving behind once-great companies, like SpaceBuild, who hired mediocre junior technicians like Sam. Not that he listed junior technician as his occupation on his résumé. Or the fact that he had been fired. But then, digging for the truth behind the résumé was the job of the placement agency. Apparently, even computer-generated placement programs were the bottom of the barrel on Earth. With food, living arrangements, and pay, at least he’d be taken care of for as long as he could con Xavier—the person who’d signed the job-offer letter—into believing Sam knew what he was doing.
    His eyes glazed over as they traced the sentences on the screen without his brain recording the words. Why couldn’t they develop a computer screen to zap the information into my brain?
    The dimly lit small compartment, the lack of gravity, and no reference to the passing of time created what the information packet had referred to as space-delirium. The recommended regularly spaced meals proved hard for Sam to digest. His stomach needed some frame of reference regarding which way to send the food. Even focusing on Lud made him queasy. How could such a hulk of human flesh endure this with apparent ease? Sam did his best to sleep as much as possible.
    The harness straps bit into Sam’s arms and legs as the ship jerked hard under his back. His body sagging against the side of the chair was his first clue of gravity, indicating they’d arrived. He immediately reached for his restraints, ready to be free of his seat.
    Lud pulled at his own straps. “That’ll be our landing. Best if we sneak out early.”
    The pitch-black main corridor of the ship made Sam’s eyes ache for the dim light of their compartment. Lud’s hand pulled hard at the shoulder of Sam’s jacket just as he bumped into an unseen fellow passenger. As they found their way out the final hatch of the ship, Sam made out dark figures also leaving the ship to merge with the local population.
    Lud’s hand remained at Sam’s shoulder. “Try not to walk so hard. Low gravity, remember. Continue to walk like you’re on Earth, and I’ll have to call out a rescue team to pick you out of some low-grav tree.”
    Sam scanned the vegetation to catch Lud’s meaning. Trees looked more like unsupported vines, growing so tall he thought he could identify with the ants of Earth. A spaceship lifting from the ground caused the vines to sway, reinforcing the image of people as some kind of insect life on this unknown planet.
    Lud continued to pull him along. The big man’s hands grasped vine-trees and hurtled the pair of them forward. Sam’s feet only hit the ground at odd intervals.
    He’d lost track of how long they’d been inside man-made