Hellflower (v1.1) Read Free Page B

that some emotions are triggered by animal instincts and fed by chemicals spewed into the brain by uncontrolled glands, more come from the ego, which all things may possess. I am, therefore I want. Rage is a chemical emotion, brewed in the animal brain. Is loyalty? Lust no inorganic life-form can feel; it is the residue of chemicals readying the organic body for the unreliable act of reproduction-but love? Affection? Kindness?
    There is no one left who would care to chart true boundaries in the borderland between organic and machine. Butterfly has always thought of me as human. The only created beings she knows are programmed and limited artifacts. They are not human-therefore I, who am nothing like them, cannot be a machine.
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    About the time Beofox said I would I started to feel human again, and then it was time to go meet Gibberfur. It was a whole new experience to have Paladin along for the ride. He had lots of available dataports to track me through Wanderweb and lots of opinions to express.
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    At the Last Gasp I got the personal attention of the owner, who along with the guaranteed nonnarcotic to my B-pop libation handed out the joyful news that the Wanderweb slugs had tossed my partner a day and another day ago and he thought I’d like to know.
    My partner. Meaning Tiggy Stardust, hellflower. That’d teach me to do street theater for the brain-dead. Still, he’d be back on the streets in a few whiles, a freer but poorer nutcase.
    About then Gibberfur arrived, with a very large strongbox on a A-grav sled. He had hysterics while I popped the box and pulled out six densepaks of illegal.
    "I must protest! Our agreement clearly states that the cargo is to be transported unbroached to its destination." He was fluffed out to one-and-a-half-wiggly’s worth of outrage, and his little pink nose quivered.
    "Will be, furball. But it don’t say nothing in agreement about this damn wondershow." I jerked a thumb at the strongbox, which was blinking and flashing with all the details of the status of its various locks, stasis fields, and armaments. "Figured you’d kind of like to hold on to it for sentimentality’s sake, seeing as otherwise I’m going to shove it out my air lock as soon as I’m at angels."
    "But-but you can’t do that! My cargo—"
    "Is going to get where it’s going safe and sound-but I can’t trot it past the Teasers if you’re going to hang bells and whistles on it. A mathom like that’ll trip every scanner from here to the Core and back to the Rim, and what do I say when the Teasers board me: I didn’t know it was there? Get real."
    Teaser is short for Interstellar Trade, Customs & Commerce Commission: the Law, and something neither Gibberfur or me wanted the attention of.
    "But—"
    "If your cargo wanted special handling, you should of said. Not too late for you to change your mind about me dancing it, neither." That shut him up, and I took the Embarkation Receipt for the load and we both signed it and I stuffed my copies of the fax and all six densepaks into the pockets of my jacket.
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    Things was so much easier in the nonexistent days when a darktrader’s word was her bond and all that. You know, the ones where your Gentry-legger takes this priceless cargo sixty light-years and hands it over on word alone to someone she’s never seen, with no documentation, no penalties, and no comeback? It’s too damn bad the idea never caught on.
    Me, I posted bond with the Smuggler’s Guild when I joined, and the thought of all that credit sitting there earning zip is enough to cripple you for life. On the other hand, me being a Guild-bonded Gentry-legger keeps people like Gibberfur happy, and here’s why: If I took off now for the never-never with Gibberfur’s cargo and he wanted to prove it with his half of the documentation, he could get reparations for his loss from the Guild. If the debt was big enough, well, there’s a perfectly legal lien on Firecat, activatable through a legit cut-out