Hex Read Free Page B

biostasis cell—a legend in itself, the part of the Spindrift story that every spacer on Coyote knew by heart—they could have been approximately the same age. Not that anyone could easily tell, or at least not fairly recently. When Ted let his ponytailed hair go grey, Andromeda finally decided that she wasn’t fooling anyone and had let the fake auburn coloring fade from her platinum locks. Oddly, the effect had been the opposite of what she’d expected; men started to look at her again, even a few Sean’s age. But one person she’d never have to worry about making a pass at her was Ted. He was married to both a woman, Emily, and a ship, the Pride of Cucamonga , and whatever reasons he had for visiting, seduction wasn’t one of them.
    â€œYou said you’re bored with your job,” Harker said. “You still haven’t told me why.”
    Andromeda hesitated, then reached for the wine bottle. It was her house; she could get drunk if she wanted to. She’d just have to watch her mouth, that’s all. “I’m a starship captain. Before that, I was in command of a long-range survey vessel. I’m trained for deep-space exploration, with all the risks that go with it. That’s what I love, and if I’ve occasionally said something about retirement...”
    â€œWhich you haven’t, as you say.” There was a sly twinkle in Harker’s eye.
    â€œLet me finish.” Andromeda poured the last of the bottle into her glass; fortunately, she had two more bottles of merlot in her liquor cabinet, so she shouldn’t have to return to the neighborhood vintner before tomorrow. “What I’m trying to say is, my job is supposed to be about visiting new worlds, breaking new trails, and so on. But ever since I got my ship back and signed up with the merchant marine, I’ve been doing little more than hauling freight.”
    â€œI’d say it’s more than that.” Harker folded his hands together in his lap. “It’s not like you were mapping the Jovian system for the first time... That was done long before you were born. The planets you’ve visited since then have been seen by very few people. And the races you’ve met... the soranta , the kua’tah , the hjadd ...”
    â€œMost of the time, I only see those planets from orbit. And when my crew and I do get cleared to land, more often than not we’re confined to quarters at their spaceports. As for the aliens themselves...” She shrugged. “They’re less interested in who we are than in what we’ve got. As soon as we unload our cargo and take on whatever it is we’re bringing back, they’d just as soon that we leave. The hjadd are the closest friends we have in the Talus, and I think that even they don’t like us very much. You, of all people, should know that.”
    Of course he did. When he’d been an officer in the European Space Agency, Harker had been second-in-command of the illfated Galileo expedition that had made contact with the hjadd , the first intelligent extraterrestrial race encountered by humankind. A few years after he and the two other surviving members of the Galileo ’s crew finally returned to human civilization, Harker had resigned from the ESA and was now the captain of the Janus Ltd. freighter that had made the Coyote Federation’s first trade mission to the Talus, the so-called galactic club to which most of the known starfaring races of the galaxy belonged. That mission had met unexpected obstacles, but its eventual success meant that humankind was admitted into the Talus, albeit on a provisional basis.
    The bombing of Starbridge Coyote by a religious fanatic had temporarily shut off Coyote from the rest of the galaxy, including Earth. While the starbridge was being rebuilt with the assistance of hjadd scientists marooned in the 47 Ursae Majoris system, the Federation Navy took the step of regulating its