Sliding Void Read Free Page A

essence, and all, Lana opened the doors to the Gravity Rose ’s starboard-side hold and the courier couldn’t have set her down more sweetly if Lana’s vessel had been a navy carrier, three little landing skids folding out of the dart. She noted from the hold’s cameras that the pilot was another kaggen, like Polter. A five foot-high sentient crab-shaped mass of religious worry. Female kaggens were twice the size, so this one was a male, just like their navigator.
    Lana instructed the courier to come to the bridge, skipper’s privilege, rather than doing a meet-and-greet in their massive empty hold. There were traditions to be observed, and it never hurt to underline the fact that the courier’s sense of urgency wasn’t her problem. Not yet, anyway. Not until it started putting bacon on her table, as well as the courier’s. A few minutes later the messenger scuttled into the bridge, his two large vestigial claws folded backward along his top-shell to indicate he came in peace and with God. Like the little pacifists come in any other flavour. He signed a private greeting to Polter, and kept on with the blessing even as he began talking to Lana, a parrot-like beak on the soft fleshy face underneath his carapace warbling in satisfaction at having tracked down his quarry. His accent was a lot thicker than Polter’s. ‘I have the honour of addressing Captain Lana Fiveworlds, proprietor of Fiveworlds Shipping, registered out of the Protocol world of Nueva Valencia, The Edge?’
    ‘That’ll be me, and I reckon you’ve got my transponder codes, flight plan, and license to prove it, shorty,’ said Lana.
    The courier dipped respectfully on four of his six legs. ‘I am Ralt Raltish of—’
    ‘Spare me your diocese and the family tree stretching back to the fortieth generation. This message, it’s only for myself or…?’ Lana indicated her crew standing on the bridge.
    ‘Not specified. Do you trust your crew?’
    ‘You slide void any other way out here and you ain’t going to live long enough to regret it,’ said Lana. ‘Staying alive is a team game. Least ways, it is if you are not flying some tricked-out comet firing faster than photons. That would be that needle of yours sitting in my hangar, shorty.’
    ‘Then I may pass you my message,’ said the courier. ‘It is from my most majestic client Rex Matobo, blessings be upon him.’
    ‘Shit,’ Lana swore under her breath. Rex . ‘I just knew that this was going to be trouble. And the message?’
    ‘I would appreciate it if you came quickly.’
    Lana shook her head in disbelief. ‘That’s it?’
    ‘I have the co-ordinates of my client’s world of origin, with instructions to divulge these to you.’
    ‘You feel like divulging how much business you’ve been doing with Rex?’
    The courier raised his two manipulator hands and wiggled his bony fingers in a cursory way, the kaggen equivalent of a shrug. ‘He is a new client, blessings be upon him. The world of origin is not much visited. In fact, it’s not even recognized by the Protocol.’
    ‘I’ll just bet it isn’t. What’s this world called, shorty?’
    ‘Hesperus is its common name,’ said the courier. ‘Standard cartography reference Hes-10294384b is the planet’s formal title.’
She nodded to Zeno, and the android pulled the details from the bridge computer. ‘So, Zeno,  this Hesperus look like anywhere we want to be travelling to?’
    ‘Doesn’t appear too dangerous on the face of it, skipper,’ said Zeno. ‘A little light on details here, though, on the wiki. It’s a failed colony world. Lost their technological base in an ice age and they’ve been living back in the dark ages for centuries. You might catch dysentery on Hesperus, but nobody’s going to be shooting missiles at us down there. They won’t even know what a gun is, let alone a starship.’
    ‘What is this friend of yours doing in such an unconducive locale?’ Skrat asked Lana.
    ‘No damn good,’ said Lana,