Star Hunter Read Free

tight under the pallid skin,
his ribs showing even through the sleazy fabric of the threadbare
tunic with its house seal. When he leaned his head back against the
grime encrusted wall, raising his face to the light, his hair had the
glint of bright chestnut, a gold which was also red. And for his
swamper's labor he was almost fastidiously clean.
    "You—Lansor!"
    He shivered as if an icy wind had found him and opened his eyes. They
seemed disproportionately large in his skin and bone face and were of
an odd shade, neither green nor blue, but somewhere between.
    "Get going, you! Ain't paying out good credits for you to sit there
like you was buying on your own!" The Salarkian who loomed above him
spoke accentless, idiomatic Basic Space which came strangely from
between his yellow lips. A furred hand thrust the handle of a mop-up
stick at the young man, a taloned thumb jerked the direction in which
to use that evil-smelling object. Vye Lansor levered himself up the
wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly.
    Someone had spilled a mug of Kardo and the deep purple liquid was
already patterning the con-stone floor past any hope of cleaning. But
he set to work slapping the fringe of the noisome mop back and forth
to sop up what he could. The smell of the Kardo uniting with the
general effluvia of the room and its inhabitants heightened his
queasiness.
    Working blindly in a half stupor, he was not aware of the man sitting
alone in the booth until his mop spattered the ankle of one of the
drinking girls. She struck him sharply across the face with a
sputtering curse in the tongue of Altar-Ishtar.
    The blow sent him back against the open lattice of the booth. As he
tried to steady himself another hand reached up, fingers tightened
about his wrist. He flinched, tried to jerk away from that hold, only
to discover that he was the other's prisoner.
    And looking down at his captor in apprehension, he was aware even then
of the different quality of this man. The patron wore the tunic of a
crewman, lighter patches where the ship's badges should have been to
show that he was not engaged. But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty,
his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others
now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall.
    "This one—he makes trouble?" The vast bulk of the Vorm-man who was
the Starfall's private law moved through the crowd with serene
confidence in his own strength, which no one there, unless blind,
deaf, and out-of-the-senses drunk, could dispute. His scaled,
six-fingered, claw hand reached out for Lansor and the boy cringed.
    "No trouble!" There was the click of authority in the voice of the man
in the booth. His face, moments earlier taut and sharp with
intelligence, was suddenly slack, his tone slurred as he answered:
"Looks like an old shipmate. No trouble, just want a drink with an old
shipmate."
    But the grip which had pulled Vye forward, swung him around and down
on the other bench in the booth, was anything but slack. The Vorm-man
glanced from the patron of the Starfall to its least important
employee and then grinned, thrusting his fanged jaws close to
Lansor's.
    "If the master wants to drink, you dirt-rat, you drink!"
    Vye nodded vigorously, and then put his hand to his mouth, afraid his
stomach was about to betray him again. Apprehensive, he watched the
Vorm-man turn away. Only when that broad, green-gray back was lost in
the smoky far reaches of the room did he expel his breath again.
    "Here—" The grip was gone from his wrist, but fingers now put a mug
into his hand. "Drink!"
    He tried to protest, knew it was hopeless, and used both hands to get
the mug to his lips, mouthing the stinging liquid in dull despair.
Only, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his
stomach, cleared his head, with an after glow with which he managed
to relax from the tense state of endurance which filled his hours in
the Starfall.
    Half of the mug's contents inside him and he dared to raise his