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Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
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* * *
Leaving all our Earthly wealth behind us was apain. Feather could help: she contrived to divert a stream of ARM funds to Fafnir, replacing it from Carlos's wealth.
Riiight. But Sharrol and I would be sponging off Carlos … and maybe it wouldn't be Carlos. Feather controlled that wealth for now, and Feather liked control. She had not said that she expected to keep some for herself. That bothered me. It must have bothered Carlos too, though we never found privacy to talk about it.
I wondered how Carlos would work it. Had he known Feather Filip before he reached Jinx? I could picture him designing something that would be useless on Earth: say, an upgraded version of the mass driver system that runs through the vacuum across Jinx's East Pole, replacing a more normal world's Pinwheel launcher. Design something, copyright it on Jinx under a pseudonym, form a company. Just in case he ever found the means to flee Sol system.
Me, I went to my oldest friend on Earth. General Products owed Elephant a considerable sum, and Elephant — Gregory Pelton — owed me. He got General Products to arrange for credit on Home and Fafnir. Feather wouldn't have approved the breach in secrecy, but the aliens who run General Products don't reveal secrets. We'd never even located their homeworld.
And Feather must have expected to control Carlos's funding and Carlos with it.
And Sharrol … was with me.
She'd trusted me. Now she was a flat phobe broke and stranded on an alien world, if she still lived, if she wasn't the prisoner of a homicidal maniac. Four months, going on five. Long enough to drive her crazy, I thought.
How could I hurry to her rescue? The word hurry was said to be forgotten on Fafnir; but perhaps I'd thought of a way.
* * *
They let me sleep. When I woke there was soup. I was ravenous. We talked while we ate.
The boat was Gullfish. The owners were Wilhelmin and Toranaga, brother and sister, both recently separated from mates and enjoying a certain freedom. Clean air, exercise, celibacy, before they returned to the mating dance, its embarrassments and frustrations and rewards.
There was a curious turn to their accents. I tagged it as Australian at first, then as Plateau softened by speech training, or by a generation or two in other company. This was said to be typical of Fafnir. There was no Fafnir accent. The planet had been settled too recently and from too many directions.
Wil finished her soup, went to a locker, and came back with a jacket. It was not quite like mine, and new, untouched.
* * *
Leaving all our Earthly wealth behind us was apain. Feather could help: she contrived to divert a stream of ARM funds to Fafnir, replacing it from Carlos's wealth.
Riiight. But Sharrol and I would be sponging off Carlos … and maybe it wouldn't be Carlos. Feather controlled that wealth for now, and Feather liked control. She had not said that she expected to keep some for herself. That bothered me. It must have bothered Carlos too, though we never found privacy to talk about it.
I wondered how Carlos would work it. Had he known Feather Filip before he reached Jinx? I could picture him designing something that would be useless on Earth: say, an upgraded version of the mass driver system that runs through the vacuum across Jinx's East Pole, replacing a more normal world's Pinwheel launcher. Design something, copyright it on Jinx under a pseudonym, form a company. Just in case he ever found the means to flee Sol system.
Me, I went to my oldest friend on Earth. General Products owed Elephant a considerable sum, and Elephant — Gregory Pelton — owed me. He got General Products to arrange for credit on Home and Fafnir. Feather wouldn't have approved the breach in secrecy, but the aliens who run General Products don't reveal secrets. We'd never even located their homeworld.
And Feather must have expected to control Carlos's funding and Carlos with it.
And Sharrol … was with me.
She'd trusted me. Now she was a flat phobe broke and stranded on an alien world, if she still lived, if she wasn't the prisoner of a homicidal maniac. Four months, going on five. Long enough to drive her crazy, I thought.
How could I hurry to her rescue? The word hurry was said to be forgotten on Fafnir; but perhaps I'd thought of a way.
* * *
They let me sleep. When I woke there was soup. I was ravenous. We talked while we ate.
The boat was Gullfish. The owners were Wilhelmin and Toranaga, brother and sister, both recently separated from mates and enjoying a certain freedom. Clean air, exercise, celibacy, before they returned to the mating dance, its embarrassments and frustrations and rewards.
There was a curious turn to their accents. I tagged it as Australian at first, then as Plateau softened by speech training, or by a generation or two in other company. This was said to be typical of Fafnir. There was no Fafnir accent. The planet had been settled too recently and from too many directions.
Wil finished her soup, went to a locker, and came back with a jacket. It was not quite like mine, and new, untouched.