Doors clanged, buzzers vibrated lower down in the ship, men tramped the
corridors calling to one another in the language of the spaceports. I
understood one word in four. I shut my eyes, not caring. At the end of
the trip there would be another star, another world, another language.
Another life.
I had spent all my adult life on Wolf. Juli had been a child under the
red star. But it was a pair of wide crimson eyes and black hair combed
into ringlets like spun black glass that went down with me into the
bottomless pit of sleep....
* * * * *
Someone was shaking me.
"Ah, come on, Cargill. Wake up, man. Shake your boots!"
My mouth, foul-tasting and stiff, fumbled at the shapes of words. "Wha'
happened? Wha' y' want?" My eyes throbbed. When I got them open I saw
two men in black leathers bending over me. We were still inside gravity.
"Get out of the skyhook. You're coming with us."
"Wha'--" Even through the layers of the sedative, that got to me. Only a
criminal, under interstellar law, can be removed from a passage-paid
starship once he has formally checked in on board.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39