(eng) Michael Flynn - Spiral Arm 01 by The January Dancer

Author:The January Dancer [Dancer, The January]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Foreganger or Jehovah? She could simply guess, but Jehovah was ten days’ journey and Foreganger closer to twenty. Better an extra day on Peacock to make certain, even if that meant snuggling with Pulawayo. Yet, what guarantee did she have that, even after the bribe, Pulawayo would cooperate? She could imagine an entire series of such delays—always immanently cooperative, never overtly a refusal—until finally a well-doctored set of records would be handed over with great fanfare, cooperative exclamations, and calculated deception.

She wondered if they thought they could doctor the records well enough to deceive a Hound. There were rumors that captains carrying illicit cargoes could “launder” their transits through Peacock Junction, and could drop off radar screens when the need arose. A Hound’s matter, if true, though not to her present purpose; but Peacock might well fear otherwise.

And so the Hound found herself at liberty until evening. The day was one of brilliant clarity. Polychromopolis, the planetary capital, lay in the monsoon belt and the dry season had just begun. The temperature was hot—at or above body temperature, and fans and parasols were common along the streets. Above, in a cloudless sky, a few high white streamers marked the tracks of jetliners and ballistic leapers headed for the antipodes. Below, the recently ended rains had painted the landscape in moist pastels. Flowers of brilliant yellow and orange and red lined the pedestrian walkways beneath the shade of broad, leafy trees. Some of the blossoms would have been known on Old Earth—assuming the origin myths were really true—but others were artifacts unknown to nature: exotic races of palm and orchid and rose and deodar, bearing those ancient names only through courtesy and the contribution of a few ancestral genes.

Passing her on the Embarcadero—the slidewalk from the Port into the main shopping district—were folk from all over the Spiral Arm. She saw pale, squat Jugurthans with their startlingly wide and out-turned noses; Chettinads in tartan kilts and turbans. There were sour-faced, girdled Jehovans muttering over their prayer beads; and gaudy trade-captains from the Greater Hanse whose jewels and rings and robes glittered in the late-morning sunlight. She heard the hooting accents of Alabaster, the flat twang of Megranome, and the nearly incomprehensible jibber-jabber of Terran pack peddlers. Peacock wasn’t a great interchange like Jehovah, but many travelers stopped here for pleasure and relaxation. It was the preferred vacation spot for this region of the Arm.

She noticed how heads turned and eyes flickered in her direction. A Hound? Here? Why? It was the uniform, of course. The concept of a uniform was alien to ’Cockers, perhaps a little perverted. Pulawayo had asked her to wear the uniform tonight.

She stepped onto the Esplanade, a lateral slidewalk traversing the main Portside shopping district known as Rodyadarava. She had no eye for the clothing stores—the Rift would fill with stars before she would prance about in the topless srong that the elves of Peacock favored; and judging by a pair of Jugurthan women passing by, a few sagging tourists might have profited by adopting the same attitude.

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