23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd

Author:Joel Shepherd [Shepherd, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781616148096
Publisher: Pyr
Published: 2013-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Two months later, Vanessa was having a day off at the Tanusha Zoo when she received a message from Justice Rosa, asking if he could come and talk with her briefly. “About our mutual friend,” he said.

Vanessa agreed. They’d spoken a few times, always about their “mutual friend,” sometimes to get a second perspective on events, and also as a character reference. Vanessa assured him that he had no chance of getting an objective opinion from her, but Justice didn’t mind. “You can tell as much about a person by their friends and enemies as you can from the person themselves,” he’d replied.

Tanusha Zoo was amazing, with one of the biggest collections of xenobiology anywhere in the Federation. She walked the enclosures and displays with Phillippe, Rhian, Rakesh, Salman and the twins. The jungle enclosures were huge and lush, populated by amazing, multi-legged creatures that howled and whooped, and lizards that flew, and birds that changed colour before your eyes. The marine section was also superb, with great underwater viewing windows to see huge, multi-finned predators from various watery worlds, and aquapods that were like great winged squid, moving with water jet propulsion, and communicated in complex codes with electric body flashes that could be seen in dark water.

But everyone loved the methane breathers best. Those enclosures were underground, and though viewing was restricted behind heavy glass and in atmosphere thick like soup, the creatures here were utterly alien, from ground hugging, multi-legged scuttlers to hive writhers that looked like a giant mass of snakes writhing together, but were actually just one creature. Salman stared goggle-eyed like all boys his age, and Sunita, one of the twins, got scared and began crying. Phillippe loved it every bit as much as Salman, and explained to him what crazy conditions existed on many of the worlds where these creatures lived, and how that had affected their evolution.

“He’s good with kids, yeah?” Rakesh said suggestively to Vanessa near the enclosure for bubbleskinks, which could inflate like a giant ball, and in the low gravity of its home world, float away on updrafts. Here, giant fans were simulating the drafts and low gravity.

“I’m sorry he’s borrowed your son,” Vanessa said diplomatically. “I promise he’ll return him undamaged when he’s finished.”

“He’s welcome, I’ve got my hands full.” Rakesh had Sunita in one arm, offering a broad chest she could press her face into when she didn’t want to look at any of the scary animals. Maria, less timid than her sister, was with Rhian, face pressed to the glass. “But maybe he wants a boy of his own?”

Vanessa shook her head. “We’ve got a girls’ club, it’ll be a girl.”

And that made her sad, because the girls’ club was incomplete at the moment. Sandy loved the zoo, and loved spending casual time with her best friends. Vanessa missed her terribly.

Justice contacted again to say he’d arrived, and Vanessa directed him to the methane breathers’ enclosure exit. He was waiting there when they came out, blinking in the sunshine.

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