Between Princesses and Other Jobs by D. J. Butler

Author:D. J. Butler [Butler, D. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781982192693
Google: AOlizwEACAAJ
Amazon: 1982192690
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2023-07-04T04:00:00+00:00

Welcome to Kish

Part Two: The Caveats of Salish-Bozar

The office door was closed, and no one answered when Indrajit knocked.

It was early morning, the sky a gray and sunless slate reflecting the shrill accusations of the wheeling gulls. The Duke’s Mistress smoldered still, alongside the wharf where it lay at anchor. Indrajit and Fix had set fire to the ship the day before; really, Fix had done it, throwing an oil lamp onto a hulking tentacled man named Squite. Indrajit and Fix had recovered four punched and knotted leather straps, each the length of a tall man’s height, from Squite and his companion, the poetess Oritria, at the behest of Oritria’s father, a merchant named Forfa in the Serpent Sea trade. Indrajit and Fix had gotten quite battered in the encounter, and Squite had lost a number of limbs and also eyestalks. They had last seen Oritria facing off with a four-armed, scaly man named Chark, and then Indrajit and Fix had returned to their inn-room headquarters to lick their wounds and lie low for the night. Now it was morning, and they’d come to Forfa’s office to return the straps.

Only no one answered, and the door was locked.

Indrajit scanned the docks, squinting at each jar-lugging stevedore and loitering seaman to make sure he didn’t see the face-tentacle beard that Oritria and Forfa both had.

“We’ve already been paid,” he said. “It’s hard to care too much.”

“There is the ethical question,” Fix said. “We need to return the texts to him.” Forfa had claimed that the punched and knotted straps were writing, of all things.

Indrajit grunted. “Remarkable. I’ve just discovered an actual use for writing. We could leave him a note saying we have the straps, and to come back to our place to get them.”

“Oritria’s still out there,” Fix pointed out. “And we know she can read.”

Oritria had written her poetry on a wax tablet. “She might read the note and come after us, you’re saying.” Indrajit rubbed his chin. She had intriguingly known a number of Blaatshi epic epithets. She had even chanted lines to Indrajit about his own death, like a warrior in the Blaatshi Epic. It had been both disconcerting and fascinating. “I’m not so frightened of her.”

“She might bring that pile of bladed rope with her,” Fix said. “Squite.”

Squite was a Yeziot, a race that turned out to resemble giant piles of living green rope, with blades on the end of each strand and eyestalks in the middle of the heap. Until Fix had lit the ship on fire, it had looked as if Squite might singlehandedly kill Fix and Indrajit both, putting an end to their young jobber company, the Protagonists.

“Good point.” Indrajit examined the office building. It was a single-story cube made of mud bricks plastered white, with a tarred roof. It had shuttered windows on all sides, and the shutters were closed. “Then we’ll just have to break in.”

“And leave the strands here for Forfa?” Fix asked. “Does that really absolve us of our

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