Cloud-Castles by Dave Freer

Author:Dave Freer [Freer, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aliens, satire, SF
ISBN: 9780992549046
Amazon: B09QC4KRMB
Publisher: self-published
Published: 2022-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Fourteen

Briz’s first reaction to the station was that she’d never seen an easier crib to crack. Her second thought was that that would do you a fat lot of good. Where would you go with anything you prigged? And her third thought was that the food smelled even better than the Black Stump. Maybe it was just a long time since she’d had any decent tucker.

It was decent tucker. She’d never thought she’d appreciate a meal that wasn’t entirely meat, and this was long on that, but it’d been a while since she’d last had a pie. Maybe she’d had better pastry. But this was good, and in the Big Syd, there was a lot more gravy than meat and the meat was something you didn’t want to ask too many questions about. This was a lot of meat, stuck together with a little gravy, and you could taste and identify the meat. And there was beer – which had to improve any meal, as far as she was concerned. And the people were friendly, and curious.

The other thing that took her aback was they gave her… respect? She was just Briz, petty thief, pick-pocket and, back in the Big Syd… not the bottom of the pile, but fighting her way not to be. Here… she was someone. Someone who had been further than most – people knew of the existence of the Big Syd. One or two people had even been there, or so they claimed. But few had been – and escaped alive – Thrymi prisoners, let alone made the bastards suffer. She was getting quite a lot of the reflected glory from Mister Gus’s exploits. They even had – thanks to Mister Gus telling them, as well as what Tiger had seen, some idea of exactly what she’d done. He made out like she’d done most of it. She had to tell them he was pulling a raw prawn on them.

Back in the Big Syd, people kind of accepted the Thrymi and Zell. Didn’t love the bastards, but they were the bosses of the place. Yer had to live with them, because yer couldn’t really get away from them. Out here… they loathed the bastards, and, a fair amount of the time, from what she could gather, did get away from them. They kept track of the sky-castles as best they could, and avoided them, as best they could, which was better than anyone in the Big Syd could say.

As for this ‘station’: Some bits of the place were as rough as guts, but to be honest it was a lot more comfortable than her crib, and not what she’d expected at all. It wasn’t as good as the Big Syd for entertainment or variety of booze… but compared to being slaves, or even trying to make a go on their own, luxury.

But… she had to admit she’d kind of liked having Mister Gus to herself. That, it seemed wasn’t going to be true anymore. The outbackers wanted him.

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