DEADSTOCK (p) by JEFFREY THOMAS

Author:JEFFREY THOMAS [THOMAS, JEFFREY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_cyberpunk

Earlier that afternoon, after Caren Bistro had left, Janice Poole had come out from behind her desk and smiled at Stake lasciviously, as much as she dared to do within range of the camera that monitored her classroom. She whispered, "Want to come home with me after I finish up here?"

He gazed over her shoulder. Atop a counter that ran the length of the room were a number of tanks containing various animals, from fish to insects to rodents to a group of Kalian lizards much smaller than the edible glebbi, though these short-limbed specimens still had long, serpentine necks upon which perched smiling crocodilian heads. These creatures were piled atop each other in an unmov-ing orgy. At most, one of the periscope heads would turn lazily this way or that. At last, Stake said, "Umm, I'm not feeling that great tonight. I haven't been sleeping well."

"Ohh, really?" Janice stepped closer to him as if her proximity, the aura of her lust, might sway him. "Hey," she said. "Am I your girlfriend now or what?"

Now he looked directly at her, and smiled. "Am I your boyfriends?"

"Hm. Plural, huh?"

He grinned, felt a little guilty. "Sorry. Look, I really am tired. I'll call you tomorrow, all right?" And then he headed to her classroom's door. "Thanks for your help just now."

Janice folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. "Mm," was all she said as he left.

Now, he was back in his flat on noisy, colorful Forma Street. And now, alone, he almost regretted not going home with Janice after all. He remembered those lizards, taking mindless comfort in the contact of each other's bodies.

That, in turn, made him think of Thi Gonh.

Unanswered questions haunted him to this day, as if she had taken them to the grave with her. But he felt confident that she was still alive. This was because he had tried to find her, and had at least glimpsed her footprints before they vanished into obscurity. He had never returned to her world, her dimension, after the war-that was true. But he had called here and there. Sent messages. Sifted through the net. The first footprints had been clear enough, in fact.

When the 5th Advance Rangers had met up with his group and they had left the captured monastery, releasing the clerics detained during the occupation of it, the combined force of soldiers had taken the two Ha Jiin prisoners with them. It wasn't until the third day that an air cavalry vehicle had been able to rendezvous with the group, and carry the prisoners away for further, official interrogation. Sometimes prisoners were used in exchange for captured Colonial Forces soldiers. But Stake had feared that the Earth Killer would be too great a prize to trade. Too heinous a criminal to set free.

During those three days that they dragged the prisoners along with them, they had even engaged the enemy a few times (and it was in one of these brief firefights that Private Devereux, whose life Thi had spared in that clearing, was killed by another Ha Jiin's bullet).

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