For the Thrill of the Blunt by Tom Sadira

Author:Tom Sadira [Sadira, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HIFI Press

12

“Uh, Zee, any chance you can drop what you’re doing and meet me in the toking bay?” Del huffed and puffed into the Chatter pinned to his chest as he raced down a corridor. “There’ve been, uh, some developments on Vos Praeda that I think we need to take a closer look at.”

Calculating the time it would take an object to travel from point A to point B was something Del excelled at. Figuring out how long it might take an organism to reach a destination on the Starseed was something he thoroughly enjoyed. Charting a course through hyperspace, navigating around Reptilian blockades, careening the ship through the vacuum of space—those things could almost bring a smile to his thin blue lips.

But the act of self-propelling his own meatbag through spacetime, what others called ‘running’, was something he preferred to avoid at all costs.

Del hadn’t stepped foot off the Starseed in years. The crew always found a reason for him to hang back while they blasted off on some foolhardy space adventure. Stuck behind the safety of his console, his contribution usually came in the form of logistical support, which meant a lot of tapping and flicking and swiping—stuff he was good at. But after what he’d just discovered, punching buttons on a screen wasn’t going to cut it.

The morning had started off much like the previous day. His repeater drones fizzled in the unstable Vos Praedean ionosphere, so communication with the crew’s Chatters was still impossible. Every so often his screen lit up with reports of another slain beast being auto-toked, which he took as proof that the hunting party was doing okay.

Then, as he was debating whether to morph his lunch on the Bridge, or to venture into the Ring for a quick bite—and maybe peek into Nylf’s Arcade, see if he could catch a glimpse of Cassandra—his console began flashing like a firetruck.

The lights reported a surge of traffic in the toking bay: a couple headless vrills, some mangled canipedes, and a stream of dead pitgrubs. But the dead Vos Praedean fauna wasn’t what had him racing through the Circuit. Sensors began reporting that extraterrestrial organic matter—stuff not originating from Vos Praeda—was being auto-toked back to the Starseed.

The sensors are wrong, he’d told himself. Must be a malfunction. I’ll just stroll over to the toking bay, verify the anomaly, analyze its root cause, and fix it.

Just like I always do.

“Did the moose arrive?” Zylvya’s voice came through the Chatter. “Any chance you’ve heard from the guys yet? Any luck with the drones?”

“The answer is, uh, ‘no’ to all questions.” He paused to gulp down some air. “No moose, no guys, and no luck.”

“Listen, I’d love to join you, but I’m in the middle of an experiment right now. Let me know if you find anything interesting. I may have some time later—”

“Duh, would I bug you if I hadn’t found something interesting? I really think you should meet me there, Zee. Hopefully the sensors are just, uh, busted or something.

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