Joan D. Vinge by Fireship

Author:Fireship
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2011-12-14T22:27:15+00:00

“Now what?” Hana leaned back, resting her head on the anodized grillwork of the bench in the square. The square, like the majority of Elysian Field’s tourist complex, is underground to conserve heat. We sat like wretched orphans, staring at the tourists staring into brightly lit open storefronts.

“Well, I could throw this into that and make a wish.” I held up my credit card, the only possession I had left at the moment, and gestured at the fountain in the center of the square; golden globes and stars of colored light drifted in its pearly spray.

“I wish we could spring Cephas and Basil!” she rapped her knee with her fist. Her knuckles were skinned. “Damn it! If Salad even suspects you could have found out the truth, every minute we waste is bad.” Her mouth tightened.

“Frankly, they looked like they’d be about as useful as a seeing-eye roach, for the next few days, anyway. I don’t know how much more self-sacrifice they can take.”

Her sigh was a little surly; she brushed back her hair. “Well, at least you can tell me where Kabir is—”

“He’s become a monk.”

“You’re kidding.”

“May I be struck dead. He’s entered some monastery that’s leasing land down by the pole in the Arab sector. One of those crank groups from Earth, someplace called Debre Damo—an obscure Christian sect.”

“I’ve heard of them. There was a write up in Ethnocentricities… . But by all the old gods, I can’t picture Khorram Kabir counting beads in a Christian monastery!” She checked to see if I was serious. “I know he likes to hide himself away, and nobody really knows what kind of man he is; but I never imagined—”

“I somehow doubt that he counts anything unless it’s seeyas.” I shrugged. “But who knows? He’s eccentric enough to have information delivered to him by courier, and not by computer hookup. I’d stake every bit of my own credit on that port being where he is, at that monastery. It’s the last place anybody would ever think to look for it.”

She looked down, concentrating. “But they don’t allow women!”

“The monks?”

She nodded. “They don’t even allow any female animals in their compound, to distract them from whatever it is they do think about…” She wrestled with a smile, and lost. “One of their saints was so devout that he stood on one leg praying until the other one dropped off from disuse. The leg had little wings on it in all his pictures, to prove that it had gone to heaven with him… And for centuries the only female creatures they’ve set eyes on have been chickens!” She made small cackling noises. “Talk about situational ethics.” Her mouth quivered with frustration, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or swear.

“Well, what can you expect from the followers of a man who stood on one leg until the other one fell off?”

She gave up and let it be laughter. “I don’t know why I’m laughing… that’s disgusting, damn it! The whole situation is

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