Jupiter's Glory Book 1: The Dinosaur World by Adam Carter

Author:Adam Carter [Carter, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-19T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Another rasher of bacon, Miss Arowana?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“A spot more tea?”

“Capital.”

Captain Taylor was on the bed, resting or asleep I had no idea, while Arowana and I sat at the table, the sparkling antique tea set sitting before us, our plates practically empty now, save for dredges of sauce from our beans or crumbs from our fried bread.

If anyone a few hours earlier had described the scene to me I would have assumed them to have been describing a mirage, but we were honestly and truly sitting in a log house, eating a fry-up and drinking expensive tea. The house had more comforts than this, for although it was formed of only two rooms (the second room consisting of little more than a shower and a toilet), we enjoyed more than just the tea. There was a working kitchen, a well-stocked freezer, enough cooking utensils to suggest whoever had built the house had a variety of tastes, a single large bed and enough extra sheets to accommodate guests.

There was even a window, but it would not have been glass in the frame. At the very least I expected it to be some form of thin, transparent titanium. The small house may have looked pleasant from the inside, but the log effect of its exterior was deceptive: behind the logs, like paranoid insulation, lay enough metal to keep out a tank. Ceres tended to provide creatures with far more power than tanks, yet for the moment we had high hopes of it keeping us alive.

“Whoever owns this place,” I said, “has great taste in tea.”

“Stop pretending to be a tea connoisseur.”

“I’m not pretending to be anything, I’m just saying he liked his tea.”

“Or she.”

“You find fault with everything I say, don’t you?”

“Not everything.”

“There you go again.”

“Oh, so even when I’m telling you I think you’re right some of the time, I’m still in the wrong.”

“What makes you think I care whether you think I’m right?”

The pleasant mood was spoiled and Arowana set down her china cup. She ate her bacon, though; refusing to eat would have been foolish. I purposefully poured myself another cup of tea, angry with myself for having started another argument. Arowana had kidnapped me and Taylor had tried to kill me, but I still felt bad for upsetting her. The frustrating thing was the sheer ridiculousness of feeling bad about that.

“Is this the place we’ve been looking for?” I asked, if only to break the silence.

“This shack? No, this is just a staging post.”

“Then you know who put this here?”

“Not personally. There’s nothing here to indicate which government was involved and the kitchen’s stocked with food from enough cultures for us not to be able to tell the nationality.”

“But you know about these staging posts?”

“Only through logic. If you were looking to spend any time on Ceres you’d want to make sure there were safe houses scattered about. Maybe our government set this up, maybe someone else’s. Whoever put it here, it doesn’t stop random people from making use of it.

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