Redshift Rendezvous by John E. Stith

Author:John E. Stith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781880448588
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2001-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Destination Xanahalla

"Your p arents sold you to those people on Redwall?"

Tara asked after a moment of speechlessness Pain squeezed tiny vertical wrinkles between her

.

eyebrows "But that's not possible Aren't there laws?"

Page 166

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"Not many laws don't have loopholes " I said "According to Red wall's charter they operate a boarding

, .

, school Their students supposedly make enough money for the school by performing extracurricular jobs

.

that the school officials can afford to give parents a finder's fee "

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"But that's inhuman "

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"But it happens Especially in regions of the Confederation where the public officials are the cheapest to

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buy "

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"How did you learn all this? Surely the people who ran Red wall didn't just tell you "

.

"No In fact, they found it was to their advantage to tell us we were born there that we were leading a

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, normal life for people like us Whispered rumors were generated from casual remarks made by customers

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and passed on to the rest of us but we didn't know the truth When I was sixteen. I had taken all I felt I

, .

could take I had to either get out of there or kill myself

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"I managed to get out I killed three sentries in the process and I badly injured a customer but I had no

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, , regrets On my way I managed to copy a portion of their records "

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, .

"But why would you— oh you wanted to know where you came from " Tara's expression was

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transparent as she reached the next logical conclusion and her face paled still further "Oh my God Jason

, .

, .

, what did you do to your parents?"

"Their names were in the records so after educating myself about the real world I decided I would go

, , , find them But I didn't have the money to afford a hyperspace trip Working my way onto a maintenance

.

Page 167

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crew led to being able to go where I wanted before I could afford to be a paying passenger and

, eventually led to my current job

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"It took me almost three years to get to the planet the records said they had lived on Transom Five It

.

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took me several weeks on the ground before I was able to trace where they currently were Late one

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afternoon I finally reached the building they lived in It was more depressing than the 'dormitory '

Graffiti

, .

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obscured almost the entire area a person could reach from the ground or from standing on someone else's shoulders The building had apparently been in a war zone at one time because the outer walls were

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, scarred and they'd been sloppily repaired with mud and leaves The stairs up to the level listed in the

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address were missing almost a third of the steps

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"At first I had been worried about carrying a gun but in that neighborhood I would have looked out of

, place without a weapon The kids playing outside watched me just as warily as I would have watched a

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sentry on Redwall Anyway I went up to the apartment door and knocked on it At first I thought no one

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