Rising Son by S.D. Perry

Author:S.D. Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek

9

MUCH TO PIF’S annoyance, he was teamed with Aslylgof for the Hw17 job. Even Glessin would have been better than Aslylgof, because Glessin didn’t talk as much—and when he did talk, it wasn’t to demonstrate how much he knew—but Glessin wasn’t even on the team, and Pif was stuck.

“The planet Hw17 is not inhabited, as such, though there is clear evidence that various spacefaring cultures have settled on the surface for short periods,” Aslylgof said, settling his equipment belt over his wide hips. “No one is sure why it hasn’t been permanently colonized, although it seems likely that the consistently cold temperatures, combined with the poor exposure to light, make it an agriculturally unproductive environment . . . .”

All I wanted to know is whether or not the locals are alien friendly, Pif thought, gritting his teeth at Aslylgof, hoping it looked like a smile. After a moment, he stopped hoping, and a moment after that, he stopped bothering to grit. Aslylgof just kept talking. While the team—Stessie, Pif, Itriuma, Brad, Aslylgof, Jake, and Dez—was assembling in the transporter room, gearing up, Pif had made the horrible mistake of asking a simple, casual question, and Aslylgof had taken it upon himself to answer.

Pif shot a helpless look at Dez, pulling on his boots, who shrugged, smiling.

“ . . . thick ice and snow, which will actually prove favorable to our hunt,” Aslylgof continued, and held up his AD light. “Against the backdrop of frozen precipitation, the distinctive red color of the engaged alloy-density illuminator should stand out clearly . . . .”

Itriuma was standing nearby, adjusting her nose filter and yawning; it was early. Pif sidled close enough to her to whisper out of one side of his mouth.

“Why are we doing this again?” Pif asked. Oblivious, Aslylgof kept talking, explaining what Pif and everyone else in the room already knew.

“Ask him,” she whispered back, and quickly stepped away before she got caught in Aslylgof’s line of sight.

He’d probably try to tell me, too. As if it hadn’t been a near-constant topic of conversation on the Even, since Srral had first intercepted the report. A month ago, a rival retrieval team—the ship’s name escaped Pif, something like My’lta—had jettisoned its extremely valuable cargo over Hw17 while being chased by authorities. The crew had been arrested—larceny, of course—and the cargo was still missing; said authorities, of a cold-blooded species called Horgin, had yet to mount their own retrieval expedition. It appeared that the My’lta’s cargo compartment had split open on the way down, and though the Horgin had found their own piece—the entirely uninteresting Horgin Thas—they’d decided to return home before searching the rough ice fields for the rest, needing to properly outfit themselves for the weather. In the “scrambled” report they’d sent home, they suggested that they’d taken measures to protect the site zone . . . as it turned out, a laughably ineffectual satellite forcefield that Facity had tapped out of commission with one shot.

Besides the Thas, which the

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