Bunch, Chris & Cole, Allan - Sten 8 by Bunch Chris

Author:Bunch, Chris
Language: eng
Format: epub

BOOK THREE

DRAGON VARIATION

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Maui, A.D. 2174

THE BOY HURTLED across the sagging plank onto the next hulk, arrowing across its foredeck. He saw die tarred cable anchoring the scow to its brother just in time, and jumped—foot skittering on the gunwale—then he was in the air, the muck and slime of Moaloea Bay below him, sullen tide splashing the polluted water against the black hulls. He landed, almost falling, and darted around the high-piled scrap on the bow’s deck and flattened.

Behind him yelps turned to shouts. There were six of them. All of them older, all of them bigger.

All they had wanted, they said, was to see what the boy had in his ragged military-surplus knapsack.

What they said, what they wanted, did not matter. Their intent was clear. The boy had taken a new way across the bay, moving through the maze of grounded ships, half-sunk hovercraft, trawlers of the fisher families, and oared houseboats that might have belonged to the rich two generations ago. He slipped past the tiny junks of the Chinese boat families, unchanged for thousands of years, working steadily toward the ship channel. Across the channel was the far shore and Kahanamoku City.

The boy knew that when the six found him, they would not kill him. Probably not, at any rate. But he would certainly be beaten. That was not a problem. He’d taken beatings before, and would take them again. And those who would thrash him would have bruises of their own for mementos. It was what was in the knapsack that had made him run, and would make him fight.

Because they would take the pack from him, and open it. The treasures inside would be mocked, ripped, and tossed into the murky waters. Three books. Real books. Books the old man who owned the pierside junkshop had not wanted. One fat book. Two slender. The fat one was very old, had small type, and was called The Thousand Nights and a Night . He knew nothing of what it was about, but a glance inside promised adventures with strange beings in strange places, with creatures called rocs and djinn.

The second book looked equally impenetrable, but was equally promising: Freedom From Gravity, The Equations and Early Experiments of Lord Archibald McLean . Perhaps he could understand just how those great landbarges could fill themselves with cargo, and then effortlessly lift into the sky and float over the watery slum of the bay, out past the barriers to where the great torchships berthed. The last volume was medium-sized: Starchild. Growing Up in Deep Space . The holo of the author inside the front cover made her look a proper dwonk, but what did that matter? She’d at least gotten off this planet, and she looked to be not much older than the boy.

Thumps. Now they were on this barge. Gleam of violet, gleam of yellow. No. Leong Suk would be shamed. A thought crossed his mind—a thought far older than the boy’s years.

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