Lore by Craig Robert Saunders

Author:Craig Robert Saunders [Saunders, Craig Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fable Books
Published: 2018-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

24.

Dianda’s

Dianda’s was as dark inside as out, but as Cetee entered she knew it wasn’t the kind of place people got killed. It was the kind of place people got lost in, starved, forgotten between endless stacks and displays, and then died of natural causes.

Dianda, the store’s owner and keeper, didn’t come to greet them. She was a Glasian. Over time the Glasians had evolved a higher level of communication, eschewed any written or spoken form of communication and as a result they were entirely peaceful, at least among their own kind. The development of glandular communication led to race of empaths, who felt what each of their kind felt. Cetee imagined anyone would be less inclined to harm another if their victim’s pain was their own.

The thought didn’t sway her in the slightest, but it was sweet.

Aside from being peaceful and contented and noticeably unrufflable Dianda was fat – like star nursery pregnant with quintuplets fat. She didn’t move to greet them because she couldn’t.

Her empathy gland, the largest part of her body, made her the perfect saleswoman. She understood what the customer was looking for, and being encumbered by some kind of shared satisfaction meant she was loath to con a customer. Fair, and helpful.

That, too, wasn’t exactly Cetee’s path, but the Glasian was Caamaj’s recommendation, and Caamaj was Orpal’s friend...contemporary, even. Cetee could be perfectly polite when she had to.

I can help, said Dianda via her intertrans, a buzzing artificial voice which came through a simple amp on a counter long as she was wide, and that was around seven or eight metres.

The answer threw Cetee. Strange, talking with a being that knew what you thought/felt.

“Orpal sent us?”

The woman inclined her head – not strictly a head, like a human’s, but a huris palsa, a just a slick, pulsing protrusion with no discernable features.

Yes, she said. You’re looking for something to interface with the genogun, but it doesn’t matter. I cannot do anything with a genogun. You do have something, however. The eyes of a Lyenka.

“Are you reading our minds?” asked Kyle.

It certainly seemed that way to Cetee.

No. Emotions. Far better, said the storekeeper. With the Lyenka, I can perhaps help. And thief lady? I have something for you. I will have brought what you need. Browse. Look around. A moment.

Cetee glanced at Kyle, who mirrored her shrug.

“Mooch?”

She nodded to the Glasian, and they wandered to the closest aisles, stacks and racks and shelves that must have reached ten metres high, piled with devices all the way to the ceiling of the store. Outside, a small frontage. Inside, more like a warehouse.

Their chances of finding anything in the store were next to none.

Kyle picked up a skinning blade that hummed when it was in his hand. The laser projector was shot though, and intermittently it sputtered out. He put it back.

Cetee scanned the racks, uncomfortable now she knew just how perceptive the woman was...a woman who could not only understand your feelings, but translate them to words and thoughts.

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