The Fractal Prince by Rajaniemi Hannu

Author:Rajaniemi, Hannu [Rajaniemi, Hannu]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780575088955
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2012-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

15

THE THIEF AND THE SAUNA

The day before the thief leaves for Earth Mieli prepares an Oortian meal. He is in a good mood, lecturing, flashing smiles. But every now and then, from the corner of her eye, she sees something different on his face. Something savage.

See? the pellegrini whispers. She has been there all the way through her preparations, watching them. Have faith and it all works out in the end.

She ignores the goddess and continues setting up the table. Spider eggs in small food nets. Peeled pumptree fruit. Drinking bulbs. She has already started warming up the sauna.

‘This all seems somewhat elaborate,’ the thief says. ‘Should we not spend the time getting ready, for, I don’t know, sneaking into the most well-guarded planet in the System?’

‘We are getting ready,’ Mieli says. ‘Earth is a dark place, a place of pain. We have to purify ourselves.’

‘I can certainly get behind that. In fact, I’m going to purify myself internally.’ He swallows some of the contents of a drinking bulb and makes a face. Mieli snatches it back from his hand.

‘It tastes like tar,’ the thief says.

‘The taste is not important. It is to honour the dead. And the meal is only for after the sauna, so control your instincts.’

The thief looks at her. ‘I don’t know about the dead, but I’m kind of looking forward to this. I’m glad we finally see eye to eye.’

Mieli says nothing. She sees the pellegrini smiling and closes her eyes. The face of the goddess does not go away.

‘Let’s go to the sauna,’ she says.

The sauna is housed in one of Perhonen’s storage modules. In her years of service to the pellegrini, Mieli has only used it a few times: it makes her too homesick. But if you really want to cleanse yourself, it is the only way to do it, and the ship has reassembled it for the occasion.

It is a tiny, spherical room of wood, with a large bubble of water in the centre, held in place by a semi-permeable membrane and väki threads, like a raindrop in a giant spiderweb. You take hot rocks from small braziers with tongs and throw them into the bubble. It creates a rush of steam. The rocks swirl around in the bubble and make it dance like a living thing.

Perhonen has connected the module with the main living area of the ship and the wooden hatch looks inviting. The thief looks at it suspiciously.

‘So, how does this work?’ he asks.

‘Get out of your clothes,’ Mieli says.

He hesitates. ‘Now?’

‘Just do it.’

He takes a sharp breath, looks away and fumbles at his jacket and trousers. ‘Don’t I get a towel?’ he says. But Mieli has already let her toga fall aside and is in the warm rush of löyly.

The thief comes in hesitantly. His eyes flicker across her body. Then he settles on the other side of the sauna bubble, pushing his feet into the wooden handles and settling on the seat. The hatch that opens into

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