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Updated: May 12, 2025
The Salarkian who loomed above him spoke accentless, idiomatic Basic Space which came strangely from between his yellow lips. A furred hand thrust the handle of a mop-up stick at the young man, a taloned thumb jerked the direction in which to use that evil-smelling object. Vye Lansor levered himself up the wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly.
This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected some reaction. "You may inspect my credentials if you wish." "I believe you," Vye found his voice. "I happen to need a gearman." But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall.
Vye reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could not tell why he was. "Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter." Lansor blinked.
The other had pushed a button for a refresher cup, then was sipping its contents slowly. He did not ring for a second to offer Vye. "Parents?" Lansor shook his head. "I was brought in after the Five-Hour Fever epidemic. They didn't try to keep records, there were too many of us." The man was watching him levelly over the rim of that cup.
"I was still me as long as I stayed away from conditioning." "Then you became Rynch Brodie in spite of your flight." "No well, maybe, for a while. But I'm still Vye Lansor here." "Yes, here. And I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you know." Vye was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so.
"I'd say Terran stock not more than second generation." He was talking to himself more than to Vye. He loosed his hold on the boy's chin, but he still stood there surveying him from head to foot. Lansor wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the other's gaze when it reached his face again. "No not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way."
And if Hume had not dictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he might have escaped. They could suspect but they would have had no proof. "You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one of the closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority. "I have my rights." "You have the right to claim victim compensation a good compensation, Lansor."
His scaled, six-fingered, claw hand reached out for Lansor and the boy cringed. "No trouble!" There was the click of authority in the voice of the man in the booth. His face, moments earlier taut and sharp with intelligence, was suddenly slack, his tone slurred as he answered: "Looks like an old shipmate. No trouble, just want a drink with an old shipmate."
"Forty names of Dugor!" he spat. Lansor waited, breathing in the air of early morning. The confidence of the drug still held. At the moment he was certain nothing could be as bad as the life behind him, he was willing to face what this strange patron of the Starfall had in mind.
"You Lansor!" He shivered as if an icy wind had found him and opened his eyes. They seemed disproportionately large in his skin and bone face and were of an odd shade, neither green nor blue, but somewhere between. "Get going, you! Ain't paying out good credits for you to sit there like you was buying on your own!"
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