On Shalimar - II E-Book

Suzann Dodd

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Sharon feels impelled to 'escape'.  She steals Debbie's flyer, and has the computer take her to the nearest town. Initially unsure of why she was going, where or what, scraps of memory direct her.

Leseprobe

Suzann Dodd

On Shalimar - II

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Delivery of the Package

DELIVERY OF THE PACKAGE

TONY JOHNSONABOARD THE ELMINACHENROUTE TO SHALIMAR

The room is dark save a dull orange light cable which runs the beltline and the bright darkness which filters from Out There. Lightspeed does that, reminding of a bright moonless night when you can't pen where the light is coming from.

When I first slid into the windowseat I didn't match it was built for just this kind of solitude. On human ships there's nothing like it; not that I know much of human ships as before invasion I never thought of entering space.

Since Invasion, where the human population of Earth took to living underground, save those selected for preservation and sent off in Arks, I've been in space as much as on a mudball.

I hold a ceramic bottle containing 'imtra', some sort of stomach settler. Without it, I'd be vomiting my guts into the sani.

Now, chugalugging as I sit in the warm darkness I pen the Zees must do a lot of introspection. Not much else playing on their ships. No amusements, no sex, just work until exhausion, then sit alone in a room like this; looking out, looking in. As I'm doing.

Snicked from my happy fraudscam life of Tony Johnson, I'd just begun to taste fame/adulation and liked the flavour.

I suppose Horace Faith and our ear buster crew could roll the ball. We'd had three concerts before my snatching, the next ten venues were chained, more could online, the prog didn't need review.

The great fraud would perpetuate itself on the mudballers of Beta Mar without my input. Might even be more pious to cloud, let Horace beam, he had an excavatable past, I didn't.

From the ancient 'trackers' I wore on my feet to my teased mop of an 'Afro' I was sham. A walking deceit who'd begun to believe his own lies.

Now, as 'penance' I sit in the 'monastery' of a Zerk warboat en route to the planet of Shalimar. I guess it's good for my soul, if I have one.

Getting There

 GETTING THERE

SHARON FEINSTEINSPRINGSMAGRIT PROVINCESHALIMAR

That I had no fear was the scarest part. Middle of the night, on a strange planet, taking a stolen flyer to a city I've never been, calm as a glass of water. Who was I to be so strong? So courageous? Who was I?

If I spent another microsecond thinking I might have one of my puke and faint episodes, so looked out of the window at the moon bathed landscape, seeing nothing I knew but letting it wash.

I'd flown over dark miles of jungle, forest, desert, if this was Earth I guess I was in Africa, but this ain't Earth. Though it's a good imitation.

The Com announces: "Entering Springs, deceleration commencing, speed dropping to five hundred kilometers per hour."

It's only where there are no cities one can fly above the speed of sound. This proved that Debbie's place was way out of civilisation.

In a little minute I could see the mass of street lights turning colour for their own benefit, cause nothing but me was moving.