Peter Hamilton - Reality Dysfunction - Emergence

I couldn’t do that.

Why not?

We just finished a Confederation Navy duty tour three weeks ago. Oenone has spent the time since then in dock having the combat-wasp launchers removed and standard cargo systems fitted.she felt his mind close up slightly as he considered her request.

Ruben crossed his fingers and pulled a face.

We might have some surplus,he declared eventually.

Great!

It’s not cheap, and it’s nowhere near four hundred tonnes.

Money’s no problem.she could sense the dismay tweak of the crew at that blasé statement. They had all pooled their navy severance pay, and taken out a big loan option from the Jovian Bank, in the hope of putting together a cargo deal with a Norfolk roseyard-association merchant. Contrary to the firmly seated Adamist belief, the Jovian Bank did not hand out money to any Edenist on request. Between them, Oenone ’s crew had only just scraped together enough fuseodollars for a cash collateral.

I should be so lucky,eysk said. Still, anything to help out an old naval hand. Do you know what you’re looking for?

I had some unlin crab once, they were gorgeous. Orangesole, too, if you have some.

Futchi,cacus chipped in.

And silvereel,edwin said eagerly.

I think you’d better come down and have a tasting session,eysk said. Give you a better idea of what we have available.

Right away. And do you know any other families who might have a surplus we can buy up?

I’ll ask round. See you for supper.

The affinity link faded.

Syrinx clapped her hands together. Ruben kissed her lightly. “You’re a marvel,” he told her.

She kissed him back. “This is only half the battle. I’m still relying on your contact once we get to Norfolk.”

“Relax, he’s a sucker for seafood.”

Oxley,she called. Break out the flyer, it looks like we’re in business.

Joshua hadn’t expected to feel like this. He lived for space, for alien worlds, the hard edge of cargo deals, an unlimited supply of adventurous girls in port cities. But now Tranquillity’s drab matt-russet exterior was filling half of the Lady Mac ’s sensor array visualization, and it looked just wonderful. I’m coming home.

A break from Ashly moaning about how much better life was two centuries ago, no more of Warlow’s grumpiness, an end to Dahybi’s fastidious and perfidious attention to detail. Even Sarha was getting stale, free fall didn’t provide an infinite variety of positions after all—and once you’d discounted the sex, there wasn’t much else between them.

Yes, a rest was most definitely what he needed. And he could certainly afford one after that Puerto de Santa Maria run. Harkey’s Bar was going to resemble a pressure blow-out after he hit it this evening.

The rest of the crew were hooked into the flight computer via their neural nanonics, sharing the view. Joshua guided the ship along the vector spaceport traffic control had datavised to him, keeping the ion-thruster burns to a strict minimum. Lady Mac ’s mass distribution held no mysteries now, he knew how she would respond to the impact of a single photon.

She settled without a bounce on the cradle, and the hold-down latches clicked home. Joshua joined the rest of them in cheering.

Two serjeants were waiting for him when they came through the rotating pressure seal connecting the spaceport disk with the habitat. He just shrugged lamely at his openmouthed crew as the bitek servitors hauled him towards a waiting tube carriage, all three of them skip gliding in the ten per cent gravity field, his shoulder-bag with its precious contents trailing in the air like a half-inflated balloon.

“I’ll catch up with you tonight,” he called over his shoulder as the door slid shut.

Ione was standing on the platform when it opened again. It was the little station outside her cliff-base apartment.

She was wearing a black dress with cut-away sides and a fabulously tight skirt. Her hair was frizzed elaborately.

When he stopped looking at her legs and breasts in anticipation he saw there was a daunting expression on her face.

“Well?” she said.

“Er . . .”

“Where is it?”

“What exactly?”

A black shoe with a sharply pointed toe tapped impatiently on the polyp. “Joshua Calvert, you have spent over eleven months gallivanting around the universe, without, I might point out, sending me a single memory flek to say how you were getting on.”

“Yes. Sorry. Busy, you see.” Jesus, but he wanted to rip that dress off. She looked ten times more sexy than she did when he replayed the neural nanonic memories. And everywhere he went people were talking about the new young Lord of Ruin. Their fantasy figure was his girl. It just made her all the more desirable.

“So where’s my present?”

He almost did it, he almost said: “I’m your present.” But even as he started grinning he felt that little spike of anxiety inside. He didn’t want anything to foul up this reunion. Besides, she was only a kid, she needed him. So best to leave off the crappy jokes. “Oh, that,” he murmured.

Sea-blue eyes hardened. “Joshua!”

He twisted the catch on his shoulder-bag. She pulled it open eagerly. The sailu blinked at the light, looking up at her with eyes that were completely black and stupendously appealing.

They were described as living gnomes by the first people to see them, thirty centimetres fully grown, with black and white fur remarkably similar to a terrestrial panda. On their home world, Oshanko, they were so rare they were kept exclusively in an imperial reserve. Only the Emperor’s children were allowed to have them as pets. Cloning and breeding programmes were an anathema to the imperial court, they lived by natural selection alone. No official numbers of their population were given, but strong rumour suggested there were less than two thousand of them left.

Despite the bipedal shape, they had a very different skeleton and musculature to terrestrial anthropoids. There were no elbows or knees, their limbs bent along their whole length, making their movements incredibly ponderous. They were herbivores, and, if official AV recordings of the Emperor’s family were to be believed, clingingly affectionate.

Ione covered her mouth with one hand, eyes alight with incredulity. The creature was about twenty centimetres high. “It’s a sailu,” she said dumbly.

“Yes.”

She put a hand into the bag, extending one finger. The sailu reached for it in a graceful slow motion, deliciously silky fur stroked against her knuckle. “But only the Emperor’s children are supposed to have these.”

“Emperor, Lord—what’s the difference? I got it because I thought you’d like it.”

The sailu had clambered upright, still holding itself against her finger. Its flat wet nose sniffed her. “How?” she asked.

Joshua gave her a precocious smile.

“No. I don’t want to know.” She heard a soft crooning, and looked down, only to lose herself in the adoring gaze. “It’s very wicked of you, Joshua. But he’s quite lovely. Thank you.”

“Not sure about the ‘him’. I think there are three or four sexes. There’s not much on them in any reference library. But it does eat lettuce and strawberries.”

“I’ll remember.” She eased her finger from the sailu’s grip.

“So what about my present?” Joshua asked.

Ione struck a pose, tongue licking her lips. “I’m your present.”