Debatable Space by Philip Palmer Read Free Book Online

not crying.
    You total fucking loser, if you’re going to get us out of here, you’d better get your shit together!
    Don’t speak to me like that.
    Imbecile! Loser! Wanker!
    All right, all right, you’ve done your work, you’ve pressed my button. I’m back in focus. But if you speak to me like that
     again, I’ll reprogramme your arse tinbrain, okay?
    Whatever you say, Lena. I am here to serve.
    Too damned right!
Lena
    “Do you like it?” asks Flanagan.
    It is a bleak, forbidding planet, with looming mountains and a ghastly yellow sky. We stand in a city made of tents, plain
     canvas awnings turned into a complex network of alleyways and boulevards. And we look out to acres of desert. Men ride horses
     in these parts, sleek stallions and mares derived from ancient Earth bloodstock foetuses.
    “I admire it.”
    “Flying is possible. Would you like to… ?”
    Every fibre in my being screams
no.
I could be killed, maimed, forced into yet another body replacement. And the pain, the pain . . .
    “Yes,” I say. Calm, aloof, distant.
    We are on the planet of Wild West. We have stopped here for rest and recreation, and to allow time for the ship’s computer
     to finish some necessary repairs. Flanagan has decided to treat me with an almost medieval courtesy and respect, as his sly
     way of making his kidnap of me seem morally acceptable. I refuse to accept his pathetic attempts to mollify me, of course.
     And yet . . .
    Well, it’s nice to get out of the ship. And since I’m here, on this actually rather beautiful and appealing low-gravity planet
     with its famous thermal gusts, it seems a shame not to take advantage of the tourist attractions. “Flying is possible,” Flanagan
     had said. Flying! What a wonderful idea!
    We walk through the city, past screaming street traders. I see a headless five-limbed hairy beast of burden, carrying timber
     on its back.
    The Rotan, from the stellar system XI4.
    I see stalls selling monstrous beaked creatures in a cage.
    Kiwiris, the two beaks contain its brain, it eats by drooling enzymes. The beaks emit a beautiful song, and addicts of the
     song of the Kiwiri are known to die of malnutrition, so rapt are they.
    I see birds on fire in the sky.
    They are Sparklers, sentient flying aliens, with the power of bioluminescence. They are tourists, like us.
    I see carpets and robes for sale, I see men with hooked noses and gnarled faces and impossibly wrinkled flesh, I see women
     whoring their bodies on the street, and boys doing the same, and half-men half-women parading their grotesquery in public,
     I see so much that my head hurts.
    “We’ll hitch a ride, out to the cliff,” says Flanagan.
    We join a merchant’s convoy and ride horses through the desert. My body automatically adjusts to the rhythms and the skills
     of bare-back horse riding. I spur my beast into a quick gallop and Flanagan easily matches my pace. The wind throws my hair
     back. My arse is pounded and mashed by the horse’s bony back, and I know I will have to have my bruises removed by the autodoc
     this evening. But the pain and the wind and the smell of rank horseflesh combine into an exhilarating and heady experience.
    I am enjoying myself. I really am!
    We reach the mountains, and pause. I stare up at the magnificent vista. In this low gravity the mountains grow high and thin,
     triangles moulded out of metamorphic rock. Green and purple algae stain the bare cliff faces, and the foothills are rich in
     meadowy grasses.
    We take a cable car to the summit, basking all the while in astonishing views. And, finally, we step out of the cable car
     and find ourselves on a plateau. Market traders are selling knick-knacks and tourist crap as well as the necessary flying
     paraphernalia. After some angry bartering, Flanagan hires wings and emergency parachutes. All around us, men and women are
     leaping off the mountain top and being caught up in the winds.
    We are actually
above the clouds
. They are stretched out