Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man by Andrew Hindle Read Free Book Online Page A

us much incentive to leave you alive there, Bubbles,” Waffa said, and ascended back to the top of the dome.
    “I’m just saying, they’re a commodity,” Zeegon was saying on the comm when Waffa helped the next round of evacuees onto the lander and climbed up to where Decay was sitting in the pilot’s seat. The remaining Bonshooni were all able-bodied and capable of settling themselves into the seats, and so Z-Lin was standing behind the pilot’s chair and continuing a debate with the helmsman that had clearly been going on since shortly after Zeegon had heard there were smokeberries in Bayn Balro. “They’ll be valuable for trade if things have gotten as bad as it’s starting to look.”
    “We are an AstroCorps starship,” Z-Lin said steadily, “not a drug runner. And if things are as bad as they look, then the Tramp is the only commodity we need. A functioning relative-capable starship is currency that’s only going to appreciate in value.”
    “‘Functioning’?” Waffa murmured.
    “Quiet you,” Clue gave him a narrow glance before turning back to the communicator. “Anyone at our end who brings smokeberries on board will be reduced to single quarters,” she announced, “inside the Contro Tangle with the evacuees.”
    “We’re non-Corps civilian crew,” Zeegon said, and Waffa recognised this as a new incarnation of an even older argument, that Clue and Pendraegg been having on and off since The Accident. “You can’t bust down our quarters.”
    “I can’t officially reprimand, demote or court-martial you,” Z-Lin said for what Waffa judged must have been the fiftieth time, “but ‘non-Corps civilian crew’ are only entitled to single ‘non-Corps civilian’ quarters, not the crew quarters you have now and certainly not the huge crazy expanses of linked-up rooms you all have. And I can’t force you back into single rooms since it’s seven against one, for all practical purposes … but when we reach that point, we have basically decided to forget about civilisation and the rule of law, and none of this matters anymore. But you did sign up to be part of the crew, and that meant being part of the chain of command, and now you’re helmsman because of that.”
    “Don’t remind me.”
    “ Don’t make me remind you ,” Clue severed the comm connection with an aggravated sigh, and turned back to Waffa. “Am I crazy to not want a hold full of smokeberries?”
    “Yes,” one of the Bonshooni strapped in nearby said.
    “Wasn’t asking you.”
    “You’re not crazy, boss,” Waffa said, strapping down the bag he’d been carrying. “What about the Fergies? I don’t know what their capacity is, since they’d only be lying about everything if we asked them, but they do seem to have lost most of their tech. Otherwise they would have taken us all out by now.”
    “I think we can leave without worrying about them shooting us in the butt,” Z-Lin said. “I won’t be leaving any kids behind for them to eat as a thank-you for not using their imaginary missiles on us,” she turned her gaze on the evacuees. “A fully-grown wannabe smoke-smuggler, not to belabour the point, would make a much rounder meal.”
    “We get it,” the nearby Bonshoon said querulously.
    “Even one of them would be like a piece of toffee to a Fergunakil,” Decay said without looking up from the lander controls.
    “But what I’m asking is,” Waffa continued, “much as I don’t want to … look, they’re pretty much stuck here just as much as the Bonshooni were. They were way bigger dicks about it but they’re still marooned.”
    “I know,” Z-Lin said with another sigh. “We have to leave the sharks down here. We don’t have the capacity to carry even a fraction of them, even if we wanted to.”
    “And we don’t want to,” Decay put in.
    “Damn right,” the evacuee agreed.
    “Still not asking you,” Clue said, then turned back to Waffa. “They seem fine out there in the water, they’re not