Fiction River: Moonscapes by Fiction River Read Free Book Online Page A

look of a statue. His hair was as white as his turtleneck, which I knew he must have done deliberately, to give himself a seasoned look. Men who bioshaped always made me think they were compensating for something.
    “Call me Dexter,” I said.
    I extended my hand, but I was still feeling dizzy from the long stepdock passage from Earth, and I stumbled. Strawn caught my arm, his fingers clamping on my flesh felt like metal. When I righted myself, we locked eyes, and he was looking at me the way I imagined a lion might look at a circus performer who had just pulled his head out of the lion’s mouth—as if he were saying I could snap you in half and there’s nothing you could do about it.
    We shook hands. His pupils were dishwater gray; pigment loss was often a side effect of bioshaping.
    “I see my message got your attention,” he said.
    “Your credit transfer did,” I replied. “That was a lot of money to give me on faith.”
    “Faith has nothing to do with it. Your reputation precedes you. I hear you’re good at helping people.”
    “When it suits me,” I said.
    “And my request suits you?”
    “It has me intrigued. You really want to pay me all that money just to find one of your daughter’s toys?”
    He laughed without any warmth at all and gestured toward the door. I followed him into an entryway that had a green marble floor and a high ceiling. A chandelier floated suspended above, hundreds of ice-like shards filling the room with light. We passed an invisible fountain, water trickling from one pool to another in midair, and finally entered a spacious living room with plush white furniture. The far wall was entirely glass, and because his mansion was high in the hills and at the edge of the floating city, the window looked out on the tops of clouds and an endless stretch of shimmering ocean. It was a rich person’s view of a moon that had been transformed into a perfect paradise ... which of course was why all the rich people were floating above it. The view from below wasn’t quite the same.
    Sitting in a rocking chair, so still I didn’t notice her until she looked up from the handheld on her lap, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her long blond hair seemed to glow with its own light. She wore a tight white turtleneck similar to her husband’s that hugged all of her perfect curves, and a loose-fitting dress that fell past her ankles. But the longer I looked at her, the more apparent it was that her body was just as sculpted—the legs a bit too long, the cheekbones a little too pronounced, the blond hair a little too perfect. She was attractive only in the way that a doll could be attractive.
    “This is my wife, Meladine,” Strawn said.
    “Pleasure,” I said.
    She smiled. Then, as if she was embarrassed, she lowered her gaze. Strawn looked at me.
    “Perhaps you’d care for some tea?”
    “Never touch the stuff,” I said.
    “Something else?”
    “That’s all right.”
    “We can make coffee,” Meladine said in a quiet voice. “I know you Earth natives often—”
    “He said he’s fine,” Strawn said curtly.
    Her wince was hardly noticeable, but that kind of thing always bothered me, and I started to regret responding to the man’s holo. Strawn glared at her until she rose meekly and walked out of the room. Then he turned to the wall nearest us, where there was a watercolor of a field of yellow tulips. The tulips stirred as if by a breeze.
    “Activate screen,” he said.
    The painting dissolved and in its place was an aerial view of a war-torn city, with crumbled buildings and gaping craters. A red light blinked in the middle of the area.
    “Old Vanga Seven?” I said.
    “Very good,” Strawn said.
    I knew from my research that the Vangans had destroyed their own planet centuries earlier—overpopulation, pollution, the usual suspects. Unlike most planets with similar problems, however, the Vangans had been fortunate that one of their moons—Vanga Seven—had been