Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) by Jean Kilczer Read Free Book Online Page A

it. It was heavy with flapping, thick-bodied crustaceans. Their feelers and short claws clung to the net bag.
    “Drop the bug bag, troll!” a woman's voice called.
    I put it down gently with its living cargo as a diver climbed onto the pier, her fins hooked to her weight belt. She braced her legs and yanked out her dive knife from a sheath. I saw the broad, serrated blade glint in an overhead light.
    “I was just curious,” I said. I could hardly make her out in the dark.
    “Curiosity about somebody else's crusties can buy you a ride in an ambulance.”
    “OK.” I backed up as she scooped up the bag.
    “Are you a damn tourist?”
    A tourist. That sounded like a good idea. “Yeah. Just arrived from Earth.”
    “Tourists don't know nothing about the rules.”
    I shrugged. “I can learn.”
    “You don't touch a diver's bug bag, troll.” She waved the knife at me. “And you don't pull up somebody else's crusty pots in the bay. Those are the two things that can earn you an early grave. Some of the fishers are sitting up there on the hills with rifles, protecting their pots.”
    “OK.” I smirked. “I think I've got it.”
    I followed her as she walked under the light and knelt beside the bag.
    “I've got some six pounders in here.” She wiped her dripping face and shrugged out of her tank. “On a cloudy night like this, the bugs don't see you coming.” A large crusty tried to scurry out. She shoved him back inside.
    I bit my lip. Mock meat is more to my taste than eating living animals. But who was I to judge? “They bring a good price?”
    She nodded. “The restaurants.” She picked up a large crusty by his carapace and turned him over. “See? No eggs.” The creature tried to reach her hand with short claws, but couldn't. “I never take any with eggs. That's my code.”
    I wondered how she reconciled it with a town code that encouraged slavery.
    “It's illegal, anyway.” She sniffed and ran an arm across her nose. “Though I know some trolls who would scrape them off.” She put the crusty back into the bag and snapped it shut. “I might take tomorrow off.” She glanced up at me and smiled, then stood and raked me with a scrutinizing look from dark, narrowed eyes that had an alluring slant.
    “Looking for anything special?” I asked her.
    “Just checking out the scenery.”
    “See something you like?”
    She smirked. “Some pretty fine real estate. You dive, tag?”
    “I do.”
    “Got gear?”
    “Back on Earth.”
    “I can set you up. I've got extras of everything. You get to keep the crusties you catch.”
    I studied the curves of her tall, lithe body, her full breasts, taut beneath the neoprene. “A wet suit too?”
    “You might have to buy that.” She peeled off her hood and shook out long, curly, raven hair that fell across her face and neck. Her features were sculpted, with high cheekbones that added to the allure. Her mouth was wide and full. I found myself leaning toward her. She had a Mediterranean look that I had always found exotic.
    “So what's your name?” She unzipped her neoprene jacket. My eyes got glued to her full breasts in the bikini top. “I said, what do they call you?”
    “Oh. Jules. And you?”
    “Sophia.” She clipped the bug bag to her weight belt and bent down to pick up her tank. The curve of her breasts held me as though in a prison. “I'm heading back to town to drop off the crusties. Want a ride?”
    I looked around the empty pier. “A ride?”
    “Into town, Blondie.”
    “Oh. In what?”
    She motioned toward a dark corner. “
On
what.” She hefted the tank over her shoulder.
    Didn't New Lithnia sell artificial gills, I wondered. I'd used them on planet Syl 'Terria. But I guess not.
    “Here,” I said, “let me carry that.” I reached for the tank.
    She pulled away. “I carry my own gear, tag.”
    “Suit yourself.” I followed her to a motorcycle parked in shadows. She bungeed down the tank, her gear bag, and the crusties on the back rack