Sliding Void by Stephen Hunt Read Free Book Online

moon, stashed under a stealth web.’
    ‘My ship’s a fine craft, but she’s not much bigger than a shuttle,’ said Matobo. ‘And I’ve still got bounty hunters trying to collect on the warrants on my head.’
    ‘Strange that,’ said Lana. ‘How everyone who you ‘help’ always seems to end up on the lam with a lynchmob a couple of steps behind them.’
    ‘Risk and reward so often go together.’
    ‘Don’t they just,’ said Zeno.
    ‘I owe Calder Durk a little more than a no-frills ticket out of his homeland,’ said Matobo. ‘If it was simple as that, I could have kept the courier I sent to you hanging around here until I had retrieved the prince from his difficulties, then packed him off in the direction of the first civilised port. Mister Durk needs a new life. The kind of life the Gravity Rose so kindly provided for me in the old days.’
    ‘This is it then?’ said Calder. ‘You have made a coward of me. I am to run away, exiled.’ He hardly cared now. All he could think of was Sibylla in the arms of that dog. Sibylla had started him on the path to war, and now here she was, welcoming their enemies’ embrace – it didn’t bear thinking about. Be glad your father and mother passed before they could see this. Be glad your brothers died in battle. Be glad the council already loathed you as an untested, untried pup. Unable to be crowned king until you’d proved yourself with a triumph .
    ‘Will Noak bear this exile with me?’
    Matobo shook his head. ‘Your manservant was on his heels as soon as I fixed up his broken ribcage. Said you and he had an agreement. I paid him off for you, the new queen sitting on your treasury and all.’
    ‘You’re not going to run away, your highness,’ said Lana. ‘You’re going to fly . In style.’
    Calder felt a twinge in his leg where the crossbow bolt should still be impaled. ‘Are we to travel by Matobo the Magnificent’s giant beetles?’
    ‘Matobo the what?’ Zeno laughed.’ You and me going to have a few words, you ever going to call yourself crew.’
    ‘Where are my clothes?’ asked Calder.
    ‘Incinerated,’ said Matobo. The wizard produced a white set of undergarments and a pair of full-body overalls similar to the ones worn by the female captain and her golden sailor. ‘You recognize these greens, skipper?’
    Lana seemed amused. ‘You kept them, all this time?’
    ‘You’re about my build, my prince,’ said the wizard. ‘They should fit you. Put them on, and may they bring you luck.’
    ‘The kind that ain’t bad,’ added Zeno.
    They showed no sign of leaving, so Calder drew on the underpants, vest and then stepped into the green single-piece uniform. A whole village might share the fire of a great hall in the depths of winter, so Calder wasn’t overly concerned or self-conscious as the wizard and his retinue observed his nakedness. Calder reached down by his side. It felt empty with no scabbard. ‘I lost my sabre when my ice schooner was fired at harbour.’
    ‘We got our own,’ said Lana, laughing.
    ‘Where is the humour in that?’
    ‘The shore boat that landed my friends here is known as a sabre,’ explained Matobo. ‘It’s an acronym. SABRE. Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. And you had better be on your way. A nighttime takeoff will draw less attention to your presence.’
    ‘Shit, Matobo. You worried we’ll melt the lead off your tower’s roof? We’ll hover on our repulsers until we hit the mesosphere,’ said Lana. She looked at Calder. ‘Don’t worry about your sword, your highness. Believe it or not, we do have some blades racked in the Gravity Rose , for our own little medieval moments. We’ll give you one thing to take with you, though.’ She looked across at her golden-skinned sailor and winked. ‘You remember that two-timing louse Pitor, and what I did to him when we docked at Zeta Reticuli?’
    Zeno shrugged. ‘As well as your ex-boyfriend does, I’m sure. What is it with you organics and your