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.Pick these up; we’re going.”With a start, Zenn thought he was addressing her.Then she saw a figure crouching against the wall behind her.The creature had been so still and the smoke so dense, she hadn’t noticed.The Fomalhaut was a female, much taller than Zenn but only about half her weight, the slender humanoid form dressed incongruously in a shabby black tuxedo several sizes too small, her yellow crescent-moon eyes focused permanently on the floor.The delicate features of the Fomalhaut race always made Zenn think of an elvish child’s doll stretched lengthwise in a funhouse mirror.“Don’t muck about! Pick those up, I said.” The Skirni raised a hand in threat, and the Fomalhaut scurried to the table, gathered up the discs and bowed her head in submission before moving to stand a few paces behind the Skirni.Slavery had been outlawed on all the planets of the Local Systems Accord centuries ago.But with no home world of their own, the wandering Skirni mainly lived aboard a scattering of starships in the Outer Reaches, beyond the oversight of most LSA laws; the law governing slaves aboard starliners remained unsettled.Subsisting on the grudging acceptance of the other races, they scraped out a living selling questionable medicinal potions, arranging marginally honest transactions, telling fortunes to the gullible and generally doing the jobs no one else would do.Their Fomalhaut slaves were given the jobs even the Skirni balked at.“So, Master Van-coo-vehr, you wish to recoup your losses?” the Skirni leered at Jules.“Earnestly.”“In that regard…” Thrott said, bringing his hands together with a clink of heavy rings.“I have a proposition.I own an animal.A fighting slug.It is nothing special, a feeble thing, actually.Wins so seldom I don’t know why I waste my time with it.But if you wished to put a creature of your choice up against it, accompanied by a suitable wager, you could regain your losses several times over.”“A fight between animals?” Jules said, surprise audible in his tone.“Such events are illegal, are they not?”“We are star travelers.In the arms of the mother-void,” Thrott said, gesturing broadly at their surroundings.“The legalities in space are, shall we say, murky.With a little discretion, we could arrange–”“It is illegal! And it’s cruel,” Zenn said.All eyes in the room turned to her.She instantly regretted her outburst.“Oh, are you a qualified expert on the subject?” Thrott gave her a mocking, thick-lipped grin.“You practice interstellar law, do you?”“No,” she stammered.“But… I know animal fighting is banned.On all the planets.And it’s inhumane.” Her face burned hot.“But I am no human,” the Skirni said.“And so cannot be inhumane, har.Who are you, in any case, to lecture me? What right do you–”“She is correct to speak.” Jules cut him off.“And I agree.I will not wager on any such animal battles.It is regretful to hear you request such an event.”“Oh, I apologize for disappointing you,” Thrott sneered, sarcasm twisting his face.“The dolphin and the girl have it right.” The soldier gathered up his own colored discs as he spoke.His voice was… what? Commanding, Zenn decided.“We’re still in Sol space.Solar conventions in this case apply until we move out of the system.”“Ah, conventions.They are formulated to be interpreted, are they not?” Thrott gave the soldier a jowly grin.“The law’s the law,” the soldier said, unsmiling.“When laws are clear, interpretation doesn’t come into it.” Zenn realized then what it was about the young officer that kept his appearance from that of a cookie-cutter hero: his eyes.They were pale gray, almost silver.And she couldn’t define it, but there was something about them that seemed able to take in everything about whoever he looked at, as if he had some uncanny skill at reading those around him.Thrott’s own eyes looked away from the challenge of the soldier’s piercing gaze [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]