Angeleyes - eARC Read Online Free Page A

what I needed. He was on the “maybe” list.
    My only issue was they liked their ship cold. I wore a liner over my briefer and under my suit, and an ear band. I had lightweight gloves but couldn’t wear them much.
    They had valuable indoor cargo—wine, liquor and caviar that had come from Earth. It had to be checked every few hours. I’m not sure why. The hold container was conditioned, but I had to eyeball it, and once a day the purser did as well.
    They also had a passenger pod. I helped the cook with labor and delivered it to the passengers.
    The cook was fantastic. Iliana actually had attended a formal school in Italy on Earth. She was taller than me, very solid, and could chop food by hand for hours, it seemed like. She never got tired.
    “Food is art and science,” she said. “Getting it all ready at once is science. Making it good is art. So stir this.”
    I did. She had two pans stirring themselves, me stirring another, while she hand chopped herbs and tossed them into the gravy she had me holding.
    She even had a chicken stroganoff aside for me and another crewmember who didn’t like beef.
    She reached past me and swapped pans, replaced a cutting board, grabbed a different knife, and just moved nonstop, items going past me and into serving containers.
    The containers all went on a rolly, which I hauled down to the pod. There was a housekeeper assigned to them who took it and thanked me.
    It was fifteen days from station to station and then in-system. NovRos has one of the spacewheel transfer stations the Freehold has. We dropped down in system, latched on, and it threw us down the gravity well. We spent most of the trip at low-thrust retro to brake. I’m told you don’t use any more fuel, you just arrive faster since all you’re doing is braking, not accelerating.
    “We’re legging out in three days,” Captain Mirovich told me. “Back to Caledonia. I can take you on standard pay for the jump transit, deadhead from here to there.”
    “Okay,” I said. I wanted to look about their orbital station. I hadn’t been there in four years, and that had been about three days, too. I didn’t have a reason to stick around, so back out was fine. I stamped a contract, left my work gear aboard, and took my personal bag stationside.
    I had friends here, but I got a message that they were both away on contract. Bob and Ray were my go-tos in this leg. I’d hoped to avoid lodging and have fun with friends. No luck, and it was a short turnaround.
    Instead I found a lead on a place with roomy bunkies. They were actually almost bach rooms. Private bath, bed and chairs, and a unitized kitchen machine. It was slightly larger than a crew stateroom. They cost about twice what a bunkie does, but I could get spread if I wanted to.
    I figured to try the Ice Palace, so I used blue and white makeup down to my collar, glitter out from my eyes, a long ice-white wig with blue ticking, and a blue unitard. I found a store with a white icicle skirt and paid to have it delivered by tube to the kiosk in the lobby.
    A lot of older stations are inflated planetoids. They have open trains because it’s only three kilometers in diameter and length both. It’s not quite a cylinder, but close enough. There’s a raised “hill” on one side and a lake on the other. They’re okay recreation, but more for families.
    I took the train down the axis and out between the lake and hill. That’s where the Ice Palace is, across from the Sun God.
    I really did dance, with Electroade cocktails in between. Blueberry Electroade, a splash of vodka and a dusting of Sparkle, over a solid cone of ice. It’s refreshing, and I got into a great dance trance. I could feel the music and rhythm, and just gyrated with it. Inside I felt like I was squirming. It’s hard to describe. If you’ve Sparkled, you know what I mean.
    Then it all overlapped with the music and low G and I got dizzy. I ordered a hit of straight O2 to clear my head.
    The bar had some