Hellflower (v1.1) Read Online Free

organization, and the Guild could have the legitimates yank my ship and sell it to cover their costs. Simple.
    But membership cuts two ways. If I get burned-killed or stiffed or any other little thing-I can complain to the Guild, or my designated survivors can, and the Guild keeps records. One or two black marks against a shipper is all it takes, and suddenly your dishonest citizen can’t even find an Indie to herd skyjunk for him, let alone a Gentrylegger to farce his cargo of illegal past the Teasers.
    It’s pretty cold comfort and precious little protection, and to make it work at all, you document your cargo every step of way-it’s called a provenance, or in the profession, a ticket-of-leave.
    That’s life in the big city. The rest is for talkingbooks.
    ###
    I was getting ready to leave the Last Gasp. Gibberfur had sulked out with his strongbox earlier and I was waiting around for the street outside to settle. I was standing at the bar and the tender came back by to tell me that my hellflower lover-that’s Tiggy Stardust of sacred memory-in addition to being arrested the same day he’d offed K’Jarn, had left three dead Wanderweb Guardsmen on the ground before they took him away.
    It was real fortunate that Tiggy and me was quits. Now I wouldn’t have any unfinished business on my conscience when they shortened him and put his head on a pike outside the Wanderweb Justiciary.
    He’d killed Guardsmen. On Wanderweb you can buy out of anything but killing Guardsmen. So of course Tiggy’d killed three of them. Bright lad.
    Hell.
    What was I supposed to do about it? It was all his own fault, after all. I didn’t tell him to dust half a six-pack of Wanderweb Guardsmen. Nobody kills Wanderweb Guardsmen.
    Stupid kid.
    Stupid hellflower.
    I was lost in contemplation of the fate of the late Tiggy Stardust when a genuine pandemonium wondershow came strolling in the front door.
    He was big, he was blond, he was dressed in red leather like the hollyvid idea of a space pirate-and he was with a Hamat. He wore crossed blasters as long as my thigh. The Hamat stood behind him like the presence of doom, and there aren’t so many Hamati that stand human company by choice for me to figure this was two other guys. They were, variously, the Captain and First of a ship called Woebegone, which was a pirate no matter what you might hear elsewhere. I knew Captain Eloi Flashheart from a time we was working two sides of a insurance scam. His side’d involved my side being dead, and if Paladin hadn’t been with me it would of worked. Of course, Eloi always said afterward he didn’t carry a grudge, but how far can you trust a man who wears red kidskin jammies?
    Unfortunately, I was in plain sight.
    Eloi looked right at me, Alcatote looked right at me, and then they both crossed the bar to sit in the back. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding, took my soon-to-be illegal cargo, and left. Fast. I was a sober, sane, sensible member of the highly-respectable community of interstellar smugglers and I did not borrow trouble.
    Much.
    ###
    When I hit the street Wanderweb was its gaudy nighttime self all around, but I wasn’t minding it, nor thinking about Eloi-the-Red. I was thinking about Tiggy Stardust, alMayne at Large, and his current status as official dead person in the Wanderweb Justiciary.
    "It isn’t my problem."
    "That is perfectly correct, whatever it is." Paladin, right in my ear, and I damn near ended my young career with heart failure on the spot. "Don’t do that."
    "Sorry."
    My teeth rang as the RTS took transmission. Nobody gave me-or us-a second glance.
    So Tiggy’d saved my hash in arcade the other day-and been coking toplofty about it too! Nobody sane’d partner a hellflower, least of all one dressed like joyhouse in riot and wearing enough gelt to finance a small war. Do I look stupid? Do I look rich? Why do people tell me these things?
    "Dammit, why do people tell me these things?" "Confession is said to be