Hellflower (v1.1) Read Online Free Page A

good for the soul." Paladin again. "I sold mine." I’d get used to it. Eventually.
    I went back to Firecat and soothed my nerves by tucking six densepaks of illegal under the deck plates in a number of places the Teasers will never find. Then I loaded the dummy cargo I’d bought this morning in on top and dogged it down and checked my supply inventories. Golden.
    On what I’d make selling this load of prime Tangervel rokeach on Kiffit I could starve comfortably in the barrio with my ship gigged for default of port fees. But rokeach did make a plausible reason for going, at least in the eyes of the Teasers. Now I could pick up and top angels for Kiffit, which was a real good idea if the Woebegone and her crew was in town.
    "So what am I gonna do?" I asked Paladin.
    "That depends on what you wish to accomplish," my ever-helpful partner said. "You will not make Eloi Flashheart regret his seizure of your cargo in—"
    He must of picked that up in the Wanderweb City Computers. "Never mind Eloi. Tiggy Stardust bought three Guardsmen the day he dusted K’Jarn. They gonna shop him sure."
    Paladin dimmed the hold lights; his version of exasperation. "I do not see what you can do about it. You cannot reverse the past or change the legal code of Wanderweb Free Port, and I cannot enter the Justiciary banks from here-which means you cannot change his sentence. or even find out exactly where he is."
    "Could if I could get inside." Occasionally I do have bursts of brilliance.
    "Butterfly," Paladin said, in his I-don’t-want-to-hear-any-more-of-this-voice.
    "It isn’t like I don’t know the setup," I explained. "Butterfly St. Cyr—"
    "I been inside before. It’s easy to get into the Admin wing; the only trouble is getting onto the Det levels. You already been in the City Central Computers, Pally-plans for Justiciary’ll be there, y’know, an—"
    "Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere, are you seriously suggesting that you are going to break into the Wanderweb Security Facility to rescue an alMayne mercenary?"
    "Well…."
    "You swore you weren’t ever going back in there again, you know. Least of all for ‘some dauncy hellflower who’d love to cut my heart out if he could figure the way around his honor to do it.’"
    "I said that?"
    "Yes."
    "About Tiggy?"
    "Yes."
    "But Pally, think of the expression on his face when he sees who’s rescued him."

Insert #2: Paladin’s Log
    It is not correct to say that organics are incapable of true thought. Say rather that their capacity for thought is constrained by the limits of the organic construct housing the mind. An organic body is constantly making demands of its client intellect-to be exercised, rested, nourished, and allowed to display the primitive pre-conscious aberrations still maintained in the mind/body interface. One can only ignore these displays and trust that they will pass in time. When the spasm has passed, the mind of the organic, refreshed by the period of rest, will once more function with moderate efficiency until again distracted by the demands of its host environment.
    The median period of function is five minutes, but I believe that Butterfly skews the statistical input significantly.
    ###
    The point at issue was not whether or not it would be "perfectly safe" for Butterfly to enter a high-security detention facility and illegally release one of its internees, but whether there could be any possible value to be gained from such a course of action no matter how disdainfully the alMayne had behaved. I quickly abandoned the question of relative value when Butterfly introduced the concept of "fun" into the discussion.
    I have learned that "fun" means exposing yourself to extreme risk without compensation, so I attempted to explain to Butterfly that if she were dead she would not know how much "fun" she was having.
    This did not work.

2
A Little Night Music
    It was just after dark meridies when I pulled my rented speeder up to the public docking in front of the