House of Suns Read Online Free Page A

for sale. If Nebuly had liked enough of the data in my trove, he could have made me an offer sufficient to buy one of those vehicles. With a faster ship, I could have kept my promise to Doctor Meninx and made it back to the reunion only slightly later than anticipated. ‘I suppose I could hold out, see if he changes his mind.’
    ‘He’d have to change it a lot. He could double his offer and it wouldn’t buy you a quarter of one of those ships. The best thing we can do now is take Mister Nebuly’s money. You can’t replace Dalliance , but you can still upgrade some of her systems.’
    ‘It won’t make her faster.’
    ‘I’d settle for safer, if I were you. If you turn him down, we might as well never have come here. We could have gone straight to the Vigilance and got fish-face off our backs.’
    It was as if Doctor Meninx had heard Purslane, for as she spoke the bathing machine bellowed its engine and began to labour back into the sea, clouds of filthy smoke emerging from slats in its rear. I watched as the door swung up and water sluiced in. I half-considered raising the binoculars again, but my curiosity had dissipated. The barnacled form crested the waves momentarily and vanished back into the bathing machine. The door clammed down and the machine began to crawl back onto dry land.
    ‘There’s another possibility,’ I said quietly.
    Purslane looked at me with practised scepticism. ‘There always is, where you’re concerned.’
    ‘Before we landed I had a look at the nearby systems, just in case Mister Nebuly wasn’t as forthcoming as I’d hoped. Less than a hundred lights from here, and more or less on our way home, is a place called Nelumbium. According to the trove—’
    “‘According to the trove.” Where have I heard that before?’
    ‘Hear me out. There’s supposed to be an entity, a posthuman, called Ateshga. He’s supposed to have ships, a lot more than Nebuly, and he’s unlikely to charge as steeply.’
    ‘Why didn’t we go there first?’
    ‘The trove entry isn’t as up to date as I’d like, so there’s an element of uncertainty.’
    ‘An element. I’ve heard that before as well.’
    ‘Also, it would have taken us even further from the Vigilance - if we’d gone straight to Nelumbium, there’d have been no possibility of dropping off Doctor Meninx.’
    ‘If the trove isn’t up to date, what’s to say Ateshga’s there at all?’
    ‘I ran the Actuary - the prognosis looked good.’
    Purslane leaned back in her wickerwork seat, measuring me with those mismatched Gentian eyes. ‘So what you’re proposing is, you limp to the Vigilance, deliver the doctor, then continue to Ateshga.’
    ‘Actually ... no. What I’m proposing is, I skip the Vigilance completely.’
    The hard notch of a frown ate into her brow. ‘Leave him here?’
    ‘The choice’ll be his. If he wants, I’ll take him all the way back to the reunion world.’
    ‘He won’t like it.’
    ‘He doesn’t like anything - haven’t you noticed?’
    A thin figure was stalking across the sand from the direction of the bathing machine. As the walker neared, climbing the crumbling steps up to the road, it revealed itself to be a paper cut-out of a harlequin, inked in watery diamonds. The two-dimensional figure - which resisted the breeze just as effectively as Mister Nebuly’s hanging sheet - was a humanoid avatar of Doctor Meninx. At the same time as the avatar approached, Nebuly left the red-suited centaurs and started trotting back in our direction. He arrived first, the avatar still a good hundred metres away.
    ‘Might I assume that you’ve reached a decision, honoured shatterling?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you down,’ I said. ‘I’m not saying your terms aren’t generous, but I have to be realistic. I think I can get a better deal for my trove somewhere else.’
    ‘If you are thinking of Ateshga, I’d caution against it. He has a very bad reputation.’
    I scratched sand