Stone in the Sky Read Online Free

was not my servant. He was more like a pet.
    If I were still on Earth, he might have been a dog.

 
    4
    Even though the station kept a twenty-six-hour day and there was no day or night per se, there was a natural rhythm to the hours we all kept. The Tin Star Café was either open or closed, but mostly, with the help of a young Nurlok named Kelmao, it was open.
    Most aliens made do with the various protein paks for basic sustenance, but when it came to indulgences, a sweet, salt, or water was the only true piece of home. At the Tin Star Café, the aliens came in and drank their water, ate their sweets, got their salts, and, of course, they talked. It was a few tables, a bar where my intergalactic sweets, salts, and bottled water were on display. On occasion, I’d serve real food, which was hard to come by on a space station.
    Stretched high along the entire back of the room was a window. Through it I could see a glimpse of Quint, and, of course, I could also see the stars.
    On the sill I had placed my alin plants. From their pots, long tendrils of the infrequent yellow bloom and green leaves cascaded down behind a protected plate of glass. I didn’t want anyone touching my plants. Alin, even from poor-producing plants such as mine, was hard to grow in the galaxy. It had vast medicinal properties that made it worth stealing. The plants bloomed when they could, which was almost never. I had three plants now, two were cuttings from my first plant, which had kept me alive when I first arrived on this space station.
    Trevor rolled to the corner and began playing some contemporary Loor music.
    Too many low tones, I thought. Without antennae I couldn’t appreciate the full beauty of the piece, but others could appreciate it. Soon enough the style of music would change.
    There was only one kind of music I didn’t care for anymore.
    Human music.
    It reminded me too much of what I had lost.
    In my place, I was proud that those species who traditionally did not get along—gutter rats, ambassadors, pirates, and the rare travelers—sat next to each other and played simple parlor games: sticks and stones, zero ones, and poppop bon. If they poisoned or betrayed each other, it didn’t occur at the Tin Star Café. Instead, it happened at my competitor, Kitsch Rutsok’s. I think Kitsch was proud that his place had such a rough reputation.
    Let him keep it, I thought. As long as I stuck to treats and specialties and not the things that he dealt in—imbibing, gambling, and other perverted comforts—he mostly left me alone.
    The castaway on Quint was the only thing that anybody could talk about. Quint had once been a planet full of ores used for various technologies. The ores were mined by aliens with robots like Trevor to cut the rocks and earth. No one had been on the planet for two hundred years. There was no reason to go. There was nothing there.
    â€œAny news?” I asked a Per whom I knew was from the Ministry of Travel. It had a drink in each of its four hands.
    â€œNot on any of the manifests. It’s a small ship.”
    That made me feel better as it eliminated an Imperium ship from the possibilities. The stranger was someone wanting to fly under the radar, which was not uncommon to visitors on the Yertina Feray. We were far enough away from the central core systems and unimportant enough these days to be a place to come to and disappear from the rest of the universe.
    As the crowd ebbed and flowed, rumors abounded as to who it was.
    Rebel. Slavers. Traders. But no one knew.
    The poor soul had obviously gotten caught in the solar flare and had its ship’s electrics fried. With the station on safety protocol, an SOS would have gone unheeded. Not being able to dock, there was only one place to go.
    Quint.
    Throughout the day my eyes kept unconsciously drifting up to the window so I could see outside. It offered no great view like the arboretum, but it was my window, and so its