The Loranth (Star Sojourner Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

cypods cradled its bed with a green fringe to the sweet forgetfulness of the sea. The picnic tables and benches lining tree shade were occupied by humans and aliens.
    Must be Sunday.
    A Cleocean child slithered across the road after a spiral of violet fluorescent light that rolled to my feet. He reared up on twin tails, webbed toes spread when he saw Gretch and me, ruffling the soft down under his chin. He shook himself and his short white fur settled slowly against his flanks. I smiled and tried to pick up the spiral. My fingers swept through it and encountered only warm resistance. Gretch grumbled in her throat. I caught an odor of rotting vegetation, either from the Cleocean or his toy. There came a slight psychic tug, a tingling in my mind. The spiral lifted and drifted to the child's outstretched fin. His violet eyes blinked, all six of them. I felt a quivering laugh run through my mind as he slithered back to his parents, the eight adults grouped around an octagonal table, sucking mauve liquid from a common bowl wherein dark things jetted.
    I wondered as I walked how non-humans viewed Tartarus. Were we all clinging to this sphere in space only to be hopelessly isolated by our own overlay of subjective reality? I thought of Althea, and of self-imposed isolation.
    The only way I got Gretch stabled was with a promise to feed, water and clean her stall myself. She was not happy over her confinement. Neither was the stable boy. Until I eased his constipated expression with five Interstel real greens stuffed into his manure-spattered back pocket.
    I wasn't exactly ecstatic myself as I walked toward the police station on Main Street in the shadow of my hovering guardian.
    I wished I could read the Big H's mind, and wondered if he'd mellowed since our last confrontation. It would've been nice to follow the river, glimpsed now between narrow streets, to that wild sea beyond. What creatures moved through its silty depths?
    The secrets of Tartarus' land animals were locked in early fish patterns beneath that shifting surface.
    I sighed to ease the solid lump that had settled in my stomach and came up short in front of Stol's Expedition Outfitters.
    Let the manta wait. Hallarin too.
    The display window hadn't changed. Only the signs were different, announcing this bubble tent at half price, that deluxe camp alert system on sale. Those same hiking boots, lanterns, more expensive now. Strange how memories so carefully buried are triggered by small things that suddenly hammer at the shell of time. I rubbed a hand over my eyes, saw the scene again…
    Randy's stiff body draped over Gretch's back. A dark foot showing beneath the blanket. People gathering as I led Gretch into town. The blanket slipping when Gretch bolted…
    I stared at the Calypso Memorial in the center of the square, that charred twist of hull that is the carcass of man's first expedition to Tartarus.
    “Guess I won't need hiking boots after all,” someone said behind me.
    I turned quickly. “Jack!” Out of uniform this time. 'Crotes! Are you polishing your 'sneaking up on criminals' technique?”
    'You're easy, Julie.” He waved at the manta and it banked away. “You never have both feet in this world anyway.”
    I nodded toward the police station. “Yeah, but I wish I hadn't promised you.”
    He flicked a look at the transmitter bracelet and grinned his crooked grin. “You know I always trusted you.”
    We both stepped back as an eight- foot-tall Altairian bounded across the narrow sidewalk on four long stalk legs. A methane and ammonia filled rebreather covered his head like a fish bowl.
    A hose undulated from its port to a sealed pack on his back. He wore a shiny black suit that covered his entire body, like a diver's. I guess he was a diver, really.
    Some of the ground cars and pedcycles wheeling by in the dusty street had odd shapes to accommodate their drivers.
    “I told you the town's growing,” Jack said.
    I watched the Altairian disappear around the