Read Online Hellflower (v1.1) by Eluki bes Shahar - Free Book Online

Central-ImpCourt, j’ai?"
    Another nod. Communication was reliably established with the mentally underprivileged.
    "So TwiceBorn jump salty if you’re late, see? So Pledge topped angels on sked, and you pick up ship on next downfall." Wherever that was. I wasn’t paying for a long-distance call to Grand Central to find out, neither.
    "But they do not know I’m gone! They cannot know-they would not have left if they had known! My father—"
    Terrific. "Kyted downside on sly to rumble Gentryken?" I was beginning to wonder just how old Tiggy was.
    "Maybe it would be better if you learned alMayne," said my everhelpful partner. "Or helltongue, if you prefer." I looked at Tiggy’s blank expression and tried again.
    "You went to planetary surface n’habla—" damn, what was the Interphon? "without-your parent’s knowledge?" I said careful, counting off the words on my fingers. It was like being back in Market Garden Acculturation class, and I hadn’t liked it then, either.
    "I am not obligated to discuss these matters with you, chaudatu. There was no reason I should not visit Wanderweb. I am the Third Person of House Starborn-and he who says I may not go where I wish lives without walls!" Tiggy put his knife back in his waistband and tossed his hair back out of his eyes.
    The words might be helltalk, but the tune was real familiar. "How t’hell old are you anyway, Tiggy-che-bai?"
    Tiggy goggled at me like he couldn’t figure where the question was coming from, but all of a sudden I thought it was real important. "You will address me with respect as Honored One, she-captain." "J’ai; about the time you stop calling me she-captain, forbye. Now true-tell Mother Sincere facts."
    "What has this to do with the Pledge Of Honor? If they have gone on to Royal you must follow them at once."
    "Why?" If Pledge’d gone on to Royal in the Tortuga Sector Firecat wasn’t following it for any credit. There was a rebellion going on in Tortuga against the Brightlaw Corporation, the family that ran the Tortuga Directorate, which meant Governor General his Nobly-Bornness Mallorum Archangel and his joy-boys’d be all over it, arguing Directorate jurisdiction against sector jurisdiction and making Tortuga cubic real unhealthy for my favorite dicty and other living things.
    I sat down on a crate of rokeach and took off my jacket. I’d forgot about the burn on my arm; I scraped it and hissed. Tiggy tried to explain how I had to go chasing off into this free-fire zone full of Azarine mercs while I tried to get a biopak out of the medkit and over one helluva painful nuisance. Finally we both gave up.
    "Hold still," he said firmly. "You cannot do that yourself. I will bandage you, and you will explain why you are detaining a servant of the Gentle People."
    "That’s you, I suppose." My baseline Interphon was finally coming back to me, but it still felt funny to the taste. "And what makes you think, glitterborn, you got any idea what to do with battle-dressings?"
    "A warrior of the Gentle People must always be able to see to his comites , chaudatu. You are my responsibility, even if you are not very much of one. You have shed blood for me."
    "Like hell." Bent out of shape or not, Tiggy had a glitterborn way of doing the pretty. Nasty.
    "I do not see any painkillers here," he said like it was my fault. "You drank it. You may of noticed by now, o’noblyborn, that this is a freighter, not a high-ticket outhostel. And I want to keep it in one piece, not do a conversion to plasma on the Royal ecliptic."
    "House Starbringer will pay for my return, since ransom is what concerns you, chaudatu, " said Tiggy, once the dressing was in place. He took an eloquent look around my Best Girl’s hold and went over and sat on a crate.
    I reminded myself that he was a homicidal lunatic. "Butterfly, let me—" Paladin began.
    "Ransom," I said, flat. Tiggy looked up. "Tiggy Stardust, is time you got lesson in big-bad galaxy-which you should of got before you went off