Read Online Smallworld by Dominic Green - Free Book Online

Kranii system. Alpha G. is thirty New Light Years away.”

    Mr. Trapp swallowed hard. “So far? Oh my. Oh my. ” He covered his head with his hands in mock dismay. “I must apologize for any distraction. This is terrible news. The passenger cabins had no windows. By the sound of it I was lucky I slipped out of the ship to stretch my legs. The ship landed near to here, the Captain said to take compressed air and water—”

    “ Water?” Mrs. Reborn-in-Jesus was actually scandalized. “Do people think there’s that little water here?”

    “I fear,” finished Mr. Trapp, “I might have been aboard a Slaver ship.”

    Horrified intakes of breath chorussed all round the table. Since the end of the War Against the Made, human beings no longer created machines as intelligent as themselves to do their bidding. A certain type of rich man, particularly this far out on the frontier, found this injurious to his lifestyle; a trade in human slaves, unthinkable for centuries, had evolved to fill this niche.

    “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Trapp, “I must be alone. Did you say I could sleep in the—?”

    “Third house along,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, licking the last flecks of dessert off his spoon. “Still has a bed in it that the blood’s been washed out of.”

    Mr. Trapp smiled a fragile crystalline smile.

    Suddenly, Only-God-Is-Perfect Ogundere, who had been watching Mr. Trapp’s pulsating kitchen fatigues throughout the meal, piped up unbidden.

    “Is what you’re wearing the very latest fashion where you come from, Mr. Trapp?”

    Trapp had been prepared for this one. “It is indeed, young lady. But it is dancewear, intended only for festivals. We had been holding a party in steerage. I was hot, and had gleaned that we were on a habitable world with a breathable atmosphere, so I left the vessel to cool down.”

    “Quite a risk to take,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “ Habitable covers dioxide monsoons, sulphuric acid rain, and temperatures both above boiling and below freezing.”

    “Maybe,” smiled Mr. Trapp, “I suspected subconsciously what was about to happen to me.”

    “Maybe,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “Third house along,” he repeated.

    Mr. Trapp smiled again, nodded curtly, and left in a hurry.

    “What do you think?” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, as the children were clearing away the dishes.

    “I think,” said Shun-Company, “that he is either from inside the Penitentiary or an advance scout for a Slaver ship in his own right. It is just possible a vessel could approach Ararat without our detecting it, but such a thing would have had to have been deliberate. It is not my place to criticize my husband, but you could have been less open about your disbelief in his story. If he is an escapee, we have no idea what his criminal specialty might be. He might be a serial killer, or a child murderer, or—heaven forfend!—a serial child murderer.”

    Reborn-in-Jesus ground his teeth in his head. “The Devil would not allow him to harm us.”

    A metallic green beetle buzzed in lazy figures-of-eight around the room’s modest chandelier. Shun-Company looked up at it. “The Devil is no God Almighty, to be considered capable of solving all our problems. Even God insists men address their own difficulties.”

    Reborn-in-Jesus looked up at the beetle. “Do you hear that, Beelzebub? Have your eyes and ears heard all that has gone on in this house today?”

    The fly buzzed straight up and down in the air before returning to its eternal figure-of-eight.

    “Should we fear this new visitor?”

    The fly buzzed up and down again.

    “Will you pay a visit to us in the morning?”

    Again, the up and down movement.

    Shun-Company leaned forward close to the fly. “Is your servant close enough to watch over us at this moment?”

    The fly wavered from side to side.

    Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus raised a finger. “It is checking the South End for recent signs of a Slaver starship landing, am I