Hellflower (v1.1) by Eluki bes Shahar Page A

"Hellflowers?"
    I didn’t find anything orbiting Wanderweb on my first pass and set up to try again. It was a damn shame I couldn’t ask Wanderweb Central what they had in their sky, but didn’t think they’d be real responsive somehow.
    "Not kidnapping when you give it back, Pally."
    "And what do you expect the Port Authority to say when questioned? Someone will have to be culpable in the matter of what has happened to Valijon Starbringer. The alMayne will insist. And the penalty for interfering with a member of an Ambassadorial Delegation is . . . extreme, Butterfly."
    "So we send babby-bai across to Pledge in lifepak soon as we get near it. He’ll square his folks-or not. Hell, Pally, what’s one more warrant going to matter?"
    "Kidnapping one of the TwiceBorn is a class-A offense. How many more can you afford? You have, as you are fully aware, three already: illegal emigration from an Interdicted World, nonpayment of chattel indenture, and . . . me."
    Paladin must be really torqued to mention the last bit. Usually we just pretend there ain’t no such thing as Class One High Book. "Already know I’m dicty-barb, runaway slave, and . . . you know," I pointed out. "Tell me new things, che-bai."
    "I will tell you that you cannot afford to attract attention. That you cannot afford another class-A warrant, especially one that will be so actively prosecuted. That if I had known who Valijon Starbringer was in the first place, I would—"
    "You’d what?"
    "I would have told you this earlier," Paladin finished primly. I went back to my sensor-sweeps.
    If Pally said the penalty was extreme, I didn’t want to know what it was. Even if Tiggy did true-tell his da, I didn’t know what hellflower logic’d turn his story into.
    "Then we just better hurry up and find Pledge so’s we can get t’hell out of here, j’keyn?"
    "Ideally," said Paladin. I groaned. All I needed was for my best buddy to have a case of the more-ascetic-than-thous the whole way to Kiffit.
    Besides which, it was getting to be obvious there wasn’t any consular ship highbinding my ex-favorite Free Port.
    "Oh, Paladin. Where is Pledge Of Honor ?"
    "If you had not decided to meddle in the merciful and reasonable justice of the Empire," Paladin said, sounding cross, "we would not be in this situation now, Butterfly."
    "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, trying to keep my voice low. "Never mind it’s Free Port profit, not Imp justice, and Tiggy wouldn’t of been up for the chop if he hadn’t saved my bones."
    "If you had not interfered in the first place, your alMayne nobleman would have murdered K’Jarn and been taken into custody over an offense less extortionately overpriced."
    So now Tiggy was my hellflower glitterborn, was he? I could think of only one real good reason for Pally to be that torqued.
    "Bai, where’s Pledge Of Honor ?"
    There was a real long silence if you consider how fast Paladin chopped logic.
    "I cannot find it, Butterfly. It isn’t here."
    I didn’t ask him if he was sure. If anyone wanted to find the hellflower garden more than me, my silent partner did.
    ###
    I pulled the heads-up console farther down over my face and thought about Life, hellflowers, and scenic Wanderweb.
    One, if I didn’t hit angeltown pretty soon, I’d miss my meet on Kiffit, which could be trouble.
    Two, if my antisocial lovestar’s ticket out of my life wasn’t where he said it was, either it never had been there or it’d left. I didn’t think Tiggy knew how to farce, but if he was true-telling why wasn’t Pledge here?
    Three, I had one sincere headache. It was composed of equal parts class-A warrants, Libraries, and the laws of physics. As follows:
    A-I couldn’t take Tiggy back downside in Firecat . One, they’d cut off his head, two, I couldn’t get down and back alive, and three, it would make me even later to Kiffit if I tried.
    B-I couldn’t take Tiggy with me. Firecat was a little ship, all engines, marginal life-support, and an Old Federation