BOOK THREE - 613!
CHAPTER NINE -
SNAKERS’ RELIEF
Snaker’s
Relief on Doobydie does not lay out a free breakfasat buffet.
The office is even more depressing than the Guild hall, if such thing be
possible… but at least there are nutrient cubes and caffa,
held between Broonzy’s shaky hands while Turpin lifts
another of the small, square gray biscuits to his mouth chewing painfully.”
“This stuff jams!”
“Get what you pay
for.” Broonzy
drinks, sighs, drains the rest of his cup and, after looking about to see that nobody’s
watching, misdirects his mate while he quickly pours another cup, “See that place over on the corner from Baawl…” he points at the bare, gray wall, “complete
breakfast
Turpin
looks down at his ticket, 31, as a voice calls out "28!".
“If
you'd gotten me up an hour earlier, we could've been out of here! That hyde
here before, says they were taking one sixes at the Guild… one jammin' sixes!”
“Meth
transport. Rawth'll kill you!”
“Don't wanna
live forever!” Broonze looks down at the floor. “Might take a few years off my life, but those'll be the last years.
Name of the game here is out! I
do not like this planet. Do not like
this system. Jam doobydie
and everybody on it…”
A disembodied voice calls
out "29?" Twice, then "30?". A morose hyde… aspects of basset hound and sloth… stands up,
careens through the room towards the door, disappears. Finally "31!" Broonzy gulps the
remainder of his caffa, Turpin pockets a handful of
the tough survival biscuits, shrugs. A
door opens and a white shirted bureaucrat leads them back to a closed office,
in which a different thin lady bureaucrat, very starched and with the aspects
of a pterodactyl, or heinously starved quottle, is
examining their applications… she lays the paper down, looks from one to the
other and back…
“Ordinary
snaker Braxton Broonze? And you would be…”
“Turpin,
ma'am.”
He extends a hand, still glistening with crumbs of the survival bar… a
fibrous square of protein, vitamins and other sustainables
that emerged from some Regency laboratory; she stares at it distastefully, and
he pulls it back.
The reptilian welfare lady
coughs, discreetly, into a closed fist. “Both you boys off the Aegelweiss, a
transport for Qamlah Trading Company? That’s a reputable firm – they pay scale and
offer programs. Why aren't you signed on
for the return voyage?”
“Uh… ma'am…” Broonzy wheedles, “there was a little problem with the
spaceport.” Under her gaze, he squirms. “They, uh, condemned the bird…”
“But it wasn’t your
fault,” the bureaucrat prompts him. “Was
it?”
“Ours?” Broonzy pretends
surprise, even a little outrage. “Nie, ma'am! We ran a clean ship. It was…” and then, rather than explain, he
rubs thumb and index finger together…
“Have you a letter from
your captain… Munson, I believe… absolving you of any legal culpability for the
condemnation?”
This seems beyond Broonzy’s comprehension, so Turpin tests his luck, “Well we… it's
coming, but might take awhile, he found another job. Courier…”
“Fortunate
for him.”
The Sreef lady attempts a
smile; it’s a horrible smirk, with her tongue darting between her fangs… teeth,
Turp reminds himself.
Definitely reptilian – and not just a little. “Not for you.
Under these circumstances, all that we can offer is the one-time
emergency loan. Twenty
five sols a week, four weeks maximum, Minturian.
We send a notice to the Guild and they
debit you after you find a job.” And
then she opens the top drawer of her desk, removes two solcards…
stamped in an unpleasant, welfare plaid… validates them with a portal connected
to her qube, connected to an ancient, groaning com
and passes them across the desk. “These
self-renew at oh eight hundred, three times.
We don't give out full amounts anymore - you’ll get vouchers for
passport tickets if they assign you off-planet… some sailors
abuse our relief by drinking or gambling their loans up all at once. But you're not the sort to do that…”
As if, Turpin tells
himself. There’ll be barely enough left
for a single meal a day after the rent to Gargareeva’s
paid… at least the Sreef uses Minturian
time, otherwise they’d be sleeping outside, under the corrosive air.
“Nie,
ma'am…” Broonzy smiles back at the lady and Turpin
nods his assent. “Nie,
ma’am!” Like a pair of parrots, both answer in unison.
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