A Planet for Rent Read Online Free PDF

better be very nice to me if you don’t want me to accuse you of being that poor moron’s accomplice.” He pointed with his minimachine gun at the pile of scraps that his buddies had turned the terrorist into.
    “Wait, you’re making a mistake, I came here with...” Buca tried to explain, trembling with fear and rage at once. That was the usual deal the Planetary Security guys offered women in her profession: sex for impunity. Didn’t she know it... But how had he recognized her in spite of her super-expensive dress? She suddenly felt as naked and vulnerable as when she used to go around the other astroport dressed only in a translucent jacket and a scanty fluorescent loincloth.
    “I don’t care who you came with. You’re going with me, princess,” he impatiently interrupted her. And he stuck out his gloved hand to grab her brusquely by the arm.
    Buca closed her eyes and cringed, like a child waiting for his father’s belt to strike. Where had Selshaliman gone? Was it all just a dream? She should have suspected; it was too good to be real, for it to be happening to her...
    Zasss...
    The sound, right next to her, like a whip. Something fell, over there.
    The gloved hand had never touched her. She opened her eyes.
    Selshaliman was at her side, antennas up and the light reflecting wonderfully off his faceted eyes. He had never looked so beautiful to her before. The Planetary Security agent, sitting on the floor several yards off, rubbed his aching chest.
    “Are you all right, Buca? Did he hurt you?” the insectoid’s vocal synthesizer chirped.
    “Believe me, we are very sorry for this... incident. She is perfectly fine. My man didn’t even touch her. We didn’t know that she was with you...” The voice of another Planetary Security man, a sergeant to judge by his stripes, sounded conciliatory. “To make up for your trouble, we’ll give you top priority on the shuttle...”
    “You had better do so. Come, Buca,” Selshaliman pronounced majestically, barely touching her. Buca leaned on him, trusting and deeply moved. At that moment she could even have loved him.
    He’d hit a Planetary Security guy just to protect her! The sergeant and his man were nothing but trash to a tourist, especially a grodo... but it was the gesture that counted. She walked on Selshaliman’s arm, feeling on top of the world.
    But she didn’t move away fast enough to avoid hearing what the sergeant said while he was helping his buddy back to his feet. Or maybe he said it so loud on purpose:
    “Come on, to your feet, stupid... He hit you hard, but your armor absorbed it well enough. And you know what? You deserved it for being an idiot. For not paying better attention. That’s not any old social worker... The grodo has picked her; she’s going to be incubated, and that makes her a thousand times more valuable than you or me, or a hundred of us.”
    Buca didn’t want to hear more. But Selshaliman’s measured pace forced her to hear the rest, too. The expert sergeant explaining things to the rookie. What she had known from the beginning. What she’d rather not remember.
    “No, it won’t be like you’re thinking.” The sergeant had a decidedly disagreeable laugh. “Grodos are hermaphrodites. They only reproduce once, and then they die. But they have to deposit their eggs in another living being. The ‘incubator’ has to be warm-blooded, and as intelligent as possible. I guess that’s so she won’t kill herself, like a sensible wild animal would do if it saw it was as good as dead. So she’ll last long enough... So the eggs can hatch and the larvae can eat her guts with all the calm in the world. And apparently we human beings, especially if we’re free from drugs or implants, are perfect fits. When? Well... from the color of its carapace, it’s got to have a few more years to go. Our girlfriend will have everything she wants until he-she feels it’s time to worry about the continuity of the species. But I wouldn’t