Ares Express Read Online Free PDF

had single-handedly faced down the notorious Starke gang as they fleeced a carriage of Lewite Pelerines. Her defiance had cost her a needle in the hip that troubled her when it was political for it to do so, but her example had woken the demons in the milk-mannered pilgrims. As one they had risen, seized the dacoits and ejected them at the next mail drop. Marya Stuard herself had been so incensed at the needle in her side that she had laid out old, dreaded Selwyn Starke with a silver salver flung frisbee-style.
    â€œSome day, and, please God, soon, that woman's account will be overdrawn,” Naon Engineer mumbled as he went to clean Grandfather Bedzo's tubes and change his bags.

I t was full dark now over Inatra. Under the first glimmerings of the moonring, that tumble of orbital engineering that sustained the world's fragile habitability, Sweetness walked home alone along the tracks. Psalli had made the most of the space caused by Sweetness's display and slipped off to her cabin before the rude boys drummed up a scrap of courage between them. She walked between the sleeper-ends and the shanties. Sweetmeat and patty vendors roused themselves from their scavenged human-dung smudgefires, then settled back into repose at the sight of an Engineer orange track vest. Androgynously thin boygirls, ungendered by hunger, shook fistfuls of copper charm bangles at her. Good luck, good luck girlie, a prayer on every strand. Sweetness shook her head. The wire was filched from switchgear relays. Aside from the occasional electrocuted bangle-wallah, a prayer on every strand often meant a derailed front end.
    Catherine of Tharsis rose from the night, as monolithic as the scarp she was preparing to climb. Riding lights twinkled, windows beckoned. But a whisper turned Sweetness aside at the last booth before home.
    â€œSees all hears all knows all. Past present future. Uncurtain the windows of time, lady.”
    The voice was a reptilian whisper, but strangely attractive for that; a reptile with a gorgeous jewelled skin, an ornate crest, a coiling blue tongue. An unsuspected seduceability in Sweetness responded. She heard herself say, “Oh, all right then. How much is it?”
    â€œVery little,” lizard-tongue replied. The booth was a sagging leopard spotted yurt. As she ducked inside, the door flaps brushed Sweetness's nape. They felt like skin .
    â€œIt's kind of little in here.”
    Littler than the exterior hinted. She could hardly make out the lizard-lipsman across the octagonal table. He seemed small and hairless, his skin oddly dark even among a dark-skinned people. She could have sworn it was green in the dull glow from everywhere and nowhere.
    â€œShouldn't you be asking me to cross your palm with centavos?” Sweetness asked. The yurt smelled ripely of green and growing, mould and leaf, pistils and fresh-spaded soil.
    â€œIf you like,” the fortune-teller said. While she fiddled in her hip bag for silver, he placed a device like an overweight egg-timer on the table. Its upper hemisphere was filled with small white beans. Their progress to the lower hemisphere was prevented by a cheval de frise of spills inserted through a mesh.
    â€œThis do?”
    The fortune-teller scooped the trickle of centavos up to his mouth and swallowed them.
    â€œShould you…?”
    The huckster leaned toward her. He was green and the source of the smell of verdure. He flared his nostrils.
    â€œYou've been swimming.”
    â€œMy hair's wet, o great detective.”
    â€œYou smell of water. Here.” Quick as a striking rat-snake, he whipped a spine out of the hour-glass. It had a blue tip. Burned on with a hot needle were the words “Fulfillingness First Finale” and “One for free.” The little green man studied the motto. “Worse places to start.” He laid the spill on the table. “Now, you play. Remove any stick you like, and the aim of the game is not to win, because you can't