Crescent Read Online Free PDF Page A

dwarfed by the big leather desk chair. He eyed Gerald with a curious, if not slightly suspicious, gaze.
    “The crawl,” Gerald said. He wanted to rub his eyes; they stung with a persistence that was distracting. “I had a hard time getting to sleep last night.” That he’d had a hard time sleeping was no lie. Fear of a repeat hallucination of the bleeding, screaming ghost woman had kept him awake—the crawl, not so much. Kendall dipped his chin in a nod and then swiveled his chair to accommodate a look out the large viewport. The surface of Anrar III was tarred with night fall. Stars glittered above the blackness.
    “I’ll confess, Gerald. That’s somethin ’ I don’t know all too much about. I keep my trips off station as short as possible. I pay people a lot of money to go to far off places for me.” Kendall paused and swiveled back to look at Gerald. “Are you going to be one of those people I pay a lot of money, Gerald?”
    “I am. On one condition,” Gerald said. He wanted to get it over and done with before he could change his mind. Both of Kendall’s thin, gray brows arched.
    “ You’re giving me a condition of employment?”
    “Yeah. I’m your man on the condition that you give me somewhere to sign right now. We need to cut this meeting short. I gotta get some damn sleep.”
    Kendall did not laugh, but his eyes glittered. He seemed genuinely amused.
    “Very well, Gerald.” Kendall slid a rectangle of paper across the glowing expanse of LCD monitors. Gerald took it and glanced down the length of the sheet. Standard contractual verbiage. He’d be an employee of Crescent Station for a period of six months, sol-time, after which his contract would be renewed based on necessity. There was a non-compete clause that stated Gerald could not work for anyone else in this time of employment. The pay was good—there’d be no need. Gerald took a pen from the exhaust port of a cargo vessel modeled in dark clay. He thought of Liam and his family and then signed in a large scrawl.
    “There’s my mark, Mayor.” He slid the page back to him.
    “You sign like royalty, Gerald.” Kendall smiled.
    “I guess I missed my calling by a long one. We done here?”
    “Of course. Do get some rest. I’m sure you’ll be busy here soon.” Kendall winked at Gerald. The gesture was suggestive—of what, Gerald wasn’t quite sure. If he stuck around that office much longer, he might find out. And he probably wouldn’t like it.
     
    (•••)
     
    Gerald sat in the cafeteria, a cheap automated mess hall two levels below Main Street. It was always quiet in the cafeteria, because the food sucked. The coffee was even worse than the grub—the shit tasted like motor oil, but goddamn if it didn’t open your eyes wide. It was as good a spot as any for Gerald to wake up and sort out the jumble of thoughts in his throbbing head.
    The air handlers whispered above him.
    A door whined opened, but Gerald didn’t look up from his steaming mug—at least, not until a chair went crashing to the tiled floor. His eyes swept across the rows of long tables to the far side of the room, eager to shoot his best menacing gaze at whoever’s bumbling had defiled his sanctuary. A thin woman strode past the fallen chair with her eyes cast to the floor, tucking a tangle of long, blonde hair behind an ear and mumbling to herself as she went. Gerald watched her without saying a word. She was a pretty girl, outward appearance of insanity aside.
    “I didn’t go there,” she said to herself and made a beeline for the tarnished, cylindrical food vendor. Then she noticed Gerald. She stopped dead in her tracks, only meters away from his seat. A flush crept high into her pale cheeks.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Did I scare you?”
    “You can’t go around sneaking up on people like that,” she said.
    “Sneaking up?”
    “It’s not the proper thing to do, especially when a lady is involved!” She stabbed a finger in his direction.
    “Whoa,