DarkShip Thieves Read Online Free PDF Page B

other purely cosmetic artifice. I also knew he could move fast. Faster than I in my speed-demon mode. Oh, and I knew he liked the sight of naked female. Which was just as well. But if I was going up against him, and if I was going to convince him to take me to Earth, I needed more.
    I walked slowly around the room, in the half light. It was roughly hexagonal and sparsely furnished with bed, sensi cabinet, bedside cabinet, the chair onto which I'd been tied, and a closet. Near the closet, I found a slide that looked like the old light-adjustment slides, not in use in modern houses on Earth for two centuries, but still present in historical buildings. I slid it upward slowly, and light came flooding into the room, revealing it just as I described, save for the colors. The colors made me question the sanity, or at least the balance of the creature who had chosen them.
    Walls the deep red of arterial blood fought for notice with a bedspread the purple of a bruise. No piece of furniture was safe. The sensi cabinet, which, on Earth, came only in black and white, here rejoiced in a deep, dark, shining gold. The bedside cabinet, following the rule of no two things sharing a color, was bright, almost fluorescent green.
    I was tempted to turn the light down again, but I didn't. Instead, I walked up to that closet on the wall and opened the door. The clothes inside . . . Well, they would make an aesthete weep. Or perhaps curl in fetal position in a dark corner, whimpering in horror. There was purple and gold, silver and bright sky blue, sick green and piss yellow—sometimes all in one garment.
    Repressing a desire to vomit, I looked closer. Tunic and pants and pants and tunic. Fairly uniform clothing, except for the colors. Either wherever this person came from was far more regimented than Earth, or he was the type of male who favored simplicity over fashion. Although if that was the case, someone should clue him in on colors.
    One suit stood apart from the others, having more elaborate tailoring. Instead of a tunic, it had a jacket, and the pants were tailored, rather than elastic to mold on the body. Dark red, with white piping at sleeves and pant legs, it had the feel of a uniform. Adding to this, the chest showed an insignia. I looked more closely at it and it was like nothing I'd ever seen. The insignia was shield-shaped, about the size of my palm. On it, embroidered, was a dark red apple, with a serpent coiled around it. Either the serpent had human dentition, or a human had taken a bite out of the apple before the serpent got there. Above the figure, the single word, Eden. Beneath the figure, in ancient French—which Father had forced me to learn—the words "Je Reviens" which meant "I return."
    None of it made any sense. I knew Eden was the place humanity had started in one of the creation myths. But Father—and most other rulers of Earth—were not in the least religious. I'd learned all of it as myth and history, but I had a very foggy idea of what it meant. I knew it involved a serpent and an apple and the feeling started to grow on me that the whole thing was a joke I just couldn't get.
    I closed the closet doors and looked over the rest of the room. The bed was neatly made. So whatever the bio-engineered freak was, he was neat. Good for him. Next, the bedside cabinet, which had a series of drawers. I walked around the bed to get there, and then I saw it . . .
    It was one of those holos which is only visible from a certain angle, and it must proceed from a chip mounted on the top of the cabinet itself. It showed a family group. A very odd family group. There was an older male—probably Father—with normal issue human body and features. On his arm, and leaning slightly against him, was a female with the same eyes as my feline friend, only in dark blue. Both parents were dark haired and solidly built. Left from the male, stood a young woman who could have graced the halls of a Roman palace. Except her eyes, dark