Future Prospect Read Online Free PDF

today.”
    “That’s more than I expected. When I saw him saunter off into the forest this morning, I assumed we’d seen the last of him. He was very uncooperative, wasn’t he?”
    Lia considered this as she threw an extra case on top of a porter and pushed it in the right direction. Her three cases were the last ones in the line, and she wanted to get this task completed so she could spend a few minutes in the privacy of her rooms and relax. Her headache lurked like a malevolent ghost in her brain, and the bottoms of her feet itched even after a thorough washing. She wore the thickest socks she could find and her sturdiest boots but continued to worry about those foot weevils Colan had mentioned. A paranoid thought intruded. Perhaps he’d told her a tall tale to frighten her, a sort of tease for the newly arrived folk.
    “He was pretty quiet when Welti and I spoke with that woman about her garden. There was no yelling, so it’s an improvement.”
    Colan had been nearly talkative when they’d been alone in her office. Of course, for most of that interaction he’d been holding her feet, so it probably made things less formal between them. Warmth spread up Lia’s cheeks when she contemplated what Moca’s reaction to that little scene might have been.
    “It’s only for two days. Then he can go bother Cordon and vice versa.” Moca took matters into her own hands and tugged an enormous duffle toward the doctor’s quarters. Lia moved to help, and the two of them managed to shift it in the right direction. “What does she have in here, a practice cadaver?”
    Lia chuckled at the morbid idea. “Knowing her, she does. There’s no telling when a corpse will arrive naturally.”
    Moca grunted and kept pulling. “I have fears we might see a few unnaturally occurring corpses when these extractors start arriving. This place is much more inhospitable than I’d imagined. The ground is waterlogged, and everything smells like it’s fermenting. That forest is absolutely eerie, it’s like everything in there has eyes and is staring at us.”
    Lia glanced over at the magistrate as they dropped the duffle in the doctor’s suite and stood up to stretch their backs. Her headache had swelled when she’d been pulling, and Lia wondered if she should stop by medical and ask about it. She could also mention the other health hazards she’d learned about courtesy of the quiet Colan.
    “I have a feeling there’s a lot we don’t know about this place. Colan told me about these weevils that bore into bare feet and cause terrible infections.”
    Moca’s eyes widened at the news. “Really? That wasn’t in any of the planetary reports.”
    “I know. Colan says they aren’t documented because so few people come here. Whenever someone lands on planet, the Pearlites give them an informal briefing.”
    “He’s going to make a warning entry for us, isn’t he?”
    “Someone named Padev is. Colan’s supposed to tell him, but I’m going to double check with the doctor to make sure.” Lia reached her own baggage with a sigh of relief. Her rooms were at the end of the hall, across from Zashi, and next to Tully. She couldn’t wait for some quiet and a moment to inhale some pain relief for her headache.
    Moca carried Lia’s last bag into her room and sat it against a wall next to its fellows. She couldn’t wait to open her luggage and unpack, to place each carefully selected item in its proper place. She hoped she’d thought of everything, since shipping anything above and beyond her space allowance out here would take a lot of time and not an inconsiderable amount of marks.
    “So, it’s Colan, is it?” Moca raised an eyebrow and made an inquisitive face.
    “He doesn’t like using the prefix Cit.”
    “That’s unsurprising. I’m still calling him Cit. Tor. It’s proper.” Lia had nothing to say to that. She hadn’t had a proper interaction with Colan yet.
    Moca glanced around the barracks room and nodded. All the