Serpent's Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

language.
    Next to the Vardi coiled a Mizari, his five-meter length filling his round, padded compartment. This one was golden-colored with scarlet and black diamonds patterning his back and the masculine dorsal ridge. The tentacles haloing his wedge-shaped
    17
    head barely stirred. Probably he was asleep, but with a Mizari's lidless eyes, it was hard to be sure.
    A Heeyoon lay curled on a thick pad, long gray muzzle resting against furred forelimbs. The being's hot yellow eyes, long canine teeth, and bushy tail did nothing to dispel the lupine image.
    Heeyoons, however, walked erect, unlike Simiu, who moved on all fours.
    The Asian student noticed that there was only one Simiu in the
    [ group--a burly male with a luxuriant chestnut mane flowing over his muscled shoulders.
    Most of the room's considerable noise level came from the dozen human students who were clustered in front of the observation port, which provided them with their first view of StarBridge Academy, only forty kilometers away.
    The asteroid was shaped
    [ like an inverted, spindly cone, but from this distance, only the
    [ four lighted domes were visible, glowing against the blackness like white-gold coins.
    Hing glanced quickly at each human face as they moved through the crowd to the opposite side of the lounge, conscious of the
    [ interested glances that followed them, taking in their jackets and uniforms.
    [ Suddenly, beyond the viewport, a ship burst out of metaspace, trailing a muted explosion of rainbow colors. It was a magnificent sight, and no matter how many times she saw it, it always made Hing's heart beat a little faster.
    All her life she'd dreamed of going
    [ out into space to live, and sometimes she still felt as though she needed to pinch herself to convince herself she wasn't dreaming, she was really here.
    When they reached the other side of the lounge, Hing glanced up at Serge.
    He shook his head at her. "I am missing one, by my count."
    ¦ She nodded wearily. "Yeah, and I'll give you three guesses and
    ¦¦ the first two don't count as to the identity of our missing student."
    She looked at the doors leading from the lounge into the station grimly. "I'll go after her . . . you stall the crowd."
    "Hurry," he said.
    Hing made her way quickly into the human section of the station, figuring that was where the girl would have gone first.
    This area looked like a cross between a huge shopping mall and a
    spaceport, with arrival and departure boards flashing for attention.
    Shops lined the walls, and benches and food courts were clustered every few hundred meters.
    If I were a kid just off a spaceship, where would I go? Hing 18
    wondered, then, on impulse, began checking the eateries. Hibernation made some people nauseated--others awakened ravenous. And the younger you are, the quicker you tend to come out of it...
    Hing stuck her head into two fast-food places and drew a blank but hit paydirt at the third, an ice-cream shop. There was a flash of red hair in the back, near the servos.
    She went in for a closer look. Short-- even shorter than I am- and rather pudgy, the girl in the back was intent on one of the food servos. Hing mentally compared her to the image in Serge's voder and nodded, satisfied that she'd found her quarry. But what in the world is she doing? the student wondered, watching the child. Heather had her pen in her hand and was muttering to it, never taking her eyes off the readouts on the servo.
    "Hi," Hing said, trying not to sound too abrupt. "Need any help?" Heather ignored her. Suddenly the lights on the order terminal began to flash in time with the readouts scrolling past on the barrel of the girl's pen. Moments later the servo groaned then delivered an enormous multicolored ice-cream concoction. Hing glanced at the screen on the wall, noting its charge readout
    "Employee lunch--no charge."
    "You must be hungry," Hing said dryly as Heather put the strawberry, fudge, and pistachio monstrosity down on a nearby table, then