Shepherd's Crook: Omegaverse: Volume 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

place, a pied-a-terre, on the public station, the ‘American’ station at Kepler 22B. He thought it would allow him to better come and go while maintaining the secret of his space station. Once a player had visited a station, they could return through the lost tech magic of the Old Ones, so he was able to go back and forth between his station and any other station he’d been to.
    An apartment would allow him to go directly to or from his station and a private location in the public station. After they wrapped up their discussion, and split the loot from the Arn, his friends all logged off.
    Duncan got up and left Matt’s apartment. Exiting through the door, he heard:
    “Destination?”
    “My apartment.”
    He walked through the second door into a small apartment. It was shaped like Matt’s, one larger room with, presumably, a small bedroom through a door on the far wall. Unlike Matt’s, it was bare. He’d have to look into furnishing both this and his quarters on his station, as well as the captain’s quarters of the Shepherd Moon. He looked at the long wall to the right.
     
    “Clive, can I put a window on that far wall?”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    “And I’m sure it costs nothing,” laughed Duncan to himself. He pulled up a commerce menu and navigated until he found the furnishings tab. He bought a large, wall-sized ‘window’ and placed it. The entire wall now showed a view out into space. The beautiful, Earth-like planet, Kepler 22B, took up the lower portion of the window; the rest of the view showed the backbone of the milky way. Ship traffic, leaving and arriving the station, moved through the screen. He loved it. The vista brought to his mind a space geek’s version of a giant fish-tank.
    He checked a ‘Interior Decorator’ tab and found, and hired, another player who would purchase and place, for a suitable markup, furnishings and decorations for his apartment. He selected a theme and budget and sent off the request, paid in advance.
    He smiled, then turned and left the apartment.
    “Destination?”
    “Control room.”
    Duncan exited through and, transported across the entire quadrant, into the control room of his space station, walking to the chair that sat in the back of the room. He nodded to Clive, standing to the right of the chair, who nodded back. Turning, he dropped into the chair and looked to the control room’s front wall, that showed, as though on an Imax movie screen, the view out the front of the station. He brought up his station control panel, and noted that he had a message, from Phani, waiting for him.
    He opened it and spread the message, opaque for readability, over the window. Phani had completed his daily run to Eta Bootis, for good profits. He apologized, abjectly, for failing to follow the return protocol Duncan had given him; apparently he’d jumped to the station uncloaked, but was sure that there was nobody in system to learn of the station from his mistake.
    Duncan smiled. He really liked the guy. He was honest. Conscientious. Duncan truly hoped that Phani would be able to make a living, make a better life for himself, through their partnership.
    He continued reading, then mentally kicked himself. Phani had noticed that the Canis Arcturus station, like the player stations, didn’t just deal in the minerals that Duncan had focused on. They also traded in weapons, certificates - anything else players might covet. Duncan had been too stupid to notice, or even think to notice, the opportunity. Phani had not been.
    Again, he was impressed with the man’s honesty. He could have quietly bought up armloads of blueprints, recipes and certificates and Duncan would never have known. Instead, before purchasing even one, he’d contacted Duncan with a fair business proposition; Phani would buy what he thought he could market, but provide Duncan with a right of first refusal, at cost, for any that Duncan wanted.
    Duncan forced himself to a rule - he would only purchase items