Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand Read Online Free PDF Page A

might in some mildewed equatorial bazaar.’ She still smiled.
    ‘You know,’ the man said, ‘the only reason I’m doing this at all is because –’
    ‘– is because you think you can get away with it.’ She put the remaining credit roll back in her pocket and bent to pick up her mask with a swipe of her arm. ‘That’s why I’m doing it too.’ Lozenges clicked and tinkled on tangled wire. ‘Would you like me to take him out the back? We’ll attract less notice that way.’
    ‘Yes,’ the man in charge said. Then he said, ‘Just a moment.’ He reached behind the desk, opened a lower file, and pulled out one of the yellow canvas bags with the embossed lizard. ‘He can put his things in this.’ He handed it across the desk.
    ‘Thanks.’ She took it and slipped the strap over her arm. ‘This way?’
    ‘Yes,’ the man repeated. He came around to the front of the desk to pick up the cubes she’d knocked from the desk shelf. He knelt. ‘The back way. Yes, that would be best.’
    In the narrow hall with the badly tacked up roof repairs shredding above them, she asked: ‘Do you
have
any things to take with you?’
    ‘No …’
    She looked down at the canvas bag hanging at her hip and shook her head. ‘The condition your cage is in –’ She gave a bitter grin – ‘I’m not surprised.’ She put one hand on his peeling shoulder as they walked out the three-layered hangings at the hall’s end that kept in the cool air.
    Over hot sand the sky was a hotter orange.
    She walked with him through the heat.
    Sand streaked between the evenly spaced bolt heads; the transport’s green metal wall dropped its shadow over them. She opened the door in the side. ‘Get in.’ She followed him up and closed the port.
    Tossing the canvas bag into the clutter behind them, she slid under the padded restraining bar and into the seat. She reached forward to rub at a smudge on the transparent sandshield with three fingertips pressed together. ‘Sit down.’
    As he sat beside her, she asked, ‘Did you know you have to sit down, in these things here, before I start driving?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    She sucked her teeth in mock disbelief, pulled some lever sharply down, kicked at some pedal under the instrument board. A motor began to rev, then, at another pedal, to rumble. ‘Have you any idea why I bought you from the station, there?’ She heaved the steering bar around. Outside, the world turned slowly, then began to move back. The transport shook across the sand in a direction he’d never walked before.
    ‘No.’ The seat shook against his back and buttocks.
    ‘Oh. Well, you will.’ She turned in her plush seat to face him. ‘I think the first thing is to get you washed down. I read that if I got one of you from any but the big industrial complexes up at the equator, that would probably be the first thing I’d have to contend with.’ She frowned. ‘Tell me, do you know how to use a sonic cleaning plate? That’s what I’ve got in the back.’
    ‘No.’
    Outside the plastic windows long dunes shifted. Her look grew puzzled then, oddly, nervous. She gave a little laugh. ‘You don’t?’ The self-assurance from back in the station office had fallen away somewhere, as if in theirshort walk across the sand, pieces of it had shed on to the desert. ‘Well, do you at least know how to use a damned squat-john? All I need is to have you pissing and shitting all over this hulk like it was your putrid rat cage –’ Suddenly, with the thrust rod in both hands, she leaned forward, her face between her arms, and began to shake. She took great breaths, and he did not know if she were crying or laughing. ‘What do I think I’m … by the hot stars overhead, by the congealed magma, oh jeeze … ! What do I think I’m – it’s crazy, I … I can’t, I –’ Possibly steered by its automatic mechanism, possibly not, the transport moved on.
    ‘Yeah.’
    She looked up. There were tears on her face, and great confusion under