The Girl They Sold to the Moon Read Online Free PDF

a smattering of freckles. When Tilly looked closely at the other girls in the dormitory, she could now see that many of them were much older than Tilly’s incoming group.
    â€œThanks; I’m Tilly Breedlove and this is Dorothy Prospect,” said Tilly, upending her bag, dumping the sheets, coverlet, and air pillow onto the bunk. A plastic case tumbled out. “I only thought Sunflowers were assigned to 41.”
    â€œI’m Fia,” said the woman. “You’ve got all ages working in Block 41. This is the Entertainment division and it has more blocks. You’ll be working at the largest lounge in Tranquility Harbor’s main rotunda. It’s called the Amazon Lounge. I’m a waitress—we take chow orders, serve, and clear the tables. Slingers serve drinks. Janitors are dung beetles.”
    â€œOh,” said Tilly. “What do they call the entertainers?”
    â€œHah. That bunch. Dancers are Prancers. Singers are Tweets, sometimes called song birds.”
    â€œDamn,” said Dorothy. “I’m in the kitchen scullery.”
    â€œYou poor thing,” said Fia, giving her a frown. “Ramp rats work on the conveyer belt, loading racks of dishes, silverware, glasses, bowls, saucers and plates.”
    Dorothy sighed disgustedly and climbed up into her bunk. “It seems it’s my lot in life to suffer,” she said. “I hope there’s some cute guys around here.”
    Fia coughed. “There’s some lookers, all right. But you’ll have to obey the no frat rules. You can talk and socialize, but no hookin’ up and knockin’ boots.”
    â€œNow I’m
really
going to suffer,” said Dorothy.
    Tilly looked at their bunk mate with an air of wonderment. “You sure know a lot about the system. How long have you been here?”
    Fia screwed up her face in thought. “Hmm…three years, five months, two days. Most of it right here at Block 41. I’m thirty-five years old, Carnation class. Next year I’ll be Rose and that’s gonna make me feel real old. Ain’t so bad though. With time served, I got rank privilege. I’m shop steward for 41, so if you have a complaint, you come to me. If I can’t help you, you go to the company counselor, who is employed by the United Western Mining Corporation. UWMC owns the whole shebang. You’re on loan-out to UWMC; you obey their orders and regulations.”
    Tilly stretched the sheets over her bunk. “What the hell happened, Fia? You sound like a lifer.”
    Fia cleared her throat. “I was never picked up after a two-year stint. Default. I missed being chosen for the Labor Auction last time out—the years just rolled over on me. They’ve got me until I earn back the advance. And at my wages, that’s going to take a while.”
    Tilly paused, gripped her air pillow, white-knuckled. After listening to Fia’s words she thought she might spaz out but the sound of her bursting pillow snapped her out it. The implications were staggering. If her father defaulted on the load, it meant she became property of FTALC until the debt was paid, and that meant going through an auction process, where, she presumed, she was loaned out to a third party, or she saved enough through her own efforts to bail herself out.

Chapter 3
    Fia Bluestone didn’t waste any time helping Tilly and Dorothy with their work assignments. She had all of their shifts coincide so they would be on duty together—swing shift, four to twelve, Earth Eastern Standard Time. Fia explained that she did her best to welcome and setup the new recruits, but she had taken a special liking to her “bunk mates.”
    Most of the recreational reading material came in wafer form, used on portable roll up viewers, but Fia had access to a stash of real paperback books that came with original covers rendered in real artwork. Tilly suspected the woman had saved them as favors from the