The Stardroppers Read Online Free PDF Page B

else’s. I’m sixteen—it’s not illegal!” Then, relenting, she added, “With—with some friends. They run a commune. In Hackney.”
    “Don’t any of these friends of yours have stardroppers they could lend you?”
    “Of course!” Scornfully. “All of them do. That’s what the commune’s for, so we can ’drop as much as we like without anyone bugging us. But I’ve tried them all, and they don’t suit me. So I came into town today to see if I could find a place selling secondhand ones, work out how much I’d have to spend to get a model like what I had before. Only there aren’t many secondhand ’droppers, and the ones I did see were all types I know don’t do anything for me. Then this old man came by with the cart, and I thought I’d listen to his for a bit, see if that was any good, and it wasn’t, and then I saw yours and I realized that wasn’t any of the makes I’ve tried. I’m sorry, but—oh, I’m going through absolute bloody torture. Look!”
    She held one thin hand out in front of her. It shook like a wind-tossed leaf.
    “What model did you have?”
    “Just a cheap one—a Gale and Welchman—but it was very good.”
    So her pitiable state was due to Watson’s pet brand of stardropper, was it? Dan scowled. How had things been allowed to progress to this point? On this showing, stardropping ought to be legislated against, like a dangerous drug.
    “What is it about stardropping that fascinates you so?” he demanded, not really expecting a coherent answer.
    “How can I tell you if you don’t know? You’re a ’dropper yourself, aren’t you?”
    “To me it’s no more than mildly interesting. I could live without it. Why can’t you?”
    Making a helpless gesture, she closed her eyes and swayed a little. She said thinly, “Suppose you had a dream, a very important dream, in which you saw something you desperately wanted to remember—a bit of the future, say. And you woke up and you remembered you’d seen it, but not what it was. It’s a little bit like that, except that what you can’t quite remember is a matter of life or death. If you don’t get back to it, you might as well cut your throat.”
    “Or starve, hm?” Dan suggested. “When did you last eat anything?”
    “Oh … yesterday, I guess. Maybe the day before. I’m too worried to be hungry.”
    Dan looked past her. Among trees a short distance away a flag fluttered limply in the breeze, bearing a trademark of a catering company, and people could be seen coming away from that direction carrying sandwiches and cartons of soft drinks.
    “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “There’s a snack-bar over there, isn’t there? You come with me and eat something, and afterward you can borrow my instrument for a while. Fair?”
    She paused before replying, her dark eyes enigmatic. Eventually she said, “I told you, I’m sorry I tried to steal your ’dropper. But you don’t have to make me feel so small, damn you. Cosmica isn’t far from here. I’ll go there and pretend I have some money to buy a ’dropper and see if they’ll let me try some out for a while.”
    He sighed and took her by the arm. She didn’t resist.
    Even with coffee in one hand and sandwiches in the other and on her lap, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his stardropper for more than seconds together. He was sure that if he’d allowed her she would have thrown the food aside and put the earpiece in immediately.
    “What’s your name?” he said when she had wolfed two chicken sandwiches and emptied her paper cup.
    “Lilith Miles.”
    “And you said you’re sixteen. So I guess you’re in school.”
    “Was. I quit.”
    That fitted, too, thought Dan. She went on, “I had this bargain with my mother, you see—I said I’d keep up with my schoolwork if she let me go on ’dropping. Not that what they tell you at school seems very important after you begin to get results from a ’dropper. Then she went back on what she promised, and