To Trade the Stars Read Online Free PDF

doddering old fool, had both hands on her shoulders, looking pleadingly his way. “This is Ruti,” the Human said quickly, in a low voice though it was too early for the kitchen staff to be at work. “She’s all alone.” Ansel paused, wrinkled eyelids blinking furiously as was his habit when troubled. “She doesn’t even have luggage, Hom Huido,” he concluded, as if this was the hallmark of imminent tragedy.
    The child, for it was apparently such, ignored Ansel, gazing up at Huido with no particular expression on her face beyond polite attention and a natural enough caution, considering she confronted a being who looked better suited to knocking down trees than slicing onions. “Carasain. You’re the friend of Sira di Sarc.” Statement, not question. “I claim refuge in her name.”
    Typical Clan arrogance. Huido was tempted to point out the absence of an air tag on her cheek to his servant, abundant proof this Ruti had found her way onto Plexis without passing through any air lock or alerting security. Only the Clan disregarded both physics and bureaucracy. Then again, poor Ansel probably wouldn’t care, obviously afflicted by his species’ excessive parental instincts. To his credit, the elderly Human knew the appetites of the underbelly of Plexis too well to believe it safe for anyone alone.
    Huido, on the other claw, knew the Clan well enough to dismiss that particular worry. Morgan had told him how the Clan maintained few family ties, deeming them unnecessary. More significantly, even young members of that species possessed mental abilities they willingly used to smooth their lives while disrupting others’.
    Huido did not fall into the trap of judging one species by another’s standards. On the other claw, he usually knew precisely what to do with the Clan—offer the high end of the menu or the exit—but this one?
    â€œAre you going to make me stand here all day, Hom Huido?”
    Ansel gave him that pleading look; the child, a challenging one. The Carasian’s first impulse, to send her back out the door, faded as he focused on her face and sampled her grist more carefully. Something was wrong with it. Ah. He’d smelled this particular under-scent before.
    Rage.
    It didn’t take much to guess she stood in the service entrance of the Claws & Jaws against her will, despite her Power.
    â€œCome with me,” Huido grumbled, turning to lead the pair to his apartment, cursing himself all the while for having hearts far too soft for his own good. He keyed in the code, careful neither could see it, then dismissed Ansel with a claw snap once the door opened. “In here,” he told the Clan child. “Mind where you step.”
    The doorway led to another, the space between the two merely a featureless box. A relatively new innovation, and one capable of charbroiling the uninvited, but Huido didn’t bother sharing that information. He hurried his unwelcome guest through the outer room he kept for entertaining, taking her through a second locked doorway to his inner sanctum.
    As they entered, Huido kept a pair of eyes on his guest, interested in her reaction, but most glanced wistfully at the waves tossing against the imported rocks which formed the division between the pool and the small irregular patch of dry floor.
    Rows of shiny black eyes began appearing in the froth, as his always-alert wives floated closer and closer. It wasn’t so much curiosity at the alien visitor in their haven as appetite.
    Something he’d willingly share with the Clan child, if she seemed any kind of threat.
    â€œSit here.” As Ruti obediently found and sat on the only piece of Human-suitable furnishings, an easi-rest Huido kept for the only other being permitted into his sanctuary, the Carasian arranged himself comfortably on a rock carved specifically to his bulk, his claws resting on the pebbled floor. “You do realize I know