Humankind has found the stars - and forgotten the coordinates of their home planet. Then Hana does the impossible and gets pregnant. Her mother's predictions ringing in her ears, she sets out to find humanity's lost cradle. She only has a myth to gu...
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Chapter 8 — by theidiotmachine
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Sanju's skin crawled. Xe craved a run followed by a sand bath, but this part of Talált Station offered the prospect of neither, at least not if xe wanted to be cleaner at the end than at the start.
Xeir hand dropped to the pistol at xeir thigh. Sanju was glad to have it back after visiting Sentient Thomas. Down here, in the lower corridors of the Station, it felt like it might be needed. But that wasn't what was on xeir mind.
H'ver would be gone by now. It had sent a burst of encrypted data just before it disappeared, stowed away on the Human's ship, and Sanju wanted to review the information. But not here, in the bustling corridors, filled with blank-eyed passers-by.
Sanju ducked into a food bar, and opened a map of the station. Talált was sketchy enough to have plenty of places to rent which claimed to be private, and also sketchy enough that they wouldn't live up to those claims.
'Hey, buddy. You buy something or you get out.'
Sanju looked up at the florid Human. Xe wordlessly took the nearest thing from a dispenser, and paid. It was a broth or soup, and it smelled pretty good. Xe sipped it.
'Where can I find somewhere private? I have a business call to make,' Sanju said.
The Human didn't look up from his screen. 'There are pods up that way.'
'Are they private?'
'I said they were, didn't I? Oh.'
Sanju had scanned xeir identity disk in the food booth's scanner, and was amused to find that H'ver had registered xeir occupation as food hygiene inspector. The booth attendant looked up from his screen, and tried a smile on. It didn't fit very well.
'I know of a place,' he said. 'It's in the Towers. It might be a little alternative, but it's properly private. No data skimmers. Would you like me to take you there? It would be no bother.'
Sanju had no intention of spending longer in this Human's presence than necessary.
