Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee (little red riding hood ebook free .TXT) 📕

and congratulated it, being very careful how I held it. It was probably a little sensitive here and there.

“I’ll have the Committee on you!” yowled the older female. “Despoiling my animal! And if she lays an egg …!”

I thought she might be going to have a fit, but she didn’t, unfortunately. Somehow I got the feeling that Honey-Nut had laid eggs before.

And just then, luckily, the ship announced that we were approaching Four BOO.

7

Well, I really was out of Four BEE now.

Of course, Four BOO and BAA are pretty much the same, except for the volcanic pits at BOO and the huge android animal breeding grounds at BAA which produce gorgeous semi-synthetic creatures, like Jade Tower’s dragon. The other thing to remember is that a messenger bee in BAA becomes a baa, and a boo in BOO. Logical but confusing.

Anyway, naturally the first thing that happened when I got off the sand-ship was that my boo fell on my head in front of the Jang, the outraged Older People, a positively glowing Honey-Nut, and a whole crowd of robots and Q-Rs and general gawpers who’d come to see us arrive. I tried to look blasé.

I was ever so Jang for disembarkation. I had to attract Jang males, after all. I wore see-through trousers with little silver disks on the ankle hems, and a corresponding see-through tunic with corresponding disks at the hips. Both were lightly spangled with silver dust. Silver chains clanked around my groin, and between my breasts big greenish opals on platinum ropes quivered and bounced. I wore long turquoise earrings reaching to my navel, which also proudly sported a turquoise to match. My hair was a riot of silk flowers, metal do-dahs, and a big fan comb dribbling pearls.

We were on the Arrival Stretch, a close-shaved area of feather grass with artistic copper trees with tortured trunks. Nearby, outside the protective dome, volcanoes roared and spewed fire, but you’d never have known. They actually reduce all that splendor to helping their power station banks, but that’s kind of nice because it makes things cheaper and sometimes, after a particularly good eruption, everything you buy is free for the unit.

I stared around and flashed my toe rings, but there wasn’t a Jang male in sight.

We had to give our identities and place of origin at a little reception desk with glass pillars and a fountain. After that the others all trundled off into waiting rented bird-planes, bubbles, etc. I made for an old walkway with some rather nice eighth-dimensional sculptures along it. I wanted to see and be seen. The pet rushed along behind me, tapping at my silver ankle disks with heavy white paws.

“Who had love with Honey-Nut?” I felt suddenly prompted to ask, and we did a little dance together among the statuary. Astonishing! I felt wildly happy.

This machine thing with tentacles zoomed up soon after that and began offering me accommodations. They can spot a tourist in about two splits, the Committees in our cities, and once they have, they’re after you. Still, I suppose it’s quite useful. There were lots of exotic places to “relax and enjoy myself.” I chose the Volcanic Lake Palace; it sounded as though it would be crawling with Jang males. The tentacled thing rushed off in hysterical delight and was back in seconds with a bird-plane in rainbow colors that apparently would be free of charge. Good. The pet and I got in, and the tentacled thing gave the robot directions and then slipped tactfully away, assuring me I would never regret my choice. Well, that was a real laugh.

I started to feel peculiar the moment we flew over it, this great big, roiling, heaving lake of lava treacle. Bubbles popped and exploded in it, and jets of steam hissed and crackled. The Palace was obsidian, of course, and towered up in the middle of the chaos, obviously anchored, but still heaving slightly, along with all the rest. I suppose it was a stunning sight. The dark was coming on, deep blué, and the lake and the massive structure of the Palace glowed like flames. I still felt sick, though.

The bird-plane delivered me at the entrance, a terrace with steam pillars, and I went in. The floor was veined with gold inside, and presently it had other decorations as the pet threw up seventh meal in all directions.

I apologized, did some obligatory paying, and signaled another bird-plane to rescue us.

As we drifted over Four BOO I thought: They can keep their palaces. We’ll sleep in a park tonight. Firm ground, and the weather’s always perfect, of course, in a dome. And lots of Jang. I’ll say I’ve come here to do some contemplating.

So we went and bought an utterly insumatt cube of glass and steel and gold, shot through with wonderful color, containing about fifty possible infinities. It would be worth contemplating this thing, even if nothing else did turn up. Then, in the bird-plane, full of crazy hopes and remembering again with intense joy my half child waiting in Four BEE, the pet and I and the beastly boo floated down in the starlight on a soft park lawn.

I skimmed along, having turned the boo’s little evening light on, and chose a grove of diamante trees. I got arranged, had a meal injection, inspected my hair and clothes and everything else in the long mirror in the boo, and then half reclined, graceful and languorous, with the cube anchored to a tree trunk just the right distance away. And I really got lost in it, even with all my crazy hopes and so on. I truly didn’t hear their voices till they’d been at it for quite a while.

They were both male, both pretty groshing, one white-haired and one dark-haired.

“I’m Sarl,” said the dark one promptly, as soon as I’d looked. “This is Lorun.”

“How derisann,” I murmured. The pet snarled, and I tried to land it one surreptitiously.

“Lonely, are you?” asked Sarl. He leered at me.