Galactic Thunder by Cameron Cooper (best book club books txt) 📗

not an issue now,” I said and couldn’t help but glance at the back of his right hand. There had once been a red, curved and lumpy scar there that not even the best cosmetic therapies could remove—not that he had been able to afford any cosmetic therapy when he’d had it. The scar was no longer there because this wasn’t his original body. It was a clone that had not had its hand clamped in a vice as a medieval form of persuasion.

Clone rejuvenation was slowly becoming an economically viable option, thanks to the work that Lyth and Laxman were doing with the Laxman Institute, but when Dalton had received his new body, it had been expensive beyond belief. I knew precisely how expensive it had been because I had picked up the tab.

“Did the cheap crush juice have long term effects, then?” Lyssa asked Dalton curiously, proving that she had been thinking along the same lines as me.

Dalton shrugged. “Aches and pains. Nothing I could point to and say ‘that hurts’. Just low-grade discomfort.”

I’d seen him try to get up from the bed in the mornings and would rank it higher than low-grade discomfort, but I kept my mouth shut. The conversation we’d put aside was crowding my thoughts and I didn’t want to open it up again. Not right now.

A small silence settled between us, while the systems on the bridge hummed softly around it. Lyssa was prepping the ship even as she stood with us, so we could seal up and jump away the moment the resupply was finished.

“I need coffee,” I lied and moved back to the exit. I could hide out in the diner until dust off.

“Me, too,” Dalton decided and followed me.

Fuck.

—6—

I paused just inside the open doorway of the diner and took note of the changes. The diner had once featured faux wood surfaces everywhere, gleaming brass and shining antique glass, not even carbon steel glass. The lighting had been simple, clear and bright.

Now the lighting was very low. The wood tables had been replaced by tables made of some sort of extruded surface. I didn’t recognize the material. There were designs on the surface running in patterns. Around the edge of each table were strips of grooved, silvered metal.

On each table was a small lamp of an upright glass shape which expanded in the middle. Inside the glass were globs of iridescent bright colored…gel, I guess. I’d never seen anything like it. The lamps contributed most of the light in the room.

The waitress—another of the ship’s constructs—came around the counter to show me to a table. She didn’t wear the crisp pastel dress I was used to. Instead, she wore dark blue pants that flared from the knees into ridiculously wide hems that flapped about her feet. And her feet were nearly bare, except for a simple chain on each foot, running from between her toes up to the ankle. A flower was attached to each chain.

The top she wore also flared from just beneath her breasts out into a wide skirt that hung about her hips. The fabric had abstract flowers printed in a range of primary colors. Her hair was loose, brushing her hips, and pulled back with a multi-colored scarf.

“You can have your usual table, Colonel,” she told me with a smile.

I studied her, assimilating the odd costume. “Um…coffee, please.”

“Sure, honey. Take a seat.” She turned and headed back to the counter.

“Wow,” Dalton breathed, behind me. “What is she wearing?”

I didn’t have an answer. Instead, I headed for the corner table—a big rectangle with benches all around it. There was another of the blobby lamps on it, and the surface of the table was white, but looked orange in the red lamp light.

The waitress brought my coffee, in my usual cup. She put her hand on her hip and said to Dalton, “And for you, Major?”

He rubbed his jaw. “Just coffee,” he said finally.

My attention was drawn to movement on the other side of the long bank of windows running down the front of the diner. Once, the view beyond the windows had showed a small town we had all decided must be an ancient Terran representation, filled with slow, tall ground cars and families in funny costumes going about their business.

I could see it was the same town as before, yet the ground cars and the costumes were different. The ground cars were much bigger, but also much lower to the ground. Most of them were painted in glittering colors, too. The costumes everyone wore were variations of the waitress’s. A few of the older people wore less flamboyant versions.

A man walked down the street in a mincing movement that made me think he was about to break out into a dance. His hair sprang from his head in all directions, standing up on end and waving as he bopped along.

I watched him until he bounced up the steps of a small store on the other side of the road and disappeared inside.

“Did you see that?” I asked Dalton.

He was staring at the street scene, too. He nodded. “It’s the same town, but it’s different. Some things that are almost the same.” He looked at me. “I think that the same time has passed on the street that as has passed for us. Twenty years, more or less. This is what people were like twenty years after the way Lyth had it running.”

I suspected he was right.

The waitress arrived with his coffee then went away again.

Dalton sipped. Put the cup down. “Why is Lyssa still using bots?” he asked abruptly, as if the question had been weighing on him.

As I had asked the same question only a few years ago, I could answer him without hesitation. “She says she’s not self-aware, that she’s just doing a really good imitation of it, so Laxman’s Syndrome would be an issue for her if she tried to switch to a cloned body.”

Dalton snorted. “Bullshit,” he said softly.