Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

camp was located at an old favorite location behind a strip of bars, taverns, stim-shops, and gambling houses. Intruders seldom bothered us. I usually stayed away from gambling houses because winning in one of them would trigger alarms of all sorts, and they actively searched for empaths who were patrons, according to the rumor. Besides, there were few winners in those places.

“I don’t even have half of my winnings left,” I complained. “I paid off debts and bought stuff for the party.”

“Maybe Bill has been more discrete with his winnings?” Train asked.

Bill sadly shook his head without explanation.

Bert extended two eyestalks and rolled his eyes in disapproval.

“What?” I snarled.

Bert said, “It’s going to be off to labor camps for the pair of you when they catch up. Not paying your fair share of taxes is a high crime on Roma. You should know these things, Kat.”

I said, “We’ll move again.”

“And leave your wrist-comps behind so they can’t track you with them? How will you pay for food, clothing, gambling, sex, alcohol, or entertainment without them? You cannot travel on public transportations or . . .”

“All right! I get it,” I said angrily.

Bert said, “Turn yourselves in tomorrow morning. Agree to let the authorities strip your accounts and agree to a repayment plan. You may avoid public construction crews that way. I hear they need more workers for building the new Circus Maximus. Horses are already being bred and chariots are built. A year of labor should just about make you break even if you manage to stay out of trouble.”

I turned to Bert. “For a creature that digs holes in the dirt and lives alone, you sure do a lot of talking. Can you lend me enough to pay the taxes? And don’t pretend you don’t have it.”

“I may extend you a few credits. Perhaps I should pay for the party. But those are my private burrows, not holes in the ground, and I’m justifiably proud of them. While alone, I do research using one of my several computers, as you well know.”

“Then use them to figure a way out of this for us,” Bill said.

“You could die,” Bert said evenly. “That would wipe the slate clean, so to speak. Leaving the planet would also work, however you could never return. The Romans will never forgive a debt. It’s part of their culture.”

“What else?” I asked. “Any more good news?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Bert said. “It may be time for me to enter my burrow instead of ruining your celebration.”

“To get away from me or because you are scared of the Coliseum police?” I purred like a cat in a video I’d looked up to see them in action.

Bert eased closer to the flap that served as a door. He paused and spoke in the accent and manner of a currently popular VID star, “You know I ain’t scared of no cops from the city.”

I stamped my foot in his direction and he scuttled outside with a chuckle. I directed the urge to be somewhere else to Train. It also stood.

“Leaving?” I asked.

“For a while,” it said.

When the flap had closed and we were alone, Bill said, “You sent Train away with your mind-thoughts, didn’t you?”

“Bert, I trust like family. He is my family. The members of Train are different, a good friend, but that’s not the same. I’m wondering if Train would turn us in for a reward. Since I’m wondering that, I’m also wondering why we’re letting it drink our beer and eat our food.”

Brill said, “Trust isn’t all there is. Bert is smart, more than you and me. He’s been educated. He is constantly on computers in his burrows, not watching flicks or porn, but studying. Do you know he holds seven degrees from universities and colleges? Ones that we’ve heard of?”

Bill moved and sat on a stump of a tree that had been cut down years earlier. Our camp was just inside the veil of small trees hiding it from low town, along with a hundred other similar camps. He rested his chin in his palms while his elbows rested on his knees. The mug of crude beer sat beside him, a picture of unhappiness.

I watched him carefully. He hadn’t known about Bert, not the degrees that he held, and probably not that Bert is nearly a hundred years old. Not quite, but a celebration of his age was due before long. I had known that.

Bill had never had the same sort of affection for Bert as I did. If it were up to Bill, we would have moved on long ago, leaving the cuddly ground-creature behind. I was certain that Bill was a bit jealous, and maybe he felt inferior to Bert’s intellect. If so, he needed to get over it because Bert was smarter than almost everyone. And he was family.

“Hungry?” I asked.

Bill shrugged.

“I’m going to look for that vendor with the flashing-green lights on his push-cart. Maybe he has some of those grilled veggie things,” I said as I stood.

Bill didn’t offer to go along. I hadn’t expected him to. He was in a gruff mood. He had lost his sense of humor because they might be captured and sentenced to work-crews for a year or two. What a baby.

Outside, it was still daylight. I strode toward the rear of the buildings outlined through the underbrush. Bert called from his burrow, “If you wouldn’t mind, bring me a couple of those veggie things, too.”

He’d been listening to all we said, of course. His tall ears were incredibly sensitive, and he listened while inside his burrow. If he ever slept, I couldn’t confirm it. Perhaps it was just that its ears were so sensitive that he woke whenever I mentioned his name.

The rear of the nondescript tavern that had