ABLE (Jim Able: Offworld Book 1) by Ed Charlton (13 inch ebook reader txt) 📗

Edward. He has refused to meet me unless your show with me is canceled or at least postponed.

Please acknowledge.

From Jim Able

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aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

Greetings, Jim Able.

Congratulations on your detective work.

No way.

madharVnectVlatsinVux

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madharVnectVlatsinVux

Greetings, Madhar Nect.

Perhaps you are correct, and I gave you full rights to broadcast my words and image at any time for your own profit.

Then I must ask this question: how long does it take to repair a satellite network when there has been damage from collisions with another orbiting object?

From Jim Able

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aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

Greetings, Jim Able.

You write like a Barottin Regdenir of the first order and bargain like one too!

In our culture, Jim Able, it is a violation of friendship when a guest threatens the host who has shared her food!

How long a postponement do you need? I have already done the advance publicity. The longer the delay, the more of a tree-climber I appear.

madharVnectVlatsinVux

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madharVnectVlatsinVux

Greetings, Madhar Nect.

I need only as long as it takes for my meeting with Edward. I would guess two days extra.

From Jim Able

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aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

Greetings, Jim Able.

Two days. Agreed.

Restore our friendship by recording a further session with me before you leave. There are many questions I now wish I had asked you.

madharVnectVlatsinVux

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So far, so good, thought Jim.

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sophaVlucaVregde3Vopp

Greetings, Sopha Luca.

I have secured the transmission.

Please send details of where we can meet in private. I presume you do not wish me to be seen by others.

aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

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aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

Greetings, James Able.

I live in the city of Oppudim.

To the north of the city is an area of forest.

In the valley that lies to the east between the two tallest mountains is where I land and keep my craft. It is secluded enough for our purposes.

There is a retreat house there; you will be comfortably accommodated.

Be sure you arrive during daylight. This is important if you are to be undetected. Do not arrive after dark!

I will go there now and prepare. If I can, I will activate a beacon for you to follow.

sophaVlucaVregde3Vopp

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Jim lay back and congratulated himself on having solved the problem. He had successfully pushed a hot button with the Regdenir. Edward, or rather, Sopha, was going to meet him.

Let’s hope Sopha isn’t so worried by the broadcast that he tries anything foolish, he thought.

Somewhere at the back of his mind was a note he had written when Liz was lecturing him.

“Don’t start a war,” she had said.

“Relax,” he’d replied, “nothing can go wrong.”

***

Jim timed his journey so that he would arrive just after midday. He came in on the steepest path he could persuade his craft to perform. He hoped to be as close to the sun’s position in the sky as he could. He thought it odd that Sopha had insisted on a daytime landing rather than coming in under the cover of night.

Oppudim was a compact city. The area of forest to its north was enormous. Jim had scanned the valley Sopha had mentioned. It was long and flat, but its sides were steep. It stretched a long way to the east from the mountains. It was a perfect place to hide a flier. The valley walls would shield a takeoff from all but the people in the valley itself.

Jim approached it from the south and dropped over the valley wall several miles from the mountains. Immediately after he entered the valley, the beacon was audible on a standard frequency.

He slowed the craft and headed up the valley. He wondered if its dense trees might be covering a huge population or paths no Turcanian had ever trod. This, perhaps, was the middle of nowhere; from the air, there was no way of telling.

A landing strip came into view, stretching down a cleared area below a couple of low buildings. He landed and then rolled the flier to a halt at the top of the strip. He waited for his craft to cool a little before opening the hatch. No one had yet appeared to greet him.

The first thing that Jim became aware of was the humidity. The air was thick and heavy. It was laden with a strong smell of mold. He coughed involuntarily, and it was a minute or so before he got his breath back.

“James Able.”

He looked down at the blue-cloaked figure standing regally at the foot of the ramp.

“Edward? I mean, Sopha?”

The figure bowed and, turning, began to walk toward the nearer building.

Jim paused to secure his craft and followed, already sweating with the simple exertion of walking. The songs of thousands of birds filled the spaces under the trees. The forest throbbed with noises. At the edge of Jim’s vision, what looked like insects flicked through the air, twinkling in the sunlight. The trees themselves were a type Jim had not yet seen on this world, quite different from those around the quiet bay at Martorn. They had thick and leafy canopies, mottled white branches, and high skirts of roots looping and spreading around the lower half of the trunks like mangroves.

The building was a single story with wide windows, giving a view of the long landing strip and of the lower parts of the forest. It seemed to be made of the local rock, similar in color to the mountains’ peaks and the ragged edge of the valley wall above. The smaller building behind it, he could now see, was a wide, low wooden structure.

Sopha led Jim through an opening near one corner of the main building into a spacious stone-floored chamber. The sound of gently falling water calmed the more raucous voices of the forest. To Jim’s initial alarm, the water rose from the floor in the center of the room. It began as a column no higher than twelve inches, spreading in a circle some twenty feet across, to disappear through an expertly hidden cut in the stone. The dark shine of the stone was so like the surface of the water that it seemed the whole floor was liquid and that it was pouring itself out from the center.

Jim followed Sopha around the fountain and through a wide doorway into a small room.