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

become. A new kind of relationship might be better—or not. I didn’t want to take a chance and lose my best friend.

Memories flooded back. He’d protected me since we were small, eight or nine, maybe. No, longer than that. He had first appeared when two boys had tackled me and tried to wrest a slice of dried meat the vendor sold as beef, but everyone knew how expensive beef was and street vendors couldn’t afford to buy it. Their customers couldn’t afford to buy it either.

So, the dried meat was from an unknown creature, but affordable. I had spent a full quarter-credit on a large, roasted slice, the first real food I’d eaten in days. The boys, neither of them human, had seen me hide the purchase in the front of my shirt and they had followed me into the forest where my camp was hidden.

Bill had pulled the attackers off and sent them packing, not knowing about the “beef” hidden inside my shirt, wrapped in a sheet of thin plastic. Instead, the stranger had offered me the unburned end of a small, stale, loaf of bread he carried as if it was a treasure. It was not just the offer of the bread, but the offer of the unburned end. That had been nice of him, one of the earliest instances of someone treating me well that I could remember.

I had said with a sneaky smile, “It would be better if there was a slice of meat to go with it.”

“And mustard,” he’d said as he smiled. “I tasted mustard once. Yellow.” He rolled his eyes in fond remembrance.

While he did those boyish antics, I casually pulled the thin slice of meat from inside my shirt and offered him half. After a squabble, he had accepted a third. That was the beginning of our friendship. I ate the unburned end of the load and he ate the meat I’d squandered so much money to buy. We were rarely apart after that; he the brawn and me the brains, although he spun that tale differently.

“To Bill,” I said and lifted another glass as I brushed aside the old memories from a decade earlier. While weak, the beer was beginning to make my head spin.

“And to Kath,” he laughed, then at my scowl, quickly corrected it to, “Kat.”

A friend of ours who typically burrowed a home in the soft dirt close to our ever-moving campsites shook a little sand from its fur and cautiously sniffed the pitcher of beer before munching loudly on a root that looked like a carrot and smelled like old socks. We called his race Diggers. Its name was Bert. I had no idea why it had such an ordinary name, or if it was a male, female, or both. However, Bert was a male name, so I thought of him as a male.

Beside Bert sat a member of the Train race; tall, thin beings that universally believed stealing was better than working. Many humans agreed with their ideas and often worked together. The Train was either male or female depending on the mood, changed its name on a regular ten-day schedule, and constantly peppered us with ideas of how to take what belonged to others and make it ours. Oddly, the Train never stole from us—or family or friends.

They were all three like family. There were limits, even to family. For instance, only Bill knew about my empathic abilities. He understood little of them except to never speak about empaths or attempt to research anything about them on any computer or tablet, and never mention them in public. The authorities searched the info-dumps for keywords. Words, phrases, and even hints of the existence of empaths drew their attention. It was the single taboo subject on all civilized worlds, and even asking for scant information was enough to get you arrested and questioned.

There were the three of us. Bert, Bill, and me. Bert had been with us almost as long as Bill and I had been together. I couldn’t even remember how or when Bert had joined us.

Out of nowhere, Bert said, “You shouldn’t have wagered so much, you know. You could have lost.”

The Train nodded in sage agreement. “Worse, your bank accounts will show the deposits the betting commission made. Both of you have now exceeded the tax threshold and not only will the banks deduct those taxes from your accounts, but you will now be reclassified as a taxpayer because of your income improvement, and next month they will expect you to pay as much tax or more.”

Bert picked up the conversation again, “When you fail to pay that, they will consider you delinquent and add fees and penalties that you cannot afford.”

The Train added, “Best to go to the tax office in the morning and confess to winning so much and pay the bonus tax and penalties as a one-time fluke. Maybe you can keep half the winnings.”

“Half?” I cried.

“Probably less,” Bert corrected. “Still, that is better than having you dive into my burrow and hide every time you see a Roman uniform near our camp searching for tax violators. Not that I do not like you and welcome you into my home, but please remember, it is my private space you would be invading without invitation, and I do occasionally entertain guests of the opposite sex.”

I let that pass. I had never sensed another similar creature close to Bert but couldn’t say for sure it had never happened. My mental powers were increasing with age. Some races were undetectable or resisted my mental abilities. It would be nice to know those things about what I could do or not achieve, and to have a source of information—or even better, a teacher. As it was, my powers were often of little use and I was constantly afraid of discovery, so used them sparingly.

Our present