Drifter (31 page)

On his way to the truck he saw the money case, stopped, and turned it upside down. A chunk of melted and half-melted plastic fell out and hit the sand. But wait! The bottommost layer of bills was untouched. Thirty or forty thousand, enough to get him off-planet, and far, far away. Lando peeled certificates away from the bottom of the case. His father's still-empty suitcase lay a few feet away. He grabbed it, stuffed the money inside, and looked around.

It would take them time to ID the bodies, get a make on
Queenie,
and backtrack from there. But the outfitter would talk, the Nister Needle would be found, and the whole thing would come together. Not the way it was, but the way it seemed to be.

Lando could see the headlines now: SMUGGLER MURDERS CUSTOMS OFFICIAL! It would be all over the place. They'd put a price on his head and dump his description into membanks all over the empire. Bounty hunters would add the particulars to the others they had memprinted inside their heads and the hunt would begin.

Lando looked up into the night sky. He saw hundreds, thousands, of stars. Each offered a place to hide. Maybe, just maybe, he'd find his way out of this mess. He turned his back on the past and headed for the truck.

I would like to thank Dr. Sheridan Simon for his design of the planet Angel, for his unending patience, and for his good-humored advice. The "good science" is his, and the "bad science" (if any) belongs entirely to me.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1991 by William C. Dietz

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

978-1-4532-3231-6

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