On 1/16/07, Eris Reddoch  wrote:
> Sharda reached in to her Tukera fanny pack and pulled out the note,
> "Norman's Lounge, 312 Jennifer Alley, Bilstein Rock."
>
> The space taxi driver grinned and said, "Sure thing babe!"
>
> Sharda might have been offended if the driver hadn't been a vargr, a
> vargr female for that matter, and she knew from long experience that
> there is never any telling about what a vargr would say.

"Thank you,", Sharda said politely in a generic "trader's accent" that
gave her hearer no hint of her Vilani upbringing.

> Leaning back in the seat Sharda mused about her current position...gone
> from rising star in the Tukera Lines to an out of work Space Merchant,
> no not out of work. She's just been hired to help get a ship from here
> in the Glisten system over to the Wonstar system, so she was gainfully
> employed again. And that set her thinking about her ready cash position,
> and whether she would have to put in a call to...*no* she would *not* do
> that.

The long-haired Vilani woman looked down at the all-too familiar
corporate emblem on her little fanny pack and sighed, wondering if she
should just have it removed.  How could it have all gone so badly so
*quickly*?  <*Chaos* to Tukera...>, she murmured under her breath in
Vilani, wishing the thing on her former employers that all Vilani had
an almost *viseral* fear of.  *Things will be better soon...I'm sure
of it!*, Sharda thought to herself with a little nod as her
characteristic optimism finally decided to kick in.

> As the space taxi cruised asteroids that had been towed into a tight
> cluster Sharda barely noticed the constant heavy traffic in small boats,
> skiffs, space taxis, and larger ships that moved through this space. To
> and outsider the whole scene would be chaos, but the undisciplined
> Glistenites seemed to like it this way.

She decided to look away from the disturbing disorder around them and,
instead, watched and listened to the purely logical readouts and comm
chatter coming from Aerospace Traffic Control.  As did many people of
her background, she found it rather comforting.

> Bumping into the dock inside the Bilstein Rock, the taxi pulled to a
> halt. The taxi driver turned back to the young human woman and said,
> "That'll be 18 Impies, sweetypie. Jennifer Alley is in three and down
> two. You can hoof it or take the jitney.

The dame nodded woodenly, somewhat lost in her thoughts for a moment.

> Pointing her hand shaped paw at a flashing neon sign near the docks say
> added, "I recommend Bolum's Tran over there. Tell 'em Iggy sent you, natch?"
>
> With that she turned her paw over and cocked her head, "18 Impies?"

The motion shocked her out of her brief mental revelrie.  "Oh!  Yes,
of course."  Mentally rounding up twenty percent of Cr18 in her head
to the nearest credit, she pulled out Cr22 in crisp Imperial currency
notes and handed them to her with a smile.  "Here you are...and thank
you for everything."

The space cabby paid, the ex-Tukera employee stepped out into Bilstein
Rock and decided to walk to her destination instead of taking the
"jitney".

-- 
Bob K.