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“Who knows?” Gur’fas shrugged. “But you have to watch flur’fas. They learn in the shell, you know—so depending on how long that one was waiting to hatch, he might be quite knowledgeable and independent.”
“Independent would probably be best as we have no time to deal with pets at the moment,” Nox rumbled.
“No, we really don’t,” Seline agreed, but she couldn’t help feeling worried about the little pink flur’fa chick. Where had he gone to? And would he come back? She scanned the crowded area but couldn’t see his pale pink feathers anywhere.
Nox, however, was focused on the business at hand.
“We need to get an appointment with Mistress Lendrex,” he told Gur’fas. “Do you know the best way to go about it?”
“Mistress Lendrex, you say?” The cred chip merchant frowned. “Well, as to that, if you want an appointment with anyone in the Upper Disk, you must visit their representative in the Main Hub of the Tangle.”
“The Main Hub?” Seline frowned. “I thought we were in the Main Hub already. Isn’t this it?” she asked, nodding around the crowded, gymnasium-sized space.
“Oh, gracious, no!” Gur’fas laughed. “Why, to get to the Hub, you must pass through another corridor and go that way.” He nodded towards the end of the large room. “You’ll know it when you see it—it’s ten times the size of our little part of the Tangle.”
“And where is the representative of the denizens of the Upper Disk located?” Nox asked.
“In the far-left corner, I believe,” Gur’fas told him. “You’ll know him when you see him—all dressed in black and has silver scales,” he added. “He—oh look, here comes your new friend.”
He pointed and Seline looked up to see the little flur’fa chick descending. He landed on the merchant’s counter and she saw that he had something in his little blue beak. He put it down in front of Seline and looked up at her, cocking his head to this side and that.
“What’s this?” Seline picked it up and saw it was a piece of jewelry winking with multicolored stones that must be fake, but were very pretty anyway.
“Oh, a Voxiline hair ornament!” Gur’fas exclaimed. “Very nice—a shrewd bargain for a ten-cred chip.”
“Hmm, it seems your new pet has made a deal for you, Mistress,” Nox remarked as Seline examined the jeweled ornament.
“But… can he do that? I mean, do the merchants here bargain with flur’fas?” she asked, frowning.
“Certainly—why not?” Gur’fas shrugged. “They’re quite intelligent and independent, as I told you. Though if you don’t want them to use all your money to buy shiny objects, I’d recommend putting your chips away,” he added, for the little flur’fa chick was eyeing the pile of silver-edged chips again speculatively.
“We will keep them out of his reach,” Nox said, sweeping the pile of chips into one large palm and storing them in the pocket of his trousers.
Seline was still holding the hair ornament in her palm but now that the chips were gone, the chick flew up to light on her fingers. He picked up the ornament and hopped to her shoulder.
“Oh, what…” she began but then she felt something pressing against her hair and realized that the chick had put the ornament where he wanted it.
“There you are—I suppose he wanted you to wear it!” Gur’fas laughed, his orange and blue hair waving with the motion.
“Wow—he really is smart,” Seline murmured. “Thank you, little guy,’ she added, reaching up to stroke the tiny bird with one finger.
“Peep-a-cheek, peep-a-cheek,” came the reply in her ear.
“Mistress, your new pet’s intelligence notwithstanding, we really must go to the Main Hub and see if we can speak to the representative of the Upper Disk,” Nox reminded her.
“Oh, you’re right.” Seline nodded and smiled at Gur’fas.
“Thank you for your help.”
“Of course, Mistress! And if you need anything else—or have any other rare chips to change, please seek me out. Gur’fas is always at your service.”
The cred chip merchant bowed low, his multicolored hair sweeping the top of his counter, and Seline nodded once more as they walked away.
They had barely stepped foot in the Tangle and she already had a brand new pet who bought her jewelry and insisted that she wear it.
She wondered what in the world they might see next in this strange, new universe…
ELEVEN
NOX
Nox kept a careful eye on Seline as they moved from the smaller space to the much larger Main Hub of the Tangle. The smaller area they had started out in was safer—easier to keep an eye on. He knew the Hub was where a lot of cloners and gene strippers had scouts, out looking for likely specimens for cloning and stripping. And Seline was beautiful—any cloner worth his cloning tank would want a bit of her DNA to add to his collection.
Of course, Seline had no idea what an appealing target she was. She was walking along, looking at everything, her brown eyes wide with excitement and interest. The flur’fa chick sat on her shoulder, half-hidden in her long, auburn hair, looking perfectly content.
