The transport pod shook and lurched as it plummeted through the atmosphere. Jothee wasn't quite sure if they were landing or crashing. Right now he'd take either so long as they reached the ground soon. The great Jothee, he thought sardonically, decorated Luxan war hero! intrepid adventurer! Fearless freedom fighter! Incurable space sick the instant he felt vacuum above his head. Jothee ground his teeth together as the ship lurched to one side. Last nights supper leaped to the other direction with the exuberance of a hyperactive child at a fairground. It wanted to go on all the rides, and wasn't settling for sitting still in his stomach. Boiling water slopped over his hand and Jothee angrily said a rude word.
Cycles ago, when he had still been a slave, Jothee had met an old woman. From what he had gathered, the withered old bat had been a slave for virtually her entire life, yet she approached life with a kind of indestructible stoic cheerfulness, as if all the terrible things that had happened to her and were still happening were nothing but a passing inconvenience.
The woman had chewed a kind of dried herb -the gods alone knew how she smuggled it past the guards, and she had sworn that there was not an ailment in the galaxy it would not cure. Jothee had eventually tried it out of pure desperation, and the herbs had tasted bitter and acidic at the same time. It was possible that it might cure his stomach, but it could only e by melting it. He had concluded that there was not an ailment in the galaxy that could be worse than that cure.
About a cycle ago, Moya had been in orbit around a commerce planet while they purchased supplies. Jothee had gone down to the surface, in theory to keep a watchful eye on Chiana and her narcoleptic tenancies,but in truth because after one more day in space he would have been ready to step out of an airlock.
He didn't know exactly how he'd found the vendor, his ramshackle stall sandwiched between the public outhouse and a late night Hynerian takeaway. As he'd walked, he had been aware of nothing very much except the blissful sensation of several thousand miles of solid ground beneath his feet. When he had come to his senses, Jothee had become aware of the shifty looking vendor had tried to surreptitiously sell him expensive little bags which Jothee's nose had informed him consisted of powered brick mortar and rodent faeces. Finally he had noticed that Jothee's attention was riveted on a bag of herbs out of history.
His mind had suggested a dozen different reasons not to but it, his nose had supplied at least as many. Both were overridden by his stomach.
A couple of days later, Chiana had discovered him, retching and gagging on the galley floor. She had suggested he tried instead to smoke it. The result had been variable. They had spent an enjoyable half arm laying on the floor, laughing at the ceiling and trying to remember how their legs were meant to work. This had been followed by a less enjoyable four arns screaming horribly, convinced in rapid succession that Chiana was being molested by hundreds of tiny invisible gnomes, that Jothee's hands and feet had flown away, and that they had both vomited up their own lungs. To be fair, it had taken his mind off his space sickness, but Jothee did not consider the experiment to have been a success.
Shortly after this, Crichton had suggested that Jothee should try mixing the herb with boiling water, then drinking the result. Reluctantly at first, Luxan herbal tea was born.
Jothee finished pouring the hot water over the bowl of dried leaves. The only flaw in this otherwise perfect exercise was that it didn't actually do anything to cure his space-sickness, but he found that the anticipation of the foul tasting brew at least took his mind off it for a while.
Jothee stumbled and staggered his way to the front of the ship, steaming bowl balanced precariously in one hand. As he got there, he heard Chiana speaking sulkily.
"- why you think I'm always going to."
"Because we know you, Chiana." Aeryn said, "You always do. That's your answer to everything."
Chiana grinned, "That's because its always a good answer."
"Chiana," Crichton sounded exasperated, "We need to stay below the radar here. We really don't want to get noticed, that means you keep your clothes on. Got it?"
"Fine." Chiana said huffily. "No stealing, no cheating and no screwing. No fun. Got it, happy now."
"Ecstatic." Crichton replied drily, "How we doing, Aeryn?"
"We're entering the landing pattern now. Just a few more microts."
Jothee peered out of the front, or what little that was worth. The transport pod was cocooned in dense angry black clouds. Pellets of rain splattered against the window, and the rattle of the storm echoes through the transport pod, drowning out the thrum of the engines. Below them, through the inky clouds Jothee could just make out faint landing lights.
"What about gambling?" Chiana bounced up suddenly. "This whole rock is basically one big casino. I've gotta be able to gamble?"
"No!" Aeryn and Crichton said in tandem.
A few microts later they stepped out of the transport pod, and were greeted by the rain. Warned in advanced of the prevalent weather conditions, they had all come prepared with heavy waterproof clothing, but they were still fighting a loosing battle. Jothee had never seen rain like this before, it was like a malevolent force of nature. The rain came down so thick and heavy that there barely seemed space for the occasional droplet of air between the solid wall of water. It pounded at the ground and ricocheted back up into the air so that Jothee felt like he was being attacked from all directions. Attacked exactly the right work, freezing pellets pounded him like millions of tiny hammers, leaving his skin numb. If he stood out exposed for long enough, he suspected the rain would very gradually beat him to death.
Then there was the wind. It howled and screamed like a banshee with toothache. It tore at their clothing and every time it created a breach, the rain was ready. Jothee's hood was torn back and what felt like a waterfall cascaded down his back before he was able to pull it back tightly.
They hurried across the tarmacked landing strip, bent at an almost horizontal angle against the wind. They splashed through puddles that were rapidly working to become lakes.
Several large, grim buildings loomed out of the murk, and Jothee could see a billboard between them, its letters flickering.
Welcome to Vega Delta, where all your dreams are just a dice roll away! We hope you have a lucrative stay!
To prevent visitors from f in the night in their haste to loose all their money without first visiting customs, a tall, barbed wire fence encircled the compound. Less than discreet turrets stood resolutely rusting in the rain, completing the cheerful, welcoming look.
They entered one of the bleak buildings and presented their falsified papers to a sleepy looking official. Armed guards watchfully glared, politely refraining from killing them. They left this building through another door, and stood blinking in the lights of Vega Delta.
Vega Delta was not a planet, Jothee knew, not technically. It was one of a number of planet sized moons that orbited a gas giant called Tarus, which itself distantly orbited a sun that the local populace had for no particular reason named Grope.
Because this world orbited a gas giant, a local cycle on Vega Delta was measured as the time it took its parent to orbit Grope – hundreds of standard cycles, but instead it was the time it took the moon to orbit Tarus. Half the cycle the moon was caught in the shadow of the gas giant and never saw the sun, a half cycle of perpetual night. Even when the sun did shine, it was dull and distant, and mostly it failed to penetrate the thick clouds.
Such a place, Jothee reasoned, should be cold and dark and lifeless. Vega Delta it turned out, was none of those.
They stood on one side of a bustling street. The street was very wide, and it needed to be – it still seemed to be too small to encapsulate the myriad activity. In the road, veicals of all shapes, sizes and colours sluiced through the rain, apparently operating by the traffic code of drive very fast and scream loudly at anyone or anything that gets in the way. The pavements were protected to some small extent by canvas tarpaulins, which in theory sheltered pedestrians, but in practice collected pools opf rain, ready to dump their contents over select unfortunate pedestrians whenever the wind gusted. Despite this peril, the streets were thronged. Merchants stridently hawked their wares from podiums they had set up in the slight shelter afforded by the lee of buildings. Some people stood bartering , almost as loud as the merchants themselves. Some stood with the haunted trapped expressions of a certain sale. Others stepped out and risked the wrath of the storm and the traffic to avoid the tireless pedlars. The sound of the shouts and the traffic and the occasional scream were deafening.
At regular intervals along the pavement were set metal gratings, down which the rain poured in torrents. Back up rolled heat and thick steam, which formed a chest high fog that coiled through the crowds. Geothermal vents, Jothee reasoned. So far from the sun, the moon would be a frozen rock without the wrenching and tearing motion, caused by the force of the gas giants enormous gravity, constantly heating the moons core.
Jothee looked upwards. It was never dark here, he realised. The sky was lit up with billboards, flickering signs and neon posters. On either side, glittering buildings stretched on upwards and upwards..
"Ok, we're staying at the Golden Lizard hotel." Crichton said. He held up their map, which the rain instantly soaked and the wind tore in half.
"Damn! I think its... this way."
They set off down the street, Jothee and Chiana trailing behind the others. Jothee was not so overwhelmed that he failed to notice the subtle change in Aeryn and Crichton. Usually they walked so close together that it appeared that nothing short of major surgery could separate them. Now, Crichton seemed to almost deliberately contrive to keep at least three other people between them at all times, and he refused to meet Aeryn's questioning eyes. Jothee idly wondered why, then decided that it was none of his business.
"Hey, Jothee."
Jothee looked round at Chiana. Her dripping grey cloak and hood completely failed to hide the perfection of her body beneath to him. He felt a trill of desire scythe through him, which he forced aside irritably.
"What?" he snapped. Suddenly the rain didn't seem cold enough.
"You got any money?"
"What, why?"
Chiana treated him to a lopsided grin. "Why'd you think?"
Suddenly, Jothee felt irrationally irritated. He spun round and grabbed Chiana by her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.
"Chiana don't be an idiot. We're here for a reason, not for you to indulge your childish whims."
Chiana looked unperturbed. "Well a little indulgence never hurt anyone."
Jothee shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. "Frell you, Chiana! I'm not going to let you mess this up for us."
Chiana frowned and knocked his hand away. "You're not my minder, Jothee." she tilted her head and seemed to be laughing at him with her eyes. "And I'll be far less likely to get into trouble if I don't have to find someone to steal some money off first."
Jothee exhaled angrily. He looked at Chiana and under her cowl could see the defiant, stubborn set to her jaw. He glanced round to see Crichton and Aeryn disappearing into the crowd.
"Come on, let's go." he said.
He took a few steps, then realised Chiana hadn't moved. He spun back, fists clenched furiously. "I told you to -"
He stopped. Chiana suddenly looked very small and very vulnerable. Her dark eyes were pleading. In their depths, Jothee's anger was swallowed and drowned in an instant.
"Please, Jothee - " she whispered, "I just, i just need to... just get away, for a couple of arns. I swear I won't do anything stupid."
It occurred to Jothee that there was probably nothing he could do to stop her if Chiana was set on this. For whatever reason, Chiana seemed to desperately want – to need this.
"Fine." He sighed. "You know where we're staying and when we - " he looked around covertly at the crowds of people, " - well you know what. I'll give you some money but - " he groped for something on his belt, which he suddenly noticed seemed lighter than normal. "What the?"
He looked up. Chiana grinned impetuously and dangled his money belt in front of his nose. She snatched it back as he made a grab for it and darted back into the crowd.
"Don't worry, Jothee. I might not spend all of it."
Laughing, Chiana slipped lightly away through the crowd.
"Frell." Jothee muttered.
If Jothee had been human, he might have wondered if he had just handed the monkey the keys to the banana plantation. But he wasn't, so instead he just worried that he had just done something extremely foolish.
He turned and pushed his way on through the crowds and the rain.