This is a fan translation of Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.


Chapter 6

The service car looked like an off-road vehicle, with large wheels, massive seats, and a tough frame. It looked absurd on the smooth surface of the spaceport. Kay didn't immediately realize that the vehicle could have been designed with Bulrathi in mind.

The shirtless driver (whose blue uniform jacket was lying on an empty seat), a young Asian-looking fellow, glanced at them in a friendly manner and asked, "Business or pleasure?"

"Both," Kay answered tersely.

"That's the way to go," the driver agreed. "Drop by the Morning. Alla is singing there today."

Dutch nodded, as if the name of a local songbird told him something. The driver dropped them off at the customs control pavilion and drove off into the ship jungle.

"Looks like Terra," Tommy offered shyly, pressing against Kay. "Doesn't it?"

He had quickly lost most of his newly acquired confidence without Arthur. The bright shirt on his back was wet from the sweat, as the boy had gotten used to Kailis's cool climate.

"Not particularly," Kay said, pushing Tommy towards the doors. "It doesn't rain much here. Wet fur isn't very pleasant, right?"

"How should I know?"

Customs control had no problems with them. Plenty of Imperial transit ships came through Ursa, so the customs officers had plenty to do. A Bulrathi officer bared his teeth, quickly checked their documents with a hand scanner, took a closer look at the Bumblebee-M and handed it back to Kay. Setico was a respected corporation, and its executives had a right to carry weapons.

"Why do we have different last names?" Tommy asked quietly, after they had left the pavilion. "I thought I'd be seen as your son, like Arthur."

"Covers need to be changed occasionally. What, you don't like your likely status?"

"No, I don't!"

"Well, when you were coming to kill me, that didn't bother you," Kay couldn't restrain himself.

They walked along a shady boulevard, edged by local species of trees, with juicy blue foliage and thickset trunks. Rows of high-rises—land was expensive here—twinkled with polarizing fields, which deflected the infrared portion of the sunlight. Unfortunately, this only made it more stifling in the streets.

The small city lived for the spaceport. In other human settlements of the enclave, people could engage in fishing or collaborate with the Bulrathi in scientific developments. Friendship, as the first settlers had named the city on the planet of their new ally, was oriented only at tourists and flight crews. There were many shops with fake souvenirs, luxurious supermarkets, where one could find genuine rarities of other races, and a myriad of tiny bars, which offered less in terms of alcohol and drugs and more in terms of cold beverages.

After about ten minutes of walking, they had no choice but to dive into one of the shops. The air inside was cool, and the service staff, to Kay's joy, wasn't prone to bothering their customers, a trick that worked much better than excessive politeness.

Tommy's face was glued to a coffin-like glass case that was showcasing a genuine Vague War-era Bulrathi battle suit. In Kay's opinion, the suit had too many armored pieces for the overconfident Bulrathi of those days to wear them and too many decorative carvings to serve in battle. Leaving the boy to examine the suit, which had been, strangely enough, put on a human mannequin, Kay went to the wall, which was displaying ritual knives of various clans. Naturally, they were fake but made very artfully. One of the salespeople appeared behind him like a shadow, "Interested?"

"I am. I need a knife of Shivukim Ahar's clan. But I need a genuine one."

"We don't have a right to sell genuine knives," the salesman informed him politely, although he wasn't in a hurry to leave.

"No one does. And yet people sell them."

Greed was fighting with caution on the salesman's face.

"Can you come by tomorrow evening?"

Kay shook his head.

"Then… I'm sorry." The salesman seemed to be genuinely relieved. Imperial laws were strict towards violators of interspecies peace.

Finally pulling himself away from the glass case, Tommy approached them, "Mister, do you have ruepps?"

The salesman perked up, "Ruepps? Of course. An excellent souvenir from Ursa for a young man. Something to remember, right?"

Kay paid silently; the price turned out to be not so high, and Tommy became the owner of an iridescent glass ball ten centimeters in diameter.

"It's an object of one of Bulrathi religious cults," the salesman said with such pride, as if he himself was the cult's central figure. "It's a very good psychostimulant, even though our scientists deny that. Do you practice Jen, young man?"

"I used to."

"Excellent. A glance at the ruepp during meditation allows a person to relive pleasant memories, go back in time… if one believes it, of course."

"Thank you," Tommy said grimly, examining the colorful ball. Kay placed a hand on his shoulder and asked quietly, "What, Arthur played a bad joke on you?"

Tommy lifted his eyes, "No, just the opposite. Mister, do you have Bulrathi exercise tools? To get stronger?"

The salesman beamed, "Of course, young man."

Kay ended up having to also pay for an elastic cord, woven into a braid, whose only virtues were its juicy green color and the ability to wear it as a belt. He couldn't understand where his money had gone, whether it was two boys playing tricks on one another or timid gestures of their burgeoning friendship.

Exiting the shop, Tommy glanced at Kay questioningly. He suggested, "Want to find the Morning and listen to the local star?"

"Yeah," the boy agreed with visible joy. "Get me some soda too. Two bottles."

They easily found the bar, although it had turned out to be not a bar at all, but a cozy little restaurant. Kay laughed hard at the entrance, after reading the establishment's full name: "Morning in a Pine Forest". Tommy didn't understand the reason for his laughter. Only later that day did Arthur enlighten him about the ancient painting and even found a picture of it in the computer's art encyclopedia.

Only then Tommy admitted that Dutch hadn't been particularly wrong when he laughed at the sight of a stage, put together out of rough-hewn logs, where, accompanied by two teenage Bulrathi, who were playing wooden trumpets, a singer named Alla was performing, who happened to be a young Bulrathi female.

Someone at the Morning definitely had a subtle sense of humor.