Fire Dancer

By Ann Maxwell

Rheba the fire dancer and her friend, Kirtn, search the universe for a new home after the destruction of their planet and are captured by slave traders.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312555747

Book preview

Fire Dancer

Ann Maxwell

Contents

Fire Dancer

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

BEHIND THEM LAY DEATH, BEFORE THEM THE UNIVERSE...

The Senyas dancers—they practiced their unique skills on their home planet, Deva, their smooth skin glowing with complex energy patterns as they learned the power dances and mentally mastered the elemental forces of Nature. And the Bre’n mentors —large, fur-covered humanoids, they were the only living beings who could control and channel the power of a Senyas dancer. Yet Bre’n and Senyas together could not save Deva from becoming a flaming inferno devoured by its own greedy sun.

Somehow two survived—Rheba the fire dancer and Kirtn, her Bre’n companion. Their world had died but they swore their people would not, and together they set out to search the star systems for others of their kind. But the twisted trail they followed soon forced them into the clutches of the evil Loo-chim, galactic slavers from whose stronghold no one had ever escaped alive...

Chapter I

Onan was the most licentious planet in the Yhelle Equality. No activity was prohibited. As a result, the wealth of the Equality flowed down Onan’s gravity well—and stuck. Nontondondo, the sprawling city-spaceport, was a three-dimensional maze with walls of colored lightning, streets paved with hope and potholed by despair, and a decibel level that knew no ceiling.

Kirtn! shouted Rheba to the huge Bre’n walking beside her. Can you see the Black Whole yet?

Kirtn’s hands locked around Rheba’s waist. In an instant her lips were level with his ear. She shouted again.

Can you see the casino?

Just a few more buildings, he said against her ear.

Even Kirtn’s bass rumble had trouble competing with the din. He pursed his lips and whistled a fluting answer to her question in the whistle language of the Bre’ns. The sound was like a gem scintillating in the aural mud of Nontondondo. People stopped for an instant, staring around, but could find no obvious source for the beautiful sound.

All they saw was a tall humanoid with very short, fine coppery plush covering his muscular body, giving it the appearance and texture of velvet. On his head, the fur became wavy copper hair. A mask of metallic gold hair surrounded his eyes, emphasizing their yellow clarity. His mask, like the coppery plush on his body, was the mark of a healthy Bre’n.

Although Rheba looked small held against the Bre’n, she was above humanoid average in height. Her hair was gold and her eyes were an unusual cinnamon color that seemed to gather and concentrate light. Other than on her head and the median line of her torso, she had neither hair nor fur to interrupt the smooth brown flow of her body. Almost invisible beneath the skin of her hands were the whorls and intricate patterns of a young Senyas fire dancer.

Rheba slid down Kirtn’s body until she was standing on her own feet again. As she regained her balance, a man stumbled out of the crowd and grabbed her. He rubbed up against her back, bathing her in unpleasant odors and intentions. The patterns on her hands flared as she reached toward a dazzling electric advertisement, wove its energy, and gave it to the rude stranger. He leaped back as though he had been burned. And he had.

I don’t think he’ll play with a fire dancer again, said Kirtn in a satisfied voice.

Kirtn picked up the shaken man and lofted him onto a passing drunk cart. Then the Bre’n gathered up Rheba again and shouldered his way into the anteroom of the Black Whole. After the streets, the quiet was like a blessing. Kirtn smiled, showing slightly serrated teeth, bright and very hard.

Rheba scratched the back of her hands where the patterns had flared. Her hair shifted and moved, alive with the energy she had just called. Muttering the eighth discipline of Deva, she let both energy and anger drain out of her. She had come into this city willingly and so must abide by its customs, no matter how bizarre or insulting they might be to her.

We should have taken out a license to murder, she said in a mild voice.

Kirtn laughed. We didn’t have enough money to buy a half-circle of silver, much less the whole circle of a licensed killer.

Don’t remind me. We could hardly afford to be licensed innocents. Rheba grimaced at the mere 30 degrees of silver arc stuck to her shoulder. Come on, let’s find the man we came for and get off this festering planet.

They had not taken three steps before a black-dressed casino employee approached them. His only decoration was a simple silver circle fastened on his shoulder. Kirtn and Rheba saw the man’s license at the same instant. When the man spoke, he had their attention.

No furries allowed.

Rheba blinked. Furries?

That, said the man, hooking a thumb at Kirtn, is a furry. You’re a smoothie. Smoothies only at the Black Whole. If you don’t want to separate, try the Mink Trap down the street. They like perverts.

Rheba’s long yellow hair stirred, though there was no breeze inside the Black Whole’s anteroom. Kirtn spoke a few rapid words in Senyas, native tongue of Senyasi and Bre’ns alike. If we kill him, we’ll never get a chance to talk to Trader Jal.

I wasn’t going to kill him, said Rheba in Senyas, smiling at the man with the silver circle who could not understand her words. I was just going to singe his pride-and-joys.

Kirtn winced. Never mind. I’ll wait outside.

Rheba began to object, then shrugged. The last time they had bumped against local prejudices, she had been the one to wait outside. She could not remember whether sex, color, number of digits or lack of fur had been at issue.

I’ll make it as fast as I can, said Rheba, her hand on Kirtn’s arm, stroking him. She took an uncomplicated pleasure from the softness of his fur. Kirtn’s strength and textures were her oldest memories, and her best. Like most akhenets, she had been raised by her Bre’n mentor. I can understand a prejudice against smoothies, she murmured, but against furries? Impossible.

Kirtn touched a fingertip to Rheba’s nose. Don’t find more trouble than you can set fire to, child.

She smiled and turned toward the licensed employee. She spoke once again in Universal, the language of space. Does this cesspool have a game called Chaos?

Yeah, said the man. He flicked his narrow, thick fingernail against Rheba’s license. It’s not a game for innocents.

Rheba’s hair rippled. Is that opinion or law?

The man did not answer.

Where’s the game? she asked again, her voice clipped.

Across the main casino, on the left. You’ll see a big blue spiral galaxy.

Rheba sidestepped around the man.

I hope you lose your lower set of lips, he said in a nasty voice as she passed him.

She walked quickly across the anteroom of the Black Whole, not trusting herself to answer the man’s crudity. As she passed through the casino’s velvet force field, a babble of voices assaulted her. Throughout the immense, high-ceilinged room, bets were being made and paid in the Universal language, but gamblers exhorted personal gods in every tongue known to the Yhelle Equality.

Rheba knew only three languages—Bre’n, Senyas, and Universal—and Kirtn was the only other being who knew the first two. The multitongued room made her feel terribly alone. One Senyas, one Bre’n. Only known survivors of the violent moment when Deva’s sun had built a bridge of fire between itself and its fifth planet.

One Senyas, one Bre’n; one galaxy of strangers.

With an effort, she shut away the searing memory of extinction. She and Kirtn had survived. Surely others must also have survived. Somehow. Somewhere. She would find them, one by one, if it took all the centuries of her life.

Rheba dove into the gamblers congealed in masses around their games, blocking aisles and passageways with their single-minded focus on gain and loss. When courtesy, strength and flexibility were not enough, she gave discreet shocks to the people who barred her way. Soon she was beneath the glitter-blue pulsing galaxy that marked the game known as Chaos.

There were eight tables, six pits, three circles and a ziggurat gathered beneath the galaxy. At each station, humanoids won and lost at games whose rules were subject to change upon agreement of a majority of players or upon one player’s payment of ten times the pot. There was only one inflexible rule: If a gambler could not pay he could not play. On Onan, penury was the only unforgivable sin.

Cheating was not only expected in Chaos, it was required merely to stay in the game. Inspired cheating was required to win. If a player was so inept as to be caught at it, however, that player had to match the pot in order to remain in the game. As the anteroom guard had mentioned, Chaos was not a game for innocents. But then, Rheba was an innocent only by default of funds.

She peered at the closer gambling stations, trying to find a man with blue hair, pale-blue skin, and a lightning-shaped scar on the back of his right hand. She saw various scars, as well as skin and hair of every hue, but none of the scars and skin tones made the correct combination. Impatiently, she turned and headed toward the third pit.

Game? asked a contralto voice at her elbow.

Rheba turned and saw a tiny, beautiful woman with satin-black skin, eyes and hair. She wore a metallic silver body sheath that covered enough for most planetary customs and not a millimeter more. A silver circle nestled between her perfect breasts.

I’m innocent, said Rheba, smiling, but I’m not stupid. No game, Silver Circle. No thanks.

The woman smiled and resumed playing with a pile of multicolored gems, arranging and rearranging them in complex patterns, waiting for a player whose eyes would be blinded by the rainbow wealth of jewels.

As Rheba turned away, a blur of blue-on-blue caught her attention. She stood on tiptoe and stared toward the top of the crystal ziggurat. A man was climbing into the kingseat, the only seat on the seventh level of the ziggurat. His skin was blue, his hair a darker blue, almost black. As he settled his