Now that was over and he was leaving Venus. And the reason why he
was leaving, was because of people like the two in back of him. The
stupid, blind, selfish people who had ruined every chance for a decent
relationship between the Colonists and the Venusians.
Because the Venusians were kind and honest and good, these people had
swept over them like hail hitting flower petals. They had slashed and
gouged and broken everything in their way: the earth, the vegetation,
the Venusians themselves. Everything went down in front of the
Colonist's hand. And then they laughed and spent the money they made
and damned near tickled themselves to death with their own superiority.
Caine brought the ship up with a wrench, swearing under his breath.
Well, this was the last time he'd have anything more to do with them.
Tomorrow, he'd be on a rocket and this time he'd find a place where he
wouldn't see another damned tourist the rest of his life. The only good
thing about this was that he would use their money to do it. He wasn't
a sucker like the Venusian. He knew how to charge six times over for a
trip like this.
The boy was chattering and the girl was laughing and Caine made a slow
sweeping circle over the yellow and green and purple jungle.
The boy was jerking finished three-dimensional pictures out of the
camera and squinting at them. "Oh, Lord," he would say, giggling as
he looked. Then he would throw the picture over his shoulder and grab
another. "Oh, heavens." And that one would go over his shoulder.
"Hey, Driver!" the boy yelled. "Let's go down again."
Caine set his teeth and spiraled slowly in the cloud-dull air.
He felt a touch against his right arm. He glanced down and found the
girl's small foot beside his arm. She wiggled a sandaled toe and tapped
him again with her foot.
* * * * *
Caine saw her small ankle and after that, the neat swell of her calf.
She wore no stockings and her skin was tanned the color of golden
wheat--from long hours, Caine knew, lying in an artificially sunlit
patio.
He looked at her in the mirror.
"Vanny wants to go down again," she said, smiling insolently. She shook
the soft brown hair and her eyes danced. She had dark blue eyes, Caine
noticed, and they sparkled and flirted. And Caine wanted none of it. He
wanted to get this over and he wanted to get away.
She was making him more nervous than the boy was, only it was a
different kind of nervousness. It was the kind that got into your blood
and found your heart and your breath, and it was more dangerous.
"Down, down!" the boy was yelling.
"All right," Caine said. "All right."
He spiraled the ship toward the jungle.
"You know," he could hear the girl say, "I don't think Driver likes
you, Vanny. I don't think he likes me, either. Why don't you like us,
Driver?"
Caine concentrated on his flying.
"You know," said the girl in her husky voice, "maybe he doesn't like it
because we call him Driver. Do you, Driver?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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