The 97th Step Read Online Free Page A

screens.
    A Confed cutter hung against the blackness, waiting to strike should the unthinkable happen and somebody who wasn't supposed to leave or arrive tried to do so. The cutter seemed to flash by as the Don't Look flicked past.
    "Yes. I was thinking about the slaver."
    "I've never seen you like that," Stoll said. "Not in ten years."
    Ferret turned his chair slightly, to look at the fat man. "I've never told you about where I came from.
    What I was before we met."
    Stoll laughed softly. "I remember our first meeting. I had to laugh. You, a skinny kid, trying to steal my flitter. I thought surely you were brain-damaged."
    Ferret smiled at the memory. "Yeah. I was pretty cocky by then. I'd been in the lanes for five years, and surviving pretty well. I thought the galaxy was my oyster."
    "You were lucky."
    "Ferret nodded. "Very. I could have died a hundred ways. There must be—" He stopped.
    "—gods that watch out for fools," Stoll finished. "But you don't like to talk about gods."
    "We've never discussed religion," Ferret said. His voice was stiff.
    "That's the point, lad. We've been running together for ten years, and we never have talked about such things. Even a fairly stupid fat man such as myself notices such omissions."
    Ferret sighed. "I tried to put all that behind me. Where I came from, what I was raised. I try not to think about it!"
    "Haven't been too successful at it, have you?"
    Ferret glanced back at the screens. No help there. "Everything was fine on automatic. "Sometimes," he said finally. "But the slaver and his whip brought back an old memory."
    Stoll didn't speak. He was very good that way, never pressing. He'd never asked once, not in ten years, about Ferret's past. Ferret had been Stoll's apprentice at first, then his partner, and each of them had kept their own secrets without any prying from the other. They were friends, but not snoopy ones.
    Ferret let the silence stretch. He took a deep breath. "I was raised on Cibule," he said. "Son of a dirt-poor farm couple steeped in The God of the Holy Script. It wasn't a pleasant childhood."
    "He glanced over at Stoll, who looked attentive, but not to the point of pulling more than Ferret was willing to give.
    Fifteen years, Ferret thought. I guess it can't hurt me anymore. Not with this man who has saved my ass more than once.
    "I took it for as long as I could," he said. "Then one day, I decided to leave…"

Four
    THE MOST VALUABLE things he owned were his boots, and those he wore; otherwise, Mwili took nothing but the money he'd saved and the small backpack that contained his lunch and the coil. Once he got the flitter running, he'd borrow it to get to Toilet Town. The supplies would keep in their hiding place; his father could find them easily enough, and he could tow the flitter behind the tractor when he finally got around to locating it. It would make work for him, but Mwili did not worry too much about that. His father seemed to think that work and God were the only two things in the universe, anyway.
    The sun warmed the land some, though it was still cold. He had his gloves today, that helped, and he wore the better of his two gi jackets. His mother had packed him a lunch and water bottle, and he would worry about more food when next he was hungry.
    As he walked the lonely road, Mwili felt a mixture of emotions. A small, nagging fear rode him, as if he halfway expected God to hurl some kind of fiery lance at him for daring to go against the Holy Rules.
    Honor and Obey Thy Father topped the list. There were civil penalties to go with the holier ones.
    Runaways were dealt harsh justice if caught, and on Cibule, they almost always were caught. That was why he had to get offworld.
    On the other hand, there was an elation bubbling from him that the fear could not dampen altogether. He had made a choice. Rather than just plodding through his miserable existence, he had taken a step. It might cost him more grief than anything he'd ever done, but he was