6.
 "Hi, new owner." A seductive voice. Of course.
"Yes Noma." He raked his fingers harshly across her strings.
"You must take better care of me than that." A female image frowned on the flat-screen display behind the strings, inside the backing-case. A beautiful face, of course, capable of changing to any face or any body he desired. He brushed his fingers against the strings, bowed over the big instrument, his other hand pressed against the mandolin-inlay on the back.
"That's better, new owner. But you have not told me your name or anything about you, so we can get acquainted." Seductive.
"I'm not ready to have you in my mind."
"In your mind?"
"Just an expression."
"Of course. I understand. We need to warm up together."
They were in the lounge aboard a Bridge-cruiser, a hotel moving among the stars, hustling among the wormholes in alternetic space while the obersole droned like whales, those extinct mythological cousins of the unicorn and the mermaid.
Fellow passengers holding drinks began to crowd around. Eon wore a nice suit, had his hair combed, looked nothing like the raggedy maggner he'd been.
"That's a fine looking harp, fella."
"Play us a tune, harp."
"Hey, that's a Noma—Sexy!"
So he touched the strings, and the Noma sucked on his aura and plucked out a tune that made toes twitch and fingers snap. "You are one sexy fella," she told him in the back of his mind, for the Nomas had a rudimentary ability for telepathy.
"We sure had the place hopping, didn't we?" the Noma later said fondly as he carried her through the moving, maggning ship's empty hotel corridors. "They were tapping their feet and singing right along. We'll have a good time together, won't we?"
"A great time," Eon said.
Up in the utility corridor, muffled with carpets and smelling of cleansers, there was a drunk and he said hi.
"Hello," Eon said.
"Hey baby join the party," the Noma said, pretty face behind the strings. "Say, what's your name, where are we going?"
"We're going to see Bridget," he told her.
"Who?" She laughed.
"A old friend,"
The drunk was a friendly looking guy, chubby in a well-partied sort of appearance, and he was puzzled. "Say, that's the disposal chute."
"No!" the Noma said.
"Yes," Eon said.
"I am an expensive Noma-class instrument designed to bring you lasting pleasure." Crisp, disapproving, domineering.
"I hate spiders," Eon said to nobody in particular as he pushed the harp through the force field.
The Noma screamed briefly.
Eon mused aloud: "Even software crashes hard."
"I'll be dinged," the drunk said, leaning against the wall as the disposal made popping noises. "That was a fine looking harp, man."
"Well, looks aren't everything," Eon said.
They watched on the window-wall as the harp spun out into empty space, and then exploded among a million stars.
"I can't believe it," the man said, staggering closer. "You trashed that fine instrument."
"It didn't have a soul," Eon explained, "so nothing to worry about. Say, care to join me for a drink?
"I'm always up for a party," the drunk said. "I want to hear the story behind this."
"Oh no," Eon said, "that's my secret. Trust me, it's a sad story." On the way to the bar, he did explain: "See, the thing you never do is sell your soul. Not for any reason, even if you lose your wife, your daughter, the people you love the most."
"Life must go on," the drunk agreed.
Dancers and singers came and the ship rushed along the Bridge. The drunk passed out under the table and was carried away. People had forgotten the Noma, and nobody asked about it.
The ship sped along the Galactic Bridge until the partiers fell into one of those blessed bright sun risings on a world where the sky was clean and the air smelled fresh, birds warbled in bushes and butterflies clapped their wings on fields of sweet white flowers. Not the old Earth, but the universe liked to replicate its success stories, so there were plenty of such dear places if you looked for them, hidden among the Pylons of the obersole.
Eon's drunken friend, it turned out, was Emeel Dash, a powerful man on this world. He promised Eon a job, a house, a new hope. In Emeel's house, the first day, Eon met a young woman named Bryse who was tall and intelligent. She had blond hair and a clear complexion, humorous dark eyes, and small even teeth behind firm pink lips. She looked willowy in the loose white gown women wore on her world. She kept the business accounts for the estate. Bryse and Eon walked in a garden together. She seemed nervous and reserved, but he sensed there was a reason why she was making this time to get to know him. He cut a clean, handsome figure in his suit, and he began to see that she was interested and flustered. She talked about baking, about riding horses, about hiking on the mountain trails, and it was clear that she wanted to see more of him. "I have to go now," she said breathlessly, "but I hope we can talk again."
"I'd like that," Eon said, attracted to her.
"Soon," she said, and touched him. Touched him! That surprised him, made him feel happy. And at the same time, something inside him suddenly hurt as though hit with a whip. Bryse waved to him, betraying a glance of longing.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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