Read Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 for Free Online Page B

different kind. I dragged one of the coffins out, pushed it down against the floor and tore off its lid.
    Inside lay a naked woman, her body marked with circular blue scars and her head bald. Her eyes were open and she was breathing gently, but she showed utterly zero response to me. I slapped her face, hard, but all she did was slowly return her head to its original position. I reached in, cupped the back of her neck in one hand and hauled her up into a sitting position and studied the scars on her head.
    "Fully cored and thralled, I reckon," said Harriet.
    "So it would seem," I replied, releasing the woman and watching her slowly lie back like a damped box lid closing.
    I pulled out another box and checked the contents of that, shoved it back in the rack and moved on to a square box at the end, pulled that out and opened it. This contained hexagonal objects each the size of a soup bowl, prador glyphs inscribed in their upper surfaces.
    "Thrall control units," I said tightly, pausing to look at the number of those other coffin-sized boxes around me and wondering if the same number lay behind each door. "Let's see if our thetics managed to get us a captive."
    Making my way up to the bridge of the hauler I noted another two thetics down and returning to their original form, but there were also two more crewmen riddled with pulse-rifle fire. Finally, entering the bridge I found four thetics pinning their captive to the floor, the rest milling about aimlessly, and another three of their kind floating through the air, partially dismembered and reverting—obviously having run afoul of their captive's laser carbine before they could bring him down.
    "I want two of you to remain here to restrain the captive," I instructed. "The rest of you go back to the bathysphere, now."
    The milling immediately ceased and most of the thetics departed.
    "Get him up off the floor," I instructed the two remaining. The fight seemed to have gone out of the man now, probably because of the shots to each of his legs and his right biceps. He was obviously in a great deal of pain.
    "I have some questions," I said.
    "Fuck... you," he managed.
    "My first question is: does your cargo consist of fully cored humans only? That is, are there any included who have been spider thralled?"
    "Why the hell... should I answer you?"
    "Curious question to which I'm sure the answer must be obvious," I said. "If you don't answer me I will torture you until you either do answer me or you die. Harriet." I beckoned with one finger and Harriet turned away from a deliquescing thetic she had been sniffing. "His right hand, do you think?"
    Harriet walked right up to the man, nose to nose, then sniffed down his right arm, pausing for a while at the wound in his biceps then moving on down to his hand. She licked his hand, then lifted her head back up to gaze into his eyes.
    "Crunchy," she said, exposing her teeth.
    "Why do you want to know?" the man asked, trying to focus his gaze on me.
    "Why do you want to know why I want to know?"
    "I don't want to die."
    I smiled tiredly, turning away and heading over to the ship's controls. As I began to search for the ship's log and other data storage, I said, "All you need to know right now is that if you do not answer my question Harriet here will bite off and eat your right hand."
    I glanced round in time to see the man seeming to brace himself, pulling himself more upright. Returning to the controls I found myself puzzled by the lack of security, quickly locating the ship's log and transmitting it to the
Coin Collector
and receiving confirmation a moment later.
    "The customer for this shipment... did not want spider thralls used because after a period of time they can be rejected by the body." The man paused, then continued in a rush, "I'm just the pilot—I'm not involved in the rest of it."
    Ah, here's something,
I thought to myself as I uncovered a number of encrypted files. Then, feeling slightly impatient, I turned back to our