Read Halfling Moon for Free Online Page A

Shaper was the previously unidentified
victim of an altercation, and had died of his injuries before
medical assistance could be sought. The block clean-up committee's
report should be attached; they had a working med-tech known to me
with them who certified the negative results of revival tests and
the clean-up committee's standing disposal instructions were
followed, with ashes included in the weekly south garden
run.
    The letter went on of course, and he'd read
it through, requesting him to come on down to the city to pick up
the effects. What would they be? Could his Grampa's Musonium still
be there? The good blade that Rollie'd always carried though it was
supposed to stay at home? Cash in bits or dex or maybe gold
weights? Her name was at the end, and business-like as it was, the
lady's signature was bold and delicate at the same time.
    He'd had to think a moment about the ashes, because it was
a strange thought, that sweaty noisy busy Rollie could be something
other than he'd ever been, but they said so, and had bothered to
write to him, which was probably proof enough. The
south
garden, that was one on the far side of the port itself,
down toward the flat of the land. He'd never been there, but the
maps and Grampa both said that's where the small gardens were
supposed to be back before the spaceport was plopped dead center on
the best growing land the continent had, on account of it being
convenient.
    Then he'd started to look at the report, but
it wasn't something kin wanted to see, really, about how many cuts
and -- so he folded it in, and held himself a second or two,
knowing that he wanted to know and that he didn't want to know,
knowing that he'd seen something like that once, entrance wounds
and exit wounds and --
    The feeling was building as the boy stood there, the
feeling that something was going to happen, that more bad was going
to happen, that the clouds held weight beyond rain, and that
something really
really
bad --
    When it hit, the panic, it was solid, like a
crashing wall of rock falling on reason, to the point that he saw
that gray nothingness where vision should be, where if he
concentrated and stared hard he found his shoes and his hands
fearfully far away, like looking the wrong way through Grampa's
optical telescope.
    He'd held on, still, so he wouldn't run.
He'd stood there long enough for the kid to ask "You got anything
to send back? Got any smoke or …"
    But as much as Yulie'd gotten to feel his
breath run out, as much as he'd felt his hands go numb, and his
eyes begin to search for the way out, that much so, with all that,
he'd managed to scrape together the proper and secure, "We don't
got smoke here, boy, nor want it. Got something for your trouble,
though, and something for Miss Audrey."
    For Miss Audrey, the spice herbs, prime
grassnip, just picked. They'd been going to go to the city on
Rollie's next walk down the road, so they might as well go now,
anyhow, and then he'd picked up two of the prettiest spudfruit he'd
seen in awhile -- easily a meal or two for the kid and his family
-- and he'd handed them over.
    "For your trouble," he'd said, "but you
better go now."
    The kid heard a warning, grabbed the
offerings and packed out, and Yulie'd managed to get the letter and
report inside, grabbing at the door, grabbing at the table,
scattering cats, scattering thought, the panic rising so bad …
    And then he'd given it direction, and
lumbered out the door, knocking shoulder on door frame and on the
door, gathering speed, running across what Grampa had named the
meadow, and heedlessly over the small bed of field beans and
through the bluefruits, entirely without thought for the value, or
for anything but getting away, of running, of --
    He'd run so far and so fast he almost ran
off the edge they called World's End, which wasn't the end of the
world, after all, but the carved cliff a hundred times his height
and more, the first place the mining company had stripped bare with
the mining