Read The Sirens of Space for Free Online

was grateful for their
hospitality. He lacked the heart to tell them that he hated what
Terrans called “prune juice.”
     
    * * *
    In a seedy part of town, a
door creaked open and a half-drunken spacer staggered through the
threshold.
    “ Caw! Look whut the cat dragged
in.”
    Cyrus McGee shot his brother a sullen,
menacing look with the eye that was not swollen shut. Every bruise
on his body pulsed in aching unison. His face was puffed, and dried
blood caked his scruffy beard. He slammed the hotel room door and
hobbled to his bed.
    The room was circular and dark, lighted only
by the lamp on Mason McGee’s night stand. The ceiling was tiled
with grimy mirrors, many of them cracked, some of them missing.
Dust covered the floor, and the musty odor of stale sweat filled
the air.
    Mason was determined not to laugh, no matter
how pathetic his brother looked. Cyrus had warned him, in his most
patronizing big brother tones, not to leave the hotel alone. Big
brother deserved to come back with his face as raw as hamburger.
But he knew from painful experience that, once aroused, Cyrus’ mean
streak lingered for hours. Mason was not about to snicker his way
into a fight. He reached into the provisions bag for some ointment
to give his brother.
    Cyrus snatched the ointment tubes without a
word. He sat quietly on his bed and began tending his wounds.
Hatred still raged in his heart. He would talk when he was damn
ready, and not one second before.
    Mason was about to return to his
entertainment tapes when a knock came to the door.
    “ Room service” called a husky, female
voice.
    Mason grinned ravenously. “Door’s unlocked,”
he howled. Cyrus grunted disagreeably.
    A tall, dark woman entered the room and
locked the door behind her. She wore form-fitting coveralls and a
brightly colored scarf. A generous layer of powder and rouge
covered most of the wrinkles on her face. Thirty years old, she
looked as tired as Earth, and her eyes were weary and sad. But her
deep red lips parted in a lusty smile, and the thick scent of
jasmine soon captured the room.
    “ Sorry bein late, gents,” she
shrugged, “but we’re two girls down t’night an runnin way behind.”
With a flurry of short, bold strokes she shed her coveralls.
Underneath she wore a pink halter top lined with brilliant blue
feathers and tight fitting black slacks. Her raven black hair fell
in gentle flows across her bare shoulders.
    Mason, sitting on his bed and leaning
against the cold, concrete wall, drooled like a lovesick schoolboy.
No matter how cold and dreary they were, he thought, the hotels on
Ishtar knew how to make a man feel welcome.
    “ What’s with him?” asked the woman,
pointing at the miserable heap of flesh on the next bed. Cyrus was
shaking his head and mumbling—something about Cozzies and turtle
shells—but the other two couldn’t quite make it out.
    Mason dismissed it with a wave of his hand.
“Don’t never mind him,” he told her. “He’ll be all right by the
time you leave. Just a hard night is all.” The two of them
laughed.
    “ I’m sure he’ll come around when it’s
his turn,” she leered.
    Slowly, teasingly, she walked toward Mason,
her eyes fixed on his dimpled cheeks and smooth, whiskerless face,
her long fingers dancing along the feathered fringe of her top. The
younger McGee swung his legs onto the bed and eased his head onto
the pillow.
    In his corner of the room, Cyrus grudgingly
admitted defeat. Nothing would stop his face from aching, he told
himself. Nothing but time. The lizards’ turn would come, soon
enough; there was no sense wasting the present fretting about the
past. He picked up a stool and moved to the center of the room,
where the view was better.
    My day will come again, he thought to
himself. And revenge was sweetest when savored through the
bitterness of anticipation. Soon, he was dismissing such thoughts
from his head. He could use some cheering up, and their hostess was
starting to