Every Last Mother's Child
Page 29
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The station master for the Underground Railroad on the Rio Lobo space station was an old prostitute known as Thunder. Through the imperial mail boat that made the trip from Earth Space to Rio Lobo in a third of the time Jill’s liner did, she had received word that the daughter of Sergeant Wilson was on her way to Trena via Rio Lobo. Trena was one of the final destinations on the railroad for biopeople fleeing Ebio and the empire. When she later learned that the girl had ran away from her grandmother’s home on Mars she was torn between helping the authorities to return the girl to Mars, or helping her on her way to Trena. Thunder was pondering what she was going to do when the beat cop for the neighborhood where her bar was located came in for a cup of coffee. She tried to hide the photo of the girl from the cop; but she wasn’t fast enough.
“What do you have there, Thunder?” the cop asked as she poured him a cup of coffee. He picked up the photo of Jill. “Pretty girl, is she one of yours?”
“Did you ever hear about a sergeant Wilson in the station’s MP unit?” Thunder asked knowing she wasn’t going to be able to get around this young cop’s questions, nor did she want to as he sometimes, though unwittingly, helped her get her passengers along the railway.
“No,” the cop replied.
“He was before your time. He was a Marine MP,” Thunder continued, “who helped me out years ago when one the officers off an IRS hospital ship had raped me. He made sure that sorry piece human offal was sent to Dungeon.”
The young cop nodded he knew of Dungeon. It was an imperial prison world where the empire and other star nations sent the very worse of their criminal element they convicted.
“Anyways that’s his daughter,” The old prostitute continued. “You haven’t seen her have you?”
“No.” The young man asked, “I haven’t, why?”
“Her ship is due today or tomorrow,” Thunder answered. “Could you keep an out eye for her? I owe it to Sarge that she is looked after on her lay over.”
“What do you want me to do?” the young man asked.
“Let me know if you see her.” Thunder asked. She had decided that since the girl was going on to Trena, one of the destinations on the railroad, she couldn’t risk blowing her cover and return the young woman to her grandmother. But there was no reason why she couldn’t put the fear of god into her old friend’s daughter however. She was going to look after the girl; just not in the way the young cop thought.