The Dark Wheel (Robert Holdstock, §6)
...The streets were crowded here and it took Alex only moments to realise that the South City of this particular Coriolis station was the 'down town' area. Illegal trade abounded, in narcotics, robots, slaves, sensuastims, prostitution and frozen organs. Spacers walked slowly, cautiously, most of them still wearing near-full suit, a certain sign that this was the rough quarter. Hookers, of all sexes (the Galaxy counted seventeen at this time) and races, but mostly humanoid, solicited from hovering platforms, ready to escape fast from any over-welcoming, unwelcome client. Advertising hoardings here were almost completely devoted to proclaiming the illicit pleasures which were available in South City. Police cars and remotes roared overhead, as did med-ships. The streets were alive with noise and bustle and filth.
The Magellan building, a dark, squat cube, sat amongst this confusion like a great, brooding monster. It had no visible windows. Lifts rose and fell on its outer walls, slow-moving green lights that gave it an uncanny sense of being alive.
Alex had come without a hand weapon, and now began to regret it. Practically everyone—and everything—he saw carried a gun, in contradiction of orbit-space law. He walked cautiously through the crowds of reptilioids, cloaked amphibioids, armoured insectoids, squat, bristling felines, and the grotesque robo-tanks in which things that looked like giant molluscs, or worms, or branches of heather, moved within the safety of their own environment.
He entered the Magellan building and noticed the stench for the first time, the combined body odours of a thousand alien life-forms; surprisingly some—those who drank raw methane gas— managed to excrete sweat that smelled as sweet as apple blossom. But most did not.
The private trading centre was a vast hall, surrounded by the entrances to offices and warehouses. What was sold in this crowded, noisy place, was anything that was considered too risky, or bizarre, or commonplace to sell on the open market. The trader who loaded up his cargo bay from a private purchase had better check with the planet's export monitoring system before leaving, or his reception, at the other end, might be a little more violent than he'd expected.
Alex scanned the high walls for a hint of McGreavy's warehouse. As he did so he found himself standing behind two tall, violent-looking insect-forms, their bodies armoured in light grey, their facetted eyes swivelling to stare at him as they talked together, chelicerae clashing and clacking in their peculiar mode of communication.
Alex stepped away, heart beating, blood rushing to his head. Compound eyes, jointed limbs, head antennae, double cutting jaws . . . Thargoids! Here, on a space station!
Thargoids were deadly. Thargoid spacers had their fear-glands removed, and were considered to be the most effective and potent of humankind's enemies. The bounty for killing a Thargoid was huge, and for capturing and delivering the juvenile form, the Tharglet, to any Space Navy research centre, even greater.
What were they doing here?
The Thargoids chatted together and watched Alex coldly. Alex noticed that each had an appendage resting on its thoracic plate, where they holstered their hand-lasers.
'Back off,' a voice whispered, and Alex turned. McGreavy stood there blinking through his deformities. Alex had not grasped how short the man was; he only came up as far as Alex's chest.
'Thargoids . . .' he whispered.
'Bullshit,' McGreavy said, and dragged Alex away. 'They're Oresrians, and the one thing that can make an Oresrian deadly is being confused the way you've just confused them, with their deadly enemies the Thargoids. Check the thorax markings and the shape of the fourth joint on each hind leg before you jump to conclusions again . . .'
Alex followed McGreavy gratefully, away from the whispering insects.
McGreavy's warehouse was small, cramped and smelly. Alex followed him through into the dimly lit interior, and felt a pang of discomfort as the grotesque little man closed the doors behind them...
