Roland Geelen returns to Chuku, his home planet, on a mission — but with reluctance. Memories of his mother’s death haunt him, plus he still owes Slow Eddie a lot of money. However, if he succeeds in buying artwork from the Ulle artist Vialiki Kazurka, his wealthy client will reward him substantially.
He knows it won’t be easy, and might even be dangerous — Kazurka is known to collect lethal weaponry, after all — but the payoff will allow him to pay off Eddie and live free again.
The catch? No one knows exactly where Kazurka has hidden. Rumors put her in a small town in the far north, but Roland’s budget limits him to rental ground transportation. With a professional pilot at the wheel of a crawler and plenty of supplies, what could go wrong?
This story originally appeared in Beyond the Skyline, a collection of science fiction stories by Nashville writers. I’m now making the story available as an ebook for free download! Just click on the links below to select your preferred format.
Kindle compatible .mobi file:[LINK]
Nook and Google Play compatible .epub file: [LINK]
Microsoft Word .doc file: [LINK]