Elias Blom landed the squad one-sitter drone at the curb and stepped out on the wet pavement. “New planets old structure, he thought, pushed the unlocked gate and walked slowly up the recycled elastic pathway which ended at the portico of an Earth-Edwardian house standing like a far-away memory, ancient and dispirited, before him.
Elias had born and grown up in this neighbourhood and this house, this very Earth-Edwardian house had awed him. The remote dignity, the Earth roots, the wealth of the T’rid family had awed and dominated the entire planet of Cosmos. S’iug, the only T’rid child, had been three years ahead of Elias in the primary institute. Socially however, the gap between them had been far beyond the three years at primary institute.
The door was changing colours in a way that probably looked extreme stylish a few decades ago and illogical now as Elias tugged at the old-fashioned button. A moment later he heard uncertain footsteps from within and the door slowly slide open.
S’iug T’rid, breathing thru a mask, said in a strange voice, “Oh Elias, it’s you. Come in.”
Elias followed his host through a huge and empty hall; covered wall-to-wall in a strange dark purple colour leaving you with a feeling that you enter a tomb. The house was cold despite the planet’s general humid, with a clammy chill that penetrated to the bones. T’rids were originally from planet Koel II and that might explain some.
S’iug led the way into a vast drawing room whose furniture was clipped and upholstered in Earth-faded splendour. He sat in an earth-antique armchair by a credenza –Elias had seen a link of one before and he knew the name, and placed his feet over a metal register through which came faint waves of air. Elias thought, most likely Koel II short of air. On the credenza was one empty bottle bearing the label of a well-known New Bayou bourbon and another half filled.
Elias declined a drink. S’iug poured liberally for himself and drained the glass though a strange opening in his mask. Elias watched him drink with wonder and pity. S’iug was perhaps three years older but he looked at least twenty. His face had taken an odd deep blue colour like old and ill Koelians get and his eyes dull and rheumy. All that remained of the lad Elias had known at the institute was his air of partisan elegance he had inherited from a long line of Koelian partisans. S’iug wore the mantle as if it had been tailored for him, which, as a matter of fact, it had.
Orphaned in his late teens to find that his family’s fortune had been dissipated, S’iug had lived alone, devoting the little remnant of his inheritance to alcohol. He was solitary, depress drinker, dwelling alone in the vast, bleak mansion. As a child his riches and family status had cut him off for normal companionships. Now, it seemed he cut himself off of his own volition.
Read all the Koelian tomb chapters in order, HERE!
Thanos' Pulp Fiction 