“Great idea,” Roncas said. “He could teach them to annoy the crap out of you.”
“Okay. So maybe it isn’t a good idea,” Onca grumbled. “Forget I said anything.”
Kim had just been offered the one thing she wanted most of all, and he was letting it drop? “I think I’d like that. But we need to find our friends first.”
Roncas gave Onca a nudge. “Looks like you’ll be starting a school for street kids.”
“There are already schools like that. I’m offering them a home.”
Kim gaped at him in disbelief. “You’d let us live in your house?”
He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Kim could think of a hundred reasons why not. Not the least of which was the way Jatki was trembling.
He scares me, she said in fingerspeak.
“I’m pretty sure we can trust him,” Kim said aloud. She could understand that language far better than she could speak it. Zetithian knuckles didn’t crack quite as easily as those of Kitnocks.
“Yes, you can trust me,” Onca said. “If nothing else, I have Ganyn to vouch for my character. That is, if you trust Darconian waitresses.” He didn’t wait for Jatki to reply before continuing. “So, Jatki. Why don’t you tell us how those little pigs captured you and made you swallow a tracking beacon?”
Jatki reached for Kim’s hand beneath the table, and Kim gave it a reassuring squeeze. Jatki had been so brave while making plans for this mission. Kim didn’t fully understand what her problem was now, unless one of the Rackenspries had hurt her. Then again, they had made her swallow a beacon, and somehow Kim doubted Jatki had been very cooperative.
“I—I followed the Herpatronian,” Jatki said. “I thought if I saw where he went, we would know more about where to look for the other girls.”
“Good idea,” Onca said with a nod. “What went wrong?”
“I’m not sure. I think he expected to be followed because he hadn’t gone far when he turned down another street. By the time I got to the corner, he was gone. Then those creeps jumped out and grabbed me.”
“The plot thickens,” Roncas said. “So you never saw where any of them wound up?”
Jatki shook her head. “I was too scared to follow them after they let me go.” She glanced at Kim. “And I had no idea where to find you. All I could do was go back to our meeting place.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think they’re after you, Kim.”
“That’s not too surprising,” Onca said. “She’s the one that got away. She’s a danger to them, and they know it.”
“So what do we do now?” Kim asked.
“Hmm…well, they used Jatki as bait to try to get you. I guess we should use her as bait to catch them.”
Jatki started cracking her knuckles again.
“Oh, I don’t mean you, specifically,” he said. “I mean the tracking beacon. We could put it on someone else, and they’d follow the signal right into our trap.”
Kim tried to find a fault with this plan and couldn’t do it. Yet. “But wouldn’t we wind up just catching those Rackenspries?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Might catch the ringleader, although I doubt it. That’s the sort of thing flunkies usually do.” He chewed thoughtfully on a fingertip. “I guess we could torture them and make them talk.”
“You can’t be serious,” Roncas snapped. “That’s, that’s—”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is inhumane,” he said. “That is, if you happen to be Terran. Come to think of it, that’s the Stantongue word for it too.” He sat for a moment, staring off into space. Then his expression changed, becoming quite devious. “Aw…it couldn’t be that easy.”
“What?” Kim prompted.
“We’ll buy them off,” he announced. “I’m sure I can pay them more than those other thugs can. My business might be more legitimate than theirs, but I bet they don’t charge as much per hour as I did.”
Jatki stared at him. “Exactly what kind of business are you in?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet, huh?” Roncas snickered. “He’s a hooker.”
“I am not a hooker!” Onca insisted. “Hookers stand out on street corners trolling for customers. I am a highly paid private entertainer seen by appointment only. Women waited years to spend an hour with me.”
Roncas rolled her eyes. “He’s a hooker.”
“Was,” Onca snapped. “I’m retired, remember?”
“Yeah, well, you might have to go back to work to pay off those Racks,” Roncas said. “And don’t even think about revoking my bonus or I’ll sic the Brothel Guild on you.”
Kim glanced at Jatki. “Can you tell they’ve been working together too long?”
Jatki replied with a weak smile, which was an improvement of sorts.
“How did they get you to swallow that beacon, anyway?” Kim asked.
“Said they’d kill me if I didn’t,” Jatki replied. “Besides, it was wrapped up in a piece of bread. I was hungry.”
“Poor kid,” Onca said. “And here we are making you eat tholuka berries.”
“I don’t mind,” Jatki said. “I’d like to get that beacon out of me anyway. It’s a creepy feeling, knowing I can be tracked.”
“Better stay away from Terra Minor,” he said with a chuckle. “Immigrants have a tracking implant inserted into the base of their skulls when they land there. Keeps the riffraff in line—or so they think. Doesn’t always guarantee compliance with the rules, though.”
Kim shuddered. “Sounds terrible.”
“I’m told it’s painless, although I don’t see how it could be. By the way, that’s where you’d have to go to collect your share of that trust fund I was telling you about.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Zetithians are exempt from the implants. And you don’t have to stay there if you don’t want to. But since it was designated as the new Zetithian homeworld, that’s where everything’s headquartered, including the database from the refugee ship, which has just about every scrap of data there is pertaining to Zetith. Amelyana lives there. I’m sure she’d love to meet you.”
“Who’s Amelyana?”
Onca grimaced. “Technically, she’s the one who about got us all killed—but she did manage to save a few of us. She was Rutger Grekkor’s wife. Took a Zetithian lover—the son of the Zetithian ambassador to some planet or other. Anyway, after Grekkor killed that guy, she went to Zetith to find another lover.”
“You’d think she’d have learned from her first mistake,” Kim said.
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem, see? We’re not only the best lovers in the galaxy, we’re sort of addicting.” He held up a hand as if to silence any protests she might have made. “Trust me, it’s true. And I’m not the one who said it.
“Grekkor was so stinking rich, he paid an army of mercenaries to kill us off. As you might’ve guessed, he was a little nutso. After they blew up any means we had of getting off the planet, they diverted an asteroid to crash into Zetith. Then Grekkor put a bounty on any offworld survivors. Nedwut bounty hunters killed most of them—which I’m sure is what happened to your family. Before the asteroid hit, Amelyana stole one of her husband’s starships and picked up about a hundred Zetithian kids, including me. We flew around in space for the next twenty-five years until another Zetithian, Trag Vladatonsk, finally killed Grekkor. With him dead, Amelyana inherited his wealth and set up the trust fund.”
“I have to admit, I didn’t believe you when you first told me that,” Kim said. “It all sounds so…crazy.”
Onca shrugged. “You don’t have to take my word for it. There’s plenty of evidence to prove it’s true.” He glanced up as Ganyn returned with their food. She set the plates on the table and then pinched him on the cheek before swaggering back to the kitchen.
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” Roncas said.
“Probably.” Onca rubbed his cheek for a second or two, then picked up a piece of fruit and bit into it. “Not too bad. W
atch out for those yellow star-shaped things, though. They’ll put a pucker in your mouth like you wouldn’t believe.”
He was quiet after that, leaving Kim to wonder if he was simply hungry or if telling that story made him sad. It certainly made her feel that way. All those people killed because Amelyana fell in love with one man—or maybe it was two. Onca didn’t say whether she had ever found another lover. Considering that part about Zetithian men being addicting, she probably had. But how could anyone become addicted to another person? It didn’t make sense.
Although Kim had done her best to avoid looking at him earlier, now that he seemed preoccupied, she found it difficult to keep her eyes off him. Watching him made her feel strange, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.
Maybe he really is addicting.
Kim tried one of the purple fruits. It tasted good but had a mealy texture. She liked the red, crunchy ones better.
“These berries are sweet, but kinda”—Jatki stopped in mid-sentence, her face turning even more yellow than it was before—“slimy.”
Onca pointed to a sign in the corner. “Restroom is that way.”
Chapter 6
Onca could almost feel Kim’s eyes on him. The chance to further her education seemed to have pleased her, but something in her gaze was a bit…unnerving. He had eaten half a crafnet before he realized what the problem was. Zetithian girls had always made him feel like he was lacking in some way, and a few of his clients at the Palace had done the same thing.
As Zetithians went, Onca was about average—not as handsome as Tarq or as big and muscular as Jerden. He’d never admitted it to anyone, but since none of the girls on the refugee ship would give him the time of day, he’d been a virgin when he started working at the brothel—a fact that his flirty, womanizing attitude had concealed reasonably well. His first client—a Terran woman in her fifties—had given him confidence, along with a few suggestions. Still, as blown away as she’d been by the joy juice, he doubted she’d noticed how nervous he was.
His performance had improved with practice, and he was now as skilled as any lover and more experienced than most. After Audrey’s death, he’d done his best to pick up the slack rather than canceling Jerden’s appointments. Onca had assumed that, as far as their clients were concerned, a Zetithian was a Zetithian and none of them would care one way or the other. Most didn’t complain—at least, not afterward—but a few had been rather vocal about their disappointment when they got him instead of Jerden.
And now Roncas had called him a hooker in front of both of the girls. That it was essentially true didn’t matter; it was still a less than glowing assessment of his character. He could’ve done without the hugs and kisses from Ganyn too. Sure, she was a nice enough woman and had a good opinion of him, but the fact that she was a lizard emphasized just how indiscriminate he’d been.
Not surprisingly, his offer to let the girls stay with him hadn’t been met with much enthusiasm. No doubt they figured him for some kind of pervert. He wasn’t, of course, but he could relate to a couple of homeless orphans—at least, he assumed Jatki was an orphan. As afraid of him as she was, he thought there might be more to her story—perhaps including someone who really was a pervert.
Jatki returned from the restroom a few minutes later, her color a little more normal as she slapped the tracking beacon down on the table beside his plate. “Don’t worry. I washed it.” She resumed her seat next to Kim. “Could I have some real food now?”
“Sure,” Onca replied. “Anything you want.”
“I’ll have the vegetables,” she said, rubbing her belly. “Not sure I could take any more fruit for a while.”
Onca waved at Ganyn as she passed by and gave her Jatki’s order.
“Sure thing, sweetie,” the waitress replied. “Anything for you.”
Well…at least Ganyn thought he was sweet. Perhaps she even thought enough of him to take the beacon and be the bait for their trap. He could just imagine the piggy faces of the Rackenspries when they tried to capture a Darconian. Then he realized he didn’t have to give it to anyone. He could leave it right where it was. The little punks would come looking for it eventually. In fact, he was surprised they hadn’t barged in on them before now.
Unless their boss was smarter than they were—although if the boss had any sense at all, he wouldn’t have hired a bunch of Racks to do his dirty work.
Nor would Rutger Grekkor have hired Nedwuts to wipe out the remaining Zetithians. Nedwuts were good hunters, if somewhat lacking in intelligence. Still, when there was dirty work to be done, an instigator couldn’t always be choosy when it came to hiring henchmen.
Henchmen… “Say, you girls don’t know any other street kids, do you? I mean, the sort you’d trust?”
“Sure,” Kim replied. “There are a lot of us—more than you might think.”
“What if we got all the kids together and organized them—you know, provide them with food and shelter so they wouldn’t have to steal? We could use them to search the city and try to find your friends. Think they’d go for it?”
Kim hesitated. “Some of them might. I’m sure they would all want the food and a place to stay, but there are some who actually enjoy stealing.”
“Those aren’t the kind we’d want,” Onca said. “I’m talking about the sort that wouldn’t steal unless they were forced to—who would jump at the chance for a more normal life.”
“Like me and Jatki, you mean,” Kim said. “Yeah, there are a few like us. Unfortunately, three of them are already missing.”
“There aren’t any others you’d trust?”
She chewed her lip as though pondering his question. “Yes, but finding them will be the hard part. We tend to hide from the other gangs—some of them are real creeps. There are a few that aren’t too bad, but none of us stay in the same place for long.”
“Yeah,” Jatki said. “It’s not like we have an official headquarters or a clubhouse.”
Onca nodded. “But you’re bound to have some hideouts you’ve used more than once. You know…the really good nooks where no one has ever found you?”
Fangs sinking into her lower lip, Kim looked at Jatki with such an unreadable expression, he half expected the Kitnock girl to start cracking her knuckles.
Once again, Onca felt his irritation rising. “You don’t need to tell me where it is. You can show Roncas if you don’t trust me.”
“It isn’t that we don’t trust you,” Kim said. “We’re not used to trusting anybody.” She glanced at Roncas. “Sorry, but that’s how it is.”
“Which makes it real hard for us to help you,” Onca said. “Every now and then, you have to take a leap of faith.”
Astonishingly enough, Jatki was the one who spoke. “There’s an empty warehouse on the north end of the commerce district. It was supposed to be torn down, but the owners are in a dispute with the city over how much the land is worth. We have a place on the upper floor. It’s a long way up and there isn’t much of an escape route, but at least the street sweepers can’t see us.”
“And neither can anyone else,” Onca concluded. He understood the need to avoid the sweepers. The flatbed droids roamed the city gathering up anyone they found sleeping in the street and carried them off to the city’s drunk tank. Onca had never been picked up, but he knew a few guys who had. Some of them had given up booze altogether as a result of the experience, and those who hadn’t made a point of staying off the street. Nobody wanted to get stuck spending the night with a bunch of drunken Drells. They were annoying enough when they were sober.
“Yeah,” Jatki said. “Hardly anyone else ever goes up there.”
“Maybe we should check it out,” Roncas suggested.
Kim shook her head. “Wouldn’t be anyone up there during the day, and we do our best not to leave any evidence that we were ever there.”
“So where did you leave your clothes?” Onca was fairly certain that Kim had never been one to wander the streets nearly naked—not that anyone would remark o
n it, but she didn’t strike him as the type.
“I had them,” Jatki said. She glanced at Kim. “Lost them. Sorry.”
“No worries,” Onca said. “Just a question.” Still, if anyone looking for Kim had found her clothing, there were plenty of species on Rhylos that could use them to follow her scent trail. “The bad guys didn’t get them, did they?”
Jatki winced. “Maybe. I’m really not sure.”
“Great,” Onca said with a roll of his eyes. If that was the case, the Racks could’ve already tracked Kim to his house—which meant he and the girls really had nothing to lose by going back there, whether they were followed or not. No matter what happened, he wasn’t about to let a bunch of fuckin’ Racks run him out of his house.
Shemlak swaggered over to their table with Jatki’s veggies. He was moving as nonchalantly as possible for a Darconian, but Onca caught the high sign he was giving him—not to mention the fact that her lunch was in a box.
“One of the guys spotted a bunch of Racks hanging out in the bar across the street. You might want to head out through the kitchen entrance,” Shemlak suggested. “We moved your speeders around back.” He glanced at the beacon lying on the table. “Leave that here. I’ll hang it on Draddut after a while. They’ll get a real surprise if they try to jump him.”
Since Draddut was even bigger than Shemlak, this was an excellent plan. “Ask him to squeeze some information out of them while he’s at it, will you? I’d rather do that than pay them off. Goes against my principles to throw money away like that.”
“Principles?” Roncas echoed. “Didn’t know you had any.”
Onca slammed his palms on the table. “Roncas, if you dislike me so damn much, why the hell did you ever come to work at the Palace?”
“Jerden hired me, remember? I hadn’t met you when I took the job.”
“I tell you what,” Onca grumbled. “You give your receptionist a big bonus and she turns on you.”
Roncas patted his hand. “I’m not turning on you. I’m speaking my mind.”
Rebel (The Cat Star Chronicles) Page 6
