“ThankyouDad,” said Daniel, all as one obligatory word.
That was when I finally looked at Mr. Henderson’s face, and immediately regretted doing so. I was reminded of a piece of advice my old instructor at Speedstar Academy had given me: If you have to dash under a starship’s launch jets, and you should never have to do that, then at least don’t look up. Because there’s something hypnotic about the way your gaze will travel along the lines of the exhaust funnel’s black spiral to the distant spark of the ignition light, and the deep subconscious knowledge that a single unheralded test fire of the engine will instantly reduce you to a splatter of wet granules on the floor.
Mr. Henderson’s orange tan had shifted slightly to a permanent shade of sunset pink. His lips were pressed tightly together like a fully compressed accordion. His eyes stared into the fireplace with such intensity that I wondered if his gaze was what had started the fire in the first place. His head was motionless, but an extruding vein on his temple was quivering like an earthworm in an owl habitat.
“Yeah, he’s been like that for over a year now,” said Daniel cheerfully. “The doctor said it was something like, he got so angry about something that his body entered a state approaching rigor mortis. That’s why I had to take over telling everyone what to do.”
I took a careful step back to ensure that Daniel was between me and him. “Is it about . . . what happened last time?” I whispered.
“Oh, you mean when that docking ramp shut too fast and cut his leg off?” said Daniel, a little too loudly. “No, he got over that pretty fast. He was talking about getting a new leg that could run super fast and, you know, shoot lasers and things. But something went wrong with the prototype, and I guess he changed his mind. Hey, Dad, you remember Jacques McKeown?”
The invoking of the name caused an astonishing reaction from Mr. Henderson, made no less so by the fact that all he did was swivel his eyes. As he turned his glare to me, I felt myself pinned to the spot by two red-hot spikes. Then, ever so slowly, his eyes narrowed, making his hatred pour out even harder, as water does from the pinched end of a hose.
“He says hi,” translated Daniel helpfully.
Chapter 6
When I returned to the spaceport hangar and caught sight of my parked ship, I instantly knew she had been broken into.
I’d stepped out of the Henderson building in a stupor, escorted by Mr. Heller, now smelling faintly of pine-scented toilet cleaner. He had done nothing during the walk back through the Quantunnel to the lobby but show me his advancing back with no apparent concern for whether or not I was following, and between that and the sudden onrush of relief from getting away from Mr. Henderson, I had felt the urge to be chummy.
“Can I ask you something?” I had said as we were passing by the fiberglass spaceship.
He replied by continuing to stride across the lobby, but didn’t specifically tell me to be quiet.
“How do you guys feel about the way things have been going here?”
Heller visibly shuddered, but quickly composed himself. “Things’ve changed,” he admitted, from the corner of his mouth.
I shot an uncomfortable glance at the fiberglass centerpiece. “I gathered that. So why stick around?”
“Mr. Henderson might get better.”
“So what?”
He stopped, as we were close to the exit, and this was apparently his chosen interpretation of “seeing me out.” He turned around neatly and folded his arms, pointing a thumb toward the large entrance doors. “So then, things change back.”
He was a terse bracket, but I picked up on his subtext. Things would change back, and then Mr. Henderson would have something to say about anyone who had abandoned him in his hour of need, or failed to keep his son happy. Probably something along the lines of “Ready, aim, fire.”
So, having been put in something of a daze by the whole encounter, I had flipped to my default setting and wandered back to Ritsuko’s Arse, to get back onboard my comfort zone and have some time to myself. And as I entered the parking bay and approached the Neverdie, my step faltered when I realized that someone else had been inside.
The Neverdie had been my special lady for a very long time, and in the course of a relationship like that, one develops certain instincts. Who knows what tiny details my subconscious had picked up on—a stirring in the layers of dust, the protective cover over the access panel left at an angle slightly unlike the one I preferred—but the effect was stark. A cold, sinking sensation, like I’d come home early from work to find my wife sitting flustered in her negligee, innocently glancing around at everything but the wardrobe in the corner.
I drew my blaster and took up position to one side of the inner airlock door. If some drunken bum had stumbled into my ship looking for shelter, then it wouldn’t be the first time, but I preferred the drunken bum to be me. I smashed the opening mechanism with my fist, waited for the door to slide aside, then leapt into the doorway, attempting to simultaneously point my gun at every part of the ship’s interior.
The central hallway and steps were clear, all the way up to the open cockpit hatch, and it didn’t look from here like there was anyone at the helm, or that any of the consoles had been turned on. But I was more certain than ever that someone had been in the Neverdie. At the very least, someone had been monkeying with the airlock access panel, because the familiar, reassuring pattern of grime around the housing had changed.
There was still the luggage compartment, passenger cabin, and engine level to check. It was probably safe to rule out that last one. A thief would find nothing worth stealing there, and someone looking for shelter would hopefully know better than to stow away in a place that might become superheated or flooded with toxic fumes if I needed to start the engine in a hurry.
My train of thought came to an unscheduled stop when I heard a sound from the passenger cabin. A short ringing clink of what I guessed to be porcelain against porcelain.
It was probably too late to get the drop on whoever it was; the noisy airlock doors weren’t designed for subtlety. But as the owner and resident of the ship, I could actually threaten to call security with a straight face for once. I strode boldly toward the sliding door to the passenger cabin, hauled it to one side, and jabbed my gun at the first person I saw.
That person turned out to be a man sitting on the cushioned bench in front of the main viewing window with his feet up on the lower shutter. He was older than me, probably in his fifties, with brushes of gray hair at his temples and a slim, wiry build that he had emphasized with the trousers, shirt, waistcoat, and tie from a formal, well-tailored suit. One of his hands was missing: his arm terminated at the wrist in a circular metal bracelet. His one remaining hand was holding a delicate china teacup with a tasteful flower pattern matching that of the saucer in his lap.
My gaze followed the line of his slim legs to the little metal table in the center of the cabin, on which a miniature picnic set had been arranged. There was a square of gingham cloth with a few other pieces of china and a plastic box containing what looked like scones.
He seemed to be completely unrattled by my presence, or my gun. “Ah, you must be the proprietor,” he said. His voice was placid, educated, and as smooth as a silk undergarment sliding down a recently shaved leg.
I didn’t lower the gun. “Did you break in here, you giant bracket?”
He rolled his eyes. “Spare me your gutter dialect. No, I did not break in like a common lout. I have infiltrated your disappointing little yacht. Nothing has been broken or tarnished in any way. Many would argue that my presence has only increased its value.”
He lifted the circular cover from the device on the end of his arm to reveal a butter knife extruding from his wrist like a straightened pirate hook. He used it to begin buttering one of the scones in front of him.
“Okay,” I said, reasonably. “And what kind of asking price would we be looking
at after I’ve liquefied your doints and smeared them across that wall?”
He stared down the barrel of my gun, unimpressed. Then he carefully returned his scone to the table and held up his greasy butter knife until it caught the light. “You are not in a favorable position to make threats, sir.”
I nodded to his knife. “What’re you gonna do, open letters at me?”
He scowled, retracted the butter knife, and replaced the cover. Then he blinked precisely once and let the cover fall open again.
This time, instead of a piece of cutlery, a chainsaw blade extruded from his arm, roaring like a ferocious beast and spurting puffs of petrol smoke. It extended a full two feet and only stopped when the end was an uncomfortably small distance from my crotch.
“Hello?” came Warden’s voice from down the hallway, breaking the frozen, confrontational silence that followed. “The door was open. Are you in, McKeown?”
The bracket in the sharp suit made a little scoffing noise, then withdrew the giant chainsaw blade and replaced the cover. I boggled at it. From the way his elbow bent, I could have sworn the arm was flesh and blood, aside from the device at the end, but it had just leisurely sucked in two straight feet of buzzing lumberjack equipment like a diner sucking in spaghetti.
“Warden?” I called back, not looking away. “Is this bracket yours?”
I felt her presence just behind me, at my shoulder. I could tell from the sound of her tolerant sigh that she was rolling her eyes. “Mr. Derby. I did ask you to wait outside.”
“Like a pedestrian awaiting public transport?” He waved his one hand as if physically brushing the idea away. “Davisham Derby is not kept waiting. The universe waits for Davisham Derby.”
“He should have kept it waiting longer,” I said. “Could either of you divs explain why Davisham Derby is on my plying ship?”
“Mr. Derby is another specialist I’ve hired for this operation. He’s a professional thief.”
“Thief? Please,” said Derby, with the merest hint of reproach. “I am the finest and most accomplished burglar, infiltrator, and acquirer of specialist items in the known universe.”
“Never heard of you,” I said flatly.
He smirked. “That’s how good I am.”
I could tell he intended it to be a clever retort to put me in my place, but I wasn’t going to let him have it. “So you have the same qualifications as a liar.”
“Mr. Derby’s qualifications have been made fully clear to me,” said Warden, primly taking a seat at the end of the cabin. “We can save the proper introductions until the last member of our team arrives.”
I had stopped pointing my blaster at people, but I wasn’t quite ready to reholster it in case some brackets around here started getting too comfortable, so I let it dangle from my hand as I talked. “And who said you could start organizing meetings on my plying ship?”
She gave a small but nonetheless infuriating tut. “We need a meeting place in the city that’s in a convenient location for mobility.”
“You didn’t even ask!”
“I had no way of knowing how long your meeting with the Hendersons would go on. Would you have preferred me to call while you were still in the building? Made my name light up on your phone as visibly as possible?”
“Pathetic, isn’t it,” said Derby, with the air of a teacher’s pet. “Star pilots with their ships. They’re like teenage boys with their first girlfriends. Look at him clinging to the doorway like he’s got an arm around her shoulder. No one’s the least bit interested in stealing her away, sir. She’s old and clapped out and symbolic of an embarrassing age of human development that only you are determined to cling to.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d been gripping the door frame with my free hand. I snatched it away, suppressing the urge to stroke the nearby bulkhead apologetically. “Fair enough. Maybe I’ll cling to your throat instead.”
He shifted position, idly letting his shortened arm point toward me as it settled. I gave an involuntary little flinch.
“Yes, yes, I’m extremely impressed by you both,” said Warden as she busied herself with her tablet. “If you wish to continue this urinating contest, I would request that you exchange contact details and arrange a more formal get-together in your own time.”
Derby and I threw her matching scowls, then he returned to his scones. I sat down, after a brief pause to make it clear that I was doing so of my own free will, spreading comfortably across the nearer bench with one leg hooked over the armrest. “So who’s the last guy?” I asked.
“The technology expert. We have the getaway vehicle, the infiltrator, and the acquisitions expert. Tech is the remaining factor.”
A little nagging thought that had been idly bumming around my mind for some time suddenly sprang to life at her use of the phrase “getaway vehicle.”
“Is this a heist?”
She glanced up. “I beg your pardon?”
“This little enterprise we’re planning here. Is it a heist?”
She and Derby exchanged an odd look. “I thought you were clear on this, McKeown. I said in our previous meeting that we plan to steal the cylinder. And you just spent most of the afternoon casing the joint.”
“I know!” I snapped. “It’s just . . .”
“Oh, let me guess,” said Derby witheringly. “You’re a star pilot, so you’re a ‘good guy.’ ” He made highly emphatic finger quotes with his one remaining hand. “And heists are things that ‘bad guys’ do. And for no better reason, you’re getting cold feet because there is no room for moral pragmatism in your mind, it having ceased developing at the age of twelve.”
“Mr. Derby,” said Warden warningly. “You have not been hired to cast aspersions on my other specialists.”
“Hmph.” He backed down.
“Besides, as I’m sure Mr. McKeown will be quick to remind you, he is no longer a star pilot.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was developing a tendency to forget this important fact.
“I see,” said Derby, bored. “I note you still dress like a star pilot and live on a spacecraft with several hygiene and safety concerns, but I’ll assume you’re going through a slow weaning process.”
There was a tap of knuckles against the outer hull, near the airlock. Evidently the fourth member of the crew was polite enough not to barge in through an open door. All in all, they sounded like the kind of company I would rather be in right now, so I stood up. “I’ll get it.”
The person waiting just outside the airlock door was a man, slightly shorter than me, and slightly overweight, dressed like an elderly woman. Dressed may be too generous a word, as the amount of effort that had gone into the disguise seemed low. He was wearing a gray wig that was only barely lined up with his actual hairline, as well as a cheap pink dress that was baggy enough to reveal a man’s polo shirt and trousers underneath. He had created fake breasts by shoving two empty noodle cups down the front of his dress.
“Hello, young man, please offer me shelter,” he said in a ridiculous high-pitched wheedle straight out of a pantomime rehearsal. “I am but a poor bent old woman.”
I let my fingers drum on the doorway for a few moments as I considered this. “I don’t believe you.”
“Sorry,” the man said in his natural voice, which was breathy and nasal. “This wasn’t my idea.”
Warden materialized at my shoulder again. “I wasn’t prepared to let you walk around in the open undisguised. Not with all those warrants out for you.”
“Another one?” I barked, rounding on Warden as the newcomer apologetically slipped past me into the passenger cabin. “How many career criminals are you going to let on my plying ship today, Warden?”
“They’re all going to be career criminals, McKeown, this is a heist.”
“All right! Yes! I know that! I’m coming around to that. It’s just . . . all coming o
n a bit fast today.”
“If it’s any consolation, the percentage of people onboard your ship who are criminals hasn’t changed. It’s gone from one hundred to one hundred.”
“I’m not a criminal!” I blurted out, knowing almost immediately what she would say.
“Going by amount stolen without facing repercussions, you’re probably one of the top ten criminals in the universe,” she said, before turning about with the merest hint of a sassy hip shake and going back to the cabin to join the rest of the “crew.”
She was of course referring to the fact that I had personally stolen Jacques McKeown’s royalties and distributed them among the star pilots whose stories he had ripped off, including myself. I didn’t think it fair to count that, as most of my share had been eaten up by unrelated legal costs.
I took a moment to take stock, and felt a change of mood in the air. The Neverdie no longer had the vibe of a cheating housewife being surprised in the bedroom. Now, in my mind’s eye, she was a quietly angry housewife standing in the doorway, patting her open palm with a rolling pin as her husband staggered drunkenly up the garden path with a number of unseemly friends in tow. I gave her a half smile and a guilty wince, then dug my hands in my pockets and followed Warden.
“All right then, make the introductions.” I sighed as I trudged back into the den of thieves.
“I didn’t think I’d have to,” said Warden.
I looked to the newcomer, who had now removed his wig and dress to reveal a man in his thirties, younger than me, with thinning hair and rectangular spectacles, who wouldn’t have looked out of place behind the help desk at a popular electronics retailer. But what made me freeze where I stood was his face. I recognized it. It wouldn’t have looked out of place on a wanted poster, or behind an army of enslaved cyborg drones.
As he lay his dress across one of the unoccupied benches, he seemed to sense the increase in tension, and turned to notice me staring. He straightened up with a bright smile. “Captain! Can I just say, it’s very nice to see you again. I’m looking forward to working with you on something productive.”
Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash Page 6
