by Lyn Gala
“Then let me deal with the little rat,” Tom said. Turning toward the door, he gave the secretary a hard stare as he opened it.
“You are not allowed to come in here. Mr. Hou does not have time for more interruptions and last time you blew his office up.” The man’s hands were up as if he could push Tom back out. Da’shay wandered in after him, Tom’s leash still wrapped around her hand as she looked at everything except the secretary.
“I didn’t blow shit up. I got blown up. Twice. And me and Hou are going to discuss that.” Tom pushed past the secretary and headed for Hou’s office.
‘You can’t go in there.” The secretary chased along after him until Tom caught sight of Hou’s new door. Fuck. It had a biorecognition lock. Tom could override one of those if he had about an hour and a shitload of equipment. He didn’t.
Tom turned to the secretary. “Open it.”
The man started shaking his head and backing away. Tom eased closer to the man, trying to keep him from running, but the secretary dashed away. Not remembering the collar, Tom raced between desks, shoving shocked workers and slaves as he followed. When the secretary tried to dart through a door and close it behind him, Tom slapped the door open and sent the guy falling on his butt.
“Don’t piss me off,” Tom warned as he reached down and caught the guy by the shirt and hauled him up.
“Mr. Hou can’t see you!” he squawked as Tom dragged him back. Da’shay had dropped the leash and now Tom headed back through the office with the chain rattling against the floor. The noise was like fingernails down a chalkboard, so that by the time they got back to Da’shay and Hou’s door, Tom could feel his temper fraying.
Da’shay walked over and looked at him for a long time before she fingered his leash, slowly pulling it up off the floor and winding the end around her fist.
Since he couldn’t bark at Da’shay, Tom turned to the secretary who was still squirming to get away despite the fact that Tom had a good hold on him. “Open it.” Tom slammed the man’s back into the wall for emphasis. His hands came up and grabbed at Tom’s shoulders.
“Mr. Hou said—”
“Open it or I will cut your hand off and use it on the damn lock,” Tom warned. The secretary’s eyes got large, but he went silent and Tom took that as agreement. Pushing the man closer to the door, Tom kept a grip on his shoulders as the secretary slipped his hand into the reader and let the laser scan his eyeprint. The door opened.
“Thank you,” Tom said before he shoved the guy back and left him to stumble his way back to his desk. Da’shay walked in before him and Tom let his hand fall on the butt of his gun as he followed. If he got blown up a third time, someone was dying.
Hou barely glanced up from his work. With a slight grimace, he started the fast, hissing sounds of genta.
“No!” Da’shay spoke so sharply that Hou stopped mid-click. “English.”
He made an odd bobbing gesture with his head while Da’shay went to sit in the chair where Ramsay had sat not so long ago. She deliberately unwound Tom’s leash from her hand and lowered it to the carpet. Instead of retreating to the far wall, Tom stayed beside Da’shay, watching the big genta as he seemed to think.
“Why English?” Hou asked.
“Damage to the pars triangularis and pars opercularis.”
“Operable?”
Da’shay paused for less than a heartbeat, but in their fast-paced conversation, even that slight pause stood out. “Potentially damaging.”
“Limitation language specific?”
“Minimal functional impairment in human languages.”
“Human languages lack specificity.”
“Specificity is present enough to discuss the damage done to property which I claim rights over.”
Like most people who had worked ships and docks, Tom had spent time listening to genta specialists talking to the aliens. Genta took jobs on human ships and human shops all the time, but if you really wanted to have a complex conversation with one of them, you had to go to someone who could talk genta-like in English or just talk genta. Some people either trained or had a natural talent for understanding the kind of illogic that genta specialized in. Those folks, even when they spoke in English, would throw around so many big words so fast that they might as well have been speaking a foreign language. However, even those genta specialists never talked as fast as these two.
Tom couldn’t rightly say he understood anything they were saying, so he largely ignored the conversation as they threw around words like “culpability” and “assets” and “incrimination.” He started circling slowly around to the side of the desk, his eyes on Hou’s hands. He wasn’t going to blow them up a third time, that was for damn sure. Tom rested his hand on his gun and watched for any twitch.
Hou was leaning forward, his hands resting on his desk as he started rattling off numbers, and Tom circled behind him. A human would have thrown a fit by now, but Hou and Da’shay were off babbling about brains so that Hou ignored the inherent danger in having an enemy at his back, and Tom was his enemy.
“Illogical!” Hou insisted, slamming both his palms down on his desk before he swung his chair around to look at Tom. Tom stared back, his hand tightening on his gun. If this genta was going to start something, Tom was going to put a bullet through his head before he had a chance to finish it. “Standard genetically homogeneous human. Replace.” Tom frowned. Was he suggesting Da’shay replace him?
“Sexually preferable than any human.”
“Training ameliorates.”
“Unacceptable training period.”
“Unacceptable costs. Minimal damage.”
Tom blinked. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that Da’shay had just called him sexy. He wasn’t understanding anything about the training bit, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to understand. If she started trying to sexually train him, he was going to shoot more than one genta in this room.
Hou leaned back and reached for his drawer. Tom pulled his weapon and targeted the base of the genta’s head.
“Previous behavior dictates that you will not pull that trigger,” Hou said. He slowed his words now that he was talking to Tom, but he slowed them so much that Tom had the sudden feeling this guy was calling him stupid. Considering that Hou was insulting the man who had a weapon aimed at him, Tom wasn’t the only stupid one in the room.
“Target limbs,” Da’shay told him. Tom didn’t even think twice. He put a bullet right into Hou’s right shoulder where the two bones met. That would cause him a little more trouble than a simple flesh wound. Hou’s mouth puckered into a tight point as he sucked in a breath. Smoke slowly drifted up from Tom’s gun while blood seeped out of Hou’s wound. A human would have been screaming and rolling on the ground, but Hou reached up and touched the entry point of the bullet, pulling back his fingers to look at the red staining them. Tom felt a little fluttering of fear in his stomach because making a fuss in this genta’s office got him blown up and enslaved last time he’d been here. Well, if it went wrong this time, at least he’d gotten to shoot the son of a motherless bitch.
Hou turned his chair to focus more on Da’shay. “Better response times.”
“Clarification of the hierarchical structure yielded improvements.”
Hou leaned back and studied Da’shay. She stared right back at him and Tom kept his gun targeted at the base of Hou’s head.
“One hundred credits,” Hou offered.
“Seven hundred.”
“Unacceptable. I lost embryos and payment.” Both genta had slowed down some now and Tom wondered if that was because they were getting upset or getting less upset or trying to include him in the conversation.
Da’shay gave Hou one of her really annoying smiles. “Your fault.”
“Human captain’s fault. Illogic of humans surpasses all others. Explosives do not improve bargaining position.”
“Captain is dead. You are the next in the hierarchy.”
“Messa Tyles next in hierarchy,
” he disagreed.
“Messa Tyles is little more than exile. No hierarchy. You use him.” Da’shay leaned forward, her long fingers braced against his desktop to make a strange sort of steeple.
“I use all humans,” Hou said. A human would have shown some shame if saying something like that. Well, shame or pride, it depended on just how selfish they were. But Hou made the statement as factually as if he’d been describing sky color.
They argued numbers more, and Hou was starting to get a real unhappy look on his face, and Tom took a deep, careful breath, centering himself as he focused on his target. He’d grown up shooting rabbits darting through bushes, so he had no doubt that he could hit the brain stem before Hou could attack him. Well, maybe at the same time. If Hou lunged for him, momentum could keep him moving even if Tom took the kill shot. If that happened, Tom was going to be bruised for a long time, but Hou was going to be dead a whole lot longer.
“Four crew. Two hundred each,” Hou countered. “Exclusive to costs.” Considering a doxy cost thirty or forty credits, Tom figured that was just about a fortune.
“Seven hundred for Tom,” she said, repeating her same offer for about the ninth or tenth time.
Tom sighed, wondering if Da’shay even understood the concept of bargaining.
“Five hundred for Tom,” Hou finally said. He sounded pretty damn disgusted about it too. For a second, Tom thought Da’shay was going to go back to insisting on seven hundred, but with a frown, she nodded. He wasn’t sure why she was unhappy; five hundred credits just to reimburse Tom was damn good.
“No establishment of formal precedent. Fee based only on assumption that this human provides exceptional service.”
Da’shay gave a little shrug. “Agreed. Captain Ramsay illogically assumes that attack precludes negotiation, so the probabilities suggest he will not attempt to assert any claim for those within his hierarchy.”
“No attempt at collection despite precedent in the assigning of monies?” Hou reared back, and for a second, Tom thought he was attacking. Then Hou slowly settled back down into his seat, looking a lot more pleased.
Da’shay sat quietly for a moment, but then she started giving him a predatory smile, one that made Tom’s skin crawl as the sensation of danger made all the hair on his arms stand up. “I was fourth crew. Precedent dictates compensation for me.”
Tom was pretty sure Hou changed color as he swore colorfully in alien-talk. It really was amazing how all curse words sounded the same no matter the language. After that, Da’shay and Hou broke into negotiations so fast that Tom couldn’t even hope to follow. By the time they were done, he was pretty sure Da’shay was getting three thousand, and considering the Corps had paid all their bills, that was flat out impressive.
When Hou pulled a desk drawer open, he carefully leaned back and let Tom see the money inside before he reached for it. “Efficient. I’ll play extra four hundred for possession of him.”
“No.”
“Four fifty.”
Da’shay didn’t answer and Tom’s guts turned to ice. All she had to do was say “yes” and he’d be traded off like a spare part. Captains had done that, passing Tom along when it seemed as if he wasn’t a good fit with crew, but at each change, Tom had the choice to walk away and go back to freighters or, hell, take up with smugglers. Here, he didn’t have a choice.
Leaning forward, Da’shay studied Hou. “Coterie of two becomes exile when one is lost. Try to buy him again and I will have him kill you.” It was about the most direct thing Tom had ever heard her say and he could feel the chill as the truth of it hit him, and he wasn’t even the one being threatened. Hou nodded and started counting out their money. Da’shay put the rest in her bag stood up and started for the door. She’d opened it before she turned to look at Tom. She didn’t say anything, but she stood there staring at him long enough to make herself a target.
“You get clear. I’ll come out after,” Tom said, keeping his weapon trained on Hou’s head. This was always the most dangerous part of any deal. As cops, they had to buy and sell from smugglers and money dealers, and people did all sorts of crazy things when the credits walked out the door. Most times Tom covered the crew from a distance, but even here, it was his job to make sure the crew and the money got out the door safely.
Hou turned his chair and looked at Tom with pursed lips. The man was probably trying to figure out ways to disembowel him without pissing off Da’shay, but Tom’s weapon didn’t waver.
“To deny a potential ally of a coterie,” Hou said slowly as he looked over toward Da’shay, “would offend; however, were you to find a hierarchy of value, please do keep my interest in mind.”
“Tom, come,” Da’shay said softly. “Cat’s cradle all pulled loose into one long string, not pretty, but not knotted.”
Tom frowned and risked a quick glance over. She had the bag with the credits slung over one shoulder and she was holding out a hand toward him. With a frown, Tom backed away from Hou. As much as he didn’t like giving Hou a chance to counterattack, he had promised to follow her lead, so he slipped his gun back into its holster as he backed away. When he reached Da’shay, she reached out and caught his leash and then turned and headed out through the lobby.
“I’m not a poodle,” Tom complained softly.
“Human attempts at genetic purification have resulted in Progressive Retinal Atrophy, Legg-Calve’-Perthes and Patella Sub-luxation in standard breeds of poodle.”
“What? You ain’t making any sense.”
“You aren’t inbred.”
Tom looked at her, wondering whether it was him being stupid or whether she really was making less sense than normal. She walked past the secretary without a glance toward him and Tom sure as hell wasn’t one for apologies, even if he did feel a little guilty. The secretary struck him as the helpless sort, not only because of being a slave, but also because he was small enough that a ten-year-old girl could take him if she had a real good cause, and that wasn’t the sort he normally approved of bullying.
“The talk about me being a poodle? That was my way of saying I don’t like you holding that chain,” Tom pointed out. He’d never been in a situation where he couldn’t walk away, not for many years, at least. That chain was a reminder of things he didn’t really need reminding of. Unfortunately, Da’shay was not having one of her better days. She tilted her head as if she was listening to him, but she kept right on walking, the chain taut between them.
Tom sighed. He was quickly discovering that bunk fantasies and reality were very different beasts. Plenty of times he’d had a few fantasies about a woman keeping him on a leash, but he’d been a good sight more happy about it in his fantasy. This just felt awkward.
He hated slavery as much as the next soldier—more probably. Lots of Corps members objected more out of policy than any deep-set hatred of slavers. But from the first time Tom had seen a slave ship with all those people clinging to their cages, their fingers hooked around the wire mesh, he’d had a real special hate for it. That was why sometimes he didn’t understand himself, because even hating slavery, he did have a good number of fantasies that looked a lot like it.
Tom used to fantasize about Becca. He’d imagine coming into the main thruster compartment and find she’d rigged the doors to lock him in there where none of the crew could hear him over the compression valves, and she’d tell him that she’d always wanted to experiment on him the way she did the engines, and she’d make him cuff himself to some piece of equipment.
Fantasies like that had gotten Tom through a lot of lonely nights. Now though, all those fantasies were just about ruined because having a collar on wasn’t the same as the bunk fantasy. It was…Tom almost snorted out loud as the answer came to him. It was cat’s cradle. He hated the collar. Hated it. But the second he’d made the deal to follow Da’shay, a calm had come over him like he hadn’t felt before. Right or wrong, he’d made a choice and now all the choices were gone, so he was one of them useless cars that could only go a
round and around on the track set in the floor. They put kids in those and made them think they were steering when the car really could only follow the track, and as uninteresting as it was to ride on a track, you couldn’t crash. For the first time in a long time, Tom wasn’t afraid he was about to crash.
Oh Tom knew full well that Da’shay might get them killed easy as not, but it wouldn’t be him. He wouldn’t be the one getting them killed. The collar and the mark made sure of that and it was a relief to know that. He didn’t even know where they were going. Watching the crowds as they rode down elevators and escalators into the dirtier and darker parts of the city, Tom didn’t know if she was ready to go back to Ramsay or even if she was about to go to a slave auction and drop him off to sell before disappearing with the credits.
With nothing else to worry about, Tom studied the growing crowds looking for any signs of danger.
Chapter Eighteen
Da’shay led them down escalators and elevators until they were starting to get into more familiar territory for Tom. The windows vanished and the shops grew more and more crowded. A shop window caught her eye and she stopped, the bag slowly sliding off her arm to rest against the ground as she considered a wide selection of knives. Tom eyed the bag and wondered how likely she was to just put it down and forget it. Probably too likely.
“Maybe it’d be best if I took charge of this,” Tom suggested. Da’shay surrendered the bag without even a comment.
Tom slung the bag over his shoulder, bracing his left arm over the open top to make sure that no one had access to the contents. Then he waited. “Are we going to just stand here all day?” he asked. Da’shay looked around at the crowds of people walking or standing in shop doors or lingering in odd angles created by the uneven walls of the tunnel.
“Diamonds all around. Sharp edges like beads on a curtain ready to cut genta girl all up,” she said. Tom stared at her, not even sure where to start on that bit of insanity. Slowly, her gaze shifted to him. “Going to the ship,” she whispered.
