CHAPTER 17
“Well, see, not part of my plan. Us dying, I mean.”
“Great, Nap. If only the rest of us could perhaps know your plan, maybe we’d feel the same.” Slinkie shook her head. Her hair flipped around. Her mouth was moving, but I was focused on her hair. “NAP!”
“Huh? What?”
“You were doing it. Again. The not paying attention to me while I’m talking thing. The thing I hate. You remember?” She looked and sounded furious. Her chest was heaving. I forced my ears to pay attention. My eyes told me they were extremely busy and I shouldn’t bother them now.
“I was?”
“Yes. We want to hear whatever plan it is you have, and we want to hear it now.” Slinkie’s breasts wanted to hear the plan? Maybe I did have a shot.
“Oh. That. Right.”
“Nap, look at my eyes.”
“I am.”
“My eyes are in my head, you feather-brain!”
My ears told my eyes that pain was imminent unless my eyes obeyed. My eyes and I sighed and dragged up to Slinkie’s face. Great face. Angry, but great. “Yes. I’m looking at your eyes.”
“Finally. The plan. What is it? I’d like to know before I kill you.”
“So, not telling you is in my best interests. Good to know.”
“Nap, you’re making me think that sticking with Bryant is the way to go.”
That worked. I spoke quickly. “Fine, fine. We’re going to act like we’re happy to be stuck on Herion tonight. We’re going to go out and see if anyone else tries to kill us or recruit us. Tomorrow, we’ll make our deal with the Business Bureau and find out what’s going on that the military didn’t tell us. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we make our escape accordingly, race off to Runilio, get the magma, race back to Ismaliz, get paid, do whatever we have to in order to get paid from the Herion Business Bureau, and then go to Libsuno and relax.”
I watched them process this. If I was lucky, no one would notice the key portion of the plan that was, for the moment, missing.
Slinkie, Randolph and Audrey all looked at me. “But how do we escape or destroy the armada?”
“That’s amazing. I’ve never heard the three of you talk in unison before. Have you been practicing?”
“No, but without asking I know we’re all ready to kill you.” Slinkie sounded serious.
The Governor sighed. “Until we know what we’re dealing with here, all that we’re dealing with, how in the galaxy do you expect Alexander to come up with a viable option? He’s given the outline, we all know how to work within it.” His voice shifted to peevish. “Now, I’m an old man, and I was promised a mineral bath. I want the nearest Herion equivalent or there will be some explaining to do.”
Slinkie sighed and held up a booklet. “I already looked, Governor. You have plenty of options, particularly now. I called the one I figured you’d want and made a reservation for you already.”
He beamed at her. “You’re so thoughtful, my dear.”
“No, I just hate hearing you whine.”
“Whatever works, my dear. Where and when?” Nothing nasty Slinkie said ever seemed to bother the Governor. Perhaps because, when it came down to it, he was going to get to cop his cheap feels again.
Slinkie sighed. “In an hour and yes, of course, I’ll take you. I’m going to have a bath, also. I need to relax. For some reason.” She gave me a dirty look, like this was all, somehow, my fault.
“I’ll go, too.”
“No, Alexander. I believe you should be giving the ship some attention and make sure it’s safe.”
“That would fall to Randolph and Audrey, wouldn’t it? As Chief Mechanic and, ah….” I stared at Audrey. What the hell were we going to say her title was?
“Copilot.” Audrey said this in her typical calm, cheerful way. I was going to have to sit next to her for the foreseeable future. I started praying she wasn’t going to think she had the right to get chatty. “I agree with the Captain. That would make the most sense.” I had to give her this—she was still the only one who gave me the remotest shred of respect and she was also helping me to go to the baths with Slinkie. Maybe having a Sexbot copilot would be all right after all.
“I suppose,” Randolph agreed. “What do you want us to say if someone comes and asks us what we’re doing?”
“Protecting our ship and not planning to leave any time soon.”
Randolph sighed. “I wish I could believe you were lying.”
“You know, have we ever not gotten off a planet? Ever? I mean, none of us have been in prison for any length of time, none of us have been kidnapped for any length of time, none of us have been left stranded for any length of time. I don’t see why everyone’s all doom and gloom.”
“Define what you mean by ‘length of time’,” Randolph said, a tad bitterly. “I remember being in prison, being a hostage, and being stranded. More than once.”
“And yet, here you are, alive, well, and with the right girl. Really, is there just no pleasing you?”
“No,” Slinkie snapped. “There isn’t. Can we go to the baths now? I don’t want to be late for our reservation.”
“Sure. I’ll come along, see if they have an opening. And, if not, I’ll just bathe with you, Slink.”
She gave me a dirty look. “This place isn’t co-ed. I made sure when I booked it.”
“Guess I’ll just sneak around and stare at you from the shadows, then.”
“Like you do every time I bathe on the ship?”
Dang. She knew? I shrugged. “Then it’ll just be like every other day, won’t it?”
Slinkie sighed. “Why do I stay on your crew?”
“Because it’s hard to leave the best.”
“Lethargy and comfort zone,” Randolph suggested.
“Fear of the unknown,” the Governor offered.
“Because you like the Captain despite his many flaws.” I tried to focus on the positive portions of Audrey’s sentence, versus the “many flaws” portion. Reconsidered how much I was going to like sitting next to her. Maybe Randolph could install a Captain’s Mute Button.
“I don’t have many flaws! I have hardly any flaws!”
Slinkie shook her head. “Let’s go to the baths. I’ll list your flaws for you on the way, Nap. Trust me, I have them all memorized.”