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CHAPTER 18

The mineral baths on Herion couldn’t compete with those on Thurge, but for a non-volcanic planet, they weren’t bad. Sadly, Slinkie hadn’t been pretending—men and women were in separate areas, so I was stuck in the baths with the Governor.

I managed to enjoy myself anyway, because while the customers weren’t allowed to mingle, Herion wasn’t run by stupid people, and the attendants were female, quite attractive, and happy to see me. They seemed to like how I tipped, at least.

The Governor saw fit to give me a lecture as we finished dressing. “Alexander, how does your having, ah, sexual relations with each of the female bath attendants equate with your desire to land Miss Slinkie on a permanent basis?”

“Boy, are you old. I mean older than even I think you are, apparently.”

“And you’re stupider than I think you are, apparently.”

I shrugged. “Slinkie either will or won’t come around. I don’t think I need to become an Athriall monk in order to get her to see reason.”

“No, but you might not want to make her worry that by touching you she’s open to every venereal disease in the galaxy.”

“I take precautions. No diseases, no little Nappies running around. I have a perfect record, too.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. “Why the sudden focus on the me and Slinkie idea?”

“Oh, no reason.” He was lying, and not trying to hide it. Meaning there was a reason, but he wasn’t going to tell me, just wanted me thinking about it. Not for the first time, I wondered why I’d left Great-Aunt Clara behind only to be saddled with her male counterpart.

We left the men’s side to find Slinkie waiting for us, looking extremely bored and annoyed. I got the vulture-glare. Not good. Presumably, she’d figured out why we were delayed. “I think I’m going to take Bryant up on whatever he offers me tomorrow night.”

I gave her my patented “guilty boy you can’t resist” smile. “Aw, c’mon, Slinkie. You know the difference between distraction and infatuation.”

She snorted as she stood. “Right, Nap. You’re infatuated with being distracted.” She strode out. The positive was she looked amazing from behind when she walked like this. I chose to focus on said positive.

I didn’t get to focus on it too long. As Slinkie reached the street, an autofloater skidded next to her, tires screeching. A door opened, and someone pulled her into the vehicle. I heard her scream my name, right before the door slammed.

Pilots have quick reflexes, and I was the best pilot in the galaxy. I didn’t think, I just ran and jumped onto the back of the ’floater before it got away. This was an older model, so there was a passenger board all the way around and a decorative hold-bar on the roof—these had been popular a couple of decades prior, when someone had thought it was a good idea for people to have their families stand on the outside of an ugly, moving, box-like thing. Stupid on the streets. Moronic in the air.

Happily, I had a good hold on the bar and got decent footing on the passenger board. Sadly, the driver realized I was on the ’floater and went airborne.

The windows were tinted, but I was pretty sure I saw a lot of movement. The ’floater was certainly rocking more than it should be, even while in the air. I figured Slinkie was showing why no one was ever going to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do without a huge fight and the potential that they may never be able to have children.

However, the driver seemed to want to get rid of me. At least, I assumed that was why he flipped the car. I didn’t fall off, thanks to that decorative bar, but I decided getting inside might be a good idea. Naturally, the doors were locked. But I had my laser gun and I was pretty sure Slinkie wasn’t in the front seat.

I shot at the front passenger’s window. Thankfully I’d shot at an angle, because the laser shot ricocheted off. Laser-proofing was expensive. I figured the Business Bureau wanted insurance in the form of my girl. Well, my soon-to-be girl. Okay, my maybe-one-day girl. But still, she was mine, one way or the other.

I holstered my laser gun and moved around the passenger board. If I couldn’t shoot them, they couldn’t shoot me. While I moved, I questioned why the Business Bureau was using an ancient autofloater. Maybe they liked to keep a low profile. Or maybe it wasn’t the BB after all.

The driver tried flipping me off again. Like before it didn’t work, but it did cause me to fall across the windshield. It wasn’t as tinted as the rest of the windows, and I could see three men besides the driver. Like all of Herion’s males, they were larger than me. Slinkie was doing a great job of kicking and hitting the crap out of them, but one of them landed a good uppercut and I saw her go over and down.

One thing I’d never felt Great-Aunt Clara was wrong about was men who hit women. She felt they deserved to die. I agreed, especially when they hit my woman. I couldn’t get in there to beat the crap out of them in return, but I could do something much worse.

I moved to the front of the ’floater. Older models like this had failsafes, and I knew where they were. I kicked the front grill at the emergency release point and the hood flew up. Searched around, yep, it was an engine all right. I didn’t want us crashing to the ground, but I wanted us going down. Found the helium-reactor and hit the emergency overload switch.

The ’floater shuddered and coughed. Good. I looked over my shoulder. We weren’t heading anywhere comforting. There were buildings around us and nothing all that soft under us. And, since I had the hood up, the driver couldn’t see. We were flying towards what appeared to be a sewage processing plant—the huge vats of stuff that looked fetid from up here, the many tubes running in between, the high and thick external walls, and total lack of other businesses surrounding this plant made it a good guess.

I considered the dilemma. Seemed to be only one option, really.

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