CHAPTER NINE
I’d wondered where Floyd thought there was enough floor space inside the Ruth to bring our bed count from three to five. The last time we’d hosted this much company we’d had to remove the examination table from the clean room, and I really hoped that wasn’t what he had in mind.
It wasn’t.
“You’re joking,” I said flatly, staring at the narrow opening into the equally narrow portside bioprobe bay. “It’s like a coffin in there.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Floyd chided. “The bay’s inner hatch will be open. Plenty of air. You can even have a nightlight if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, eyeing the bay’s low ceiling. “What happens if I need to roll over?”
“You’ll do it very carefully.” He considered. “At least you will after the first time.”
“It’s that or you sleep in the corridor,” Cole warned from off to the side where he and a silent Selene were standing.
“’Course, if someone has to get from the bridge back to the engine room, you’ll probably get stepped on,” Mottola added as he appeared in the hatchway. “I’ll bet that would hurt.”
“Pretty much a given,” Floyd agreed. “Everything set up there?”
“We’re on our way to Gremon,” Mottola confirmed. “I also got confirmation from West Pontus before we sliced that they got my message and would pass it on to Mr. Draelon.”
“Confirmation with passcodes?”
“Of course,” Mottola growled. “You think I’ve forgotten field procedure?”
“Just checking,” Floyd said, giving me a hard-eyed look. “We don’t know how much he scrambled your brains when he hit you.”
“It wasn’t me,” I insisted. From the lack of actual murderousness in Mottola’s eyes I’d tentatively concluded that the head trauma of our brief fight had deleted his memory of the incident, including the identity of his attacker. But everyone aboard—including him—clearly thought it was me, and I doubted that senior enforcers in Varsi’s organization needed the same level of proof as the typical badgeman.
Fortunately, right now they needed me alive and mostly unharmed. Once they had Dent, though, those bets were probably off.
I had until we reached Gremon to figure out what I was going to do about that.
“Sure it wasn’t,” Floyd said, almost as if he actually believed it. “Where’s Fulbright?”
“In the dayroom,” Mottola said. “He said he was hungry, and I told him he could make himself some dinner.”
“Just make sure it’s his dinner and not ours,” Floyd said. “Cole, you’re in charge of our meals. And theirs,” he added, gesturing to Selene and me. “So you taking these berths, Roarke? Or do we set you up in the corridor?”
“Where Mottola might step on you,” Cole added.
I looked back at Mottola. He was standing beside the hatch into the starboard bioprobe prep room, presumably where Selene would be bunking down, directly across the corridor from where the rest of us were standing. Forward along the corridor were the clean room and the Ruth’s living areas, with the bridge all the way at the bow, while aft were the engine room and storage areas.
I could work with this.
“Fine, I’ll take it,” I said with the kind of exaggerated sigh they were probably expecting. “Mottola, what speed did you give us?”
“Normal,” Mottola said, his eyes narrowing. “Why? You going to tell me this slop bucket has a top marginal of minus-ten?”
“No, just the opposite,” I said. “If we’re going to make Gremon in time for my meeting with Dent we need to boost it to plus-twenty.”
“Forget it,” Mottola said firmly. “That’d burn forty-five percent more fuel. We’d need to stop at least once to refuel.”
“Dent said not to be late,” I warned. “If I miss my window, he may go underground where we’ll never find him. If that happens, Mr. Draelon will not be happy.”
“Awfully convenient that we’re just hearing about this now,” Floyd said suspiciously. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I did say something earlier,” I countered. “I gave you the location and the time, and assumed you’d be able to do the math.”
“You never gave us the time,” Floyd insisted.
“I most certainly did,” I insisted right back. “I told Niles and Mr. Draelon before we left.”
Which was a complete and total lie, of course. I’d had no intention of giving Draelon any details that might let him figure out where we were going and possibly get someone there ahead of us.
But Floyd didn’t know that. And now that we were in hyperspace and out of communication with the rest of the universe there was no way for him to check on that part of my story.
“Listen, Roarke—” Mottola began.
“No, that’s all right, Mottola,” Floyd interrupted. He was eyeing me closely, his voice suddenly gone all thoughtful. “Go check and see if boosting our speed like Roarke wants will let us make a fuel stop on Huihuang.”
“What’s on Huihuang?” I asked.
“Fuel,” Floyd said.
“There’s fuel in a lot of other places, too,” I pointed out. “I know at least three planets that have better—”
“I don’t recall asking you, Roarke.”
I focused on Selene, saw puzzlement in her pupils. So she had no clue why Floyd would suddenly want to go to Huihuang, either. “Just trying to be helpful,” I said. “So when’s dinner?”
“Couple of hours,” Floyd said. “I’ll have Cole bring it in. You need anything from your cabin before you settle down in here?”
“A few things, yeah.”
“Okay,” Floyd said. “Cole, put Selene in her new sleeping room. I’ll take Roarke to get his things, then you can do the same for her. Let’s go, Roarke.”
* * *
Dinner that night was a bit on the meager side. Part of that was that I hadn’t had a chance to restock the Ruth’s larder, as I’d planned to do at Marjolaine. Mostly, though, it was probably Floyd and the others being disinclined to do Selene and me any favors.
Hardly surprising. Draelon had accused me of betraying Varsi, Floyd’s ultimate boss and the man he’d likely been with for years if not decades. He might need me alive and well, but he didn’t have to make sure I was comfortable or well-fed.
The problem was that I hadn’t done what Draelon claimed. Or at least, I hadn’t done it on purpose.
True, I’d told Sub-Director Nask about Varsi’s quiet and probably forbidden deal with someone in the Patth hierarchy to get his hands on the tech required to fly Talariac-equipped ships. But my intent had been to help Nask get back in the Director General’s good graces by exposing a traitor within their own ranks. Unfortunately, Draelon’s accusation strongly suggested that Nask had also gone after Varsi.
Only there shouldn’t have been any way to track any of that back to me. Nask would hardly have announced that a Patth traitor had been fingered by a human, especially a human who’d just helped freeze Nask himself out of a career-defining victory. The less Nask needed to think about me, the better he probably liked it. The only other person in that conversation had been McKell, and he also wouldn’t have told anyone.
Or would he?
Selene and I were in this mess because Tera had apparently told her to rejoin me after their StarrComm conversation on Marjolaine. Floyd and Fulbright had then taken us to Brandywine where, lo and behold, a complete stranger had popped up out of nowhere who apparently knew all about Easton Dent.
Or at least knew something about him. The question was what did he know, where had he gotten that information from, and what exactly had he told Draelon after Selene and I left.
Normally, I would assume Niles had been briefed by Nask or someone working for him, with an eye toward keeping Selene and me on a short leash. But adding Tera into the mix opened the possibility that Niles’s tip-off had come from her instead.
Whatever was going on, the next thing on my to-do list was to get Selene alone for an update on her side of our current game. Maybe a look at her cards would give me the handle I needed on this mess.
Fortunately, I had a plan for doing exactly that.
My supervised trip to my cabin earlier had allowed me to collect everything I needed: my toiletry kit, an oversized bath towel, and a loose-fitting, knee-length white nightshirt. It wasn’t something I ever actually used as a nightshirt, though it was sometimes useful when I was leaving the ship and needed something to temporarily cover the skulking outfit I was wearing underneath. But our current guests wouldn’t know any of that.
I undressed and put on the nightshirt, then went to the bioprobe workbench and the supply drawers beneath it. Floyd and Cole had already cleared out all the larger tools and anything else that could be used as a weapon, but they hadn’t bothered with any of the smaller items. Arming myself with a half dozen small black washers, I went over to the hatch and turned off the room light.
The automatic hatch release made a small but distinctive swooshing sound. It was probably not loud enough to be audible to anyone more than a couple of meters away, but this was no time to take chances. Instead, I opened the access panel to the manual crank and slid the hatch open a couple of centimeters. Stroking my left-hand thumbnail to activate the mirror, I eased it through the opening.
As expected, Floyd had left a guard on duty: Cole, lounging in one of our collapsible camp chairs in the center of the corridor a dozen meters away from me and a couple meters past the bathroom hatch. He was nursing a steaming cup of something as he gazed at an info pad propped up on one knee.
I took a moment to study the setup. He was facing toward me, but seemed pretty well engrossed in whatever he was watching or reading. More importantly, one of the overhead ceiling lights was about a meter in front of him. Not directly in his eyes, but nicely illuminating that section of deck.
With a little luck, this would work.
I eased my thumb back in and stroked the nail back to normal, then cranked the hatch open another few centimeters and knelt down by the opening. Picking out one of my collection of washers, I tossed it gently across the corridor to bounce off Selene’s hatch.
The impact wasn’t very loud, especially against the Ruth’s general background engine noises. But I knew Selene would be expecting some kind of signal from me. Hopefully she would spot the subtle clink.
I’d thrown four washers and was preparing a fifth when her hatch began to slowly open as she also cranked it on manual, with her room light also off.
After hours of forced isolation, we were finally face-to-face again.
Face-to-face across an empty corridor, anyway, with an armed man seated nearby. But sometimes you had to take what you could get.
Are you all right? I mouthed silently.
Yes, she mouthed back. I need to talk to you.
Likewise, I replied. I’m going to head to the bathroom. Get ready to do a shadow sneak.
She nodded, and set to work silently opening her hatch the rest of the way. I opened my toiletry kit, pulled out my shaving mirror and the white plastic razor case, and set them on top of the other items, half closing the kit’s seal so that both items were peeking out. Draping my towel over my right shoulder like half a serape, I picked up the toiletry kit in my left hand and stood up.
Selene had her hatch open far enough for her to slip through. Leaving it open would be risky, but there was no way to close it without sparking the swooshing sound we’d both worked so hard to avoid. Still, as long as the room’s light was off and Cole didn’t decide to wander back this way he shouldn’t notice. Selene and I exchanged confirmation nods, and I cranked my door closed again. Mentally preparing myself, I turned my light back on and keyed the hatch.
Either Cole did indeed catch the subtle sound of the hatch opening or was alerted by the sudden swath of soft light washing into the corridor. Regardless, he was gazing down the corridor at me as I stepped out of the room, his info pad tucked down along his side, his hand gripping the Skripka resting on his lap. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled as I started walking toward him.
“I need a shower,” I said, hefting the towel a little for emphasis. As I did so, I shifted my toiletry kit a couple of degrees, angling the half-hidden mirror and razor case so that they caught some of the light from the overhead fixture and bounced it across Cole’s face.
Not directly into his eyes, of course, at least not for more than a fraction of a second at a time. I needed him to think the reflections were just a random occurrence and not a deliberate effort to obscure his vision. The minute he thought I was trying to distract him, the whole thing would blow up.
Especially since the subtle movement of air against the back of my neck told me that, right on cue, Selene had slipped out of her own room and was flitting silently along behind me.
It wasn’t a trick she and I had used very often. But when the geometry was right, it could be surprisingly successful. Marching in step with me a pace back, her head scrunched down and her arms tucked close to her sides, she was completely invisible from Cole’s point of view. Add in the brief flickering from my mirror and the softer but broader reflected light coming off my white nightshirt, and he had very little hope of spotting her.
“Unless you don’t think that’s necessary,” I added. “What do you think?” I tapped the bathroom hatch release as I passed it and took another two steps toward Cole.
Who naturally wasn’t having any of it. “One more step and I’ll shoot you,” he warned, tightening his grip on his Skripka.
“I was just making a point,” I said mildly, coming to a halt a step past the bathroom hatch and leaning against the wall on that side. Again, the brush of air against the back of my neck told me that Selene had slipped inside. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out soon.”
I retraced my last step and followed Selene into the bathroom, flicking on the light as I did so. Another touch of the release, and the hatch slid closed.
Selene had moved as far away from the entrance as possible, which in the Ruth’s bathroom meant standing at the back of the shower alcove. “You okay?” I murmured, crossing over to her.
“Yes,” she said, pressing close to me, her lips up against my ear. “I don’t think he saw anything.”
“Didn’t seem like it,” I agreed. “First things first. Get out of there—Cole’s expecting to hear water running.”
She stepped out of the alcove. I turned on the water—cold; no point wasting hot water if I wasn’t actually going to get in—then returned to her side. “Okay,” I said. “Now. Back on Brandywine—”
“No, wait,” she interrupted. “Two things. First: Ixil is aboard.”
I felt my eyes widen. “Aboard where? Here?”
She nodded. “Tera told me he and Jordan were going to try to sneak him aboard, but they weren’t sure they’d be able to. But I smelled him when we came in.”
I huffed out a breath. In through our secret hatch in the Number Two equipment bay, no doubt, and into concealment in the service crawlway. As long as no one found a reason to go down there, he should be fine. “About time we got some good news,” I said. “You said there were two things?”
“Yes,” she said. “That bounty hunter, Niles? That was Jordan.”
I stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not,” she assured me. “I know he didn’t look like him or sound like him. But it was.”
“That’s insane,” I insisted. “Even his ears looked different. Why the hell—?”
“Are you going to argue with me?” Selene cut me off impatiently.
“No, of course not,” I said from between clenched teeth. It was still insane, but there was no way I could doubt her conclusion. No matter how carefully someone altered his face or voice—or ears—there was nothing he could do to hide his scent. “He knew you knew, right?”
“I assume so,” she said. “I don’t know why he was in such a heavy disguise.”
“McKell said the two of them were on a job,” I reminded her. “Why they were on Brandywine does strain credibility a little, though.”
“Maybe they were tracking us all along, but couldn’t say anything.”
“That does sound like the admiral.” I huffed out a breath, trying to clear my brain. “So what’s the plan? I assume there is a plan?”
“I assume so, too,” Selene said. “But Tera and I didn’t have much time to talk about it. I also had the feeling that Jordan didn’t have it fully worked out.”
“That sounds like him, too,” I growled. “Can’t say I think much of any plan that sends us after Dent with four of Varsi’s thugs hanging around our necks.”
“Yes,” Selene said hesitantly. “That’s something else. Didn’t Draelon say that Varsi would be back at the end of next week?”
I thought back to that conversation. “Yes, he did. Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “When people say someone is coming back it usually means they’ve been there before. But there’s no scent of Varsi in that building. Not in the big room, not on the desk or doors, not in the vehicle, not on Draelon himself. Nowhere.”
I frowned. “How long?”
“Since he was there?” Selene shook her head. “I don’t think he ever was.” She paused. “One more thing. There was no scent of Varsi; but there was scent of Patth.”
“Interesting,” I murmured, pulling up a mental image of that building. Big and open, with only two places where one of the aliens could be hiding. “Did you get a fresh puff when McKell came out of the other office and into ours?”
“No.”
“So he must have been in that closed-off area.”
“That’s my assumption, yes,” Selene said. “But why would Draelon have a Patth in there?”
“And why would he lie about Varsi?” I added. “So Draelon and his people are playing some sort of game. Surprise, surprise.”
“Or it could be just Draelon,” Selene said. “Do you remember when Floyd started talking about why we’d been brought there and Draelon interrupted him? Floyd was very confused by that.”
“Was he, now,” I said, thinking back. “How confused?”
“Very,” Selene said. “Cole and Mottola also seemed confused, but not as much.”
“Not unreasonable,” I said. “The team leader usually gets more details and notices more quickly when something goes off track. That means Floyd’s the top dog.”
“Top dog?”
“A human slang term for boss.” I snorted. “Hence, their nickname the Pup for Fulbright.”
Selene seemed to consider that. “Not very respectful,” she pointed out.
“Wasn’t meant to be,” I said. “Tera said Mottola was one of Varsi’s senior enforcers, and Floyd’s above him, which means Floyd must be near the top of Varsi’s organization. If he was taken by surprise by Draelon’s sudden change of plan, it must have just happened.”
“You think the Patth I smelled is involved?”
“Could be,” I said. “A Patth nosing around Varsi’s little country home while Draelon loudly declares that Varsi will be back soon could mean the Patth are still hunting him.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “But how does Draelon declaring his intention of killing you help Varsi?”
I shook my head. “Not a clue. Maybe Varsi’s gone stir crazy and wants to kill someone, and I was the nearest convenient target.”
“Until Jordan came and bailed you out.”
Which was, I had to admit, the thing that rankled the most about this. McKell and his cohorts had spent a lot of time a few months back playing puppeteer with Selene and me, and I wasn’t at all happy to be back at the other end of their strings.
“He did save your life, you know,” Selene reminded me. “And he didn’t need to send Ixil to watch over us.”
“I know,” I grumped. “But don’t assume Ixil is here purely on our behalf. I’ve seen enough of this group to know they’ve probably got six different plays going right now.”
“Maybe,” Selene said. “But he did seem mostly pleased with the way the meeting went. That’s a good sign.”
I shrugged reluctantly. “I suppose.”
“So what do we do next?” she asked.
“We’re in a ship with a bounty hunter and three men who think their boss wants me dead,” I said with a sigh. “Not much we can do but go along and watch for options to present themselves. Step back there by the sink, will you?”
I waited until she was out of the way, then leaned my head into the shower just far enough and long enough to get my hair wet. I backed out again and shut off the water. “Anything else we need to talk about?” I asked as I toweled my hair partially dry.
“I don’t think so.” Selene hesitated. “Gregory . . . assuming we find Easton Dent, what do we do with him?”
“We start by getting him away from Floyd and the others, I suppose,” I said. “Hopefully, get us away from them at the same time. And no, I don’t know how we’re going to do that. Probably depends on how this Roastmeat Bar is set up. Ready for a reverse shadow sneak?”
“Yes.” She gestured. “Since they may assume you’ve done everything here you need to for the evening . . . ?”
“Oh. Right.” I gave a twirling motion with my finger. “Turn around, will you?”
A minute later we were finally ready. I draped the towel over the rack, then picked up my toiletry kit and stepped to the hatch. Confirming that Selene was ready, I hit the release and turned off the light, and as the hatch opened I walked out into the corridor.
And stopped short. Cole was where I’d left him, still lounging in the camp chair.
But he’d picked up some company. Fulbright was standing in the corridor beside him, leaning with a sort of fake nonchalance against the opposite wall.
And with that, the shadow sneak was suddenly off the table. I could block one person’s point of view as Selene hunched her way down the corridor in my visual shadow, but there was no way I could block two of them.
Which left me only one option. Instead of turning left toward the Ruth’s stern and my temporary quarters, I turned right toward the ship’s bow. “Excuse me,” I said as I walked between the two of them and continued forward. “I need to check something on the bridge.”
The move was so unexpected that I got three more steps before they broke out of their stunned paralysis and scrambled after me. Fulbright, coming from a standing start, got there first, grabbing my left upper arm and yanking backward hard enough to nearly pull me off my feet. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
“I told you: the bridge,” I said, letting him spin me around to face him. Cole had made it out of his camp chair now and was about a step behind Fulbright, an even darker glare on his face, his gun clutched in his hand.
Behind them, completely unnoticed, Selene was hurrying silently back to her pod maintenance room.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief. Perfect. Now all I had to do was stall Fulbright and Cole another ten seconds so that she could get out of sight, then extricate myself from the confrontation with as much dignity as I could and head back to my own room.
“Is that Roarke?” Floyd’s voice wafted into the corridor from the open dayroom hatch behind me.
“Yeah, boss,” Cole called back.
“Bring him.”
Once again, Fulbright spun me around. “Go,” he said. He started to shove me toward the dayroom hatch—
“I’ve got him,” Cole said. He brushed Fulbright back, inserting himself between us, and got a grip on my left arm. “Come on.”
Floyd and Mottola were both in the dayroom as Cole and I entered, Floyd seated on the foldout couch, Mottola on one of the fold-down seats across from him. Both had drinks in their hands, and both were gazing at me as Cole guided me to the center of the room. “Out and about, are we?” Floyd asked.
“Just wanted to hit the shower before I settled down for the night,” I told him.
“The shower and the bridge?” Floyd asked pointedly. “Or did I mishear you just now?”
“No, you heard right,” I confirmed. “I was in the shower when I had a feeling that one of the engines was off-synch by a couple of degrees. I wanted to give it a quick check.”
Floyd’s eyes shifted to Mottola. “Mottola?”
“I don’t feel anything,” Mottola said. His eyes were still on me, but there was a slight unfocusing of his gaze.
“Me, neither,” Cole added.
“Likewise,” Floyd said, looking back at me. “But I’m told every ship has its quirks. Interesting outfit.”
“It’s a nightshirt,” I explained. “We’re not used to having company aboard.”
“I suppose not,” Floyd said. “Speaking of we: Cole, go check on Ms. Selene. See if she also needs the bathroom before bedtime.”
“Okay.” Behind me I heard footsteps as Cole headed back out into the corridor.
“And while he does that,” Floyd continued, looking again at Mottola, “go see what Fulbright needs before he beds down. I want everyone settled in their compartments within the next half hour.”
“Right.” Mottola stood up, hesitated. “Uh, boss—?”
“It’s all right,” Floyd assured him. “Mr. Roarke is smart enough not to make any trouble.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “You are smart enough, aren’t you?”
“I like to think so,” I said.
“Good,” Floyd said, pointing to Mottola’s vacated fold-down seat. “Over there.”
I walked over to the seat and sat down, throwing a casual look around the dayroom as I did so. I knew Pix and Pax could travel through the Ruth’s air ducts, and I assumed Ixil was routinely using them to keep an eye on things. But if something nasty was about to happen, there was no way the hidden Kalix could get himself out of his hidey hole and up onto the main deck in time to do anything about it.
Floyd waited until Mottola had left, then readjusted himself comfortably on the foldout’s cushions. “In three days we’re going to hit Huihuang for the fueling stop you suggested,” he said. “I wanted to let you know what’s going to happen there.”
“All right,” I said cautiously.
“Mottola will handle the refueling,” he continued. “You, Fulbright, and Ms. Selene will also remain aboard. Cole and I have an errand to do ashore.”
“Anything I can do to help?” I offered.
“You want to help?”
“I’d like to show I’m still a team player,” I said. “No matter what Mr. Draelon heard or thinks he heard about me.”
“Very commendable,” Floyd said. “What sort of work can you do?”
“I have all the usual bounty hunter skills,” I said. “Along with those I’ve picked up as a crockett—”
“We’re going to kill someone.”
My tongue froze in midword. “Oh,” I said lamely.
“Mr. Gaheen was once one of Mr. Varsi’s most trusted men,” Floyd continued, watching me closely. “Unfortunately, with Mr. Varsi currently in seclusion, he apparently thought this was a good time to go rogue and take as much of the Huihuang organization with him as possible. Mr. Varsi has decided that an object lesson must be delivered. We’re that lesson.”
“I see,” I said. The organization was apparently very big on object lessons these days. “Must be terrible for someone you trusted to turn on you that way.”
“Terrible and sad both,” Floyd said, still eyeing me. “Especially someone like Mr. Gaheen. I’ve always had a high regard for his talents and dedication. Still, greed and opportunity sometimes combine to lead people into self-destructive behavior.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me,” I assured him. “I don’t have much greed, and I doubt I’m going to get any opportunities, not with you and your men aboard. Mr. Varsi was quite angry at Mr. Gaheen’s treachery, no doubt?”
“I assume so,” Floyd said. “Mr. Gaheen’s been with the organization a long time.”
“You assume so?” I asked, putting puzzlement into my voice. “If I were given a job this important and irreversible, I’d kind of want to hear it from the boss directly. You know, just to make sure there were no misunderstandings.”
“The order was delivered through Mr. Draelon,” Floyd said, an odd edge to his voice. “There were no misunderstandings.”
“Mr. Draelon was himself angry, I suppose?”
“Actually, Mr. Draelon was quite impassive.”
“That’s good, too,” I said. “As my father used to say, The only decision you should make when you’re angry is to stop being angry.”
“Interesting way to put it,” Floyd said. “Now that you know what the job is, you still want to help?”
“Under the circumstances, I think I should sit this one out,” I said. “Not really my business, and hardly my forte.”
“A wise decision.” Floyd cocked his head slightly to the side. “Tell me, Mr. Roarke: Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Once or twice,” I admitted. Funny how a chill could produce a fresh burst of sweat. “But always in self-defense. Not like . . . ”
“Not like cold-blooded murder?” Floyd shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t go in for that sort of thing, either. Maybe you could think of this as self-defense, or rather defense of Mr. Varsi and the organization.”
I thought about Draelon’s thinly veiled threat on my own life. Did he consider my supposed betrayal something that Floyd should defend the organization against? “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked, for lack of anything better to say.
“I wanted to see what sort of person you are,” he said. “You seem too smart to have gotten yourself into this situation.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” I said ruefully. “Unfortunately, sometimes the situations I find myself in aren’t my fault.”
Floyd shrugged. “As you make your bed, so shall you lie in it.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. “But you have to remember that it works in both directions.”
“Meaning?”
This probably wouldn’t do any good, I knew. Floyd was a loyal minion of Varsi, and he firmly believed his orders were coming from on high. Still, even a slim chance was better than none. “Meaning Mr. Varsi is partially why I’m sitting here with you. He made an under-the-table deal with some Patth—”
“Mr. Varsi doesn’t deal with the Patth.”
“Well, actually—”
“If he was talking to them, it was because he was setting them up for something,” he continued in a tone that didn’t offer room for debate.
“Yes, that makes sense,” I said, thinking fast. “Naturally, I don’t know what his ultimate plan was. All I know is that the setup was something the rest of the Patth hierarchy wouldn’t approve of. One of them apparently picked up on the scheme and went after Mr. Varsi, trying the whole time to pin it on me. As my father used to say, When the going gets tough, the tough look for a scapegoat.”
“Why didn’t you warn Mr. Varsi?”
“I tried,” I said. “But by then I was with some people who were doing their best to isolate me from the rest of the Spiral. They also told me the Director General’s plan was to go after the people at the Patth end of the deal.” I held out my hands, palms upward. “Looking back, I figure sowing trouble among them was part of Mr. Varsi’s plan.”
For another few heartbeats Floyd’s eyes bored like plasma torches into mine. Then, almost reluctantly, the glare softened a bit. “Only they went after Mr. Varsi instead.”
“Or after him and the other Patth both. I never heard how any of that came out.”
“It came out with Mr. Varsi in seclusion,” Floyd said bluntly. “Who was this Patth who gave the alarm? A friend of yours?”
I snorted. “Hardly. Let’s just say the last time I saw him he was very angry with me.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Quite a while ago,” I said. “Really, if you’ve been tracking me you know I haven’t been in touch with the rest of the Spiral lately.”
“Fulbright’s the one who’s been tracking you,” Floyd corrected, his thoughts clearly still back with the Patth. “We’re just along to make sure he doesn’t lose you.”
“Probably a wise move on Mr. Draelon’s part,” I said, “given that Fulbright has already lost me at least twice.”
“I get the feeling he does that a lot.” Abruptly, Floyd stood up. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Time for you and Ms. Selene to settle down for the night,” he said, gesturing toward the dayroom hatchway. “But let’s first go to the bridge and see if you were right about the engines.”
“Sure,” I said, my heart picking up its pace. The only reason I’d brought up the engines in the first place was to get Cole and Fulbright to turn their backs so that Selene could sneak back to her quarters.
Still, I’d only said I thought the engines were off-synch. Hopefully, that would cover any suspicions Floyd might have.
Mottola was in the pilot’s chair when we arrived. “Any problems with Fulbright?” Floyd asked.
“Nope,” Mottola said.
“Any problems with the engines?”
“Nothing I noticed,” Mottola said, throwing a glower at me. “But I couldn’t find the micro data in the full status list, so I don’t know for sure.”
“Those numbers are on their own page,” I said, stepping up behind him. “Let me pull them up.”
I leaned over his shoulder and punched for the engineering status listings, getting my excuses ready. I only thought the engines were off-synch . . . The listing came up, and I scrolled down to the engine timing entries.
“Son of a toad,” Mottola muttered.
“What?” Floyd demanded, leaning over his other shoulder.
“There,” Mottola said, turning a baleful eye up at me. “Starboard’s two and a half percent off-synch.”
“Well, as Mr. Floyd said, every ship has its quirks,” I reminded him, trying to hide my own bewilderment. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. How in the world—?
Of course. Ixil. He’d gotten the word from one of his outriders that I’d said there was engine flickering and somehow managed to tweak the timing from down there in his hiding place.
As my dad used to say, The easiest way to keep them from looking behind the curtain is to keep them from noticing the curtain in the first place.
“The Ruth’s not as quirky as some ships I’ve been on,” I continued. “But it does have its moods. If you’ll let me have the seat for a minute, I can bring it back into line.”
“Boss?” Mottola asked.
Floyd nodded. “Go ahead.”
Five minutes later, the engines were once again in synch. “That should do it for now,” I said, standing up again. “But you might want to check it whenever you’re running a diagnostic. It’ll have to drift at least eight percent before it starts being a problem, but it’s better to catch these things early.”
“Thank you,” Mottola growled, giving me one final glare as he slid back into the chair. “I do know a thing or two about starships.”
“It was just a suggestion,” I said mildly. It never hurt to remind people that the ones who owned the ship were usually the ones best qualified to pilot it.
“Easy, Mottola,” Floyd said. “Your professional expertise isn’t on the line here. Come on, Roarke. Time to shut down for the night.”
“I can find my own way, if you’d rather not bother,” I offered. “It’s not like there’s anyplace I can run.”
“I don’t mind,” Floyd said. “Besides, I want to see if there’s a set of repeater displays in there.”
“There isn’t.”
“I’ll see for myself.” He gestured to the hatch. “After you.”
We left the bridge and headed down the corridor, where Cole was back on duty in his camp chair. He looked over his shoulder as we approached and exchanged nods with Floyd as we sidled past him. “If that engine acts up again, we may want to have a mechanic take a look at it while we’re being refueled,” Floyd commented. “I understand some of the more delicate equipment can only be accessed from the outside?”
“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t know anything about Huihuang, but any major spaceport should have the techs and equipment we’d need.” I frowned as a sudden thought struck me. “By the way, what would you have done about this other job if I hadn’t suggested a fuel stop? Detour and land us there anyway?”
“We’d just have gone back after we delivered Dent to Brandywine,” Floyd said. “That was Mr. Draelon’s original plan, actually, when the word came from Mr. Varsi about Mr. Gaheen. But Mr. Varsi appreciates efficiency from his people. Switching the order of the jobs works better, so we do that.”
“Makes sense,” I said, nodding. So Floyd had at least a little wiggle room in his orders. That could be useful down the road. Especially when it came to whatever Draelon’s orders were regarding Selene and me. “Well, if the Ruth throws us any more curves, I should be able to calm her down. Selene and I have been with her a long time.”
“I imagine so.” We stopped by my new quarters and he keyed the hatch. “After you.”
I walked in. He paused just inside and gave the room a quick visual sweep, then nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Good night, Mr. Roarke. Hopefully, we won’t need any more of your expertise tonight.”
“Fingers crossed,” I agreed. “Good night, Mr. Floyd.”
The hatch slid closed, and I was alone.
With a sigh, I shut off the light, pulled off the ridiculous nightshirt, and maneuvered my way into my cramped bunk. Actually, I rather hoped Ixil would find something else to tweak a couple of hours down the line.
As my father used to say, Always try to make yourself indispensable to people. Especially people who are thinking about shooting you in the back.