“Hm, feeling more masculine today, are we, lassie? Looks good on you. And who is this?” “Mother Orr” eyed me. Her expression seemed devoid of interest, but her scrutiny was thorough. “Very tasty. Is he yours?” She chortled to herself.
Basra ignored almost all of what she said, which I was realizing was one of his strengths. “I recently made an advantageous trade for a shipment of Shadow from a captain who was eager to divest. Because you were always my favorite, I thought of you first.”
“Favorite? You had favorites?” She snorted. “Let me tell you something, my lass, when I processed the first years at Number One’s recruitment complex, I wasn’t anyone’s favorite. Oh no, big ol’ mean Mother Orr, am I right? Just stomping around giving us hell. Boo-hoo, we’re all indentured servants. Well”—she threw her hands up to encompass him—“just look at you now. Peddling Shadow and cavorting with hot, young, lithe…men.” She looked me up and down again and grinned. “Let me tell you, sonny, you could make me…ahem, yourself a pretty penny.”
It was possible a corner of my eyelid twitched from a profound desire to raise my eyebrows. Everyone in the systems knew of the Big Two—ancient towers in Ranta that trained accountants from childhood. Parents indentured their children, who then had to purchase their freedom at exorbitant rates. Only if you were good with finances did you get out. Very good. And the Number One tower provided only the best training to the most skilled…who consequently had a much higher sum to work off. The thought of a young Basra in such an environment, contending with this creature who was looking at me like a piece of meat at the market, made me even more uncomfortable.
But Number One was definitely the type of place to spit out a financial genius. One that would drop right into the eagerly waiting hands of rabid recruiters. Maybe Hersius Kartolus had somehow snatched up Basra.
“True, it’s not just my fondness that brought me to you,” Basra responded, ignoring roughly half of what she’d said this time. “My previous buyer and I had a disagreement, and I’ve found myself wanting to sell to another party. I’m in something of a hurry, so I was willing to go to someone who I knew wouldn’t give me as high a price.”
“Oh? What price was this ‘other buyer’ offering you?” Mother Orr narrowed her eyes. “Does this ‘other buyer’ have a name, or did you just invent them?”
“I’d rather not name the sum,” he said, inclining his head, “as they would want me to be discreet. Suffice it to say, I’m aware that you possess fewer means and greater shrewdness.”
“Fewer means?” She glared. “Let me tell you, lassie, going up the ranks as quickly as you did gave you an attitude I’m not sure I approve of.” She yanked open a drawer, withdrew a dirty rag, and wiped her sweating brow. Then she used that to wipe down the condensation on her infopad, which she held up to her face closely, finger hovering over the screen. “But you’re damned right you’ll profit less from me. Fair but harsh, that’s my motto. You’ll get what you deserve. I’m still looking out for my students, you know.”
Basra steepled his fingers. “I’ll take fifty percent over market price.”
She guffawed. “You will, will you? How about I give you fifty percent off the market price?”
“No. I’m not interested in losing my shirt, although I’m willing to lose some. Don’t forget, I’m delivering this to you with no third party—you would normally need to buy from a wholesaler. You would be paying market price plus ten percent no matter what you do.”
“Fine, then that’s what I’ll give you,” she retorted.
He remained silent, eyes fixed on her. She looked from him to me and back again. I stared at both of them, fascinated; I had the strange feeling they were conducting a mental argument with one another, both understanding what the other would say next.
“All right. I’ll give you fifteen percent,” she said.
Basra sighed and held out his hand, palm up. “Agreed, but you pick it up from our landing pad.”
Mother Orr slapped his open hand. “It’s a deal. If the Shadow market weren’t on the rise right now, I’d have just kicked you out on the street.”
He smiled. “I know. A pleasure, as always.”
“Mmm-hmm. You can bring in arm candy anytime you like, Basra. Oh, and the person you purchased this from—were they from that ice planet? Alaxak?”
“They were,” he said. “Why?”
“There’s a bounty for any of the crazies from that planet, if they’ve got Shadow poisoning. Any of them, but especially this particular one.” She held up her infopad.
My heart went still in my chest, and I fought to keep any expression from my face. Fortunately, she was focused on Basra, who of course displayed nothing whatsoever.
If only the infopad had been as blank. It glowed with a computationally generated image of Qole.
“So, that’s bad,” I muttered as we exited the building. “The ransom isn’t through any official channels, nor is it likely traceable to Treznor-Nirmana, but still, I thought they would have kept quieter about their interest in her in order to avoid revealing their hand too soon. This is escalating much more quickly than I’d anticipated.”
“It seems to be getting worse,” Basra responded in a low voice. “Keep walking down the street and point out something interesting to me, bearing twenty-two five.”
I scanned the street to my northeast and pretended to point to a sign advertising a house of ill repute. What could I say, it was all that was available. As I did, I noticed the blond buzz cut from the corner of my eye, bobbing along slightly behind us on the opposite street.
I was roasting in the humidity of the streets, but I still shivered. For him to follow us like that, in this crowd, meant he was probably a bounty hunter, and a good one. And he’d managed to identify our ship as a possible match. There was a reason we’d slipped in among hundreds and docked at the highest point on the most distant, congested tower.
Basra pretended to laugh. “When that vehicle passes,” he said with exaggerated amusement, “follow me down the alley to the right.”
He must have been thinking what I was. If we could lose the fellow, then perhaps we could make it back to the ship and escape before any other bounty hunters knew to swarm. A large cargo vessel, rusting and paint peeling, rumbled down the street toward us. I was glad of the size and racket, which would obscure us from our follower.
The second it began to pass us, Basra sprinted for the end of the alley, with me right behind him. He took a series of turns I never could have remembered, and then stopped in the middle of an intersection, scanning up and down the street. I couldn’t see anything other than garbage and a passed-out vagrant, but they seemed to serve as sufficient markers, as we took off pell-mell again. The next thing I knew, we were climbing a rickety ladder up the side of a deserted and crumbling building. Some rungs had rusted out altogether, but we made it to the top.