“Thirty chips,” Renny said. “It’ll have to do. Wait here while I put in our bid.”
He returned five minutes later, followed by a young bearded guy whose bouncing steps reminded Kane of a grasshopper. The ferret couldn’t stand still, even when he reached them. He shifted his weight back and forth, compulsively scratching his beard while peering around the group for instructions. Whatever money they paid him was going up his nose tonight.
“Whatcha want me to find?” he asked Renny.
Cassia spoke first, lifting her chin in that haughty way of hers. “I’m here representing my husband, Marius Durango.”
Kane felt a pinch in his gut. He kept forgetting that Cassia was married. The union was in name only, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“He gave me this transmission code.” She handed the ferret a slip of paper. “He’s been using it to talk to someone on this hub. I’d like to set up a meeting with that person. Whoever it is, tell them it’s regarding our partnership on Eturia. They’ll know what that means.”
The ferret glanced at the paper while bouncing one heel on the floor. He’d fidgeted so much his forehead was glistening. “Okay. Gimme a day or two. I’ll get it done.”
Cassia wrote down the Banshee’s radio frequency so he could contact her when he’d finished the job. The ferret bounded away, and the rest of them agreed there was nothing they wanted from the marketplace except to put it behind them. So they returned to the ship, where they took extra precautions to lock themselves securely inside.
When three days passed without word, they were forced to revisit the hub.
Again, Renny led the way through the fetid marketplace, past the storage units, and to the inquiries station, but this time with the rapid stride of a man who’d been cheated out of his last thirty fuel chips. Kane almost felt sorry for the ferret. Renny was a gentle captain, but he knew how to bring the pain when a situation called for it.
Renny rapped on the office door, and it opened a crack. “I’m looking for my rep. Tall kid. Brown hair, short beard. Jumpier than a caffeinated squirrel.”
“That’s Gill,” came a man’s voice. “Haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Where does he live?”
A knobby finger extended from the crack, pointing behind them. “Check the bordello. The girls let him sleep there when he brings new clients around.”
Kane snickered and elbowed Doran. “Our ferret’s a genius.” When Solara and Cassia burned their glares into him, he clarified, “I mean, if you’re into hired ladies. Which I’m not.”
“Let’s go,” Renny told them.
The crew followed as he charged down the side corridor to a two-story building with a glowing red rooftop. No matter how far you traveled, that was the mark of a flesh house. At this early hour, they didn’t pass any travelers except for a drunkard or two curled up on the floor in a Crystalline coma. If there was ever a time to go nosing around a black market hub, it was now.
Renny pushed open the brothel’s front door and met a bouncer the size of a whale. The giant didn’t bother standing up from his stool. Renny told him, “We’re looking for Gill. Did he stay here last night?”
The bouncer grunted. “Up the stairs. Room thirteen.”
One by one, they skirted around the man and crossed the lobby to the staircase. Renny held a finger to his lips in warning, then led the way quietly up the steps and down the hall to room 13. When they reached the door, he pressed an ear to it, listening for movement from the other side. Instead of using the touch-sensor keypad on the wall, he hooked a finger around the door’s manual latch and gave a sideways tug.
It was locked.
He moved aside and pointed from Solara to the keypad. She nodded and pulled a small tool kit from her inside jacket pocket. In less than a minute, she’d overridden the lock, and the crew filed inside the room. Kane spotted Gill at once, sprawled faceup on a stained mattress in the corner with his jaw askew and his eyes half-open.
Dead as a stone.
Kane froze. From behind, someone shut the door, probably Renny because he was the only one to have broken out of the paralysis of shock. While the captain crouched down and inspected Gill’s bloated face, Kane reached out and linked his hand with Cassia’s. The act was reflexive, like breathing.
Renny puffed a sigh and stood up. “Poor kid.”
“An overdose, you think?” Kane asked. “I could tell he was on something.”
“Oh, he was definitely using,” Renny said. “But I don’t think that’s what killed him. I imagine this was an occupational hazard.”
Nobody spoke for a while. They let the implication hang in the air, unwilling to acknowledge that a young man had died because they’d paid him to dig in a land mine.