Chapter Thirty-Four

 

When we’re standing together on the platform down by the pool, Chestla doesn’t look nervous any more. There’s a fierce confidence in her as she makes eye contact with the people about to judge her.

Grammy stands. “Thank you, Miss Benitez, for sharing your time and energy with us over the past few days. Ekrin, especially, enjoyed the chance to get your autograph, and has requested that I pass along her offer to join your protection force.” She turns to Chestla. “We have deemed the results of your test inconclusive. However, in one week, we will be running the standard admission exam, including the obstacle course at Nargo Canyon. If you can pass the test there that you originally failed, the position is yours.”

“Thank you for the opportunity,” Chestla says, pero she doesn’t sound fizzbounced. Without saying anything else, Chestla leaves the platform.

I follow her. “Hey! Wait!”

She stops, but she doesn’t turn around. “You know as well as I do that there’s no way to get from here to Zant and back in one week.”

“Then stay here and dig for information, and then rock the obstacle course.”

She looks me in the eyes, and the prey instinct echoes through me again. “I promised I would help you save Kaliel.”

As we’re walking out through the building’s upper floor, Ekrin comes rushing in, carrying a black metal briefcase. She holds it out to me, speaking rapidly.

Chestla translates. “There are a hundred doses of dewormer in here. You will need them if the situation on Zant is as dire as Kaliel’s parasite claimed while bragging. Please be safe.”

Then she turns and rushes away.

“She wasn’t supposed to give us these, right?”

“Nope.” Chestla keeps walking towards the door.

I make a mental note to have Tawny send Ekrin one of everything in the fan club goodie box. Once we’re outside blinking in the sun, I turn to Chestla. “We’re on our own now to find transportation back to the spaceport?”

She opens her mouth to say something. Pero, then her eyes go wide, and the slit pupils round out, like she’s suddenly stepped into the dark.

She pulls a tiny dart out of her neck. She holds it out towards me, then collapses onto the pavement. I scramble to help her. She’s breathing, pero she’s out, and I’m not strong enough to pick her up and run away.

“Don’t worry,” someone says from behind me. “We’ll give you a ride.”

I look up into a mottled face, humanoid, pero with some of the qualities of a piece of granite. Grundt. Captain of the Onyx Shadow. From Chestla’s surveillance holo.

A small black air transport lands in the middle of the street, and several of his companions pile out. Grundt grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet, while the others pick up Chestla and carry her into their transport. One of them picks up the briefcase of dewormer and pops it open, examining the injector vials before bringing it on board.

“We’ve never met before, Miss Benitez,” Grundt says. “But you’ve given us a lot of trouble. Do you know who I am?”

I nod, then gesture towards where Chestla has just disappeared. “Given your reputation, I’m shocked she’s still breathing.”

His grip on my arm tightens. “She shouldn’t be the one you’re worried about. She’s asleep because it doesn’t tend to go well when someone you’re trying to recruit sees what happens to her previous crew.”

Ice dances down my spine. Chestla got their attention, all right, with her snooping. “Then why am I still breathing, mijo?”

“Let’s call it curiosity, mija.” He says the Spanish word ironically, emphasized but unaccented.

I call Brill on my sublingual, pero he doesn’t answer.

I try to fight Grundt’s grip on me all the way to the transport. He doesn’t push me inside exactly, pero he doesn’t give me any choice but to walk up the steps.

I try Brill again. This time something’s interfering with the castsignal. The whole vehicle’s probably signalblocked.

Grundt turns me towards a minibar at the back. “You’re supposed to be such a great chef, why don’t you mix us a couple of drinks. But make one move towards the ice pick, and I will drop you.”

I nod towards the front of the bus. “Us as in you and your friends, or us as in me and you?”

“Just me and you. They’re kind of busy right now.”

I walk over to the minibar and pull out a couple of glasses. The selection is impressive. In one glass, I mix together a cocktail that perfectly blends the four major flavor profiles. In the other, I put two cubes of ice, and a couple of inches of expensive Betarogian whiskey.

I drop some cheese I saw in the minifridge on a plate and go back over to where Grundt is sitting. He examines the two glasses and takes the whiskey. I sit down opposite him.

He takes a deep drink. “So why bring Johansson here, instead of claiming the bounty the minute you found him?”

I take a sip from my own glass, determined to keep this civil for as long as possible. “Kaliel’s my friend. I helped get him exonerated after you guys framed him.”

Grundt laughs. “And here I thought you did that just to get back at HGB.”

I blink. “HGB?”

Grundt takes a shorter sip of his drink, studying me. “You have no idea that it was HGB that hired us, do you? There was a troublesome couple – the Benders or Basics or something – that were working with a remnant of the Nitarri to lay groundwork for a cacao plantation in space. We were given great latitude on how to handle the situation but not much time. The collateral damage was unavoidable.”

All this time we’ve spent trying to figure out who set Kaliel up and why – and he’s just telling me? Practically monologuing about it?

My stomach feels like I’ve swallowed all the ice in that little freezer. There’s no way he would be this forthcoming if he was planning to let me walk out of here alive. My trembling hand sets the ice in my glass tinkling. I cover it by taking a drink. “Was it Baker?”

He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. The Bakers. The ones who rescued those Nitarri kids that time.”

I nod, like I even know what a Nitarri is. “Must have been them.”

Maybe he’ll read the shock slackening my jaw as just more fear. Kayla’s grandparents weren’t the collateral damage in the SeniorLeisure debacle after all. Kaliel was. And the fallout from it is following him even now.

We were never going to figure it out, because we’d been looking at it backwards. That kind old lady in Kayla’s Anastasia video really was looking for hope. And HGB had killed her to quash it.

They’d actually framed one of their own pilots, and taken a huge publicity hit, knowing it could tip Earth into global war – because it was less dangerous to them than letting someone break the monopoly on chocolate.

I wish I could at least let Chestla know she’d been right to keep looking, that HGB was too corrupt to keep a secret this big, even with all the possible repercussions.

There’s no way she’s going to join these guys. They’re going to wind up killing her too.

I glance out the window. We’re headed for the spaceport. “What happens when we land?”

Grundt ignores the question. “What did Johansson need here? And what are the vials in the briefcase? And what in the spredjenkiix was he doing at a health spa?”

“Wait. That was your crew that tried to drown the poor guy?”

Grundt smiles. “Not our finest operation.”

“Just wait until I tell Tawny she went up against one of the galaxy’s deadliest mercs. She’s going to faint.”

Grundt clears his throat and shakes his cabeza.

“Oh. Right.” Because I’m dying soon – probably when this transport lands – and am never going to get the chance to tell Tawny anything. I drain my glass.

Grundt says, “Why don’t you try answering my questions?”

He’s not giving me any incentive to cooperate. It’s not like he can kill me any more dead, no? Pero, I want to see his reaction, whether he already knows more about what’s going on here than I do.

“Kaliel was infected with a parasite. We brought him here to be cured.” Not quite accurate, but close enough. I gesture at the briefcase. “If you want to make points with Chestla, offer to help her stop it.”

Grundt’s already craggy face gets even harder as his lips narrow. “My curiosity’s getting dimmer.”

“Then test it yourself. I need another drink.” I stand up, head towards the minibar. If he decides to shoot me in the back, so be it. This time I go for the expensive whiskey. I’m halfway back when the guy piloting the transport says something to us. It sounds like he’s gargling Tic-Tacs.

Grundt gestures for me to sit, so I take the nearest chair. The pilot brings us down so light, the whiskey doesn’t even slosh in my glass. Pero the shakes are back, so when I lift the glass from where I rested it on my leg, it looks like we’ve hit turbulence. I take a sip of amber liquid, smooth yet bracing.

Grundt’s heading my way, and now there’s a gun in his hand. “Hands behind your back and stand up.”

My hands are sweating despite the ice as I set the glass down and put my hands behind me. He cuffs me.

My heart squeezes as the last of my hope dies.

He marches me off the flying bus, back out into the heat. We’ve come down a few feet away from the Fois Gras. I stop in shock, and Grundt grabs my arm again. He pulls me around to the front of the ship, where Brill is bound to have a good look at me, then he drags me around to where three of his companions are trying to break down mi vida’s door.

The thrusters fire, then sputter out. Which means that while we were in the council chamber, these guys were quietly grounding Brill. And that the real reason I’m alive is to be Grundt’s human shield.