Nineteen

 

H’Jith took a different route to the docking bay. Zagrando had a hunch that the section H’Jith took him to was nowhere near the section where he had initially docked. If he hadn’t already been on alert, he would have become so now.

He had no quick and obvious escape route, and if he hadn’t had a map of the station on his links, he would have been lost. Even so, some of the passages that H’Jith took him through were not on the map.

All of the passages were brightly colored, however, and the colors seemed to have no relation to anything that Zagrando could tell. The earlier passages, through one of the storefronts (if, indeed, that’s what it was) and through a back area, were a deep, rich brown. Then, within the pace of a single step, it became a vibrant lime, followed by a stunning fuchsia. Sometimes the colors accented each other, but most often they clashed. And all of them made H’Jith’s multicolored orange look garish and loud.

Three doors led to the docking ring, but they were a different three doors according to Zagrando’s map. They were a shiny silver with black etchings. He ran the etchings through his universal translation unit (not that it really translated everything, but it knew thousands of languages—ancient and modern), and got no translation at all. Either the etchings were decorative or they belonged to a language the program did not know.

H’Jith took him through the middle door, and they were in the docking area. Unlike most starbases, the docking area did not form a ring, but jutted out of certain sections, like a child’s pouting lower lip.

Like the other docking area, this one had an airlock design as well, but Zagrando saw no guard or anyone who could be mistaken for a guard. He wondered, then, if the other section was for non-sanctioned or non-J’Slik vessels.

H’Jith stopped as they encountered another series of doors.

“I owe you honesty,” H’Jith said. “I do not sell my personal vessels. I only sell certain ships. I do not even have for sale a vessel like my own.”

“That’s all right,” Zagrando said. “I would still like to see yours.”

H’Jith’s tail, which had been slightly off the ground as they walked, settled on the floor with an audible thump.

“Let me at least show you my inventory,” H’Jith said. “You might reconsider once you see the vast selection.”

“I will not buy a ship until I see yours,” Zagrando said.

“I understand,” H’Jith said in a tone that implied it did not understand. “Still, look here.”

It shoved against one of the doors with its left paw, and the door banged open, revealing a gigantic docking bay. Ships of all kinds and sizes extended off into the distance.

Zagrando remained at the door, staring at them. He noted some excellent—if dated—vessels up front, but farther back, he saw models so old he wondered if they could fly.

That sense he’d had from the moment he arrived, that sense of impending doom, finally became clear. He understood now that the risk wasn’t of dying on Hellhole, but dying outside of it.

If he left Whiteley’s ship here, then that ship would become the property of someone like H’Jith—probably of anyone who wanted to take on the Black Fleet. If he then bought a ship from H’Jith, H’Jith would know more about that ship than Zagrando. For all Zagrando could tell, the ships here all had flaws that might cause them to stall or break down not too far from Hellhole. Or perhaps they didn’t move quickly and could be easily tracked.

One ship, even with up-to-date weaponry, couldn’t outgun an organized group of ships from Hellhole. And he doubted that the ships for sale here, no matter what their model specifications were, actually had the highest speed range.

He could lose Whiteley’s ship, pay out a small fortune for another ship, and then lose either that ship, all of his funds, or his life as he left Hellhole.

And contacting the Alliance wouldn’t help him. Nor would contacting his handlers, because his handlers wouldn’t be able to get him help quickly enough.

Zagrando wondered if H’Jith had purchased all of the ships here or if they had been stolen from people passing through. Zagrando had a hunch that most of them had been abandoned, like he was about to do with Whiteley’s ship, or stolen according to one of the scenarios he had just come up with.

“You are right,” Zagrando said. He needed to keep control of this meeting. “You have an amazing amount of inventory. But I have a personal policy. I like to see how a ship broker keeps his own ship before deciding to buy something from his inventory.”

“You are a cautious human,” H’Jith said. “Most humans are not that way.”

Zagrando smiled. “I would assume most humans aren’t comfortable on this place and would like to leave quickly.”

That twinkle had returned to H’Jith’s eyes. “You are also a wise human.”

Zagrando bent his head slowly in mock nod, as if flattered by the compliment.

“But,” H’Jith said, “you have made it clear that you have a meeting and must make this decision quickly. As you can see from my inventory, just inspecting the ships will take time. If you would like to leave quickly, then we should look at the ships available for purchase.”

H’Jith was clearly beginning to think of this as a sales game. Fortunately, H’Jith enjoyed the process as much as human salespeople seemed to.

Zagrando knew he had to keep H’Jith focused on the sales part of the game to win this encounter.

So he kept his voice calm as he said, “I am in a hurry, but I can always have my meeting and then return. I have time to consider my purchase.”

H’Jith made a small grunting sound. Zagrando wondered if that was the J’Slik sound of surprise.

“And if I don’t like your inventory,” Zagrando added, “I can always take the ship I came in. I at least know what its flaws are.”

H’Jith’s tail twitched in what Zagrando was beginning to see as displeasure. His human friends would call that a tell.

But Zagrando was not going to rely on it too much, because he had met other salespeople who had deliberately set up tells to mislead clients. Zagrando needed to remain focused on his own mission, so that he wouldn’t be distracted by H’Jith.

Or by his need to get out of Hellhole as fast as possible.

“I assure you,” H’Jith said, “my ships are as flawless as I can make them.”

So the mention of “flaws” bothered him. Did that hit too close to home, perhaps? Was Zagrando sounding too canny? He didn’t dare, for this plan to continue.

“I believe you,” Zagrando said—and he did. He figured the ships were as flawless as they needed to be for whatever purpose H’Jith needed them for. “However, I will stick to my personal policy. I would like to see your own ship.”

“I do not have one ship,” H’Jith said.

“Then I would like to see your favorite ship,” Zagrando said. H’Jith looked like it was about to say something, so Zagrando added, “and if you do not have a favorite, then I would like to see the ship you use the most for distance travel.”

H’Jith sighed and its tail did not move. “I cannot talk you out of this.”

“You can talk me out of it,” Zagrando said. “But you are also talking yourself out of a sale.”

H’Jith folded its front paws in front of its multicolored chest. For humans that was a serene pose, but not for H’Jith. Zagrando had the sense that H’Jith was very agitated.

“You are the first human I have encountered who strikes such a hard bargain,” H’Jith said.

“Really?” Zagrando asked. “Because my species is known for tough deliberating.”

H’Jith’s mouth opened just a bit, the second time it had made that movement in a situation when a human would have smiled reassuringly. Zagrando wondered if H’Jith was trying to mimic the human smile and failing, or if this open-mouth movement was the J’Slik equivalent of a cold smile in the middle of a negotiation.

“Humans are not known for their toughness on Hellhole,” H’Jith said, using the human name for the starbase.

“Surely, you do not call this place ‘Hellhole’ among yourselves,” Zagrando said.

“We do not,” H’Jith said. “We like it here. Humans never do.”

“Well,” Zagrando said, keeping his tone light. “That explains why there are so few of us here.”

“It is your first time to Hellhole?” H’Jith asked, clearly trying to take the attention off their wrangle for just a moment.

“It is my first time to…” and then Zagrando tried to pronounce the J’Slik name. He knew he had mangled the name from H’Jith’s small shudder, but H’Jith tilted its head again, apparently in surprise.

“And you do not want to flee?” H’Jith asked this with something like compassion. Apparently, it had decided it would become Zagrando’s friend. And friends apparently understood how terrifying Hellhole was for humans.

“I would prefer to finish my business,” Zagrando said calmly, “but it would seem that you’re not interested in selling me a ship. So I’m sorry that I wasted your time.”

He turned, hating that airlock-thing. He hoped that it wouldn’t be like a real airlock, the kind of place that changed atmosphere with the touch of a button, because he was certain he was making H’Jith angry.

“Wait,” H’Jith said. “I will show you my ship.”

Zagrando stood for a moment, deliberately keeping his back to H’Jith. He knew how dangerous that maneuver was, but he used it as a gesture of either trust or naïveté. Or both. At least, that was how he hoped H’Jith would respond to it.

“Which ship?” he asked, as if he were no longer sure he would take H’Jith up on the offer. “Your favorite, or the one you use for distance travel?”

“I do not travel long distances,” H’Jith said.

“Then how do you get your inventory?” Zagrando asked.

“I am a broker,” H’Jith said. “Others come to me.”

So most of the ships were stolen or abandoned, as Zagrando suspected.

“All right then,” Zagrando said, and he slowly turned around. H’Jith stood with its upper paws pressed together, that nervous gesture that Zagrando had noted before. “Show me the ship you use the most.”

“For travel,” H’Jith said. “I will show you the one I use the most for travel.”

“You live on your ship,” Zagrando said with some surprise. “That’s why you didn’t want to show it to me.”

“It is not fair to my family,” H’Jith said, and Zagrando got the sense that it was finally speaking the truth. It kept its family on a ship because it didn’t trust life here on Hellhole? Because it needed to escape quickly? Because it wanted its family to have an escape route?

Zagrando stared at it for a long moment. H’Jith shifted slightly, clearly uncomfortable. If Zagrando were truly the man he was portraying, he would have visited H’Jith’s family ship.

But he couldn’t be quite that ruthless, particularly with the idea floating in the back of his mind. He didn’t want to put H’Jith’s family at risk, either.

“All right,” Zagrando said with as much reluctance as he could muster. “Take me to the ship you use for travel. Quickly. This negotiation has already taken too much of my time.”

“It is my pleasure.” H’Jith bowed slightly. But something flashed across its eyes. Taking Zagrando to the ship was not pleasure. Taking Zagrando there was coercion. H’Jith wanted the money.

And, Zagrando knew, H’Jith would make sure that Zagrando paid for this perceived slight.

Zagrando had to make sure that would never ever happen.