'Well, then, I suppose we'll have to say goodbye,' Snake Voice said at last. 'If you can't deliver your uncle, then you're of no use to us. We'll just have to kill you and find someone else to help us.'
Jack blinked again, nearly missing the threat as his brain latched onto the last part of the sentence. Someone to help them? Was this some sort of lame trick?
And then, with a sudden flash of hope, he realized he'd gotten it all wrong. Snake Voice wasn't here to clean up loose ends on the K'da and Shontine thing, because Snake Voice didn't know Jack was the one who'd stumbled into that mess. This was something else entirely.
And they weren't looking for Uncle Virge, the ship's computer. They were looking for Uncle Virgil, the professional thief and con man.
'Wait a minute,' he said. 'Are you talking about a job?'
'That's none of your concern,' Snake Voice said. 'My business is with Virgil Morgan, not some half-grown nephew.'
'Oh,' Jack said, cocking his head a little to the side. 'Gee, that's too bad. Because if you want to talk to Uncle Virgil, you first have to talk to me.'
'Watch your mouth, kid,' another familiar voice threatened from behind Jack.
He looked back over his shoulder to see Drabs standing guard by the door. 'Oh, hello, Drabs,' he said, waving his handcuffed hands cheerfully. 'Lieutenant Raven step out for a minute?'
Drabs started to sputter something—'So the boy knows your name,' Snake Voice said icily, cutting the other off in mid-sputter. 'Both your names. That's very clever, Drabs. Very clever indeed.'
Drabs looked about as unhappy as Jack had ever seen a man look. 'Sir,' he said, his voice pleading. 'It's not—I mean, we didn't—it was the Brummga. He—'
'Enough,' Snake Voice cut him off again. 'I'll speak with you later. Now. Jack.'
Jack turned back to face the lights. 'Yes?'
'I don't think you realize the seriousness of the situation you're in,' Snake Voice said. 'Not only did you gun down two innocent Vagran citizens, but you then fled the jurisdiction.'
Jack's stomach tied itself into a knot at the memory. 'You mean I was kidnapped,' Jack corrected him. 'And it was Raven who shot them, not me.'
'I have three witnesses who will swear in court that you were the one who pulled the trigger,' Snake Voice said calmly. 'Assuming the case ever reaches a court, that is. Alternatively, the whole unpleasant incident could simply end up in the Vagran Police 'unsolved' file.'
Jack glared past the lights. 'The phony theft thing wasn't good enough for you, huh?' he said bitterly. 'You had to kill a couple of innocent Wistawki to get me on the hook?'
'In my experience, no one is truly innocent,' Snake Voice said offhandedly. 'As to the rest, it was you who ruined the previous frame-up.'
'Yeah, right,' Jack muttered. 'Stupid of me. How dare I try to clear myself?'
'And none of it would have been necessary at all if your uncle hadn't made himself so difficult to find,' Snake Voice concluded. 'If you dislike your current position, take it up with him.'
'What, there aren't any other con men in the business anymore?' Jack asked, fishing for information.
There was a short pause, and he had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that Snake Voice was smiling at him. 'Like uncle, like nephew. Virgil Morgan was always squeezing stones, too, trying to pump information out of them.'
Jack shrugged. 'Can't blame me for trying.'
'Oh yes, I could,' Snake Voice said. 'But I won't. And no, I don't want his con artist skills. What I want is his considerable talent at opening large and well-protected vaults. At that, he's the best there is. And I'm accustomed to having the very best.'
'Okay,' Jack said. He'd squiggled around long enough, and it was clear now that there was only one way to play this. 'What's the job, and what's the pay?'
'As I told you before, that's none of your concern,' Snake Voice said.
'And as I told you before, if you want Uncle Virgil you have to talk to me,' Jack countered. 'I mean, there's not much point in being retired if anyone can get hold of you just by picking up a phone.'
There was another silence, a long one this time. Jack kept his eyes focused between the desk lights, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was back there. But the best he could do was a vague outline that could have been a man. It could just as easily have been a shaped bonsai tree.
'I must have missed his retirement party,' Snake Voice said at last. 'Very well. Drabs?'
A few clunking footsteps, and Drabs appeared at Jack's side, glowering down at him. Gripped in his hand was a small metal suitcase. 'You sure you want to do this, sir?' he asked. 'Personally, I don't trust this kid farther than I can spit him.'
'If he crosses us, you can go to Vagran and watch his execution,' Snake Voice said. 'Open it.'
Still glowering, Drabs hoisted the suitcase onto Jack's lap and popped the catches.
There was only a single item in the suitcase, nestled snugly in the center of custom-fitted foam packaging: a slender metal cylinder, eight inches long and three in diameter. A number was stamped into one end: 407662. There were also a handful of connectors and valves jutting out at various places.
'There's a cylinder just like this one in the purser's safe aboard the passenger liner Star of Wonder,' Snake Voice said. 'The job is simply to replace that cylinder with this one.'
