The Recovery Man's Bargain

“They offered me the flower at twenty times the price of my payments to you.” Athenia stood in front of wall with clear panels showing the blackness of space. She was a large woman with flowing silver hair. She wore a matching silver gown and silver rings on every finger. Silver dots outlined her eyes, accenting her dark skin.

Yu felt lost. He stood on a platform seven steps down from her. He could just barely see his own reflection in the clear panels. His eyes seemed larger than usual, his lips caught in a grimace. An illusion of the light made his curly black hair seemed streaked with gray. He looked older than he had just a few hours before.

Maybe he was older. Decades older.

He had lost the fidelia, and he knew it. The leader of the Black Fleet had tapped into his equipment and opened the ship’s locks from the inside. Only one person had come on board, imprisoning him in his room, reprogramming the ship’s computer, and taking the fidelia.

“Did you take the offer?” he asked Athenia.

“The idiots didn’t know the flower could die if mishandled. They had no idea that there is a time limit on the bloom. They want payment up front, and they’re too far from here to meet within the seven-day window.” Athenia stopped pacing, her skirts swirling around her. “So, no, I didn’t pay them. And I’m not going to pay you.”

He had known that was coming. “I’m sorry. I had no idea they were monitoring my transmissions. It seems that they knew what I was searching for.”

“They knew what I was searching for,” Athenia said. “The moment you contacted me, they were alerted. They had plenty of time to plan their little heist.”

“I can go after them. I can find them—”

“And we still miss the window,” Athenia said.

Yu’s palms were sweating. He resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants. “There may be more flowering fidelias in that swamp. If I found one, I can find others.”

She crossed her arms and looked down at him. “You forget our agreement. You had one fidelia. You lost it. You will not work for me again. Nor will you work for any friend or acquaintance of mine. I’ve already sent word through the various networks that you are inept. You should have planned for something like this.”

You should have warned me that the Black Fleet knew you were after the fidelia, he thought, but didn’t say. Instead, he said, “I’m trying to make this right.”

“No, you’re not. Had you done that, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Now I’m out three years and more money than I care to think about.”

“You haven’t paid me any fees,” he said.

“For which I am grateful. But you will repay your expenses.”

He felt cold. He couldn’t afford that. “Our agreement stipulates that I get to keep those expenses.”

“Provided you made a valid search for the fidelia. I have no evidence of such a search.”

“I found a flowering fidelia,” he said. “I notified you of that.”

“I have no proof that such notification is accurate. For all I know, you were trying to justify those inflated bills you sent me every quarter.”

“I didn’t inflate the bills,” he said. “And I didn’t lie about the fidelia. I have holoimages of the plant. I can prove to you that I had it.”

“But can you prove to me that you didn’t already sell it to someone else? Maybe that’s how the Black Fleet got it. They paid you double what I offered and are now offering it back to me at a much higher price.”

A flush rose in his face. “I’m not that kind of man.”

“No,” she said. “You don’t call yourself a thief. You call yourself a Recovery Man. You don’t steal. You recover.”

That flush was so deep he felt like he was burning up from the inside out. “That’s right. I recover things. I’m a professional. All of my interactions are professional. I trained with botanists so I wouldn’t hurt the fidelia when I recovered it. That’s the sign of a professional. Another sign of a professional is that I make agreements and I keep to them. I work for other people, not for myself. I do not steal. I trust that the people I work for truly need personal items recovered.”

“In other words, you’re not the thief,” she said. “I am.”

Yes. That’s exactly it. You’re the thief. I’m the one who works for you and asks no questions.

“No,” he said. “All I’m trying to say is that I work in good faith. I do the very best I can.”

“And thieves don’t? It seems to me that the Black Fleet was quite prepared and very professional. They certainly got the better of you.”

And you, he thought. Especially if it was your transmissions they were monitoring.

“Let me set this right,” he said. “I’ll get you a new fidelia and I’ll recover the one from the Black Fleet. Think of what you could learn from a flowering fidelia past its bloom and one in the middle of blooming.”

She glared at him. “I needed the blooming fidelia. You could not get that for me, so you’re fired. On your way out, you will receive an exact accounting of the amount you owe me. I want the money within six Earth months, or I will add straight financial theft to the bulletin I sent out about you. At that point, I also will press charges through the Earth Alliance. You will be a wanted man.”

The second threat frightened him less than the financial one. He had been a wanted man off and on throughout the Alliance most of his career.

She must have sensed that her threats didn’t impress him. “You will pay me. Or at the end of six months, I will hire Trackers to find you, confiscate everything you own, and turn you in to the Earth Alliance. Is that clear?”

Yu nodded. It was clear, and it was much more of a threat than she knew. If he cleared out all of his accounts, he would have enough to pay her back, but he would have nothing left. It had taken him a lifetime of work to compile that amount of money. The expenses had been fierce on this case, and he had paid them willingly because he never thought he would have to reimburse her.

But she had the upper hand. She could do all the things she threatened and more.

“Surely we can come to some kind of arrangement,” he said, his voice sounding timid even to himself.

“We already have an arrangement,” she said and left the room.

* * *

Six months was not enough time to make the money that it had taken him a lifetime to earn. He considered with various options: he could find another flowering fidelia and sell it, like the Black Fleet was doing. He could track down the Black Fleet and exact some kind of revenge. Or he could hire himself out for the large jobs he had avoided until this one.

But it had taken him three years to find the first fidelia, and without Athenia’s money, he might not be able to find another.

He could go after the Fleet. But he was one unarmed ship against at least a dozen. And what could he do when he got there? Call the debt by asking them to return the fidelia? They said he couldn’t do that. And besides, by the time he found them, the bloom would probably be gone. He would gain nothing, except maybe the Fleet’s enmity.

And that was if he could find them.

He settled for the remaining option—hiring himself out for big jobs—only to learn that no one would take him. Athenia had ruined his reputation in all the circles that counted.

So he did the only thing he could do.

He went to the Gyonnese.

Ostensibly, he went to have them repair his ship. He assumed the Black Fleet had done something—tapped in, ruined a section, figured out a weakness he didn’t know—and he wanted the Gyonnese to fix it.

But his actual reason for approaching them was to see what kind of off-the-books work they could muster for him.

In the past, he had turned down their off-the-books jobs. Those jobs always skirted the edge of Alliance laws in ways that made even a Recovery Man nervous.

But he couldn’t afford to be so picky now.