Spy to Die For

Instead of heading toward the overwhelming wall of noise, she turned away, going farther down the passageway.

The lack of people made him as uncomfortable as all of the people had in the center of the pavilion. He had to be honest with himself: he didn’t like it here. It was too big, too noisy, and too unfamiliar.

Usually he researched a place to death before arriving in it. He hadn’t researched anything before coming here. He was trusting Skye and trust did not come easy for him.

Small restaurants dotted the passageway, usually crammed up against the entrances to various ship shops. Most of the restaurants promised exotic meals, but one offered sandwiches. Skye was about to walk past it, when Jack pulled her toward it.

“Let’s just stop,” he said.

She glanced inside, then smiled at him. She agreed, apparently. She pushed the door open, and they stepped into the interior.

A waiting bot floated in front of them. Dozens of patrons sat inside, eating everything from sandwiches to tortillas to some kind of egg dish. Jack’s stomach growled. He wasn’t sure how long he had been hungry, but he remembered his stomach making the same protest shortly after they arrived on Zaeen.

The bot was trying to decide which face it should float in front of—his or Skye’s. It had apparently not been programmed for this kind of height disparity. It floated up to him, then down to her. As it hovered near her, she said, “Have you a private room?”

It showed her a menu with costs on it, suggesting a variety of private rooms—some large and a few very small.

She tapped the small one just as Jack was about to recommend the small one. He was thinking practically: he didn’t want to have any space for a sexual moment; he needed time to focus on the future, not on Skye’s lovely body. And she was too tempting for him to ignore in the right circumstance.

The bot threaded its way through the throng of patrons, and a narrow door opened. For a moment, Jack thought he might not be able to fit inside. Then he realized he could do so if he ducked and went in sideways.

Just when he was getting used to everything being at his height, the station threw something like this at him.

A table with two chairs pushed up against it filled most of the room. The walls were close. Jack wasn’t sure he could sit, but the table apparently read his size and adjusted slightly inward, so that there was room for him and the wall. He hoped there would be room for his knees as well.

Skye closed the door and took the far chair. As she sat, a see-through menu rose before her.

Jack sighed and went to his chair, expecting to hit his knees against the extra part of the table. But he didn’t. It was as if the entire table could mold itself to accommodate him without having to adjust its own mass. A menu rose in front of him as well, listing nearly six hundred items.

That overwhelmed him. He just pressed the word “sandwiches” and his choices narrowed by five hundred.

“I have a couple of questions for you,” he said to Skye.

She tapped something on the screen and her menu disappeared. Apparently she had ordered.

He tapped the first sandwich that had ingredients he recognized, then his menu disappeared as well.

Her gaze met his. “We’re lucky to get the ship in two hours,” she said, anticipating one of his questions.

“We’re getting it sight unseen,” Jack said. “Aren’t you worried about that?”

“Most places like this don’t allow you to test drive,” she said. “The theft rate would be too high. They don’t have a police force to go after everyone who blows out of the port in a stolen ship.”

Good point, and one he hadn’t thought of. He rarely dealt in thefts before the fact, and even then, not thefts as small as the theft of a ship. The thieves he had always vetted for the Rovers had been the guys with vision, the ones who stole millions or billions and destroyed lives. Jack had never even investigated someone who stole one or two things, even if those one or two things were ship-sized.

“What about the food?” he asked. “Do you trust that it’s not tainted?”

“Yes,” she said. “We can test when we get on board, but I think it’ll be fine. It won’t matter, though, if we aren’t planning to be on the ship long.”

He recognized the question in the form of a statement. What was happening next?

He wished he knew.

“We have choices,” he said. “You don’t have to travel with me if you don’t want to. Traveling with me has clearly proven itself unsafe.”

She smiled as if she’d thought of that. “How will you pilot your way back to the NetherRealm?”

“The ship should have an autopilot,” he said. “Right? And then you can give me an account so that I can pay you back.”

Her smile faded. “Is that what you want to do?”

“What I want and what’s best are two different things,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked.

He wanted to find a room somewhere and spend the next week in it alone with her, having food delivered, and investigating all the things their bodies could do together. He wanted to turn back his entire relationship with the Rovers. He wanted to take back that last conversation he’d had with Heller.

He wanted a lot of things, but he couldn’t have them.

“I want things to be easier for both of us,” he said. “I’m getting in your way.”

She raised her eyebrows, then smiled. “I can’t deny that,” she said. “I accompanied you here. But I’m not on any schedule.”

“You’re working, right?” he asked. He still didn’t know a lot about her.

“Not here.” Her face clouded.

“So you need to get back,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “But I’ve finished most of my pressing work. I’m tracking something else entirely, and I’m not sure if it’s on a timeline.”

He waited. He didn’t want to ask her what that something was. He didn’t want to pry.

Then she shrugged. “Let’s figure out what you need first. I understand if you want to stay here.”

“I definitely do not what to stay here,” he said so quickly that he surprised himself. Zaeen was too crowded, too uncomfortable, too strange for him. And he thought he could get along anywhere.

“You go back to the NetherRealm and you have to contend with the Rovers,” she said.

He nodded.

“Have you thought of what you’d do?” she asked.

“Maybe I should hire someone from the Assassins Guild to take out Heller,” Jack said. He was mostly joking, but the joke didn’t feel funny to him.

“Well, that would bring everything full circle,” she said.

His breath caught. He looked up at her.

“It would?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Remember that woman I saw Heller with?”

He let out a small breath. He had forgotten all about her. “The assassin from the Guild. Hiring a Rover.”

“Yeah,” Skye said. “It bothers me, and not just for the obvious reason.”

“Looks like we have time,” Jack said. “Tell me what this is all about.”

Chapter 33

Their drinks rose out of a side pocket of the table, startling Skye. She glanced around the room, wishing she had a more sophisticated way to check for surveillance equipment. She would have to assume that their conversation was being recorded, but she would also have to assume that no one would care about it, that every conversation was recorded here on Zaeen. With that much information being stored somewhere, only bots could