But Meran crossed the room and ran a hand lovingly across the edge of the stainless steel surgery table, then up, across, and over the case of alien supplies. With a flick of her wrist she flipped back the lid, and in a seamless motion palmed one tube and a box that rattled as she lifted it. She held them out, her elbows relaxed, her hands rotated palm up with the small items loosely gripped between her fingers. The turns in her wrist were as graceful and natural as the choreographed movements of bell-strung dancers Talis saw in a prince’s hall once. As much as the rhythmic hips and air-stroking hands had drawn the eye of all the dignitaries in the room, they had almost distracted her enough to spoil the plan to palm a few palace treasures and be gone before anyone realized she didn’t belong there. And those women hadn’t even been naked.
Talis raised an eyebrow, considering the offered supplies, then nodded. “All right then, let’s jump that schedule. Five minutes.”
Sophie claimed the items and went to Scrimshaw’s side. She wrestled a hypodermic needle from its packaging and prepared to fill it. She looked up, “Any idea on dose?”
Talis looked at Meran, whose enigmatic smile didn’t change. She didn’t answer, so Talis shrugged. “Start small, I guess. Four minutes.”
She left Tisker to tend his arm and Sophie to either help or kill Scrimshaw. Meran followed her down the companionway to the deck below, and aft to the cage. Hankirk had seated himself on the crate of Yu’Nyun gold, pushed up against the bulkhead to form a bench. She’d never meant the cage as a brig, so she hadn’t bothered with amenities. Someone had put a bucket in there. More courtesy than she would have given him.
He looked up eagerly at her approach, his lips poised to say something, but the words died unspoken as Meran followed her in, padding silently on bare feet.
Talis waved a pistol at him. “Stow it and stay where you are.”
Fall Island wasn’t Subrosa. If someone came aboard here, they’d have worse threats than theft in mind, but it would make Talis feel better if her crew had one less thing to worry about. She shoved the second alien crate across the decking to the entrance of the cage, then paused to catch her breath and give her screaming ribs a break. She was hardly in any shape to run into town after Dug, she knew, but she couldn’t leave it to anyone else. And she’d have Meran with her. The woman who could melt aliens with her hands and would blow up a ship at Talis’s merest thought. No wonder everyone wanted that ring.
As if to reinforce its presence, the ring rang out, metal hitting metal as she grabbed the keys to the cage lock off the wall.
Sparing Hankirk a suspicious glance, she looked to Meran and held out her pistol. “Watch him for me while I stow this.”
Meran crossed to her side but did not accept the gun. “You know I do not need that.”
Talis nodded and waved the gun loosely in the air. “Yeah, but he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. The gun makes a great visual cue. Please?”
Meran’s cool hand brushed against Talis’s wrist as she accepted the gun. She considered it for a moment, running her fingers along the contours of the barrel and stock, then held it up to point at Hankirk, her arm straight out from the shoulder. Her other arm dropped back and her torso twisted. Gorgeous dueling pose, Talis had to admit. And quite the image. If Talis was ever challenged to a formal showdown, she’d have to consider going nude for the distraction. It would keep any shreds of fabric from entering a bullet wound, at least.
The temptation to speak finally proved too great for Hankirk to resist. “You put that gold and silver in here, and you only guarantee that anyone who comes sniffing into your hold will break me out to get to the coin.”
The iron key screeched as it turned in the lock. Talis swung the barred door inward, and it blocked a direct line from Hankirk to the exit. Of course, if he made a move he could crash the door back into her while she was moving the crate. Her ribs launched a protest at the thought.
“So far,” she said, trying to control the tightness in her voice as she curved her spine to push the crate again, “you’re the only one who’s ever snuck aboard my ship. And I trust the hungriest, most desperate, most honorless Bone rapscallion a hundred times more than I trust you.”
With a final grunt, she got the crate far enough through the door to swing it closed again, and did so without delay.
“Heavy, these crates,” Hankirk said, patting the one beneath his legs. “I can see how tempting the money must have been.”
Talis tried to shape her scoff in a way that wouldn’t set off her rib. She locked the door behind her, then pocketed the key instead of returning it to the hook in the cabinet by the door.
“I may regret taking on that contract, but I’m not going unpaid after everything we’ve been through. You can keep your judgments to yourself.”
“Was it worth betraying your world?”
Talis felt rage, a pressure behind her eyes. She closed them and took a steadying breath. Heard the telltale click, and her eyes shot open again in a panic. Meran had leveled the pistol at Hankirk’s face and pulled back the hammer.
“Enough,” she said. “If I was going to kill him I’d have done it a week ago.”
“That may prove to be a mistake,” Meran said, but she returned the hammer and handed the pistol back to Talis.
“Oh, I know it was. Come on.”
Chapter 31
Fire crews were dumping sand on the last of the flames that spotted the Talonpoint docks, while rescue teams
