I stumbled after the old coward, cursing and grumbling and hopped the rail as he did, making a flying leap over to the next boat, but my midriff struck hard against the hull, knocking the wind out of me. Meanwhile feral critters thrashed below. The alcohol gurgled up in my throat. TK was spryer than I imagined, the wispy-haired codger, fingers clutching the varnished wood just as Wren vaulted over and grasped at a higher point along the rail.
Quick, neat, but we weren’t out the frying pan yet. We had to skip this houseboat in case more of Elmer’s goons noticed the boss’s absence. That second boat was angling to shore.
As soon as it bumped against the pier, we were off, tramping our way through the red light district and the back alleys, avoiding the downtown tram stops, in case Elmer’s thugs had eyes on them. I had to fry some enterprising vagrants who jumped out at us, looking for spare coins. Hell would freeze over before I’d let all that work go to waste while almost getting killed, only to get sacked by some grubby backalley punks.
We doubled back toward the lake on a zigzagging course and caught an air taxi farther up the line back to the repair shop. As we flew away from the boats, I let out a sigh of relief, knowing we had escaped a deadly scenario relatively unharmed.
Billy, turns out, had gotten himself in a bit of trouble, locking himself out of the loo, running back and forth not knowing what to do until he had finally wet himself. Was a while before one of the mechanics heard him banging on the hatch and had let him out. A sorry sight.
We got Billy cleaned up and squared up with the repairmen. Back on Starrunner, I took a bit of Myscol to help with my reinjured knee. The familiar tingly warm feeling overshadowed the throbbing agony as my eyes glazed over. Okay for now, but that leg was taking a beating. I’d have to see some doctor. Wren, who had been eyeing me with more than appraisal as the night wore on, took advantage of the success of our little venture to attempt some familiarity of flesh. She leaned in, brushing against me to snake her arm about my waist, a gesture so intimate as to feel almost passion-driven. Her voice dropped in a husky murmur, “Well, hubby, a good night’s work, let’s do it again real soon.”
I leaned in on my good leg with only slightly less languid intent. “Tigress, you’re being a naughty puss. Let the law of thuggery prevail. While the heat’s on, lie low.”
TK chose to blunder in on us like an ox at that moment. “I don’t like this town, or their greasy games.”
I blurted out an oath. “You and me both.”
She slumped, turning away in frustration that the moment had been spoiled. “You know, you two are real wussies.”
I shrugged. I could see that Wren was hedging for Miss Prickly of the Year award. TK and I moved off to the bridge.
We’d just about broken even after dispensing the funds for repairs, coming out a few hundred yols ahead. Not bad, but not good either. Split three ways, that wasn’t much. Well, strictly speaking, I took 60%, considering it was my ship and I was doing them a favor, saving all our asses by getting out of Dodge twice now.
The rear fin stabilizer was working so we couldn’t burn up or wobble ourselves to death upon reentry. The warp drive was still an issue, the Barenium canister still with a hairpin leak, but it was an old part that couldn’t be replaced too easily, the lead mechanic had told us. “We can put it on order, but a used part like that would be only 85% operational.”
I slapped my fist down on the nav console at the memory as we warped out to Baile’s planet, somewhere far away in Yanadar.
TK growled, “I know I should have monitored those greased monkeys better. I don’t believe the drive was ‘irreparable’.”
“Good luck hanging around Zanzadeer while Uncle Elmer is on the rampage,” Wren groused. “We should’ve killed him and all his thugs while we had the chance.”
I waved a hand. “Don’t get too trigger happy. Do no good anyway. His business associate rats’d still come out of the culverts and get us. This is the problem with being a traveling huckster, Wren. No time to do fix-it-up jobs. One chance, and it’s vamoose. We’d better suck up our losses and move on. Bigger fish await in the pond across the way.”
I felt glad to be away from Zanzadeer and the boats.
Wren caught up with me in the hall as I was stumbling my way to my cabin. She pressed her mouth hard against mine. I was surprised, for she was up front to a fault, but she was a tomboy after all. Pretty no-nonsense and a convincing one at that, despite my initial non-interest in her. It didn’t feel proper to resist.
Back in her cabin, our clothes quickly became unpeeled and after the inevitable, ‘Ew, what happened to your ear?’ we were right down to business.
The woman had a luxuriant figure when stripped of her hunter’s-gauge black leathers. I suppose our first joining was fated. The cabin vibrated to the sounds of our lovemaking. A long sweaty dance of push and pull that had both of us gasping and sucking in the same lungfuls of air. It seemed Wren had always wanted to get it on with me. Okay, I’d bite. I couldn’t admit to the same, but I humored her all the same. It took the edge off the loneliness of a con-artist’s existence, with no hope for tomorrow.
I awoke some hours later to a tangle of limbs. Her
