My jaw dropped when I saw what he was working on and the iridescent flash of a familiar disc. “You sneaking bastard. I told you to leave that thing alone—”
“Couldn’t. Managed to trace some info on the central free store, Mentera lore, and figured I could backtrace some of the coordinates and test it out some.”
“Are you fucking insane? That thing’s deadly.”
“No worries, I’ve got it all under control.”
“You think? I don’t give a piss in the wind what you’re thinking. Put it back.”
“Just another few minutes, Jet. I’ve almost got a handle on it—”
I pulled my sleeve over my hand and swept the shimmering disc off the table, away from his grasping hand before he could tweezer it with those rods he held.
All the time Billy’s watching and getting more agitated, blinking with his googly eyes, moving from side to side like an adder, wringing his wrists and making funny little sounds in the back of his throat.
The kid reached over and grabbed at that spinning top as if it were some toy. The old man cried out. TK lunged to stop him, but it was too late. Some combination of buttons and coordinates the boy touched and he was gone in a crackling haze of dusty color. The disc rolled, spun to a stop, glaring up at us like an evil eye.
The old man’s mouth worked in a rictus but no sound came out.
I swore. “I’m locking this destructo up.”
“Look at what you’ve done!” He clutched at his hair.
“You’re the bright one brought it out,” I stormed. “I told you the thing was dangerous.”
He looked at me with shock then began rooting through the bulkheads, rummaging through hatches, searching for Billy like a madman before he dropped to his knees. “No! He’s got to be here somewhere!” The halfwit’s disappearance was tearing him apart.
I rounded up the strongbox underneath the sensor panel and used my sleeve to put the phaso in there. I locked the lid.
“We’ve got to get him back!” TK’s pathetic wail raised my hackles.
“Fat chance,” I gusted. “Move away. Nothing you can do.” I knew I should have hid that strongbox better, remembering the eager glint in TK’s eye when I locked up that nasty little device, but it had slipped my mind.
I heard bootfall behind me. I whirled to behold Raez. Great timing to stroll in. How long had the slug been there eavesdropping?
He gave a low whistle. “A little love squabble? Where’s the kid?”
“What do you care?” I growled.
Raez stared at TK hard, hand pressed to his mouth. “Granddad, you gone and done something to him? You dirty old man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” TK snarled.
I didn’t know how much Raez knew or didn’t know, but I could only guess it would do us no good. More than ever I wanted to knock that bastard the hell off my ship.
“Where’s Billy?” cried Wren, crowding in behind Raez. Where’d she come from? Was this party night on the Starrunner?
“Dead,” I growled.
“A joke, right? What do you mean ‘dead’?” she croaked.
“What part of ‘dead’ don’t you get?”
She looked around in disbelief.
“I told the old man not to mess with the phaso, but what does he do—he goes and starts fucking with it.”
“That’s not possible—” she frowned, a choked gurgle in her throat.
She saw TK’s red eyes, tear-stained face and knew the truth. Unfortunate that Raez had heard all of this. In my anger I couldn’t stop the flood of heated words. But he didn’t seem to know what we were talking about.
“Some kind of explosives we talking here?” he asked.
“None of your business. It’s over and done.”
I locked the controls on the bridge and left the others staring there as I took the silver box to my cabin. I was afraid to keep the phaso on my person in case I inadvertently triggered it as Billy had.
What to do with the cursed thing? Part of me wanted to chuck it out in space, forget it ever existed. But it could be money, lots of it. The thing needed a new hiding spot, and my cabin was not the place—it was the first place anybody’d look to steal it.
* * *
No mention of the phase-distorter-shifter or Billy’s sad, mysterious disappearance the next morning. No sign of Baer and his ugly goats zooming in on us at our sub-warp vector. The phaso was a sinister episode better left forgotten.
TK took me aside later in the corridor leading to the cabins and spoke in a distraught voice, “I’m still concerned about Billy. Dammit, Rusco, I think he may be still alive. How be I take a quick peek at the phaso and—”
“N-O.” I grunted. “Forget it, Billy’s lost. A few moments out there, and the kid’s toast, let alone a few hours. Believe me, I saw the place.”
“You don’t know that, Rusco. We’ve no idea where Billy ended up. Maybe he ended up on some deserted island or in some abandoned city, calling for help.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. Unless the phaso coordinates were reset. Without a manual, we’ll never know how the thing works, and without having it on him, he can never leave.”
“But I can go there.”
I stared at the man with awe, seeing the genuine expression of a fatherly love for a long lost son presumed dead. “Forget it, TK. The thing’s jinxed. Anyone who touches it, dies.” And I could see the glowering resentment in his eyes, those gray eyes that looked at me with fathomless despair and loathing and under the influence of the instruments working in his sawmill of a mind—and I didn’t like what I saw.
Chapter 15
It was going to be a long trip to
