“Ah.” Jan squinted at the opaque window. “Then offer is the wrong word in this context, yes? Might the word ‘ultimatum’ serve better?”
“Whichever you prefer.”
“I’d prefer not to be jettisoned into space.”
“Then here is my offer. My employer requires your services, free of charge. Should you agree to work for my employer, free of charge, the freedom my employer has recently purchased on your behalf will become yours. If you do not—”
“I will proceed out the airlock.” Jan nodded to the very opaque window in the very closed interior door. “This is most clear. Thank you for explaining it.”
“Which would you prefer, Mr. Sabato?”
Jan rolled his head around on his shoulders, took a breath that stabbed the inside of his ribs, and swallowed the cotton in his throat. “You have my services, free of charge.”
“Good.”
“You are getting a spectacular deal.”
There was a moment of silence from the intercom. “My sources told me you were arrogant. I see now what they meant.”
Jan allowed himself a wide and quite genuine smile. “I am simply aware of my value.” He glanced down at himself, then up. “And also, as you can see, blessed in many ways.”
No response from the intercom. No movement from the door. As the silence stretched out before him, Jan began to fear he might actually be going out the airlock. Given his head had stopped feeling like exploding shuttles and now felt mildly volcanic, it wouldn’t be his first choice.
A small panel in the wall beside the inner airlock door slid open. A syringe the size of a pencil was clipped inside, filled with viscous purple fluid. Jan regarded it with the trepidation one would expect when presented with an unexpected syringe.
“I trust you’re capable of injecting yourself?” the robotic voice asked.
Jan was, unfortunately. “Is this a condition of my employment?”
“I’m almost certain you can figure that out.”
Jan sighed, popped the syringe from its clip, and pumped his fist until he could pick out the barely visible line of a dark vein beneath dark skin. He slipped in the needle precisely, with the skill one developed from decades of wielding very sharp objects. He depressed the plunger.
Cold rushed through his arm, then his chest. He withdrew the needle, snapped it back into place, and watched the panel close. Better than having a used needle bouncing around the ship’s interior, he supposed.
“Stand away from the door,” the robotic voice said.
Jan pressed his back against the cold metal of the outer airlock door. The inner door hissed open to reveal his captor, a dark-eyed, short-haired man with a magnificent beard that easily reached his chest. He stood, not floating, which suggested magnetic boots. His skintight blue flight suit and the muscular form beneath suggested poise and combat training, but that wasn’t unusual in Jan’s line of work. What was unusual was his captor’s face.
The man’s tawny brown skin and perfectly sculpted features suggested he was Advanced — one of the genetically modified humans who inhabited Phorcys, the watery sister planet to Jan’s own Ceto — and Jan had only met a few Advanced in his time running guns, drugs, and medicine for the Patriots of Ceto or their eternal enemies: the Supremacy. While Advanced were innately stronger and faster than natural-born humans, with enhanced reflexes and agility, they tended to remain on Phorcys. They also, in Jan’s experience, tended to be mildly sociopathic.
Jan spread his hands. “I realize the view is intoxicating, but shouldn’t we get on with your employer’s business?”
The man snorted and shook his head. “Don’t flatter yourself, Sabato. You’re not remotely my type.” His accent was absolutely Advanced: stiff, well spoken, and exactly as stuck up as you’d expect someone who occupied other planets to be.
Jan kept smiling. “Then why do you continue to stare?”
The man chucked a satchel his way. “Get dressed.” The door hissed closed. Jan caught the satchel in transit, opened it, and found comfortable underclothes and a blue flight suit like that worn by his Advanced captor. He dressed slower than necessary, feigning inexperience in zero gravity, as he evaluated just how fucked he was right now.
It was a good bet he was on a private spaceship. The Advanced military — or as they called themselves, the Supremacy — were awfully proud of their shiny black space uniforms, which they eagerly festooned with all sorts of rank badges and insignia. By comparison, his latest captor’s unadorned flight suit practically screamed private security.
Given that Advanced generally employed only other Advanced, that suggested whoever had freed him from Tantalus prison was a wealthy Advanced citizen with no military oversight. Worse, despite the so-called armistice, the Advanced military on Phorcys — the Supremacy — could still reconquer Ceto at the slightest provocation. Jan doubted Ceto’s government would launch a serious investigation if some natural-born prison escapee got himself spaced in neutral territory, so perhaps he should be less annoying today.
Once Jan had dressed, the airlock door opened again, but no one waited outside. Two boots waited instead, unoccupied and maglocked firmly to the floor. How generous of them.
Jan pushed off the wall and floated into a hexagonally-shaped hallway just wide enough that he could stretch out both arms and not touch the walls. He felt simply hungover now.
He got the boots on with a minimum of fuss, crunched up his toes to activate them, and locked his feet on the deck. Yes. Walking. He’d done jobs in zero gravity before, but he’d never liked the feeling that one false push would leave him flailing like a toddler on a freshly waxed
