“Seven scripts,” he said. “And the silver in the ring’s worth a little something, too.”
“Ninety, then,” I said.
“Hundred and ten. Big-timer like you can afford to refill it when it’s empty.”
“Okay, it’s a deal.” Twenty credits one way or the other wasn’t going to break my bank. Not anymore.
I transferred the money, and the kid flipped me the ring like a coin. I snatched it out of the air.
“Thanks.”
He grinned and touched his forehead with one hand in a kind of salute. “Come see me again, big-timer. I’ll have more quality merchandise for you to spend your credits on.”
When I caught up with Warcry, he was three canals down. He had picked up a crate of MealBagz while I was haggling with the kid, and now he was busy arguing with an elderly lady over some jerky and dried fruit.
A spicy, savory, citrus smell rose off the sun-warm food, making my mouth water and kicking my stomach into high gear. Suddenly, I was very aware that I hadn’t eaten in at least two days. It felt like I could wolf down everything the old lady had laid out, then chase that with a large pizza.
“That’s bleedin’ robbery,” Warcry snapped. “I can make it meself for nothin’.”
The old lady waved a hand at him. “If you were going to, you would have done it by now. Twenty credits per pound.”
“Ten credits,” he said. “That’s already twice what it’s worth.”
Her face didn’t even twitch. “You want to pay for the convenience, so I’m letting you. Twenty.”
“I don’t want to pay that much for it,” Warcry growled.
The old lady turned to me and smiled like she could hear my mouth watering.
“Can I help you instead, nephew?”
“You might not want to once you know I’m with him,” I said, nodding to Warcry.
“But you’re a good boy, not low-down and stingy.” She put on an exaggerated grimace and rubbed the small of her back. “You won’t try to hoard the credits your poor auntie needs for her back medicine.”
I couldn’t help it, I smiled. “All right, twenty a pound for your aching back.”
“I knew when I saw you that you were a good boy.” She beamed, forgetting about her bad back as she bent down to lay out a big handkerchief, then started scooping dried goods onto it. “How many pounds, nephew?”
“How much do you think we need?” I asked Warcry.
“I got us a case of MealBagz.” He hefted the wooden crate of dehydrated rations under his arm. “Should do us two weeks of morning and night meals apiece.”
I glanced down at the pale-colored fruit and reddish-brown jerky. I had no way to guess how much a pound would amount to, but I knew back on Earth, I could demolish a gas station bag of Old Trapper in half an hour if I was hungry. That was, what, ten or twelve ounces? Seemed smarter to overestimate than underestimate.
“Twenty pounds, please,” I told the old lady.
That equaled out to four of her big handkerchiefs full. She tied them together with strips of rawhide, then hooked them over my free shoulder like a saddlebag.
“Come back when that runs out, nephew.” She patted me on the cheek with thin-skinned hands. “I’ll give you a discount—only fifteen credits per pound.” Then she frowned at Warcry. “For you, still twenty.”
“Get stuffed, grandma,” he sneered.
The old lady hissed at him.
“You’re pretty good at making friends,” I said to Warcry as we left.
“Better’n you,” he said. “Ain’t out to make friends, am I? I’m here to get business done. Rich folks don’t get rich by hemorrhaging credits every time they go to the market, grav.”
“If I’ve got it, why not hemorrhage it? It’s not doing me any good rotting in a bank.”
“’Coz you won’t have it long if you keep throwing it away.”
I shrugged. Ninety percent of the credits in my USL account right then were from killing people, and even if they’d deserved it, that still made it blood money. I wasn’t that eager to hang on to it. Better if somebody who needed the money got it.
I glanced back across the canal at the old lady. She was rubbing her knee with a pained grimace as she talked to another customer.
Or at least somebody who pretended like they needed it.
Bushwhacked
THE REST OF THE ARTIFACT team was waiting for us by Tikrong’s western gate. A lumpy pack animal that looked like a cross between a hairless donkey and a toad the size of a Volkswagen was drinking out of the shallow canal while the hooligans loaded supplies onto its wide back.
When Valthorpe saw us, he nodded at the creature.
“Tie your stuff on top of Bessie,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us.”
He wasn’t kidding. The Shinotochi sun was directly overhead when we left the city, and we were still walking at sunset. It was lucky Warcry and I had picked up that dried meat and fruit because there was nowhere to stop and rehydrate a MealBag.
The trail wound through the huge, ancient-looking trees of a tropical rainforest. Weird, trilling animal cries bounced off the trunks, and twigs and dead leaves crunched constantly off in the forest. The farther away from the city we got, the denser the vegetation got. Vines hung down like tangled hair, and underbrush covered the ground, encroaching on the narrow path. It gave me a weird feeling of claustrophobia, like the jungle was pressing in on me from all sides.
As the sun started to drop, Valthorpe lit a lantern and hung it from a tall post that fitted into the mewler’s saddle, so we didn’t have to constantly click on our HUD lights to see where we were going.
Huge wet leaves slapped and smeared against us from the edges of the trail, dumping handfuls of accumulated water or the occasional lizards or snakes.
Those were fine. It wasn’t until a thirty-legged spider the size of an apple
