The Kassa Gambit

ugly enough for both of us.”

“I’m dumb enough for both of us.” Jorgun was grinning, but it made Kyle wince to hear him talk like that.

Prudence issued orders. “Kyle and I are going to look around. You two go find us a cargo. And a new puzzle for Jorgun. Do you hear me, Garcia? No bars. Puzzle stores. Got it?” She sounded less like a boss than like a mother talking to rowdy children.

“Yes, mein capitan.” Garcia was as insouciant as a twelve-year-old.

Kyle shook his head in dismay, watching the two of them walk off. He was too young to be playing the role of father.

“It’s better than the alternative.”

She must think he was still upset over Jorgun’s comment. He shrugged it off, but she kept talking.

“Jor is dumb. He needs to remember that. He needs to tell other people that, so they don’t have an excuse when I make them pay for taking advantage of him.”

“Okay,” Kyle agreed. “But Garcia doesn’t need to be an asshole about it.”

“He is what he is.” Now she shrugged. “He won’t sell Jor for a bag of magic beans. He fears me enough to not be that careless.”

Kyle smiled wryly, but kept his comments to himself. It wasn’t fear that made Garcia obey her. How she could manipulate the man so well and yet not understand the source of her power was remarkable.

Garcia, like every other man that spent more than ten minutes in Prudence’s presence, was in love with her. Thankfully, she was blind to the effect she had on men. Otherwise things would have been even more difficult for Kyle than they already were.

Time to change the subject. “So what are we looking for?”

“Information on Monterey. Jandi’s data cube had very little, and it was last updated twenty years ago. The first stop is the public Traffic Control board. I didn’t want to check the registry from the ship, in case they were watching to see who’s looking.”

“And you’re bringing me along because you need a strong man to back you up? Or because you don’t trust me enough to let me out of your sight?”

She tried to deflate him. “If I wanted strong, I would have brought Jor.” But it didn’t work. Kyle was just happy to be with her, whatever the reason.

They met up with the other half of their crew on the patio of a busy restaurant, just after the sun went down. All around them people were shedding their rad-suits, revealing fashionable eveningwear and attractive gowns, like butterflies emerging from cocoons. Their waiter offered to take their suits, explaining that the rental company had a drop box there for tourists, and that they would deliver a fresh suit tomorrow morning before sunrise.

Kyle and Jorgun handed over their suits gratefully. Garcia had already forgotten about his suit, in the fifteen seconds since he’d had it off. He just waved in the general direction of where he had left it, and went back to trying to puzzle out which of the drinks on the menu would get him drunk quickest. Only Prudence hesitated, unwilling to give up her protective clothing.

“He’s a waiter, Prudence. Not a stranger in an alley. If the suits never make it back to the company, the restaurant will be liable.” Kyle felt odd trying to convince her to act like a civilized person. He was used to thinking of her as the sophisticated one.

“We’ll have to be home before midnight,” she said. “Or risk turning into pumpkins.”

“It will be safe until morning, Prudence.” Kyle wondered what a pumpkin was.

“But not after. If Garcia gets drunk in an alley, he could wake up in trouble.”

Obviously she wasn’t worried about that. The buildings were all safe, with steel roofs and thick rad-glass windows. It would be illegal to deny someone shelter, and the suit company made deliveries. Garcia would be fine.

If they were on the run from agents of the League, however, those niceties might not apply. Kyle looked wistfully after the disappearing suits, but it was too late.

“Are you buying, Pru?” Garcia was focused on more immediate matters. Much more immediate.

“Food, yes. Booze, no.”

Garcia frowned, and went back to studying the menu, obviously trying to factor in the constraint of cost against alcoholic effectiveness.

“I take it you didn’t find a particularly profitable cargo,” Prudence said wryly.

“No,” Garcia mumbled, distracted by the menu. “Contract shipments. Sealed, no less. The skanky bastiches don’t allow speculation. You fly in with a prepackaged load or not at all. And you’re not even allowed to know what you’re carrying.”

“Unfriendly skies,” Prudence muttered, shaking her head.

Kyle didn’t know much about interstellar commerce, but he could recognize a racket when he saw one. “Every planet around here seems to have its node traffic tied up pretty tight. Isn’t that kind of unusual?”

“It’s not very attractive to free trade,” Prudence agreed. “Most places want new faces to stay in port for a day or so, to make sure there isn’t a warrant on their tail. But Baharain and Solistar don’t seem to want honest independents. They don’t seem to want independents at all.”

“If they tried an outright ban on unregistered ships, there would be quite a fuss, wouldn’t there?” Freedom of travel was one of the universal rights, inherited from the ancient fear of being trapped on a dying world. Baharain required a license to trade, but they couldn’t stop ships from just visiting. “But by making things unprofitable, they’ve made the independents think avoiding this sector was their own idea.”

Prudence narrowed her eyes. “So the thicker the web, the closer we are to the center.”

“You should have been a cop.” Kyle wondered why she was glaring at him, until he realized he’d said that thought out loud. “I mean, if Monterey is even more restricted, we’ll know we’re getting warmer.”

“Great, then we can go home now.” Garcia looked up from his menu. “Because Monterey is as tight as a bar tab at closing time. I’ve been talking to people while you two were sightseeing. This sealed-cargo crap has been going on so long nobody’s even curious about it anymore. There isn’t a stray credit to be made out of that node. And since Monterey doesn’t connect to any other nodes, it has to be the end of the line.”

“That’s not quite true,” Prudence corrected him. “It goes through two dead hops to Kassa.”

“Are we going back to Kassa?” Jorgun asked hopefully.

“Not right now.” She patted his hand, distracting the big man.

Kyle forced himself to stop watching her slender, ivory fingers. “This next hop could be dangerous, Prudence. Maybe we should leave some of the crew behind.”

Garcia snorted dismissively. “You’re not stranding me on this microwave oven of a planet. And if you leave dummy here, he’ll take his hat off and cook his brain.”

Jorgun reached up to his head with both hands, stricken with shame. “I forgot where my hat is.”

“Jor, it’s okay. Garcia, shut the … shut up. Nobody’s getting left behind. We’re just transporting goods. It’s our job. If we do our job, nobody will look twice at us.”

“And the uniform here? What’s his job?”

“Security,” Prudence answered, before Kyle could say anything. “He’s recently retired from Altair police, so we took him on as a security officer. It’s a standard chair. Nothing suspicious in that.”

“Chair?” Kyle wasn’t sure what she meant.

Garcia laughed. “Yeah, he’s convincing because he’s so damn familiar with space travel.”

“It means a seat on the bridge,” Prudence said. “Any decent-sized passenger liner has a security officer at the bridge level. The point is, it’s not unusual for a ship to have someone with your qualifications as part of the crew.”

“Is he going to take my chair?” Jorgun was having a miserable night.

“No, of course not, Jor. You’re nav.” Her hand rested comfortingly on his shoulder.

Kyle watched her easy familiarity, wondering what it would feel like.

Jorgun recovered quickly, pulling out his sunglasses and putting them on with a grin. “Except when I pretend to be captain.”

“Maybe you should stop pretending.” Garcia was back to grumbling. “You couldn’t make any worse choices than the current one.”