“I’m taking your cuffs off,” he said. “Do not think you are escaping. I put an explosive collar on you. I can arm it anytime.And if my life signs drop, it detonates automatically. Do not even dream of taking it off, because surprise, it detonates then too.”
He fiddled with the control sphere. The cuffs released.
Lily slid her tiny weapon up into her sleeve, back into the wrist-strap hiding place, and got to her feet, facing him.
Horos looked terrible. Hollow-eyed, overstretched, like someone who had not slept in chrono-cycles and had survived on stimulants and spite.
Good.
Tired people made mistakes.
And when Horos made a mistake near her, the path to payback finally opened.
“Put this on and move,” Horos said. “Vitro’s buyers are here. If they see I’m alone, they might get the idiotic idea that it’s easier to overpower me than to pay. You will keep them in check. And remember, if anything happens to me, you’re done too, so you’d better do your job properly.”
He jabbed at the black cloth he had thrown onto the bed.
Lily said nothing as she pulled on the oversized, layered shroud. It hung off her like an ink-dipped ghost. The fabric was rough, but sheer around her head so she could see through it, and she was sure she was unrecognizable. Her hands slipped out through two narrow slits. It stank, and she hated the thought that she was wearing something that felt like Horos’s own clothing.
“Come on. They’ll land in Hangar One. Here.” He tossed her a VoidBrace. “You can use it to communicate with me and access Vitro’s basic functions, but no outgoing signal. You have no chance of contacting the outside.”
Lily slid the console onto her forearm and followed him. The touch of it yanked her straight into an earlier life, when that familiar weight almost never left her wrist. During captivity she had felt nearly naked without it.
In the hangar, Horos ordered Lily up to a high vantage point and pressed a low-power plasma weapon into her hands. With his own, much stronger version, he went to the central panel, never taking his eyes off her.
Lily toyed with the idea of shooting Horos in the leg and testing whether his collar threat was real. Then she forced herself into patience. Her moment would come. Soon. It might even be better if the smugglers took over. In the end, it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was that Horos suffered.
“All right,” Horos called. “Come in. I’m dropping the shields while you approach, but one suspicious move and I’ll blast you into scrap.”
Through her console, Lily watched the smugglers’ ship mate with Vitro. The hangar door rose in a smooth, elegant arc to admit them.
Ten heavily armed strangers marched in. The last two pushed antigrav cargo carts, one carrying a massive crate, the other an even larger golden sphere.
Horos’s voice was too weak to shout at them, so he used Vitro’s speakers.
“Stop there. Did you bring what I asked for?”
A squat figure stepped forward, green-yellow skinned, with four arms and four legs. Each hand held a plasma pistol. Its stalked eyes tracked everything, as if no motion could escape it.
“The credits are in the crate. Check if you want. Our ship’s security key is in there too. And as requested, two new identity documents for you and your partner.”
Horos gestured for the cart to be brought to him. The smuggler pushing it was small, and Lily could not help thinking of a cockroach, not only in appearance but in the quick, skittering way it moved. It darted to the center of the hangar, shoved the crate closer to Horos, then retreated back behind the others.
Horos opened the crate and hummed, satisfied.
“This will do.” His gaze slid to the golden sphere. “Before we begin, what is that?”
The roach-like creature had returned to stand beside the orb.
“Do not worry about it,” the green-yellow leader said. “Just a little insurance. So you don’t throw us into vacuum once you get what you want.”
Horos clearly did not like it, but he did not dare argue.
“As long as it stays away from me, it can stay.” He lifted his chin. “Now. One by one, come here. I’ll add you to the system like we agreed, but only as guests. Once I’m safely on the other ship with my partner, I’ll switch you all to administrator access at the same time.”
The smuggler boss sent one of his men forward with a low growl.
The newcomer was tall, with skin like rock, golem-like. Lily found herself fantasizing about how neatly those massive fists could flatten Horos. As he approached, Horos seemed to have the same thought. He shot Lily a warning look and gestured for her to keep the plasma weapon trained on the golem.
