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“Do you know why they call me crazy?”
“Because you eat the flesh of fallen enemies?”
“No. Well. Maybe. It’s because I cannot be paid off. A warrior who cannot be paid to act is a loose cannon and a liability. They’ll never know when I decide it is their turn to die, and so they choose to try to kill me instead, no matter how much it costs, or how many decent bounty hunters lose their lives. More will come, I can guarantee that.”
“So you’re just going to hide out here forever?”
“Oh, no,” he says. “I have my plans. I won’t share them with you, of course. You are of the kind who can be paid to act.”
He’s not wrong. I feel a little ashamed of myself, but only a little.
“Some of us can’t support ourselves by violent psychosis alone. We need jobs.”
“I’m not blaming you. I understand. You are what you are. An angry housewife on a journey of self-exploration.”
“I am not… hey! Why would you call me an angry housewife?”
“Some man has really angered you.”
“Not my husband. He was my fiancé.”
“But you lived with him and he disappointed you so deeply you threw all your domestic dreams away and invested the proceeds of the sale of your house into buying a neural ship that you have become codependent with.”
I stare at him, shocked at how accurate he is with so little information.
“How did you guess all that?”
“I didn’t guess. I surmised. And I deducted. The hurt by a man part is obvious. But many women are hurt by men, and besides you, none of them has ended up here hunting me. Which means you were hurt badly. You’re a bounty hunter, and you keep talking about your ship, and neither a ship nor a license is cheap. If you were rich, you wouldn’t be hunting bounties. So, you had a one-shot cash injection that you used to start your life over. Bad marriage, plus sold house, equals a woman on fire outside my hideout.”
When he explains it that way, it does all seem pretty obvious. “You’re very intelligent.”
“That’s why I am still alive. And why I have no intention of that changing anytime soon. They will send more hunters. You may have to become accustomed to the sights, sounds, and smells of death.”
“I’d rather not. Can’t you just send me back to my ship? I won’t tell them I found you. I’ll just take the hit and go and do a smaller job.”
“No,” he says, sucking the marrow from some unfortunate hunter’s bones. “I like you. I have decided to keep you. Besides, you’re so inept at this that you’re likely to get yourself killed if I don’t help you.”
God, he’s arrogant. And probably right.
“I might get myself killed by you too, if I am not careful of misunderstandings.”
“I am not interested in killing you. You are no threat to me. If you were to become a threat to me, that would be my failure, not yours.”
Well, that feels like both a comforting speech and a complete and utter insult.
“You thought I was trying to kill you not an hour ago and got pretty angry about it.”
“Yes. That’s before I realized everything you’ve done is an accident based on a broken heart. Very tragic. Being savagely railed by an alien on an ice planet is just what you need.”
I blush and laugh. Manik is absolutely incorrigible, and it is impossible to not like him. Though once the laughter stops, I do wonder what I will be left with. He wants to keep me, but what life will I have as the prisoner of an alien who is wanted dead by more governments than I can name?
“You know, you could get me killed, if you get yourself killed,” I say.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Besides, sooner or later they will forget about me. Powerful men never stay powerful for long. They will be assassinated, deposed, forcibly retired, bribed. I imagine that within three years the bounties will be removed. I just have to handle the heat in the meantime, and I am perfectly poised to do that here — as long as I can get your mad ship out of orbit.
“Can you open a channel to her? We may be able to talk her down.”
“And they call me crazy,” he sighs. “But yes, we can try that.”
