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Shit. I should have thought of that.
“Perhaps I can help in some other way?” I offered, trying a tentative smile on her.
“How could you help?” She asked, propping her hands on her hips and jutting her chin out at me expectantly.
I had an idea, and if I played it just right, Herod and I would be much closer to getting out of here with all of our goods. I just needed to get her to play along.
“Well, I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to try. It’s the least I could do. And you were right earlier. I was acting childish, and now I want to make it up to you. At least let me try?”
She looked from me to Alec, who only threw his hands up in the air and shrugged. I wished I could throttle him, always standing between me and this woman, making things more challenging.
“Fine. You can try. But don’t expect me to be nice to you. This is a legitimate scientific excursion, and I am in charge here. I will not have you questioning me.”
“Relax. I’m just trying to set things straight between us. It doesn’t look like either of us is leaving this place anytime soon, so we might as well be good neighbors, right?”
She rolled her eyes at me, but she didn’t walk away.
“So, what is it you’re trying to test?” I asked.
“Oxygen levels. You may have noticed that the atmosphere here is a little thin. We are monitoring it to determine if it is safe for us to breathe without these masks, and if it is stable enough to sustain itself long term.”
I looked around at all of her equipment curiously and then turned to face her.
“You need all this equipment just for that?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “We’re taking a lot of other readings too, but the oxygen is the key thing.”
At this, I broke out in a wide grin, but I noticed she flinched away from me as soon as she saw my teeth. Damn it. I might have traumatized her earlier. I relaxed my face a little and tried a softer approach.
“Well, Tayla, you’re in luck. I can answer one question for you right now.”
“You can?” she looked up at me, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“Of course! The oxygen here is sufficient for you to breathe without a mask. This much I know, but I cannot speak for its stability.”
Again her hands went to her hips, and she arched an eyebrow at me.
“Well, that doesn’t do me any good. I need something measurable. I can’t just take your word for it.”
“Fine, then. You don’t have to take my word for it.” I reached out quickly, yanking the two hoses that led to her mask free from their ports.
She shrieked and fumbled to the put the hoses back in place, but I stood, holding the ends in my hand and grinning at her again.
“What are you doing? You could kill someone!”
I snickered, despite her rage.
“Relax, Tayla. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
After a second, she seemed to realize that she was, indeed, breathing just fine in the open air. I could see her thinking over what to do next, but eventually she raised her hands to her mask and gently tugged it off of her head. Now I could see her face more clearly, and she was even more beautiful in the bright sunlight. But her cheeks were still red with anger, and she was not pleased with me at all.
“Okay, so I can breathe. But you’re not off the hook. I still need some way to take readings.”
“Perhaps one of the monitors from my ship will give you what you need,” I offered.
She was working with a rather limited set of tools. I knew little about humans, but I surmised that if they had better technology than this, they would have sent it. I, on the other hand, had pilfered a handful of useful technologies from some distant planets, and one of the more advanced tools I had at my disposal might do the trick. When she didn’t argue, I tried to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
“Tomorrow I will come back, and I will bring some things with me. It will give you the information you need. Then, perhaps, we can work together.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’ll see. Bring it tomorrow, and then I’ll decide if I ever want to speak to you again.”
I nodded, accepting her terms. I hunched my shoulders and made my way out of her camp, shaking my head in disbelief. She was a tough nut to crack. I must have misread her on our first encounter, because she was neither soft nor friendly in the way I expected a woman to be. She was cold, and unforgiving, and she seemed to lack a sense of humor about absolutely everything. If I wanted more of that in my life, I’d just stick with Herod. At least he was predictable.
When I got back to the Greedy She-Devil, Herod was waiting for me.
“How’d it go?” he asked gruffly.
“Well enough,” I answered. “She’s expecting me to bring some equipment first thing in the morning. We need to have a few crates ready to go over there by then. The more stuff we can sneak in before she gets suspicious, the easier it’ll be to get out of here.”
He grunted his approval and went back to working on something under the control panel. We just needed a little more time to pull this off.
