The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [80]
“What’s the bad news? They closed the local whorehouse? I hear it was really hot.”
The slam boss smiled appreciatively at the joke. By way of reply, he tossed a flexible hardcopy printout to the waiting mercs. It showed deep space. Squinting at it, Toombs and his colleagues saw nothing but star field.
“Look closer,” the slam boss advised them. “Dead center.”
Toombs did so. “Dark shape. Could be anything.” “Isn’t anything,” the slam boss assured him solemnly. “Our last resupply ship finished unloading here just before you showed. Its monitors caught that as it was system outbound. Means it must be fairly close in.” Reaching out, he touched the dark shape. The image immediately enlarged within the printout, promptly resolving into the outline of a starship of unusual configuration.
Curious, one of the guards ambled over to have a look, cracking nuts between his teeth as he peered over Toombs’s shoulder.
Ignoring the other man’s uncomfortable proximity, the mercenary shrugged diffidently. “Huh. Never seen nuthin’ like it.”
Douruba’s tone was guardedly neutral. “Almost looks like it could be a warship. But that’s stupid, isn’t it? What would a warship be doing in this system? What could it want here? There’s nothing here but us.”
Maybe it was the enlarged image in the printout. Maybe it was the slam boss’s words. Or maybe a combination thereof. Whatever, something jogged the guard’s memory. Munching a little more reflexively on his chosen snack of the moment, he backed away from Toombs.
“Didn’t someone say you guys came here from Helion Prime?”
In the face of even a veiled accusation, Toombs always assumed a belligerent stance. “Yeah? So?”
The slam boss was studying the expression on the head mercenary’s face intently. “Our cargo guy, he says he’s checked and rechecked our deep-space monitors and that this thing”—he indicated the printout—“charts back to Helion Prime.”
Reaching down, Toombs scratched his ass and said nothing. It was a visual indication of how relaxed he was, when he wasn’t. A glance showed that the guard at the safe, detached from the conversation, was still pulling out bundles of u.d. certificates.
Meanwhile, Douruba wasn’t finished. His tone was growing steadily less dispassionate. “You know, Anatoli’s got a nose for trouble. And he thinks trouble follows you here.”
It was hard for Toombs to concentrate on what the slam boss was saying while his attention was fixed on the piles of money that were rising outside the open safe. But enough of the other man’s sentiment seeped through to suggest that, like a stripper’s costume, things were starting to come apart. He hastened to reassure the slam boss.
“Look,” he grumbled forcefully, “we dusted our tracks and made a clean exfil. I don’t care what kind of tracking technology they had: there’s no way we didn’t lose them.” He indicated the gap outside the access doors that opened onto the prison below. “There’s no way. It doesn’t matter if they’re looking for something. This is my prisoner. Mine. Nobody else’s. Possession is ten tenths of the law. And I think I want my money now.”
Eyes widening slightly, Douruba took a step backward. “Them? So you stole a prisoner from them?”
For a simple pronoun, his final word packed an infinity of meanings, none of them favorable.
Toombs’s crew might be newly assembled, but they weren’t stiffs. It was the copilot who happened to notice that the chess-playing guards had called an end to their game and were removing the pieces from the board—and quietly slipping them into the weapons they had drawn from beneath the game table. Bishop’s Knight to dead merc four. She considered mentioning this unique method of storage to Toombs, but decided there wasn’t time. In the event serious discussion of the rules ensued, she intended to be the one to make the first move. She reached for her sidearm.
The explosive sounds that reverberated down the volcanic cone and off its tiered, cell-lined walls might have been celebratory, except that everyone within hearing range knew today was no holiday.