Blowback (10 page)

Hou glanced up from his terminal. “No you don’t.” With that,
he focused back on the terminal.

“You could try back later, sir,” the secretary offered with
an unctuous smile. Tom wasn’t surprised at all when Ramsay ignored the
suggestion and walked over to sit in the guest chair. Moving to the wall, Tom
leaned back and watched the room. Push came to shove, he figured he could take
Hou. He was typical of his kind—taller than even Tom and wide in both his hips
and shoulders so that he gave the impression of being a blue wall. However,
this one had been behind a desk too much. He had a belly that pushed out to
almost his knees and not even a
genta
’s impressive strength was going to
get him up and moving fast. One bullet to the base of the brain and he’d crash
to the ground dead as a disemboweled bull.

The
genta
ignored them for long minutes while Ramsay
picked at his fingernails with a knife. “Sir…” the secretary said, gesturing
toward the door. Ramsay kept picking at his nails and Hou kept typing on his
terminal as though they weren’t there. It got real awkward after a time.

“See,” Ramsay eventually said while still picking at his
nails. “I had this deal. I was buying a hundred thousand embryos, all good
breeding stock cows. Oh they were a little on the illegal side because of this
genetic tampering to make the milk a little more nutritious and the government
is full of pencil-pricked men and tight-assed women who won’t approve a genetic
mod, but that’s fine with me. I don’t mind carrying goods that are a bit
illegal. The problem is that Captain Smyth refused to sell for the price we’d
already agreed on. Since Smyth worked for you, I guess that makes you the
back-stabbing, double-dealing son of a bitch.”

Ramsay waited a second, but Hou didn’t react. He didn’t act
as if there was even anyone in the room with him. Crazy
genta
. Reaching
into his desk, he pulled out food and slowly crunched away while poking at his
terminal, completely oblivious to the fact that Tom had pulled his gun the
second the
genta
’s hand went in the drawer. The secretary gave a gasp so
loud that Tom was surprised the man didn’t start choking on his own tongue.

“Now there’s no need for violence,” the secretary rushed to
say.

“I suppose that’s up for debate,” Ramsay said. “See, there’s
already been violence. Violence against me and my crew.”

The secretary swallowed. “Mr. Hou does not advocate
violence.”

Ramsay nodded slowly, as if he was listening to the man’s
argument, but Tom knew better. “You know, I’d be more likely to believe that if
his employee hadn’t tried to blow me up.”

“Blowing up customers is counterproductive,” Mr. Hou said
with a brief glance up. “Your inability to distinguish truth disturbs my
working environment. Leave.”

Ramsay didn’t look worried, but Tom tightened his hand on
his gun. “There certainly were lies,” Ramsay agreed. “I was lied to when I was
promised a hundred thousand embryos. I was lied to when Captain Smyth tried to
get money out of me, but even worse, I was lied to about what was in that
crate. I called my crew to bring the ship in hot since I was getting double
crossed and that crate exploded. Your crate exploded.”

Ramsay shoved his knife back into its sheath and he leaned
forward in his chair. “I don’t appreciate having my ship blown up and I sure as
hell resent spending three weeks in a hospital because your employee is a
double-dealing pirate.”

Hou stood up. Tom took real careful aim because if the
situation was going to go bad, this would be the time. If Tom missed the
brainstem, Hou could rip Ramsay apart with his hands. Instead, he sort of
shuffled off to a huge, carved cabinet along one wall. He opened it and took
out a box.

“Chocolate is favored by most genetically homogenous
humans,” Hou said, holding out the box. Ramsay glanced over at Tom, signaling
him to check it out, so Tom inched forward, half expecting Hou to pull out some
weapon. With thick fingers, Hou pulled at the top of the white box, opening it
to show six chocolates inside. The second he saw that, Tom backed up a step and
gave a brief shake of his head. No danger there…just a
genta
being a
genta
.

“I want to talk,” Ramsay said.

“You did.”

“Yes, I did. I told you that your shipment blew up.”

“Lying involves the medial inferior and pre-central areas,
the hippocampus and middle temporal regions and the limbic areas of the brain.
It involves more brain white matter with its associated myelinated axon tracts
than truthful description as unrelated topics are connected within the liar’s
brain.”

Ramsay took a deep breath and seemed to think about that for
a second. “Okay, you hook me up to your scanner and see if I’m lying then. I
will tell you the same thing. Your cargo blew up.” Ramsay articulated the last
four words slowly and carefully.

Unlike Da’shay, who had delicate features, Hou’s were on the
heavy side. Tom had been around Da’shay so much that he’d forgotten how much
regular
genta
gave him the creeps to look at. Their eyes and mouth were
a little too small, their chins and noses and foreheads a little too large and
there was something inhuman in the way they moved. Sometimes it was hard to
remember they had as much human DNA in them as they had alien. Da’shay was as
inhuman as any of them, but her face didn’t look
genta
except for the
part where she was blue. And crazy. She got that same blank stare this one got
when he didn’t understand—like now.

“Blowing up merchandise would lead to lost income and an
unacceptable reputation.” Turning around, Hou put the chocolates away.

“It led to lost income, all right. I had credits blown to
bits, a ship scorched so that my engineer just about had to scrub her with a
toothbrush to get all the soot out and four crew in the hospital—two of us with
full joint replacements. That’s a hell of a lot of lost income and we’re here
to find out what you’re going to do about it.” Ramsay sounded angry now.

“Circumstances require action.” Hou started moving for his
desk, charging toward it with footsteps that seemed to make the floor rattle.

Tom shifted so that he had a clear view of Hou without a
lamp in the way. Hou might be giving them the person who had set the bomb so
they could go yell at him or he might be typing out an order for them to be
shot by one of his flunkies—with
genta
you never knew until two seconds
after they’d decided for themselves. He waited for Ramsay to give a kill
signal, but the captain stood up, his hands held up in front of him as though
in surrender.

“Let’s talk about what—”

There was a flash of light so bright that Tom closed his
eyes before his brain had time to process a single thought…then the sensation
of heat and movement and finally pain as Tom slammed into the wall so hard that
his gun fell from his hand and all the air left him. Something sharp hit just
under the ribs and Tom had a half second to realize he’d been blown up for the
second time in a month before he fell unconscious.

Tom groaned his way to consciousness, something hard under
his shoulder so that he’d lost feeling in his arm. He rolled onto his back and
could tell without opening his eyes that he was on a floor. Shit. Tom cracked
his eyes open and cringed as the light cut through his brain. He and Ramsay
were both lying in the center of a round, stone room with a heavy wood door set
into one wall and nothing else. No toilet, no bunks, no windows—just a vent in
the center of the high ceiling. Whoever put them in here obviously didn’t
intend to keep them here long… Either that or their attacker didn’t care if
they died and stunk the place up.

Tom reached out and grabbed Ramsay’s arm. The captain
groaned and opened one eye. “What happened?”

“I’m getting real sick of people of people blowing me up.”
Tom felt along his ribs and found a spectacular sore spot, but it was high
enough that the bone had taken the impact and saved him from any real damage.
He’d have to wait out the bruising and pain because this didn’t look like the
kind of place with doctors.

“You think maybe it was something I said?” Ramsay grinned as
he said it, but Tom figured it wasn’t that much of a joke. “Any exits?”

Ignoring his raging headache, Tom rolled onto his side and
forced his body up. “One door.” When Tom reached the door, he found it didn’t
bulge a bit no matter how hard he pulled.

Ramsay pulled his legs up so that he was sitting
cross-legged on the ground and pushed his hair back away from his face. His
white beard was getting scraggly and his hair was long enough to get tangled in
it. Tom rubbed his face, and he had a good amount of stubble going too. While
Tom rarely shaved himself smooth unless he was going to go be a woman, he was
guessing he had spent at least a good day unconscious from how much growing it
had done.

“So, I’m thinking we know who had us blown up the first
time,” Ramsay said.

“Fucking
genta
.”

Ramsay didn’t disagree. However, there wasn’t much time to
gloat. The lights were set high up in the wall, about as high as a second story
window would be, but he might be able to reach them. If he could pull one down,
he might get access to wiring, maybe even cause a short. From this side, the
door looked pretty damn primitive—something that might be locked with a big old
bolt on the other side, but most people preferred more sophisticated locks. A
short might make the lock disengage. The odds weren’t good, but it was better
than doing nothing.

The rock walls were fairly smooth, and Tom felt along them,
searching for finger and toe holds that would allow him to climb up to where
the lights were embedded.

“You know,
genta
always have a logic in what they
do—a twisted and alien logic, but some sort of logic. After all, what we know
as
genta
are really half human, and humans are very into self
preservation. Maybe he thought we were a threat.” Ramsay mused.

“We were,” Tom pointed out. Setting his toe against a small
rock, he tried to lift himself up, but the wall was just too smooth, and his
foot slipped off. “Damn it.” Tom slapped the rock. He looked over and Ramsay
was looking at him oddly. “What?”

Ramsay held up his hands. “Nothing.” Reaching down, he
patted his pockets and clothing. “They stripped my weapons. You?”

“The same,” Tom lied. He figured the wire in his belt and
his smallest knife were probably still in place, but he wasn’t going to check
for them when they might have any number of people spying.

“Well, shit. Next time I have an idea this stupid, feel free
to give me a kick in the ass.”

“Pretty much all your plans sound stupid,” Tom pointed out.
He’d have a hard time kicking his own captain in the ass every time they made
planetfall, and it did seem as if Ramsay got at least one stupid plan per
planet.

Ramsay snorted. “Thank you for that vote of confidence.”

“It’s not like I don’t follow,” Tom said, feeling defensive.
The captain had made the comment about his plan being stupid, so he shouldn’t
mind Tom agreeing. But from the expression, Ramsay didn’t appreciate it.

“Well, hopefully this time you haven’t followed me to our
graves.” Ramsay rubbed his hand across his face before he pushed himself up
onto his feet. He wobbled a bit. “I really am too damn old for this.” Ramsay
stretched out the arm where he’d had the shoulder replaced.

“I hope he blew himself right out the window.” Yeah,
genta
were tough as hell, but not even a big
genta
like that was going to
survive a forty story drop onto rock. Better yet, he could impale himself on
some damn spire and then die real slow. Tom wouldn’t mind that at all.

“Doubt it. Anything that just knocked us around wouldn’t do
more than tickle him. He probably blew up his pretty office, though,” Ramsay
mused with a bit of sadistic satisfaction.

Tom snorted and kept trying to scale the walls without much
success, but failing was better than giving up. His fingertips were sore by the
time a clanking made Tom whirl around, his fists raised for fighting. It took
Tom a second to look from the metal cover still rocking back and forth on the
ground up to the vent at the top of their prison.

Two hands were grabbing the sides of a hole that didn’t look
big enough for a cat to fit through, but as Tom watched, Da’shay slowly
appeared. She seemed to be inching her way through a pipe not even big enough
for her shoulders. She was all hunched up in ways Tom wasn’t sure a human could
survive.

“Da’shay,” Ramsay called. Tom flinched. Hopefully no one was
spying on them, but then again, even if someone was watching, they couldn’t be
blamed for Da’shay’s actions.
Genta
only took orders in the most general
sense of the word. They’d take jobs as Corps pilots and then decide to fly from
Alpha to Gamma by taking a detour through Omega sector. You sure as hell could
never tell them how to do something. One thing Tom knew for damn sure—if Eli
told Da’shay to get them out, Eli never would have suggested that Da’shay shove
herself in a sixteen inch pipe.

“Like birthing, only I was never birthed,” Da’shay said as
she wiggled harder. She got a little more of herself out and then she could
brace her hands awkwardly on the ceiling. “Little mice in the maze, chewing
away limestone.”

“Where’s Eli?” Ramsay asked.

She stopped and cocked her head, a gesture that looked
strange since she was hanging upside down out of the ceiling, her shoulders
still in the pipe and her arms bent into angles that made Tom think of a
spider. “Caught in an authoritative direction or instruction. A mandate, almost
but not quite a formal disposition, although Eli Antelli is very formal.” With
that, she started wiggling again. Tom gritted his teeth and wished he could
shake an answer out of her, but he didn’t think the captain would be too amused
by that. Instead he moved closer to the center of the room. It was a three
story drop, and while taking a three story dive head first probably wouldn’t
kill Da’shay, it sure as hell might disable her. The last thing they needed was
a third crew member sitting helpless in this room, so he’d do his best to keep
that from happening.

“Too small,” she complained once and then she was falling.
Tom caught her, stumbling back as her weight hit him. She might not be big or
even particularly heavy, but falling from three stories had given her some
serious damn momentum.

She leaped out of his arms and grinned at both of them.
“Hear your whispers echoing through mice tunnels.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Ramsay encouraged her. “How about we
find a way out of here before Hou’s men come back?”

She tipped her head. “Cat’s cradle on the fingers, over and
under and all the yarn tangled.” She turned toward Tom, her dark eyes staring
right at him.

“Da’shay, we need to get out of here, now,” Ramsay said,
ignoring the crazy.

She pointed up toward the ceiling. A strip of cloth hung
down from the dark opening, but that was three stories up.

“I ain’t fitting through there, not unless you break every
bone in my body, and probably not even then,” Tom pointed out.

“The bag,” Da’shay walked over and put a hand on Tom’s arm,
and he had to work hard to not shake it off. “Teeth for chewing new mice
tunnels.”

Tom studied the hole, and sure enough, that was the strap of
some bag hanging from the hole. She’d probably pulled something behind her,
dragging it through the pipe with her toe. “You couldn’t bring the fucking
thing down here with you?” Tom demanded, annoyed that rescue was so close, but
still unreachable. Three stories up was too damn far for any of them to reach.

“Tom.” Ramsay’s voice was dark with warning.

“I’ll go flying,” Da’shay promised. She held her hands out
for Tom, but he backed away and crossed his arms.

“You ain’t got wings and I’m not going to go getting mixed
up with your crazy.”

“Tom, throw her up there,” Ramsay said wearily and Tom
blinked as he realized what Da’shay wanted. He could feel his face getting
warm.

“She shoulda just said that,” Tom complained, but he went
into the center of the room and made a cradle out of his hands. Da’shay put her
foot into it and rested her hands on his shoulders. “One, two…three.” On three,
he flung her up with all his might and she did go flying. She was light enough
that she caught the dangling strap. As she fell back to the floor of the cell,
a brown duffle came with her.

“Open sesame.” She reached in and took a highly illegal
signal hijacker out of the bag. With a smile, she headed over to the door.

“Let me,” Tom said as he went to intercept her. He really
didn’t need her getting bored in the middle and dropping the thing.

“Tom, let her,” Ramsay said. Tom froze a step from the door,
not sure what to think. This was his job. Yeah, he’d fucked up with the
nanotech, but did Ramsay really think he couldn’t run a signal hijacker?
Da’shay had stopped too, looking from one of them to the other for several
seconds before she held the machine out to Tom. Without another glance, she
went to Ramsay and got so close that he had to look up at her. Ramsay wasn’t a
short man, but Da’shay was as tall as Tom, which made her a good six inches
taller.

“Tangled and tangled and tangled and tangled.” She ran
fingers through Ramsay’s thick, white hair. Tom had a job and he needed to show
Ramsay he could still do it, so he ignored Da’shay and her antics as he ran the
signal hijacker slowly across the wood, searching for a signal. Sure enough,
the primitive door had a sophisticated lock holding it in place. Sometimes Tom
really did love how stupid people could be. A bar would be impossible for a
prisoner to move, but people…they always had to make things more complicated
than they should be.

He worked on hijacking the signal, listening with only one
ear as Da’shay rambled on about twisting and neural highways. At least Hou made
some sense. Not much, but some. Tom could even understand the attack, but
Da’shay seemed to have a language that didn’t even make
genta
sense.
“Got it!” Tom said, grabbing the signal and ordering the door’s lock to
disengage. The heavy scraping of metal slipping free from stone was going warn
any guards in the corridor, so Tom pulled the door open as fast as he could,
prepared to have someone charge him. Instead, he was faced with an empty hall.

“No!” Da’shay called out.

Tom ignored her. Command might think she was useful as crew,
but he sure as hell didn’t. “Captain, let’s go.”

“Why, Da’shay?” Ramsay asked, stopping to look at Da’shay.
“Why is it ‘no’?”

“Tangled and tangled—”

“Okay, I get that.” Ramsay reached out and caught her hands.
“There’s more involved than Hou. Why shouldn’t we leave?”

“Captain!” Tom growled. He wasn’t fucking waiting for a
guard to show up.

Da’shay pulled Ramsay to the door, shouldering Tom back out
of the way without a word, but Tom wasn’t about to complain about her manners
now. “Right, right, right, left, middle, right.” She looked at Ramsay and
fisted his shirt. “Right, right, right, left, middle, right,” she repeated in a
sing-song.

He repeated the directions and she smiled so brightly that
she looked like a kid at her birthday party, but before Tom could point out
that they needed to be getting the hell out, she shoved Ramsay out the door and
slammed it shut with Tom and her still in the room.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tom reached for the door
before she could get it locked again, but she pushed his hands away.

“Looking!” she about screeched. “Looking right and right.”

“Tom! Da’shay?” Ramsay beat on the door from the outside and
Tom threw a punch right at Da’shay’s head. He might not be able to kill her
with his bare hands, but he sure as hell could knock her out of the way. She
slid to the floor, ducking his punch and kicking him in the shin on her way
down.

“Tom, open this door.” Ramsay yelled.

“I’m fucking trying!” Bending down as if he only wanted to
rub his sore shin, he pulled his small knife out of his boot, trying to hide
the motion.

“Whispers of blood, but listen,” Da’shay was on her feet
again. “Chasing and chasing through mice tunnels and they have to find one.
They have to find one. Enemy sneak into your castle, you have to find one, to
look in his mind for the cat’s cradle.” Da’shay fisted her hands as if she was
about to go on the attack and Tom brought his knife up. It wasn’t feeling like
a big enough weapon to take on a
genta
, but he’d go down fighting. She
leaned forward, and now only her one foot was holding the door closed, but her
one foot was strong enough to withstand all the pounding Ramsay was doing on
the other side.

“Whispers of blood.” She moaned, pulling at her own hair. It
was longer now, the curls starting to turn to more of a wave, but she pulled at
it until it stuck up every which way. “If you’re the king sitting in his castle
and knights small as mice come creeping, what is your first question?”