Alexander Outland: Space Pirate (15 page)

He led us into his house. I grabbed Tanner. “Isn’t he going to ask why Audrey’s shiny?”

Tanner shook his head. “No. Jabbob is a very… simple person. Very face value.”

“But he was an officer in Herion Military.”

“Every male on this planet does time in Herion Military. He did what he was supposed to, when he was supposed to, and was willing to be brave, so they moved him up the ranks. He was miserable there. I doubt he’s going to want to go back. He’s happy here with his animals. And, before you ask, yeah, I saw his mind clearly and he’s not faking it. There’s not a lot of smart there, but he knows what he does and doesn’t like. Does like animals, does like helping people, doesn’t like being in Herion Military, doesn’t like anyone telling him what to do.”

“I can relate to his dislikes. You’re sure he won’t turn us in?”

“Positive.” Tanner winced. “Get her under control, will you? She’s going to upset Jabbob, and then, if that happens, then I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“Who, Audrey?”

“No, Audrey isn’t a problem. Slinkie is, as always, the problem. And, yeah, I’m using variations of everyone’s names so he doesn’t know, for sure, who everyone is. Think the rest of your crew will catch on?”

“The girls and the Governor, yes. Randolph, not so sure.” I was going to ask how he’d know that Slinkie was always a problem when I heard the shouting, and then the screaming.

We looked at each other and ran into the house.

“I
t’s a snake! It’s a ton of snakes! Get them off me! Get them off me!” Randolph was at his female opera singer level again.

“They’re not dangerous,” Jabbob said calmly.

Audrey took the snakes off Randolph, gently and carefully. “Where should I put them?” she asked Jabbob.

“Oh, I suppose in their cage.” He took a couple of the snakes and put them into a huge glass terrarium that took up most of his main sitting room. “They don’t like it in there much, but since he’s so upset by them, may as well.”

“Ran’s a little jumpy, too,” Tanner said quickly, as Audrey put the rest of the snakes away and Randolph shuddered and muttered.

“I’m Mur,” the Governor interjected, voice quavering. “Mister Jabbob, would you mind if an old man takes a seat?” The Governor was good, I had to give him that.

“Oh! No, sir. Please, let me help you.” Jabbob leapt into action and helped the Governor to the best seat in the house. The old man always scored, every time.

“When,
when
can we leave?” Slinkie snarled.

I saw the hurt look that crossed Jabbob’s face and realized Tanner was right—Slinkie was about to cause problems. “Slin, honey, let’s
go get you a drink of water.” I took her arm and moved her out of the room. “Stop it. Behave, act nice, stop whining.”

“What’s with you? You’re suddenly best buds with that telepathic birdbrain, acting like he’s Saladine, and then you want me to play with beast master there?”

“I’m not acting like Tanner is Saladine.” I tried not to snarl, but didn’t manage well.

Slinkie snorted. “Right.”

“Whatever. Look, we aren’t in the best position in the galaxy, so play nicely with others, especially the man who loves animals. You know, pretend you’re a nice girl.”

That earned me the vulture-look. “Oh. So, now I’m not a nice girl.” Her voice was at that cutting space ice level again.

“You know what I meant.”

“You scored tongue and that tells you all you need to know, I guess!”

“This has nothing to do with kissing you.”

“Right.” She turned and started to stalk out.

I knew this wasn’t going to lead to anything good. So, because I didn’t want to create a scene, I grabbed her, pulled her back into my arms, and kissed her again. Purely out of safety of the mission motives.

Amazingly enough, again I didn’t get the Avian Claw to the jugular. Slinkie struggled, but in that way women will when they really don’t want to get away, but want to make you think they might, at least a little bit, so they can claim they weren’t actually interested later on. That was her body. Her mouth wasn’t struggling at all.

This kiss lasted longer than our first one, and I had no complaints. From what I could tell, Slinkie didn’t, either. She stopped struggling pretty quickly and had her arms wrapped around me. I started to feel that our time on Herion wasn’t a total waste.

Before this kiss could move us into a horizontal position, I heard someone come in. “Dear Feathered Lord, this isn’t the place!”

We pulled apart. “Great, you’re a prude. Good to know.” I was surrounded by them. Wondered if I should reconsider letting
Tanner hang around.

“Hardly. Just, for Avian’s sake, pull apart!” He sounded panicked. I decided to listen to him.

Jabbob came in just as Slinkie and I moved away from each other. “I have a nice room for the ladies. The men will have to bunk in the barn, I’m afraid.”

“Sounds good,” Tanner said cheerfully. Slinkie opened her mouth and Tanner stepped on her foot. “We’ll just get settled in, don’t want to disturb you any more than we already have.”

Jabbob nodded. “Sounds fine, Tan. I’ll bring some blankets out to the barn.” He wandered off.

Slinkie grabbed Tanner by the back of his neck. “Give me one good reason why I don’t rip your jugular out right here.”

“Jabbob doesn’t deal with public displays of affection well. At all. As in turns into a berserk killer not well.” Tanner didn’t sound worried. “That’s reason one. Reason two is that you need to be nice to our host, or he’ll get upset. I point back to reason one for why we don’t want to get him upset. Third, much as you might want to pretend otherwise, you and I both know you’re not going to kill me, so stop posturing, it’s wasting time. Finally, if we want to get off Herion without leaking blood and also survive the pirate armada waiting out there for us, it might be a good idea to work together. Your choice, of course.”

Slinkie made a sound of disgust and let go of Tanner’s neck. “Fine. I’ll play nicely.” She stalked out of the kitchen.

There was more to what was going on between them than this exchange, but I figured right now wasn’t the time to find out. “Are we actually safe here?”

“Safer than anywhere else on Herion right now, yeah. As long as you and Randolph keep your hands off Slinkie and Audrey, that is. And as long as Slinkie can remember her upbringing.”

I pondered this. Jabbob sounded like one of those simpletons who plod along for years and then go crazy and kill a ton of people. I knew how our luck went—one of us was likely to set this guy off.
On the other hand, we had a tankfloater, weapons, and a lot more freedom to run away screaming here than we did in any number of Herion prisons.

Clearly Tanner knew a lot more about Slinkie than I did. However, I figured I had enough to deal with right now and chose to let his comments about her upbringing slide.

“Works for me. If I ask him about dinner, will he offer edible food or try to kill me?”

Tanner grinned. “No idea at all.”

“Should keep life interesting.”

T
he rest of the evening wasn’t all that stressful. Jabbob was a pleasant, if dull, host. We had plenty to eat and drink, no scenes, no issues. Slinkie was subdued, but we were probably better off that way.

Tanner had his chat with Jabbob and, true to expectations, the farmer chose to stay in his dell. We gave reassurances that no one would connect Jabbob with whoever Tanner was pretending to be, and Jabbob seemed to feel the matter was closed.

Jabbob suggested we play cards after dinner. I knew better than to play for money—because I never lost when money was on the table and I didn’t think taking Jabbob’s credits would be a good idea. But Jabbob’s idea of a thrilling game was War. According to my Great-Aunt Clara, this card game had been around on Old Earth for centuries. Even as a child I’d wondered why a game this dull had lasted throughout the ages. Playing it as a kid had been boring enough—I’d moved to games of skill and chance by the time I was seven. I’d moved to playing for cash when I was nine.

Playing War as an adult was the equivalent of being slowly tortured to death by boredom. We all played one game that took an hour to complete—Jabbob won. He was thrilled, and suggested another round. The only one of us who seemed able to feign interest in this
was Audrey, probably because she had no choice but to sound cheerful about the idea. Even Tanner looked ready to topple over from boredom—I figured it was worse for him, bored in his own mind and in the minds of anyone he could still read in our group.

We all played another game anyway and I felt parts of my brain die. Jabbob won again and offered another chance for us to win. I mentioned that he’d already managed to win best two out of three and expressed how my ego couldn’t take another trouncing. He seemed to buy it.

After all this excitement everyone voted for turning in early, so Slinkie and Audrey went to their bedroom and the rest of us went out to the barn. With the dogs. And the donkeys.

Sleeping in a barn hadn’t sounded that bad until I realized I was going to be sleeping in the same barn the animals were hanging out in. The Governor pulled age rank and demanded to sleep in the tankfloater. I couldn’t object, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being one of the people I could trust would be in our escape vehicle.

However, due to the way the tankfloater was set up, the only comfortable sleeping area was the front bench seat. So, only the Governor was going to get to sleep without an animal friend.

Randolph had no issues with this, for some reason. If it had legs, it didn’t bother him. So, he settled in and soon had most of Jabbob’s dogs snuggled up to him, one big doggy pile in the hay. It was hard to pick him out of the pack, and I could understand why he’d built Audrey—how many non-robotic women wanted to be with a guy who might get flea-dipped by mistake?

That left me and Tanner with our own hay piles nearer to the donkeys. The idea of getting kicked, sat on, or worse, seemed to occur to both of us. “Think Randolph will mind if we sleep with him?”

“You feel free. I don’t want to risk one of the dogs taking a dislike to me.”

Tanner sighed. “Probably wise. I don’t know if Jabbob would feel that was too up close and personal.”

“So, how is it that no one in Herion Military has noticed that you’re not a simpleminded potential mass murderer? No one there knew of this guy at all?”

“Not that I could tell. He did his early duty out in the country.”

“They have a military base out here?”

“No. This is considered close in. I’m talking far out.”

I wasn’t a back to the land type, so I already felt far out. My mind boggled at the idea that Herion had places that would consider Jabbob’s farm to be hustling and too citified. It was also a sharp contrast to Herion’s Spaceport City. Where we had to get back to tomorrow, but in the evening. An unpleasant thought occurred.

“What is Jabbob going to expect us to do come daybreak?”

“No idea. The couple of times I’ve come out here to check on him he’s never asked me to do anything. I’ve gotten to sleep in the guestroom then, too.” He sounded disappointed.

“Nice room?”

“Nicer than sleeping in the barn, yeah. You think she’ll behave with me not in there?”

“Slinkie? Yeah. It wasn’t exactly a fun day and you put her over the top. So, how do you two know each other?”

“We don’t.”

“Right. That’s why you’re making all those insinuations and innuendos that have her on edge.”

“I don’t know her, she doesn’t know me. Until today, that is.” He shook his head. “Not telling you, okay? So stop wasting your breath.”

“Fine.” I knew when a well was dry, at least for the time being. “What’s the story with the armada? And what little did you get on Nitin?”

“The armada is what you think it is—a pirate armada, following an old plan that worked very well before. I didn’t get a big read, just knew they were coming and going to kill us all—the ship I was on was a fast ship, but the captain and crew weren’t pirate material.”

“Too law-abiding?”

“Too anti-authoritarian. Like you.”

“Good to know I’m dead the moment we meet up with the Pirate
King or whoever’s running the show. What about Nitin, what’s his plan?”

“Nitin wants to take over the galaxy.”

“Nice plan. What’s he doing cooling his heels on Herion?”

Tanner gave me a sharp look. “What do you mean by that?”

I snorted. “C’mon, Tanner. You’re an agent. Nitin’s not Herion-born. That means he’s infiltrated. Maybe like you did, maybe like I’d originally thought you did.”

“What makes you say he’s not from Herion?”

“Other than you, he’s the smallest guy I’ve seen in a Herion Military uniform. True, Jabbob is about your size, but he’s a little guy who’s bulked up in the Herion way. You and Nitin both look normal for another planet—muscular without being able to crack Knaboor Greatnuts with your bare hands.”

“Yeah, okay.” He seemed embarrassed.

I sighed. “Tanner, you didn’t pay attention to this?”

“Look, I’ve survived for years on my own. So I didn’t notice that Nitin wasn’t a native. So what?”

“Defensiveness is an ugly trait.”

“Yeah? You seem comfortable with it.”

This was true. “The so what is that the little things you don’t pay attention to can kill you.” I reminded myself that I wasn’t getting attached to the kid, just giving him some pointers so when I dumped him off on Runilio and waved good-bye I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.

“Fine, I’ll pay more attention to the little things. So, how do you mean he infiltrated like you thought I had?”

“I figured you were planted about a decade ago, with papers showing you to be Herion-born, then you joined the military all natural-like and without anyone being the wiser. Or having to steal someone’s identity. Not that it wasn’t good initiative.”