That woman sure knew her materials. Cope wished Spaceways could afford to keep her on retainer. She’d been a blast to work with this past few weeks. Granted, he wasn’t as enamored as Teke was. But he wouldn’t mind his co-parent finding a real mate someday, especially if he brought a female parent into the ensemble.

  He glanced toward Ben. While Cope investigated and disabled most of the room’s security devices, Ben quickly reassembled the grow-rig. He’d even practiced this a couple times back on Prosper, his own idea. And he disabled the one surveillance camera by pointing a sun-bright grow light directly into it until Cope could blank it out. Ben had matured in the years they’d been apart. Cope was mildly impressed.

  No wool-gathering, he warned himself. The decoy moose box would stand up to no inspection whatsoever, of course. Working from pictures, they’d gotten its dimensions a trifle off. And no one looking closely would mistake plastic for the original alien metals. The chassis wasn’t even quite the right color, now that he had the original for comparison.

  But it would stand up to a brief glance, so long as the weight was right. Because Benoit Northmore’s display stand included a weight sensor. That’s what the switch on the leg controlled.

  He could leave the switch turned off. And he might have to. But first he tried weighing the objects. Hell. Yes, his model was hollow. But no, short of filling it with lead, there wasn’t much chance he could match the mass of doped steel. He couldn’t add weight to the plastic antlers.

  Cope cast around the room, thinking. A subtle bit of misdirection, perhaps? This couldn’t be the problem because the missing something over there was? No, he didn’t think so. Benoit was a collector. He noticed every detail of his beloved objects, delighted in them all. The only chance this ruse would survive a single glance was if all looked as it should. The addition of the grow lights would excuse an odd color cast to everything. But if Northmore approached close enough to switch that weight sensor back on, they’d see the decoy for fake instantly.

  Unless… Cope took his mass meter and tried tapping it into the sensor from below the table-top. Then he placed a known weight – a lead calibration block for the meter – on top of the sensor. He was reading that correctly. He tried duct-taping the block down, but that only added a phantom half kilo.

  Wait. That might be enough. The calibration block itself was 5 kilos. He popped the top of his fake moose box, and balanced it on the block. He tossed in steel measuring tape, smaller lead blocks, and a wrench. Only a little ways farther.

  His eye fell on his least favorite screwdriver. His ex-wife gave him that thing. It had immense sentimental value. Why did she think a professional mechanic needed a 19-year-old twit to buy tools for him? Its once-chisel tip had long since deformed like a monster’s chew toy, from all the abuse he’d inflicted over the years.

  He hesitated a moment, then dropped it in. Bingo. The weight matched.

  By now Ben stood by anxiously, his job complete. All Cope had left to do was get the moose to sit flat on the counter instead of perching atop its lead block. If only Northmore didn’t have such a sharp eye.

  Ben centered the moose device neatly. He used a grease pencil to trace around the block, for where they needed to cut a hole in their decoy.

  Except that wouldn’t work either, Cope realized. He still needed all the weight to press down on the block, not around it. How would he…? Got it. Hastily, he flipped over the moose, cut the hole with a laser, then worked some slips of thin patching steel into the lead block, only slightly above its base. They set the decoy back on top, and voila, all of its weight fell on the block.

  Cope dove under the table to retrieve his scale. And his weight ran over by the amount of his steel slips. “Get 8 grams out of there,” he whispered urgently to Ben.

  His ex rummaged and picked out a couple bolts. “Perfect.” Cope stood and carefully extended the antlers. Then they both policed the room, picking up their tools and packing everything back onto the grav lifter. Cope spared a moment to polish fingerprints off the plinth.

  Suddenly he squatted again by the table. Damn, after all that, he almost forgot to turn the switch back on.

  As he rose up, he suddenly caught Ben and tugged him in for a kiss. To his surprise Ben shook his head and stepped away, showing a playful wait finger.

  He stepped to the console. “I know the code.” He started to tap it in.

  “Don’t!” Cope insisted. “Better if we’re here to distract him when he comes back.”

  “Alright,” Ben allowed. He fished out his comm and sent ‘g’ for go. “‘L’ for Lavelle arrived. He’s inside interdiction, ready to go. And ‘K’ for Kassidy. No ‘H’ yet.”

  He stepped to center-left of the door, about where Benoit had walked in. He grinned slightly at Cope and motioned him out of the way.

  With a matching crooked smile, Cope joined him. He tried to imagine himself a rich Sagamore collector in exile on a space station, a fat cat full of self-satisfaction surveying his realm. But John Copeland was a maker, not a holder. Unless he could do something with it, what was the point acquiring it?

  Satisfied with the view, Ben claimed his kiss.

  “Absolutely damning,” Hunter crooned in satisfaction from behind Eli. “All that I asked for and more. Thank you, Benoit. All of Mahina owes you a debt of gratitude.”

  The botanist stood listening an arm’s length from the immense window, a single one for the entire vast apartment. His view cut off at 20 meters where it almost met the ceiling. Walls and floors didn’t quite touch the heavy glass. The view outside was devoid of life, the asteroid’s horizon disturbingly near, as though he could lope along the ground and bound a little higher to fly straight into the gas giant. Given the size of the asteroid, that might even be true.

  “– But I’ve saved the best for last!” Benoit claimed in glee.

  The best of the worst? Eli’s brow crumpled. He expected Hunter’s scheme could improve Mahina’s situation dramatically. But that didn’t make him feel any cleaner. More like perhaps Mahina didn’t deserve salvation if tawdry blackmail could deliver it. Not blackmail – Hunter and Kassidy planned to destroy the man, not manipulate him. But Eli was curious. He turned back to the opulent office to see what was worse. The evidence so far already proved Mahina’s president was corrupt, a thief, a liar, and abused sex workers.

  Eli had reason to be glad he turned.

  “Sophie my darling,” Benoit beckoned. His hand extended to a concrete statue. Eli had noticed that one, a particularly striking naked paddy, youthful and androgynous, clearly male endowed below, but prettily feminine elsewhere. The sculpture was exquisite, especially the bashful hand curved by its not-so-privates.

  The statue’s hand flexed and lowered gracefully. The other hand went to his eyes and removed stone-colored inserts. He also spat out a retainer that allowed his breathless open lips to show seeming concrete inside the mouth.

  He curtsied deeply as Benoit applauded, genteel fingertips tapping his palm. “Magnifique!”

  Eli wanted to kill the man. What kind of a monster paints his slaves? Makes them stand around as decorative statues?

  ‘Sophie’ approached closer, his hands crossed now to provide a fig-leaf.

  “Turn,” Benoit ordered him.

  Her, Eli decided. As Sophie obeyed, he hissed involuntarily. Even through the faux concrete makeup, the lovely back and buttocks were criss-crossed with raised welts, some of them gaping a centimeter wide.

  “Your Carmack did this to her,” Benoit explained to Hunter. “Dear Sophie has video. He demanded she record him doing it, degrading her. He wanted a copy to take home and enjoy. A beast beneath contempt.”

  Eli couldn’t help but agree. Two beasts. As he saw it, Benoit’s objection was aesthetic, unlike his own, inspired by human empathy and compassion.

  “Where did this happen, Sophie?” Hunter asked gently.

  “Mahina Orbital,” she mumbled, eyes downcast. “After, I beg Lavelle to bring me home. The Mahina, they were not kind to me.”

  “Sophie is 14,” Benoit added. “She worked in the zero-g pleasure palace for a time.”

  “I am so sorry, Sophie,” Hunter murmured.

  “There is more,” Sophie replied. “You will see on the video. There were three of us. The youngest boy was 9 years old. He used us all.”

  “I can’t watch,” Eli blurted. “Excuse me.”

  “No man of taste would,” Benoit agreed. He pressed the recording into Hunter’s palm. “You must take her with you. An added gift. Her testimony will help. This man, he should not rule a world. He is depraved.”

  As a Sagamore, you would know. Eli drew away and checked his comm. He sent a single ‘H.’ Hunter’s objectives were complete. Time to go.

  37

  Ben and Cope flew apart as the wall reopened. The captain felt his cheeks burning as he turned sheepishly to Benoit and his shipmates at the door.

  To his horror, the collector strode forward and stroked his cheek. “But they are adorable! His cheeks turn pink.” The aged claws reached for Cope’s jaw next. “Such an exquisite light brown, and these threads of gray. Such lush lips!”

  Cope snarled his full lips and yanked his face away.

  Benoit added snidely, “A shame about his nose. Oh, the plants, they look so lovely there.” The couple stood blocking his view of the moose box. They surreptitiously shifted to remain interfering with his view when he turned back on the way out.

  “I’m sorry to cut our visit short, Benoit,” Hunter said. “You’ve been very helpful. Entirely worth the trip.”

  The old man acknowledged this with a little flurry of fingers, a throw-away gesture. “Yes, of course. I show you to the elevator.”

  Ben only realized he was holding his breath as the wall slid to a close behind him. Just a little more luck, please. Adrenaline surging, heart pounding, his body wanted to bolt. But he was stuck wading meekly through the carpet behind the fancy-dress trio. Cope reached to squeeze his hand with a wink.

  That part went well, Ben purred internally. He quite looked forward to getting the hell out of here. Just a few more careful hours, then he could think of some fun and private ways to blow off adrenaline.

  A statue outside the door – except this one had eyes and tongue – fell in beside them, behind the ‘important’ men. Eli turned to clue them in. “Her name is Sophie. She’ll return to Mahina with us.”

  Ben’s eyes automatically flicked to her crotch, then bounced back up to smile at her. He determined to ignore the childish young breasts and concrete makeup. “Welcome, Sophie.”

  They almost made it to the elevator. The Prosper men squatted to fasten their boots as alarms began to wail in the distance. Benoit’s hushed and sumptuous apartment prevented anything so crude as the station alarms to intrude.

  “See what that is about,” Benoit ordered his butler. The man in black tails withdrew, and the guards stepped in front of the elevator.

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine in the corridors,” Hunter attempted. “If there’s a problem, we should return to our ship.”

  “Non! I insist,” Benoit said, in a voice that acquired a note of steel. “You will wait here until order is restored.”

  Ben heard a soft thump beyond their host. Only the top of the penguin butler’s head stuck out of a doorway. A shocking red leaked from it into the luxuriant cream carpet. He considered standing, but on the whole, thought a crouch might give him options. He glanced up at the guards. They were too stoned to notice.

  Eli rose, though, and offered Hunter a hand up. Cope used the elevator door to prop himself up, using the movement as cover while he lifted a stunner from the holster of the guard on the left. That wouldn’t work for Ben. The stunner for the other guard lay between the pair, and he lacked pickpocketing skill. He decided his best option was to lunge for Benoit’s thighs and topple the elderly gentleman.

  Cope fired the stunner at the still-armed guard first. Then he downed the one closer to him. Stoned guards weren’t worth much.

  “We’re leaving,” Hunter hissed to Benoit. “Now.”

  “What have you done!” the collector cried in horror. “What are you ruffians –”

  Sophie the statue interrupted by staving in his skull with a beautiful stone vase.

  “Sophie!” Eli mourned. He didn’t seem surprised that further nude statues were converging on the elevator.

  Sophie blew out in exasperation and punched the ‘down’ button on the elevator. To her fellow statues she pointed into the apartments interior, away from the windows with their cold dead view. “Stairs! Escaliers!” She turned to the Prosper party, and grasped Eli’s hand. “I come with you.”

  “Thank you,” Eli breathed.

  As the elevator dinged its arrival, Ben decided his questions about Sophie could wait. He and Cope hauled the grav lifter inside. The others squeezed in around them. He pressed the button for a floor they bypassed before.

  “We’re in dock 1,” Eli told Sophie. He took off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders.

  The elevator door reopened to a madhouse of paddies running along a corridor. Someone off to the left shot a stunner into them. Ben pressed another couple buttons. The door closed and they tried the next floor. Screams lay outside the door, so he prevented the doors opening, and tried again with the sublevel below the main corridor. This hallway wasn’t too bad. The throbbing screech of the alarm assaulted Ben’s ears as they turned toward the docks.

  “Now we run,” Ben suggested, pointing out the direction.

  Sophie bolted ahead, drawing Eli by the hand.

  Cope and Ben struggled with the grav lifter, only meant to go so fast. To abandon the moose device was unthinkable. Carrying it, he wasn’t sure they’d go much faster. Hunter halted the lead group impatiently, and beckoned with urgent swoops of his arm.

  “Grav tractors,” Ben thought aloud. They had the toolbox, a heavy load in itself. But it contained several hand grav devices, like the ones they used to levitate the soy printer while checking its connections.

  Cope swooped down. He slapped tractors on both the antler crate and his toolbox. Every bit as massive, at least they didn’t weigh anything. Ben just had to remember to cut his momentum sooner when walking or running. The toolbox reminded him of this lesson as he staggered a few steps beyond Hunter’s group into the next cross-hallway. Fortunately, it too was relatively quiet.

  “Hold up,” Ben ordered. “Cope, you took both stunners? Give them to me and Hunter.” The two of them were the best shots. He handed off his toolbox to Eli. Then he checked his map of this level on his comm. “Sophie, you know the corridors?”

  She shook her head vehemently.

  The captain thought fast. The university kept few slaves. He bet the students decamped into the corridors to catch the excitement on the main level. That detour added a couple blocks to their route. Quiet halls seemed worth it. “Hunter, watch our backs. Follow me!”

  Without the grav lifter, their jogging pace ate up the distance. Before they reached the university, they hit a crowded corridor. Ben chose to dart through the throng for a couple short blocks, then escaped into relative tranquility. As he hoped, by the time he reached the university, the halls were nearly deserted. A few students and faculty gaped at them. Ben wasn’t concerned about them. They didn’t wander around armed.

  Prosper’s dock lay on the main level. Even in chaos, station security was sure to cordon it off. Two stunners wouldn’t bully them through armed guards on high alert and expecting trouble.

  Zan and Wilder. Well, maybe. He had to get there first.

  He led them up the last ramp he could find to the main level, and they emerged into pandemonium. “Close up,” he warned his group. They trotted to the corner of the thoroughfare to the dock. From here it was a straight approach, right into the teeth of a security cordon of eight.

  Enough with the near comms silence. “Wilder, Zan. I’m looking at a dock room door blocked by eight. I’ve got a party of five with two actives. Can you assist?”

  “Run home now,” Wilder advised.

  “Roger that,” Ben acknowledged unhappily. “Hunter, you and me in front. Cope, watch our six. Do not fall behind. We are charging the dock door. Now!”

  He ran out into the corridor, dodging toward pedestrians for a little cover. Naturally these bystanders flinched away as soon as they noticed the odd group pelting toward them. One fell to a laser shot from the guards.

  Ben resisted the urge to feel guilty. He didn’t shoot the guy. He kept zig-zagging.

  Ahead, fifty meters now, one of the guards fell, then another two. “I take left, you’re right,” he ordered Hunter. Another guard fell ahead of them, and their attention was now all diverted to the attackers behind them. Thirty meters. Ben pivoted to jog backward a moment. Cope had fallen behind a bit, but was herding Sophie along. Eli struggled with the unfamiliar inertia of the toolbox. Ben stunned a bystander out of Eli’s way, then turned forward again.

  Twenty meters and down to four guards standing. They were finally in range for a stunner. He paused for aim and shot left, downing his man. Hunter shot right while still jogging, with the predictable miss, numbing a left arm instead of disabling his target. The guard spun and shot his laser at Ben, burning him through the shoulder.

  Damn that hurts! His second shot missed, distracted by the pain. But ahead of them, Zan exploded out of the dock and took down the remaining guards in seconds. And they were through, running flat out for Prosper’s umbilical. Ben and Hunter got there first, and wheeled to cover the rest of them. Zan lagged, still shooting up the main thoroughfare.

  “Zan, retreat! Now!” the captain demanded.

  “Ben, you’re bleeding,” Kassidy noted as she passed through.

 

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