Back at the nano-bug market, Becker was recounting his life story to Reamer and his family in an attempt to persuade Reamer that he was not the kind of guy to go bumping off idealistic young unicorn ladies to get at their horns. After all, he hadn’t even known what they were till he showed them to Reamer, had he?
The redheaded rock hound was just starting to relax his suspicions again when the remote alarm went off. Since it sounded like the Klaxon horn on an old bicycle playing the first bar of “Dixie,” everyone heard it. RK growled.
“That would be the skinny little princess and her heavy metal boys trying to board the Comfor,” he told Reamer. “I hate it when people do that. Maybe I forgot to leave off the NO TRESPASSING sign. Or maybe she came before I got back to pick up the rest other purchases.”
“Kisia Manjari is nobody to mess with,” Reamer advised. “I’d stay away if I were you until she has what she wants, then go back and pick up the pieces of your vessel.”
“Good advice, huh, RK?” Becker said, thinking it over. Then he said, “Naaah, a man’s vessel is his castle. Besides, she won’t be able to get in without this.” He tapped the remote, which was also the source of the alarm. “C’mon, RK.” The cat hopped up on Becker’s shoulder and the man began jogging back toward the flitcycle he had brought along for personal ground transport.
“Wait a minute,” Reamer told him. “Manjari and her droids could trace your movements through the market to us. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to find that particular woman anywhere near my bed or my kids insisting I answer a lot of questions about you when I don’t know anything to tell her.”
“So better yo\f should come along and find out all my secrets so you’ll have some juicy stuff to save your collective asses with, right?” Becker said. “Come on, then.”
Reamer called to the woman in the Ogonquonian Ornamentation booth, “Watch the kids for me, okay, LaVoya?” and sprinted after Becker.
Becker had purposely docked as far out in the boonies as the docking bay went because he didn’t like a bunch of officious inspectors messing with his vessel. The problem was, security wasn’t very good out here either. A lot of semiderelicts were warehoused in this part of the bay until they could be refurbished or junked, and it was very tricky trying to tell if the Com)or was one of them or not. However, if anyone had been passing by, they’d have noted that the Condor was evidently crewed by untidy personnel, as a large pile of miscellaneous technogarbage was heaped on the pavement to one side of the ship.
“Looks like the princess came by, okay,” Becker said, scratching his chin. “Guess she went back for more help. Whatever she wanted seems to have been too heavy for these guys.”
“Are you kidding?” Reamer asked, most sincerely, because it was hard to tell with Becker sometimes. “She sent her goons to break into your ship! I bet she was after the horns “
“Shhh, not so loud,” Becker said with a finger to his lips. “Now that I know what they are, I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. In fact, I need to pull a disappearing act real quick now, before her highness returns with more goons. Look, tell you whathang onto this.” He gave him a piece of the horn. “I swear to you I didn’t get it off of anybody alive and didn’t even see any bodies. RK and I found these things lying around on a trashed out planet. You decide what to do with it. I’m outta here.”
He thumbed the remote, which played another tune Reamer didn’t recognize, and what appeared to be an exhaust chute for a Mythenan toxic waste transport extruded a broad platform that Becker and RK stepped onto.
“Don’t you get beamed up?” Reamer asked, as Becker and RK ascended into the chute.
“Nah, that stuff makes the cat nervous,” Becker said. “Say bye to the kids for us.”