“How’s it going. Buck?” he asked the computer. “A-okay, captain. There is just one little thing I thought you might wish to be aware of, however.” “What’s that?”
“The tail of a space liner seems to be extruding from the outer atmosphere. It looks as if it means to set down beside us.” “I don’t suppose we could take evasive action?” “You’re kidding again, right? Where -would we take it? Between the last few centimeters of atmosphere left-well, not any more -between ourselves and the ground? Sorry, Captain, we’ve landed. The other craft must have been cloaked.” “I don’t suppose we have that capability, do we?” “Afraid not. Besides, they know where we are,” the ship said.
“Well, just a minute then.” He spoke to the comscreen. “Hey, you, with your tail hanging out, identify yourself! This is Captain Jonas Becker of the Condor, flagship of Becker Interplanetary Recycling and Salvage Enterprises, Limited. My company has already got dibs-staked salvage rights, I mean, on this planet. Uh …,” he continued, as there was no answer, “… I don’t suppose you’re a derelict in distress looking for a-tow, are you?”
Kisia Manjari’s face appeared, grinning, on the comscreen.
“Nope, I didn’t think so,” Becker said, disgusted. “What’s the matter, princess? Forget your receipt?”
“Oh, no. Captain Becker. It’s just that you go such interesting places and find such interesting things, I wanted to come along. I sent my droids to find out where you were going next, but you killed them. Well-all but the one whose track we’ve been following.”
“There now, RK, what’d I tell you?” Becker said to the cat. “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”
“Oh, is the nice kitty there? I still really really want to play with it,” Kisia said. “I’ve heard so very often that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and I really want to find out.”
By now, Becker had a visual on \}\eMu)(U, totally uncloaked and a largish dot in the multihued twilit sky.
“You’re a sick cookie, you know that, don’t you?” Becker asked.
“Why, thank you.”
Meanwhile, he opened the emergency cat flap in the hatch. Normally, from the hatch’s opening to the ground on a given planet was a bit of a leap for RK, and the cat used the robolift for an elevator in the same way that Becker did. But Becker had rigged the flap up for just such occasions as this-not that there’d been many occasions such as this, but Becker had a healthy imagination and a goodly amount of paranoia. He turned off the comscreen, grabbed RK before the cat had a chance to protest, and shoved him down the chute that led to the cat flap. He then opened the cat flap with the remote. He got a visual of RK sitting among the grass on the ground, licking himself vigorously, and then, as the other ship landed, bolting for the rough ruin of the landscape beyond the grass. RK would have sense enough to steer clear of Manjari, as long as he was free to do so, Becker knew. Becker was pretty sure he himself could outmaneuver her, but RK shouldn’t be trapped in the ship. In fact, if he left the ship himself, he might succeed in escaping her and it might not occur to her to attack the Com)or. After all, the only thing he could think of that she wanted from him was the horns and this was where they’d come from. She had what she wanted. If she couldn’t find him, she’d more than likely take her booty and run off to do whatever it was she meant to do with it. Finance a fleet made from a higher caliber of cast-off parts, maybe.
He didn’t suit up this time. It -would just slow him down and he already knew he didn’t need to for this atmosphere. He did slip on antigrav boots, however, the ones he wore on planets with gravity far heavier than that of Kezdet. He didn’t want to take the time to lower the robolift. Instead, he opened the hatch and jumped out. The boots bounced him back up a couple of meters, and he sprang for the hinterlands, as if he was Jack wearing the seven league boots from one of the old fairy tales Dad had encouraged him to read in between physics texts in an attempt to give him back a little of the childhood that had been stolen from him on the labor farm.