Normally he didn’t go out of his way to pay these instruments undue attention as long as they were working. If he didn’t notice, RK often did and would sit staring pointedly at one screen or another until Becker did likewise.
But he was a little nervous about being followed by Kisia Manjari and company and also was on the lookout to restock the inventory as soon as possible.
As soon as he had cleared Kezdet and her moons, he turned his attention to the scanners. He hadn’t expected to be sought real soon, actually, but one of the short-range scanners was keeping up a continuous, pulsing bleep. It had to be close, but he couldn’t see its source on any of the screens.
“Well, doggone it anyway,” he said, “Where are you, little bleep?”
It bleeped again. Still nothing on the screen though he looked fast, as if he was expecting the visual manifestation of the sound to be playing peekaboo with him.
By the time the Condor had cleared Kezdet’s solar system and warped through a couple of wormholes, Becker was getting pretty tired of the beep. He also noticed that RK wasn’t hanging out on deck much any more. When they were back to cruising through what was usually calm empty space, Becker went below decks with a can of fish he’d picked up on Kezdet before hitting the pleasure house, intending that RK should be able to take it as an offering to his temporary mate. There was quite a bit of time before the Coru)or hit the next “black water,” as Theophilus Becker liked to refer to the pleated, holey portions of space -where he found his best shortcuts. “RK? Hey, cat! Where the hell are you?”
He finally found the cat by the smell and the noise. Since acquiring the sack of horns, Becker hadn’t smelted RK’s particular perfume but right now C-deck reeked of it. Which reminded him that RK was once more a fully functional male cat with the begetting capabilities and prerogatives thereof, supposing there had been a lady cat who was interested.
Which fortunately there wasn’t. Becker didn’t even want to think of a ship with a whole bunch of little Roadkill clones playing hide and seek through the cargo.
Meanwhile, if the cat was going to stink stuff up, Becker would just have to wear nose plugs or carry a hanky with something pleasanter to counter the stench-garlic maybe. If it worked with vampires, maybe it would work with cats.
It better, because Roadkill was damn sure going to ^tay fully equipped. No way was Becker going to go through that again. It made his two formerly missing and now mostly restored fingers ache just thinking about it.
Finally, the stink led him to the cat, claws scrabbling at the side of the cargo hold that opened to the outside. This hold had been the airlock of the hatch of an ancient model of Antirean space craft, and it fit well into a hole Becker had to fill during one of his impromptu redesigning sessions of the Condor.
“Mrrrrow!” RK said, looking up at Becker as if to say, “It’s about time you got here, you damn fool. Help me out with this, huh?”
Becker had rigged a bin-style entry door to the hold that opened outward. The door was totally slimed with RK’s personal signature testosterone blend.
“Okay, cat, why didn’t you say so before?” Becker asked, but realized he had been busy at the controls when he wasn’t sleeping. Besides which, RK was used to keeping his own counsel. He knew how to get Becker’s attention when he wanted it. He had obviously just preferred to work on his own so far. Becker had to admit that he couldn’t have improved on the job RK had done on the cargo hold door. It was well and truly slimed-a piece of feline artwork in its own way. Becker had to find a piece of cloth to wipe off the mess before he could punch the button that opened the hold.
The hold door fell open, rather than sliding. And lying on the inside of it was what looked like a dead man.