When at last the SharazaS returned to Maganos Moonbase bearing a triumphant Hafiz Harakamian and a host of others, Rafik Nadezda was so relieved to see the old pirate he could scarcely believe it.
While the ground crew tended to unloading the ship and servicing it, Rafik walked beside the Harakamians to the transit lounge, which was the most luxurious of the quarters at Maganos Moonbase. The soundproofed facility, with its deep carpets and soft, comfortable divans and chairs in the lounge, fully equipped business suites and conference rooms, had been designed to make a good impression on visitors, potential employers, and clients for the skills and goods that were being offered by the base’s residents. Maganos Moonbase was a mining, manufacturing, and training facility set up to reeducate the former child slaves of Kezdet. The children ran the base as a business, and were responsible for its financial and educational successes. The moonbase had been built -with money rrom both Hafiz Harakamian and Acorna’s other benefactor, Delzaki Li, as well as with reparations seized from Kezdet’s kingpin of the child-slavery operations, Baron Manjari. But it was the children’s job to ensure that the investment was a profitable one.
Now the former child slaves rushed up the gangway connecting the ship and gantry to the transit facility. They greeted the Harakamians and the ship’s other passengers with cheerful familiarity that Rafik was pleased to see Hafiz apparently took as a compliment. He smiled and waved and spoke a word or two to some of the children he recognized from previous visits.
Hafiz looked somewhat trimmer and fitter than he had -when last Rafik had seen him. It was possible that this new trimness was owing to Hafiz’s marital exertions with his bride, but if so, the old man was a considerate as well as an energetic lover. His new bride, her ample form flatteringly draped in an expensive drift of violet and orchid silk embroidered with gold to accentuate her not inconsiderable bustline and hips, had not diminished by one curve or chin, and glowed with contentment.
As Hafiz embraced him, Rafik thought there was a renewed vigor and purposefulness to the old man’s step as well, a gleam of reinforced steel in his eye and grip.
“You look well, my uncle,” Rafik remarked. “Nearly being killed a thousand times can do that for a man of action, 0 son of my heart,” Hafiz replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, to indicate that real men of action knew this thing and found it beneath them to make too much of it.
“You were magnificent, my hero,” Karina said, and turned to Rafik, -white gold carousels glittering with amethysts and blue diamonds swinging from each ear beneath the light veil she wore over her dark hair. She gestured dramatically with heavily bennged hands, and the jewels at her neck and bosom heaved with pride as she lauded her husband. “He was a lion! He saved a shipload of children as well as most of Acorna’s relatives!” Her hands fluttered down to cling like plump -white doves to her husband’s arm. She batted her eyelashes and looked up at Hafiz adoringly-no small feat since she -was an inch and a half taller than he.
“So -we have heard from the Starfarers, Uncle,” Rafik said. “They, too, are here on Maganos, recuperating.”
“Are they? That is good. That is very good indeed. It fits in with my plans exactly,” Hafiz said.
“Plans?” Rafik said.
“All in the proper time, most beloved of nephews. I don’t suppose you have a few small viands at hand to comfort weary travelers?”
After Hafiz and Karina had been comfortably ensconced on a well-padded divan and refreshments ordered, and Rafik had seated himself in the throne-like carved chair opposite them, Rafik asked, “Back to the plans you spoke of, my uncle. Tell me more of them.” The old man might have officially retired from the business, but when he stopped scheming, Rafik would know that Hafiz had stopped breathing.
Hafiz clapped his hands together and shook them for emphasis. “They are splendid plans, most splendid plans indeed, 0 son and heir of my heart! Thanks to your efforts and those of your partners to rid the universe of our enemies, our Linyaari friends and the relatives of our dear niece Acorna are opening their hearts to us, and perhaps their purses as -well. But they are, as you know, very shy. And our beloved niece, appointed by her people to represent them in trade, wishes for a time to travel with the estimable Captain Becker and his intriguingly tragic new first mate.”