She pretended not to notice while she was examining the heavy object more closely. I am too interested in this stuff. I take mining expeditions out all the time and they always have the most interesting stuff. Usually they disappear before I get to see it work, though.”
“Don’t worry, baby, I’m not about to disappear. I know this planet’s ways, and I’m way too smart to fall into its traps.”
He started walking toward her and she put one of the many work benches, little more than two saw horses and a flat piece of junk, between her and the self-proclaimed shanachie.
“How do you do that, really?” she asked. casually, though the very thought of what he could have possibly done to the cave made her furious. But not afraid. She couldn’t afford to be afraid. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I was born on this planet, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I know about the caves. I also know that’s the easiest access to the goodies Intergal and other companies are ready to pay big dinero for.”
“Looks like you know all about how to get those goodies too, huh?” Bunny asked with her impression of girlish enthusiasm, an imitation of her boy-crazy cousin Nuala. The technique featured opening her eyes very wide and looking a little like a rabbit that’d been suddenly blinded by the lights of an oncoming snocle. “How’d you learn to do something like that if you’re from Petaybee?”
“In the company corps, how else?” he said. I did the standard hitch until I got in trouble. Lucky for me I managed to find more lucrative employment before my court-martial.”
“Here, you mean?”
“No, this came later, when I was ready to settle down with a good woman.”
Bunny made something that she hoped could be construed as a cooing noise. She thought it was very strange that he hadn’t found this at odds with her struggle on the way up here, but she did know that where girls were concerned, some fellows didn’t consider that logic or even thinking entered into their behavior. He probably thought she had been protesting out of form, but now that she was here she was as overwhelmed by all this stuff and his manly charms as she pretended to be.
She gave him Nuala’s one-shouldered shrug and asked hesitantly, “Well, yeah, but where then?”
“Intergal’s not the only one who can do business, baby. I joined up with an independent firm engaged in the import-export business. Ever heard of Onidi Louchard?”
Bunny shrugged again. As long as she could keep him talking, maybe he’d say something useful. The conversation also gave her a chance to tuck something as pointed as an ice pick into the back of the band of her pants.
“Maybe,” she said in a semi-interested tone of voice to keep him talking. “I think maybe some of the soldiers mentioned that namenot a businessman though …”
He laughed, showing a lot of his yellowed teethkept strong and even by company dentistry, no doubt.
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, baby. Onidi knows supply and demand like no woman in the world.”
He seemed to be drifting off into a reverie of his own. Bunny noticed that, oddly enough, there was a rug spread across a small area of the unswept desolation of the house’s floor.
“Ah!” Bunny said. “Yeah, I remember now. She’s sort of a pirate, isn’t she … a black marketeer? Didn’t they say she’d supplied the gas and the arms to the rebels at Bremport?”
He seemed pleased at the recognition. “That’s her, okay.”
“Wow, you worked with her? That must have been so exciting. I’ve never been offthis planetmyself,” she said, managing to sound regretful.
“Oh, that can be arranged, baby. I’ll teach you a few things. Then I know lotsa people who’d be glad to show a cute little thing like you around.”
“What’s it likeout there?” she asked wistfully.
She thought she could hear sounds beneath the floor, fortunately muffled and indistinct, for Satok didn’t seem to hear them.
He picked up a bottle; not Petaybean blurry like Clodagh made, but off-planet stuff that Bunny could smell clear across the room. He locked the front door from the inside, something she had never seen anyone do before except herself when she’d had to barricade herself against her cousins. He settled down on the mattress alone with the bottle.