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As Beka hung upside down from the ceiling, her hands poised to switch a very good fake for the real Star of Heaven, she told herself that someday she'd be a criminal mastermind who'd have underlings do the actual work. They'd be out there with their hearts pounding, the blood running to their increasingly dizzy heads, and straps cutting into their shoulders and unmentionables while she sat at home chuckling evilly.
"You'd need a cat, boss," Harper whispered into her ear through the headset. "A big, fluffy cat that could stare imperiously at your underlings and enemies as you stroked it."
Beka had long ago given up asking about his obscure cultural references, which were no doubt comprehensible to only a tiny percentage of even Earth people, so she whispered, annoyed at the whole situation, "I don't need a cat. I have you," into her mouthpiece instead. God. He'd never forget that comment. As a distraction, she asked, "I said that bit about criminal masterminds out loud?"
Once he stopped snickering, he answered, "You muttered it."
"Great." Though if she had enough money to qualify as a criminal mastermind, she'd have enough to pay off her father's debts and actually live the straight life instead of supplementing her income through shady jobs. Damn TransGalactic and Quantum for stealing another few shipping routes away from the little guys anyway. Damn her for having to be a little guy.
"The straight life would bore you."
"Stop reading my mind, Seamus."
"Stop thinking so loud. Okay, remember that the display platform is pressure-sensitive just like the floor is." They'd gone over this many times, but they knew that stress could blank the mind. As much as it annoyed her to hear this again, she approved of him doing it. "You do the switch and go. I don't know how much longer I can fool the system into thinking that its beams, nanobots, and cameras are still on."
The small light on her headset struck gleaming sparks off the Star's facets. The stone looked thick, cold, and heavy.
Their fake should weigh exactly as much as the real Star. Should. Harper had engineered the fake using a ton of reference holos, floppies, and flexis for details. If everything went according to plan, it would hold up for seven days before the unstable matrix finally gave out, at which point everyone would realize that the Star of Heaven had been lifted. For whatever reason, Mr. Big, their mysterious employer, wanted people to know that it had been stolen. Within seven days they'd be far from El Dorado Drift, carrying a legitimate cargo ordered by the very guy they'd stolen the Star for, giving them an official reason to meet up with him on Borealis. It would look totally aboveboard.
If everything went according to plan.
Harper's breathing in her ear had a slightly thick, wet sound, which worried her. One time a "no problem" thing he'd refused to mention to her had put him down with pneumonia. His weaker immune system left him too vulnerable. After this little caper, he'd be going to a clinic even if she had to drag him there. She could more than afford it where his health was concerned. After all, her humanitarian rescue of an endangered mudfoot kid from Earth had given her a top-of-the-line engineer at bargain rates, helping the Maru run better than she'd ever seen it and keeping her slightly ahead of her debts.
Besides, she really liked the little psycho.
Thinking about other things like that, breathing in time with her congested engineer, her hands steadied and she switched the fake for the real Star. No alarms sounded off. Smiling, she wrapped the Star up and put it in her pack.
Harper, watching through the filament camera on her headset, gave a thick, wet sigh of relief. "Now we just hope that the museum doesn't have any silent alarms that they don't mention in the literature and I didn't notice myself," he whispered.
"Nice pep talk," she answered as she started to reel herself up and away from the display.
He hissed in what seemed like surprise. The sound of breathing in her ear dropped to a tiny, tiny noise, far distant.
Shit. Shit! Okay. Calm. He could be fine. Shouting into her mouthpiece might be the worse thing they could do. She would just reel herself up and get her ass out of there while she still could in case he'd been knocked out and his hack discovered. She did so, and no alarms sounded and nothing attacked her. So far, so good.
As she traveled, she started to hear him again, though he sounded faint. "I haven't had the port all that long, so I wanted to try out the flavor of things here. It takes some getting used to, you know?" He must have pulled his headset off his head and down into the collar of the ridiculously large and baggy coveralls that shaved another five years off his age. Playing young and ignorant had gotten him out of trouble before.
Murmur. Then, "I couldn't sleep...." Murmur. "You're... really cute too, sir."
Beka tried to hold back a laugh, but it came out sounding like a small cough anyway. Poor kid put the make on anything that crossed his path, with very little success, but now that attention was the last thing he wanted.... Well, it wasn't all that funny actually. If he lost concentration or this guy didn't take a hike or both, they were screwed.
As she moved, she followed the conversation with half her attention but began to worry as she heard Harper start to sound creeped out by whoever it was as whoever it was sounded more and more insistent. She couldn't make out the guy's words, but his tone pissed her off. Finally out of the museum, she pulled off her rig and headset, dropped them to the floor behind a dumpster, and ran for Harper's position.
Harper, still plugged into the wall unit, still working to keep the museum's defense system off her ass, faced down a much larger guy who was backing him up against the wall. Normally, if talking didn't work, Harper would fight or run, but without his headset on he couldn't see or hear that she'd gotten out all right.
The guy moved away a little as he heard her running up, giving Harper the opportunity to safely unplug and her the opportunity to throw an arm around his neck and say, "Bobby! We're going home." She let the guy see that she had her other hand on the butt of her gun.
They stared each other down for a while. Beka could feel Harper shifting in a way that would let him get to the knife on his wrist under his sleeve, though he probably kept his expression of young ignorance intact. Finally the guy smirked, put his hands up in exaggerated surrender, and said, "He's all yours, honey," before walking away.
Once the guy turned a corner and was out of sight, Harper breathed out next to her and said, "I guess he didn't want me that badly after all. But it's not like he intends to stroke me as I stare imperiously at his underlings and enemies."
She had this sudden image of him wiggling a lot and sticking his ass up a little as she stroked his back while he stared imperiously at her underlings and enemies. Bad thought. Majorly bad thought. Beka shook her head, then ruffled his spiky hair. "I was hanging upside down at the time. I'd like to see you do better. And you are fluffy."
"'Bobby'?"
"I needed a name on short notice."
"And that was at the top of your head? I worry about you, boss."
"You just say that because he never liked you."
"I say that because you can do better."
Smiling, Beka resisted the urge to slap his ass. She'd encouraged him enough with that cat nonsense. "Let's pick up our toys and go home."
Eyes closed, looking blissed out, pale skin washed with golden light, Harper sat on the windowsill drinking in the sun as they waited for their audience with their employer. Watching him, Beka smirked and asked, "Enjoying Borealis?"
He looked boneless. "No waves here worth a damn, but the sun's nice."
"Surfing, I kind of get. It looks like fun. It looks impossible too, but it looks like fun. But sitting there and just irradiating yourself? I don't see the appeal."
"Someday I'll make you see the joys of sunbathing."
"I've already seen the joys of your skin peeling off afterward. I'll pass."
"You'll come around someday. Hey, you think we'll be here tomorrow? I hear the rain comes down clean."
He'd go running through it if she let him. The very thought made her shudder. She couldn't see the appeal of unpredictable weather, unfiltered water, air that smelled alive, UV radiation-emitting light sources, and horizon lines. Planet-born people were just weird.
On some things, after three years together, they agreed to disagree. They still needled one another about those things, but it was good-natured needling.
"I hope not. I don't need you getting any sicker. Speaking of which...."
"Yes, Ma, I took my meds." Harper opened his eyes, which matched one of the five colors in the tropical shirt he wore. "I just figure that sitting here basking is better than pacing the floor like some people do. You should be happy that I'm too busy sunning myself to talk your ear off."
He expected that Mr. Big would try to screw them over just as much as she did. She hated dealing with people who wouldn't even give their names. Harper had come up with the "Mr. Big" moniker. If they came back empty-handed, Rev would be doing the "I told you so" routine for days.
"The master will see you now," a very overdressed servant said.
"Lead on, Jeeves," Harper answered.
This room had no windows, simply a large, polished, real wood desk occupied by their employer. Austere, huge, it had been designed to intimidate. Beka and Harper swaggered in and stopped side by side in front of the desk.
He'd paid her separately for the official cargo, and she'd left that payment with Rev in the Maru. All that remained was her price for the lovely she had stashed in her pleather jacket. She stood there looking at Mr. Big quietly, Harper miraculously staying silent at her side, and waited.
Finally the man said, "You have the Star?" It wasn't really a question.
"Yes. Do you have my compensation?"
His attention strayed to Harper. "You must be Rafe." Playing games.
But playing games badly. He'd meant to show how much he knew about her but screwed it up. He'd assumed from the start that they were sister and brother, a common assumption people seemed to make based off the two of them being blondes with attitude. Or at least from the two of them looking like blondes. Her blonde came from her nanobots, while Harper enhanced his natural blond with highlights. They'd let Mr. Big assume, as they'd let others. Now he wanted to scare her by naming her brother, something she hadn't done for him.
Idiot.
Harper just nodded. He'd played Rafe before; some of their best shady scores had come from people assuming he was her con artist brother. Rafe probably appreciated the misdirection of some people thinking that he looked like a short blond kid with experimental hair. And if he didn't... well, he could just fuck off anyway. She spent almost as much time ducking the collection officers, creditors, and victims he'd left behind as she did ducking her father's. He owed her a hell of a lot.
"We have an agreement," Beka said.
"He doesn't talk?" Mr. Big asked.
"Beka Valentine's the captain and owner," Harper answered in the same flat, dark voice he'd used when the Good Life's captain had tried to entice him into working for a different ship and captain. Beka was sure that wasn't the only offer he'd gotten, just the only one she'd eavesdropped on.
She'd realized long ago that she owned Harper. At a moment's dissatisfaction, she could have him shipped back to Earth. Any number of ass-kissers out to impress the Nietzscheans would be willing to take him there for her. The Nietzscheans would be thrilled to have an object lesson to their unwilling subjects that nobody escaped forever.
More than that, he knew that she owned him, had known it from the first. He might mouth off, but he worked harder than anyone she'd ever met. She could do almost anything she wanted to him, and he wouldn't lash back, though he had once made the point in conversation that only idiots who want to be suicides piss off their engineers. She wouldn't do anything to him, but she knew she could. He followed her lead and showed her an intense, feral loyalty. He'd killed for her in the past.
He loved her.
As these thoughts ran through her head, Beka knew that her smile turned darker and deeper. Mr. Big looked a little less confident behind his fancy desk. Maybe he was starting to think that he should have had them frisked and scanned instead of trusting that the fact that they appeared to be gun-free meant they were unarmed.
They hadn't brought their guns to the house, as per Mr. Big's demand, but they each had a knife, and she knew that Harper had a mini bomb hidden amidst the spare parts in his toolbelt.
"I have the Star," Beka said. "We agreed that I would be paid upon delivery. Well, here we are, and I don't see any payment. I have a Magog on my crew who expects us back soon and gets antsy if our schedule gets fucked up." Harper tossed her his mini-comp. She removed the cushioned, velvety bag holding the Star from her pocket and tossed it sideways to Harper.
Everybody tried to screw the little guy, but this little guy had no intention of taking it.
Mr. Big brought up a case of chips and opened it. As Beka leaned over to let the mini-comp scan the chips' value, she could feel Harper skewering Mr. Big with his gaze. Harper had her back and the Star. She had a knife. She picked up the case and backed up, saying, "Looks good."
Harper took out the Star, letting the room's lights play across its smooth, polished facets. It blazed light blue. Pretty thing, but gaudy. Of course, part of the value and bragging rights came from possessing the Star of Heaven, taste be damned. Harper put it back in its traveling bag and tossed it to Mr. Big, who scrambled to catch it. As he did so, they quickly backed up to the door, opened it, and left the room.
They departed the house at a brisk walk, giving dirty, quelling looks to every servant on their way out while Harper kept his hand on his belt near the bomb the whole time. After walking through eight rooms, trotting down three staircases, and rushing across the lush, surrounding grounds, they reached the street and found their ride waiting for them, just as they'd planned it. Smooth. Once in their cab, in motion, Beka started to relax a tiny bit.
But Harper didn't seem to be enjoying the sunshine or tropical atmosphere anymore. "Beka, do you think he knows about the seven-day replacement we did?" he asked, phrasing carefully.
"He has enough subordinates to find out. He wanted people to know about the disappearance, so I figure that would include him."
"Do you think that maybe he might start wondering if he should keep us around a while just to make sure he got the cargo he wanted, since I was able to put one together once already?"
Shit. They'd given him the real Star of Heaven, but he didn't know that for sure. Hell, maybe he didn't even know for sure whether Harper could create a Star that would look like the Star longer than seven days. Harper couldn't do that, but that didn't mean that Mr. Big would believe that Harper couldn't do that. Mr. Big had to have a private appraiser on the payroll, but would he trust the guy's opinion?
"I'm not going to get to see my rain, am I?" Harper asked, looking annoyed. "We're getting our asses out of Dodge."
Beka sighed. Screwing came in many different forms. "I told you that rain's no good for your health anyway."
End
"A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not
sufficient capital to form a corporation."
-- Howard Scott, The Economist