Rumer nodded heavily. “You are right about that,” he said. “I can’t think of what you’d call us but a load of damn, dirty pirates.”
There was a silence, during which Rumer wondered whether it would be possible to pre-program a route for the shuttle so that it would take her straight to Black Oven. That way, if her food and oxygen held out…and if nobody too bad picked her up when she got there…
That was when Diallo came in, not grinning. “We have company, Captain,” he said. “They appear to have finally made a decision about us. They want to board.”
It was a long, slow nightmare run to the bridge. And then Rumer looked on one of the biggest U.N. squadron ships he had ever seen. Still a ways off, it swallowed up the whole screen like a big, blue open-mouthed whale. “How do they keep finding us? What are they locking onto?”
“I do not know,” said Diallo, “I have picked off every signal I could find.”
“I think…I know.”
Rumer turned. The girl sat in the doorway of the bridge. She was out of breath. Her knees were bloodied. She must have dragged herself from the stern-end utility closet to the bridge, all the way across that steel floor. “Are these them?” she asked, “are these the kind of officers you’re talking about, who are working for…for somebody?”
Rumer jerked his head. “Any particular reason why you’re in here, Miss Glass?”
“I know what’s going on.”
“I’ll bet you do. You’re very clever at that. But if you wouldn’t mind headin’ back to your little room just now…”
“I know why the squad ship’s here. I know why they found us.”
Rumer stiffened, blinked. “Say what you mean, girl.”
The girl swallowed. “I have…a chip.”
“A chip?”
“I’m chipped. In case anything bad ever happens to me when I’m…it emits this low-level signal all the time, so people can find where I am.”
Rumer glared at her, this pretty, pale girl he once thought too fragile to live, his eyeballs hot. “And this was something you chose not to share with us?”
“‘Course not. She’s got friends who’d pat her head like a good little bitch-hound if she helps land people like us in prison,” said Kell. The way he looked at her even alarmed Rumer, angry as he was.
“Jesus.” Rumer pressed his palms into his eyes. “Well, you’ve certainly fucked us, kid, if that’s what you meant to do. I’d throw you straight out the air-lock if I thought it would do us any good, you hear me?”
Her green eyes looked frantic for the first time since he’d known her. “No!…I mean, I’m sorry, it’s just, it’s not something I really think about.”
“Not something you really think about? Is there anything you really think about?”
The girl got angry at that. “My parents made me get it when I was eight, okay? I didn’t even know what it was supposed to do. It was just something that happened to me, like everything else in my fucking life. For God’s sake, if I really wanted all of you to go down on all kinds of charges…but I don’t!” She took a long overdue breath. “I don’t.”
“That’s comforting,” said Rumer. “You can tell them what perfect gentlemen we’ve been while they’re thundering all over our cargo bay gathering up our stolen goods to return them to people we won’t be able to get police protection from.”
“It wasn’t meant to be comforting, asshole.”
Rumer let out air. “What would you have me do, girl? What is it you’d like to do?”
“I want to help,” said Margo. The eyes blazed bright, now, not brittle at all. “Let me help.”
It wasn’t a very good plan, Margo knew. It would have been a better one if they’d roughed her up a bit first, or cut off her pinky toe like she’d suggested (“It grows all wrong, anyway. And it’s not like I’m using it.”) But even Kell had been too pussy to do it. She hoped the dustpan looked like a horrible enough place that it would still be believable. It was too late to reconsider.
The com-link connected on the third try, and the other ship picked up.
“You are speaking to a representative of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force. Please identify yourself.”
Rumer was ready with the apple sack over his head. “I am what you might call an independent profiteer looking to do some business. If you would, please inform Secretary Glass that we have her precious little daughter, and are interested in discussing the terms under which she may be returned in one piece.”
The man on the other end paused, and went pale. “One moment. Don’t do anything. One moment.”
“Don’t take too long, now.”
The man disappeared for what seemed like a very long time. Margo wiggled against her ropes so that at the very least her wrists would have rope marks on them.
The man reappeared. “We need to see her before anything can be discussed.”
“You know we have her,” said Rumer. “She’s got a chip. We found it. Would you like to learn how?”
The man set his mouth, calmly obstinate. “If you want to move forward, put her on the com, and let me speak to her.”
“Assholes,” Margo muttered. “I could be dying right now.” But she whipped up some shuddering breaths and let Rumer throw her against the terminal.
“Please!” she screamed. “Please it’s me! Tell my mother it’s me!” She didn’t know the man on the com, and she hoped he knew her only by sight.
“Calm down. Calm down, now. You’re going to be all right. Who are these men? What are they doing to you?”
Rumer piped in loudly. “Wrong question, G-man.” Margo winced as though he’d tightened the ropes.
“I don’t know who they are, they never take off the sacks,” said Margo, feeling the blood pound in her ears. “They boarded our ship, and they…everyone…so they took a bunch of stuff, and they took me. They want money. That’s all they want, and then they’ll let me go. Tell my mom…seventy-five thousand. In credits. Tell her.”
“Alright,” said the man. “Alright, we’ll tell her, Miss, stay calm. We’re doing everything we can.” The man shifted to try to get another look at Rumer, just out of frame, and then disappeared.
“We should’ve asked for more,” muttered Kell.
“You should’ve roughed me up,” said Margo.
“Shut up, children,” said Rumer.
The com crackled in the silence, picking up no conversation on the other end.
“He’s not goin’ for it.” Kell rubbed his eye. “We should’ve asked for a lot more. No one lets a piece like her go for under ninety thousand.”
“Oh, they’ll round it up to a nice even hundred for us when they put it to the secretary.” Rumer didn’t take his eyes from the screen. “They wouldn’t go for this if they couldn’t take something off the top.”
“And this way, they’ll think it was their idea,” said Margo proudly.
Kell scowled at her.
The man on the com returned. “We’ve spoken to Secretary Glass. She’ll pay. Clear your bridge. We’ll send someone over shortly to make the trade.”
Margo swallowed the bile in her throat. “NO!…no, you can’t. If you send someone over here, they’ll kill me! I don’t want to die, please, don’t make me die!” It surprised her how easily the whimpering came from her throat.
“Calm down, Miss. Miss? Please calm down.” The man seemed more rattled by her hysterics than by the situation itself. “What does he want us to do?”