Free The Backworlds by M. Pax Page B

stupid then,
suddenly feeling the need for a bath. “I’ve never done anythin ’
like this before ‘n I’m not exactly sure what this is we doin ’.”
    “We moving goods. That’s all. We
pay the sellers, they give us the codes of the crates. We take the crates. I
give you your cut ‘n we go our separate ways.”
    The scenario worked for Craze,
especially the last part. “What’s my cut?”
    “Twenty thousand chips. That’s a
whole lot of fortune.”
    Not enough to buy two bars of
chocolate, and less than one percent of the haul. Awful pay. Craze bit his lip
not to grumble. Gattar would be suspicious if he proved he knew the value of
things. “Wow. So, what do I do?”
    “We go to where the folks we met in
the bar want to rendezvous. You go in with the chips ‘n set the case on the
floor. There’ll be an X ‘n an O . You put the money on the X ‘n go back to the O .”
    Mr. Slade’s Emporium was the
meeting place then. No doubt remained. He’d deduced correctly, making him want
to whoop at the top of his lungs. He swallowed the triumph, so as not to risk
this chance at great riches. No telling when or if another would come along.
    “You wait there,” the Jix
continued. “They’ll take the money ‘n put down some crates. A few moments
later, they’ll give you the codes. We test them, check the goods, then we move
the crates. I pay you. You go away.”
    Craze sure hoped Lepsi and Talos
would have everything ready in time, and he hoped they wouldn’t double cross
him. Nah, they were too grateful for the propellant injector for their ship.
They’d made him crew. They’d be true to their word. So Craze kept telling
himself. “Doesn’t sound too complicated.”
    “But if you do it wrong, they’ll
shoot you.”
    There was the rub. He’d be the one
on the firing line. “I see.”
    “Still up for this?”
    “Twenty thousand is a lot of
chips.” Craze grinned as if the amount really excited him. In a way it did. It
was more than Bast had given him. “So, yes.”
    “Good.”
    Gattar sauntered close, running her
fingers over his chest, getting too friendly, reaching for his exposed skin.
Craze really didn’t want to go there with the Jix. Really, really didn’t want
to. He twisted and wiggled to keep her touch on his clothes, checking the hour
on a pink clock on a tilting table. Three and a half hours until the
rendezvous, an eternity to do what she hinted at, and several times over at a
languid pace. Shit.
    “Show me again exactly how to walk
into the place ‘n hold the case of chips. I don’t want to get shot.” Normally,
he hated acting so stupid, but not in this situation.

 
     
    CHAPTER 15
     
     
     
    At an hour when the city lay motionless,
poised in suspension until the sun rose again, Craze stood inside Mr. Slade’s
Emporium. The front door was now unsealed, and a case filled with chips was in
his hand. The money weighed a lot, threatening to make him walk lopsided. He
resisted, striving to regain the dignity Bast and the council had robbed him of
on Siegna.
    He set the burdened attaché down on
the enormous X on the floor. Nothing in the
lobby had changed from his earlier visit except for the sacks of rice piled
beside some trash on a shelf. Craze noted a piece of vine beside the sacks, a
signal from the aviarmen that the clear filament was attached, holding the jar
of pickled snoink at the fourth floor above the
magnet and pulley system the smugglers had installed. He chanced glancing up,
relieved not to see the shine of glass from the jar. The aviars must have
painted it black as they had planned.
    Although he was glad to know Talos
and Lepsi had everything in place, Craze’s shoulders didn’t unclench and his
steps came off stiff as he lumbered to the O taped out a good twenty feet away. He stood mute in its center. A low hum
disturbed the heavy quiet. The case shot up. A loud clang thundered through the
empty building.
    The magnet. Craze looked up,
studying every shadow for