Free gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap by Christine Pope Page B

casual, but Derek could see the muscles in her throat move as she swallowed, and he knew she was far more on edge than she wanted to let on. Then again, he was amazed at how functional she was. How many hours straight had she been up now? Forty-eight?
    The man grinned, revealing yellowed teeth that had never seen the benefit of cosmetic dentistry. “Relax, sweetheart. You earned some points, swiping that ship from those GDF assholes. I can’t give you full market price, of course, but my contacts are willing to do a quarter-mil.”
    A quarter-million units. Just like that. It would buy them a replacement ship — if they could find one — or passage out of here. Hell, it could buy them just about anything they wanted.
    Save, possibly, their freedom.
    “That works,” Cassidy said, voice calm, as if she hadn’t just been handed their ticket out of this nightmare. “Voucher?”
    “Of course. And some cash. A lot of the places around here don’t take anything else.”
    She nodded. “It’s a deal.”
    The man spat on his palm and extended his hand, and Cassidy did the same, unruffled as if she engaged in this sort of unsanitary transaction every day. Obviously, she had some experience with it, whereas Derek felt as if he were an anthropologist observing the rituals of a far more primitive race. Well, it was already fairly clear to him that he and Cassidy had come from very different worlds.
    “Give me a minute,” the man said. “In the meantime, drinks’re on the house. What’ll you have?”
    Drinking anything here didn’t seem all that appealing. On the other hand, refusing would seem downright rude. “Gin and tonic,” Derek replied, wishing the remark hadn’t ended on an upward inflection, as if he wasn’t certain of what he’d requested.
    “I can do gin without the tonic,” the man said, one eye twitching. Maybe it was supposed to be a wink.
    “Sounds great,” Cassidy put in, and the bartender reached out to the shelf behind him and poured them a couple of shots. After that, he disappeared through the door again, leaving Derek and Cassidy alone.
    “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
    “Too late for second thoughts now. Besides, a quarter-mil? We’ll be set.” She sipped from the shot glass and winced. “Holy shit, that’s nasty. I bet he makes it himself in the back room there.”
    Derek wondered briefly when he and Cassidy had become “we,” but he decided not to mention it. In a way, it felt good. Actually, it felt damn good, although he didn’t want to ascribe too much meaning to what most likely was just a slip of the tongue. After all, she was probably running on fumes right now. Since he’d already been dubious about the gin, he ignored the shot glass. Not that he couldn’t use a drink right about now, but he figured he could wait to get something from a more reputable source. If, of course, there was such a thing here on Triton.
    The bartender returned, holding a translucent credit voucher in one hand and a bag that jingled faintly in the other. The cash, Derek supposed.
    After pushing the voucher and the bag across the counter toward Cassidy, the man said, “Five thousand cash, the rest on the voucher. The ship?”
    “Just a sec,” she replied, digging in a pocket of her coveralls and producing her handheld. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I check this?”
    “Not at all,” the bartender said with a yellow-toothed grin.
    She passed the voucher over the screen and waited briefly. Although Derek couldn’t see exactly what it said because of the angle at which she was holding it, he assumed she was pleased with what she saw, as she nodded.
    “It all looks good. I appreciate doing business with you.”
    “Our pleasure,” he replied. “I’d recommend the Trident, if you’re staying over.”
    “Thanks for the rec,” she said, and downed the rest of her gin. Derek was surprised she could still stand upright after that, but she hopped off her barstool in a surprising show of