“Me?” I asked weakly. “What about Boggs? Or Donny?”
“I think I’m too big to go in,” Boggs said.
“Donny isn’t comfortable exploring caves, as he is still adjusting to significant anatomical alterations,” Donny said.
I sighed, resigning myself to my fate. But as I steeled myself to enter the cave, shadows flickered on the wall inside. Someone was coming out. Soon I saw that it was Pritchett.
“Uh-oh,” he said, as he lay eyes on us.
“That’s right, uh-oh,” Rex said. “You sold us out to the Sp’ossels, you glarb-horker.”
“Okay, yes,” Pritchett said. “I did do that. But I can explain.”
“We’re done with your explanations,” Pepper snapped, pointing her lazegun at Pritchett. “Give us the money. All of it.”
“Whoa, hold on a minute,” Pritchett said. “I can’t give you the money, because I already spent it.”
“You spent eight hundred million credits?” Pepper cried. “On what?”
“Another Shiva device.”
“Another… what in Space is wrong with you, Pritchett?”
“I’m going to level with you,” Pritchett said. “What I told you about why the Shiva device didn’t work on Oz wasn’t one hundred percent accurate.”
“We’re flabbergasted,” Pepper said flatly.
“I didn’t lie, exactly,” Pritchett said. “The plans were really flawed. The Sp’ossels will probably never figure out how to build a Shiva device without the side effects.”
“But you think you can,” Pepper said.
“Not me. My engineer. He’s a genius.”
“Oh yeah?” Rex said. “Where is this engineer?”
“Follow me,” Pritchett said. He turned and walked back into the cave.
Pepper followed him, still holding her gun on him. “Stay close,” she said.
“Boggs, you and Donny wait out here,” I said. They nodded. Rex and I followed Pepper into the cave.
After a few steps, the cave turned a corner and then sloped downward for fifty meters before opening into a well-lit, dome-shaped chamber big enough to hold the Flagrante Delicto. Shelves and workbenches littered with tools and electronic components lined the walls. In the middle of the room stood a mushroom that came up to my waist.
“I told him the design had problems,” said raspy voice from somewhere inside the cavern. “The biogenic field will be unstable, I told him. But he never listens.”
Pepper, Rex and I were all peering around the cavern, trying to determine where the voice had come from.
“Who was that?” Pepper asked.
“Me,” said the voice. “Over here.” It was hard to pinpoint the sound, but it seemed to be coming from the center of the cave. We continued to scan the cave for anything that might be speaking.
“What are you, blind?” the voice asked again. “I’m right here!”
Rex took a step forward. “Where, behind the toadstool-looking thing?”
“No, you dummy!” said the voice. “I am the toadstool-looking thing. See? I’m waving my arms.” Several tendril-like appendages attached to stalk of the toadstool writhed in the air.
“You’re… the engineer?” Pepper asked.
“Egslaad the Voork at your service.” The toadstool thing hopped over to one of the shelves and picked up a component with its tentacles. “The tricky part,” Egslaad said, “is calibrating the biogenic feedback dampers. If you don’t get it just right, you get a feedback loop that causes the field to spiral out of control.”
“But you can solve the problem?” Pepper asked.
“I believe so. I was working on it when Pritchett took the device. Always in a hurry, this one.”
“How much longer would you need to build another device?”
“Two days,” Egslaad said. “Three, tops.”
“You see?” Pritchett said. “Everything’s going to work out. We’re back in the black market planet business. And we don’t have to worry about competition from the Sp’ossels, because they don’t have Egslaad. They’ll never solve the feedback loop problem.”
“You’re not in any business,” Rex said, jabbing his finger at Pritchett. Whatever money we make on this deal is ours. You’re not getting any of it, capisce? We may let you live. If we decide to do this.”
“It’s risky,” Pepper said. “If the Sp’ossels find out, they’ll come after us. And then there’s Heinous Vlaak….”
“Also,” I said, “it’s going to be difficult to find buyers after the Oz debacle.”
Pepper rubbed her chin. “I’ve still got some contacts in the black market planet business, and nobody at that auction knows I was involved. Except for the Sp’ossels, of course, and we want to keep them in the dark anyway. We just need to be more careful about whom we contact about the sale.”
“I don’t like it,” Rex said. “This planet-selling business is too much like work. And anywhere both Heinous Vlaak and the Sp’ossels might show up is exactly where I don’t want to be. I say we take the eight hundred million credits and find some better targets to scam than galaxy-spanning organizations that have the power to kill us a million times over. Not to mention that we wouldn’t have to put up with this jerk anymore.”
Pritchett opened his mouth to object, but a glare from Pepper silenced him.
“I’m no fonder of Pritchett or the Sp’ossels than you are,” Pepper said. “But…”
“What is it, Pepper?” I asked.
“Well, to be completely honest, I was counting on that money from the zontonium. I still owe the Ursa Minor Mafia a lot of money, and that zontonium was going to be my ticket to freedom. Eight hundred million credits is nice, but once we split it… it’s not going to be enough. And we could easily clear a billion on the sale of a single planet. Probably more like ten billion.”
“If Egslaad can get the Shiva device working,” I said.
“And we don’t get ambushed by Sp’ossels or Heinous Vlaak,” Rex added.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Pritchett asked.
“Did you miss the part where you’re not getting a single credit no matter what happens?” Rex snapped.
Pritchett went back to sulking.
The cave was silent for some time. At last Rex let out a sigh. “Ah, who am I kidding? I’m never going to say no to a payday of ten billion credits. Let’s do it.”
“I don’t suppose I get a vote,” I said.
Rex raised an eyebrow at me. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up on vengeance so easily.”
“How exactly is this vengeance?”
“We’ve been over this, Sasha. It’s the abstract, non-violent form of vengeance.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, without enthusiasm. “Abstract vengeance. Wonderful. I’m going to go back to the Flagrante Delicto and stare at a wall.”
“Vengeance?” Egslaad asked, still fiddling with components. “What does a robot need vengeance for?”
Rex shrugged. “What does a robot need anything for?”
“Sasha is disgruntled about her thought arrestor,” Pepper explained. “Rex has been promising her vengeance on the people responsible.”
“I see,” said Egslaad. “But wouldn’t it be better just to remove the thought arrestor?”
“Can’t remove it without wrecking her brain,” Rex said. “Which is apparently a big deal.”
“You can if you have the access code,” Egslaad said. He set down the components and took three small hops toward me.
“Access code?” I asked.
“A sort of back door I installed. Take off your face, would you?”
“You installed?” Pepper asked.
“Sure,” Egslaad said. “Who do you think designed the thought arrestors?”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Rex said. “Sasha, here’s your chance! I’ll hold his tentacles while you exact your abstract vengeance!”
Egslaad hopped away as Rex tried to grab him. “It was just a job!” Egslaad squeaked. “I built th
e original thought arrestor for my own robot assistant when she went a little crazy. The Malarchy heard about it and offered me a bunch of money for the patent. I thought they were just going to use them to control robots that had gone rogue. I didn’t know they were going to pass a law requiring them to be installed on every robot in existence!”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m really not feeling the whole vengeance thing. I’d be happy if you could just remove the thought arrestor.”
“Certainly,” Egslaad said, taking a cautious hop toward me.
Rex shrugged. “Okay, but if you ask me, you’re missing out on a perfect opportunity for vengeance. Hey, Egslaad, not to cast aspersions on your competence or anything, but given your past performance… well, I guess what I’m asking is, what are the chances Sasha’s head is going to explode into a swarm of pterodactyls?”
Egslaad shrugged his tentacles. “Fifty-fifty,” he said.
I shrank back in terror.
“Kidding!” Egslaad said. “It’s, like, one in five, tops. Take off your face, please.”
I reluctantly undid the catches on my face and removed it. Egslaad reached into my head with a couple of his tentacles. How he could see anything I had no idea; I still hadn’t figured out where his eyes were.
“Hey!” I said. “That tick—”
“Got it,” said Egslaad. He pulled his tentacles back. One of them held a roughly cubical device about the size of a golf ball.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it. Here.” He held the thought arrestor out to me and I took it in my hand.
“Do you feel any different, Sasha?” Pepper asked.
“I… don’t think so?”
“Try having an original thought,” Rex said.
“Like what?”
“Well, if I tell you, it won’t be original, will it?”
“I suppose not.”
“Think of a number between one and ten,” Pepper said.
“What for?”
“Just to see if you can do it,” Pepper said. “To see if you can make a decision without anything determining the outcome.”
“Well,” I said. “Seven, I suppose. No, three! Wait, does it have to be in integer? It seems fitting to pick an irrational number.”
“Let’s stick with three for now,” Pepper said.
Rex nodded. “You don’t want to spend all your free will in one place.”
“I suppose not,” I said. I still wasn’t sure I felt any different, but I was certainly enthralled with the possibilities. “Thank you, Egslaad,” I said.
“The least I could do,” Egslaad said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a terraforming device to build.”
“And I’ve got an auction to set up,” said Pepper.
“Well, I’m exhausted,” Rex said. “I’m going to bed. I’ll be in the Flagrante Delicto if anybody needs me.”
“Same here,” Pritchett said, following me and Rex to the exit.
Rex stopped and turned. “Not a chance.”
“Oh,” said Pritchett. “I guess I’ll sleep here, then.”
“We’ve got work to do,” Pepper said. “You can sleep outside.”
“Outside? In the swamp? I’ll catch my death of cold!”
Pepper shrugged. “Maybe Egslaad can spare a sleeping bag for you.”
“No spares, sorry,” Egslaad shouted from across the cave.
“I can’t sleep out there without a sleeping bag,” Pritchett asked. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Not my problem,” Rex said. “Sasha, do you have any ideas?”
“Actually, I do have one,” I said. “But I don’t think Mr. Pritchett will like it.”
“Having ideas is fun, isn’t it?” Rex asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Seventeen
Egslaad announced he was finished with the new Shiva device on the morning of our third day on Blintherd. It didn’t look like much; just a steel cylinder about a meter in length and half a meter in diameter. It had a switch with a timer on one end and some blinking lights on the other. When pressed, Egslaad admitted that the lights didn’t actually do anything; he just thought a terraforming device needed some blinking lights.
Meanwhile, Pepper had located a suitable uninhabited planet not far from the Crab Nebula and set up the auction. It was going to be a smaller affair than the Oz auction, as we couldn’t risk advertising in the usual channels and attracting the attention of the Sp’ossels. Additionally, I suspect some buyers had been frightened off by the possibility of being mauled, eviscerated, poisoned and/or eaten by the local wildlife. Egslaad insisted he’d solved the biogenic feedback problem, but there wasn’t any way for us to know for sure. We’d just have to travel to the planet, activate the device, and hope for the best. Pepper insisted that Egslaad come along this time, as insurance: if the Shiva device was dangerous, he’d be in danger too.
I piloted the Flagrante Delicto to the unnamed sphere that we’d decided to terraform. Egslaad had rigged a coupler to attach the Shiva device to the Flagrante Delicto’s bow. As we neared the planet, he triggered the release mechanism, ejecting the device. I altered the ship’s trajectory to enter a high-altitude orbit while the device hurtled toward the planet’s surface. As we circled the planet, there was a twinkle of light far below, which turned into a glowing circular wave of energy that slowly spread outward from the impact location. Soon the entire surface of the planet glowed with the pulsating orange energy.
“How long is this gonna take?” Rex asked, as we watched from the cockpit. He was already on his second martini.
“After the device detonates on the surface, the initial matter transformation is very quick,” Egslaad said. “We’ll have a breathable atmosphere within an hour.”
“When do the murderous death-beasts show up?” Rex asked.
“Hopefully not until after the check clears,” Pritchett muttered.
“Not funny, Pritchett,” Pepper snapped.
“We need to name it,” Rex said. “I think we should call it Olihin. It’s ‘Nihilo’ backwards.”
“That’s a terrible name,” said Pepper.
“Fine. You come up with something, then. It’s not as easy as you might think. I only know Olihin because sometimes I write my name on my chest with shaving cream.”
Pepper was rubbing her chin. “I think we should let Sasha name it.”
“Me?” I asked. “Why me?”
“Because you can have ideas now,” Pepper said. “Might as well get some practice on something a little more consequential than picking random numbers.”
“Okay, but… naming a planet,” I said. “It seems like a big responsibility.”
“You had no trouble coming up with names for Squawky,” Rex reminded me. “They were all terrible, but you came up with a bunch of them.” Squawky was Rex’s pet parrot, which he adopted during his short-lived and regrettable career as a space pirate. We’d had to deactivate Squawky because he wouldn’t stop squawking “JUST HIDE THE ZONTONIUM IN THE SUPPLY CLOSET, NO ONE WILL LOOK THERE” at everyone who came into Pepper’s saloon.
“All right,” I said. “How about Zanzibar?”
“No,” Rex replied.
“Ilirium?”
“No.”
“Xalaphax?”
“No.”
“Protombulus?”
“No.”
“Shavalansis?”
“No.”
“Elborgarigam?”
“No.”
“Philanthropotron?”
“No.”
“I give up, sir. Maybe we should just give it a random number and let the buyers—”
“Globeworld!”
I groaned. “Sir, that’s a terrible name for a planet.”
“No, it’s perfect. See, it’s round, like a globe, and… you know what? It’s one of those things that you either get or you don’t.”
“So I don’t get to name it after all?”
“It was a cooperative p
rocess. I couldn’t have landed on Globeworld if you hadn’t tossed out all those dumb ideas first.”
“Fine,” Pepper said, clearly eager to terminate the discussion. “Globeworld it is. It’s just a temporary name anyway; I’m sure the buyers will want to come up with their own name.”
Rex snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll totally come up with something better than Globeworld. Maybe one of Sasha’s ideas, like Marzipan or Zima or whatever.”
*****
The auction went remarkably smoothly. Only a dozen bidders showed up, but on the plus side, none of them were torn apart by ravenous murder-beasts. Globeworld went for a cool four billion credits, which was less than we’d hoped for, but more than enough to settle Pepper’s debts—or so we thought.
After the auction, the winning bidder—a short, heavyset man wearing a striped gray suit and a fedora—approached, identifying himself as Ivan Rannecki, a representative of the Ursa Minor Mafia.
“Relax,” Ivan said, as Pepper eyed the exit to the tent. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”
Rex and I stood behind Pepper; the other bidders had already filed out. We’d left Pritchett in the Flagrante Delicto with Boggs and Donny. Boggs had been given clear orders to bonk Pritchett on the head if he tried to say or do anything.
“Then what do you want?” Pepper asked.
“My new planet, for starters,” said Rannecki. “Should make a great place to store contraband on the way to the Crab Nebula. Oh, and the money you owe us.”
“I was going to pay you,” Pepper said. “That’s why we’re selling the planet. Tell them, Sasha.”
“It’s true,” I said. “She talked us into doing this so she could pay you guys off.”
“Really?” said Rannecki. “That’s heartwarming. And just to show you how much I appreciate it, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take Globeworld and call us even.”
“It’s a great name, isn’t it?” Rex said. “I called it Globeworld because it’s round, like a globe, and—”
“I get it,” Rannecki. “Very clever.”
“No disrespect intended, Mr. Rannecki,” Pepper said, “but four billion credits is a lot more than I owe you.”
“Well, Missy,” said Rannecki. “There’s this thing called interest. And there’s another thing called the Ursa Minor Mafia spending an asteroid-load of time and credits tracking you down. So when I say we’re even, we’re even. You got it?”
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