by Pam Uphoff
“Got a reward, huh?” “How much, huh?” “What are you going to do . . .” “We worked all day . . .” “. . . ought to share . . .”
Arno backed and backed . . . and there was a bus, picking up passengers.
He scrambled aboard, and the doors closed on his heels. He ran the card across the fee box, caught a glimpse of numbers. Lots of numbers, as the card flashed its balance.
He shoved the card into his pants pocket and scooted into a seat. I’ll get off at the first stop. At least it’s pointing the right direction.
The man in the window seat eyed him. “How much you get, kid?”
“Fifty. Well, minus bus fare, but . . .”
“Cheapskate priests.”
“Yeah.” Arno shrugged, and relaxed as the bus pulled out.
How many zeros were behind that fifty, and where was the decimal point? Or maybe it was rupees, not rials. Not that it matters, I can’t spend it back home.
He put his head back and relaxed . . . jolted awake as the bus sighed to a halt and the doors opened. He trooped off with the rest of the passengers, spotted the sign for the lavatory in the station and took care of that problem . . .
And walked back out to stare around in consternation.
Where am I? Surely I didn’t nod off long enough to go far . . . Right?
He stared at destinations posted, and times. A bus leaves for Bogra in two hours. Right. No problem.
I hope Ra’d isn’t the impatient type.
Chapter Three
Dhaka
He tried to saunter casually out of the terminal and down the crowded street. Glance casually back at . . . the Central Dhaka Bus Terminal.
He tried to remember the map . . . that’s a hundred and fifty, two hundred kilometers from Bogra!
He spotted a bank and veered over to their cash machine, for some of the local rupees—because something smelled really good—and choked at the balance. 49,982 Empire Rials.
He tapped for and received a sheaf of local currency.
He put the card and the money in his pocket and walked away to hunt down the smell. And ate curried lamb while eyeing a used car lot even further up the street.
I have way more money than I need to just buy a car and drive back to almost-to-Bogra.
He finished and strode down to look at the cars.
A line of miscellaneous ordinary cars . . . and on a raised platform something almost large enough to call a limo, with chrome everywhere . . . and next to it a sleek little beauty . . . He circled it . . . looked for a price . . .
A snort behind him. “It’s much more than a boy like you could afford.”
Arno shrugged and peered down one side and then the other. “Well, it doesn’t appear to have ever been wrecked. How old is it?”
“Eight years old—a classic Baja with only a hundred and fifty kilometers on it! Sixty thousand rials, Boy, so move along.”
Baja. Falcon. Yeah, I’ll bet it very nearly can fly.
Arno eyed the man. “Do you have a cash card reader?” He pulled the card back out of his pocket.
The salesman snorted and waved Arno inside to a desk, and pointed at his reader. His eyes widened as Arno set the card on it.
Arno picked up the card. “So, let’s see. There’s going to be taxes and so forth, right? Well, this is all the money I have so shall we start the negotiations with an offer of forty-thousand for the Baja?”
The man frowned. “Where did you get that much money?”
“Working for the Priests—the ones up by Bogra—who are looking for . . .”
“The Prophet Nicholas!” The man sat up, wide-eyed. “Have they found him?”
“No, but I found something they thought was important, so they handed me the card as a reward and rushed off to look for more.”
The salesman tapped his fingers. “Let me talk to my manager. I don’t know that we can go so low on our prize vehicle.”
Arno nodded politely and walked back out. Eyed the Baja, but walked out to look at the more ordinary cars. Much more practical . . . but I can’t spend the money at home. So . . . importing a car I bought here is a reasonable, sensible, sort of thing to do. I’ll just bubble it and keep it for a few years, until I can afford the gas, the insurance . . .
He stepped out to the curb and shaded his eyes. Yes, there was another car lot down the street.
“Oh, no, you don’t want an ordinary car. And certainly not the trash they have down there.”
Arno sighed. “Well, it would be sensible to buy something for five-thousand or so, and save the rest . . .”
The poor salesman’s eyes widened in horror at the thought of losing the commission on almost fifty-thousand rials . . .
It took another half hour, the sudden arrival of the manager . . . A little bit of mental pressure to get around a lack of ID, local address, or a name for the paperwork . . .
The Baja handled like a dream. He eased through the traffic, and followed directions and signs. Refrained from finding out how fast the Falcon could go . . .
An hour and a half later he could feel his gate. And found the traffic as backed up as ever. He pulled over at a gas station, and drove around to a parking space not very visible from the road. First an unnoticeable spell, wait a few minutes until people who had seen his very noticeable car had moved on, then he caught a bubble and whipped it over the car. Stuck it to his arm and started walking.
The gate was there. Ra’d was not.
Arno swallowed. Am I so late he went through to find me? A nightmare thought of Ra’d confronting those Priests . . .
He closed his eyes and thought about way up high “frequencies” of thought . . . and felt something on the edge of his reach . . . received a vague feeling of relief.
He let it go and sank down to meditate, found a cone, and took down the gate. He walked out to the road, suddenly tired and a bit shaky.
“I don’t believe I did all of that! Holy One!” He could feel something . . . Ra’d . . . coming from the north, so he trotted across the road and started walking south.
Funny, for a boy who everyone says is shy and quiet . . . I seem to be rather capable. I think maybe the problem is getting a word in edgewise with Ryol around. That is what I need to work on.
When the dusty black car pulled beside him, he hopped in quickly, and Ra’d hit the gas.
“Sorry that took so long. The priests showed up to start hunting for the bag.” Arno opened the bubble on his wrist and pulled out the handles. Slid them back in and closed the bag. He dug around in his pack, still on the floor, and found a tok, a “token,” the old-fashioned metal coins they used on Embassy. He pulled the bubble off his wrist and stuck it on the coin and dropped the coin in Ra’d’s shirt pocket. “In case you want to deliver them anonymously to the Comet Fall Hospital on Embassy.”
“I . . . don’t quite know what to say . . .”
Arno grinned. “It needed to be done . . . umm, do you know anything about registering cars legally purchased on another world, but imported without a permit?”
Other Titles by Pam Uphoff
Wine of the Gods Series:
Outcasts and Gods
Exiles and Gods (Three Novellas)
The Black Goats
Explorers
Spy Wars
One Alone
Comet Fall
A Taste of Wine (Seven Tales)
Dark Lady
Growing Up Magic (Four Novellas)
Young Warriors
God of Assassins
Heirs of Crown and Spear
The Fiend
Empire of the One
Warriors of the One
Dancer
Earth Gate
Mages at Large
Triplets
Sea Wolves
Bad Karma
Dark Side of the Moon
Cascades
Olympian
Embassy
Rael
On the Run
God of the Sun
No Confidence
Pure Poison
Flying
Last Merge
Nowhere Man
Black Point Clan
External Relations
Meet the Family
Children of a Foreign God
Lucky Dave
Mall Santa
Saturday Night
The Directorate Series:
Directorate School
A Tale of Three Interns
Trouble in Paradise
First Posting
Surveillance
Fort Dinosaur
Shadow Zone
Project Dystopia
Fractured Loyalties
Cooking Hot
The Boy
One Love
A Warrior’s Art
Scrambled
The Lawyers of Mars
Fancy Free
Time Loop
In the Rift
Writing as Zoey Ivers
YA Cyberpunk Adventures:
The Barton Street Gym
Chicago
Atlantis+
Fantasy:
Demi God