Planet Hustlers

by J. S. Morin

  Chuck’s digital avatar cocked his head aside before bursting out in a good-natured chuckle. “Did you sell him a bag of magic beans, or did he get that ship of his impounded?” Chuck replied to Tanny. Then to Chisholm, “This isn’t a wedding cake. I already split this place once. I’m not looking to divest.”

  “What if I offered a whole planet in return?” Chisholm asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Roddy shot Yomin a look of surprise. “That bitch is already spending her winnings.”

  Yomin shook her head. “Maybe. I think she’s just probing. Seeing if Chuck’s only got a half left to sell.”

  “We smooth if you have me for a neighbor instead of Carl?” Tanny asked, avoiding the false Chuck’s conversational roadblocks.

  “Depends on the planet,” Archie replied first to Chisholm before switching feeds to Tanny. “Depends. Would you be off-world as much as Brad? I might hardly notice the difference.”

  Roddy applauded silently. The damn robot even remembered to use Carl’s given name.

  “I just wanted to make sure Carl had a claim to what he said he did,” Tanny replied, finally just coming out and saying what she wanted. “You know how Carl can get.”

  “We’re just looking for a preliminary assessment,” Chisholm said. “I may be soon to acquire the rights to the half you don’t possess. I would prefer an entire planet.”

  “Oh, I get it. You want to play a little hard ball,” Fake Chuck said to Tanny. Then to Chisholm, “He’s a chip off the old block.”

  Roddy’s hands all clenched at once. His jaw clenched. His ass clenched. “Idiot!” he whispered. “You got them backward!”

  Archie glanced from Yomin to Roddy and back again.

  “Don’t look at me!” Yomin said, leaning away from the shipwreck in progress. “You fix it!”

  “Huh?” Tanny said.

  “I don’t quite follow,” Chisholm replied.

  As Roddy watched and eavesdropped, Archie synced up the video of the two comms. Chuck was like drunken double vision coming into focus. The audio feeds harmonized as well until he was addressing two outgoing parties with a single comm feed. The false Chuck Ramsey looked off camera. “See what you made me do, Becky. Dancing in the door buck naked… I’ve gone and made an ass of myself. Go put some… wait. What am I saying?” Chuck looked back at the camera. “Sorry. Hate to chat and run. But some things are more important than business. Ciao.”

  The comm cut off just after Archie’s rendition of Chuck cast a lewd wink at the camera.

  Heart palpitating, Roddy lifted his can of Earth’s Preferred for solace.

  “That could have gone better,” Yomin said wryly.

  Roddy shrugged. “Told him to push off Chisholm.”

  “They wouldn’t keep to the same order of responses. They were practically talking over one another,” Archie protested.

  “Well, since you didn’t tell them they were on a party line, that was kinda inevitable, wasn’t it?” Roddy asked.

  Yomin cast a glance over at the door. “Let’s just all agree to tell Carl it went off without a hitch.”

  Roddy’s reply was to toast with his beer can.

  # # #

  Amy slouched in the pilot’s seat, hands clasped over her stomach. Astral space looked the same at ten thousand kilometers per second as it did at a dead stop. The sensors claimed it was the latter.

  Carl sauntered in and plopped himself into the co-pilot’s seat. “Hey. What’s the deal? Why’re we stopped?”

  “What do you know about parallax transmissions?” Amy asked.

  There was a telling pause before Carl shrugged. “Plenty.”

  Since it was clear he wasn’t picking up on the concept, Amy explained. “Yomin and Roddy can’t change our distance to Ithaca’s astral beacon. The nanoseconds of difference in relay time would show up to someone who knew what they were looking for—Yomin, for instance. If either the pirates or Ruckers were on their game with techsters, they’d know Chuck was transmitting from a ship, not a planet or a moon.

  “Moons move.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Not like a ship in astral.”

  Carl waved his datapad. “Wouldn’t they pick up on the fact that I wasn’t moving when I spoke to them just now?”

  Well, at least he was getting a little quicker on the uptake. “Yeah, except that Yomin programmed in a progressive delay to your comm program. It simulated the minute delay of us being in transit and drifting farther from Carousel and closer to New Garrelon. It started with no delay to Tanny and a long one to Chisholm, lengthening one and shortening the other the whole time.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing the comm didn’t last longer than the delay we built in,” Carl said with a lopsided grin.

  Leaning over, Amy cupped Carl’s cheek in her hand. “Sugar, there’s only so long anyone wants to stay on a comm with you.”

  Carl hung his head, and Amy felt a pang of remorse. That hadn’t come out as playfully teasing as she’d hoped. Her regret was forgotten in an instant when she caught Carl peeking from the corner of his eye, watching the hand that still rested over Amy’s stomach.

  Quickly, Amy snatched the hand away, reaching for the shield display panel as if she’s just remembered some critical task.

  While no other ships were around.

  While they were stationary in astral space.

  While Carl watched.

  She stared out the window. The jig was up. “How long have you suspected?”

  By the sound of rustling leather, she could tell he was settling in. “Well, since probably a week or two after you started acting out of sorts. The puking was probably the dead giveaway. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Didn’t know what to say.”

  “Had you considered, ‘Hey, I’m pregnant’?”

  Amy turned to fix a condescending glare at her co-pilot. “Even you deserve more tact than that.”

  She turned to look away again, not wanting to face that overwhelming earnestness she saw. Carl caught her by the arm. “Hey. I agreed to play straight with you. I’d have told you as soon as I found out if it was me who’d gotten pregnant.”

  Amy snorted laughter. “Yeah. ‘Get me to an ARGO med facility! Now!’”

  Carl chuckled along with her. When it died out, he had a sobering statement. “You haven’t decided what to do about it.”

  She blinked. “Huh? Of course, I have. I’m pregnant. I’m having a kid. Oy, it’s the 26th century, not the 16th. If I wasn’t up for this, I’d never have let it happen.”

  With a creak of protesting upholstery, Carl leaned over the arm of his chair. “And… if I wasn’t on board?”

  That had been the real sticking point. She hadn’t asked. They hadn’t talked about it, one way or the other. Laissez faire sex was the stock and trade of their relationship. Carl climbed aboard the daddy train practically every night, counting on Amy to have the brakes in working order.

  “I was going to tell you. I swear. I just didn’t know how.”

  Carl slouched, crossing his arms. “You were worried I’d be upset.”

  “You look upset.”

  The look of self-aware perplexity on his face almost broke the tension. “OK. Maybe I am. But not the fatherhood thing. You’d been so on edge about turning into your mother that I didn’t dare bring it up.”

  “I get left on the ship a lot. I know. I know. I’m essentially the getaway driver for our heists. But it gives me a lot of time to think. Too much. I’m not good being left alone with my thoughts. We don’t get along. Well, one thing led to another, and one mission I flushed my hormone regulator. Figured I’d let God decide.”

  “Kind of a cop-out,” Carl pointed out.

  A throbbing was developing at her temples. “I know that. You think I don’t know that? ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ God wasn’t big on family planning.”

  Carl ran a hand through his hair. That was never a good sign. She liked the confident Carl, not the sheepish version. “Listen. If you want,
we can make a stop on the way to New Garrelon. This whole thing… it might get ugly if the cards fall wrong. You know, somewhere safe. It’s just that… well, pirates and mobsters don’t have a reputation for losing gracefully. Maybe something anonymous. Yomin can set you up an ID. If I don’t make it back, at least—”

  “You’ll make it back. You always do.”

  Carl rolled his eyes. “You can say that to anyone still alive. Talk to Mort if you want to hear the end of that story.”

  “Bowling’s not till Thursday,” Amy pointed out.

  Carl raised his voice just a little. “My point is… This is a low-manpower job. Esper on the inside. Me on the outside. Roddy, Yomin, and Archie on tech support just in case those yahoos want to talk to Chuck again for some reason. Rai Kub’s got skin in this game. Maybe you and Shoni can hang out, get to know one another a little better.”

  “I know her just fine.”

  This wasn’t how she’d pictured this conversation. She’d had two versions, the happy and the yelling version. The overprotective one hadn’t entered her thoughts.

  “Then a vacation. A little pre-partum shindig. A girls’ week out. Pamper yourself.”

  Amy felt her cheeks growing warm. “I was in Earth Navy, same as you. I don’t need coddling.”

  “That was easier to remember before I knew you were carrying our child.”

  “Son.” It wasn’t as if a basic scanner couldn’t tell. Even the one for detecting engine-casing cracks was detailed enough.

  Carl swallowed. “Fine. Our son.”

  The gap between the cockpit chairs was kilometers. Amy took a deep breath and looked Carl square in the eye. “Look. If you want out, just say so. I’ll get off at any planet with a real starport. No hard feelings. I did this on my own—well, you know what I mean. I’d understand.”

  “I don’t want out. Never. I’m in.”

  “Then that’s the last I want to hear about dropping me off somewhere safe. You want me safe? Fine. You’re coming with me.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I… can’t. This is bigger than me.”

  “Then we’re in this to the end.”

  Roddy chose that moment to pop his head into the cockpit. “Messages all relayed. We’re good for travel again. Oh. And congrats.”

  They both watched down the corridor to the common room as the laaku departed. “Guess we don’t need to tell the crew,” Carl said.

  Amy didn’t have the heart to tell him that everyone else had figured it out by now.

  # # #

  The Mobius fit snugly into the hangar bay of the Clapton. Amy had no trouble fitting into the tight space without doing so at full speed. Carl admired the job nonetheless.

  He kissed Amy goodbye on the cargo bay ramp.

  “Good luck,” she said with a tight smile. He had the impression that she wasn’t expecting him back.

  “Well, it’s a poker game, so I guess that applies but lighten up,” Carl replied. “It’s all a game. I’m better at this than everyone thinks.”

  Cedric and Rai Kub came with him. Wen Luu met them personally in the hangar. The diminutive stuunji still towered a head taller than Carl. Dressed in his starched brown uniform with gold trim, he cut an imposing figure.

  “Welcome aboard the Clapton, Savior Carl,” Wen Luu said with a stiff bow. “I’d offer you the same tour I gave the other players, but you already know your way around.”

  Carl grinned. Wen Luu was aware how he’d gotten the former Bradbury. The Mobius gang had chased off the crew and taken her over the old-fashioned way. They weren’t much for piracy, but that had been one instance where being the bad guys had felt damn good.

  “Ruckers have any trouble getting in?” Carl asked. He’d expected the rendezvous to be a point of contention, something requiring a deep space, deep astral meet-up with no one around to cause trouble. But Tanny had arrived with the Rucker name as her only armor, walking right into the den of the Poet Fleet. It forced Carl to remember that not all the galaxy looked on Don Rucker as a beloved son-in-law would.

  “None,” Wen Luu reported. “The three Rucker representatives are in the officers’ cafeteria. The admiral and her attendants are awaiting you in the game room.”

  Carl knew that the Bradbury hadn’t been outfitted with a poker room. The stuunji had ferried up equipment and furniture from the planet for the occasion. Scuttlebutt on the local section of the omni was that there would be a legion of citizens watching the updates on the action in orbit above. None of the sides had consented to the game being broadcast, but that wouldn’t stop waiters, bartenders, and whoever else might help with logistics from peeking in on the game and feeding news to the planet.

  “Who’d they bring?” Carl asked. He knew Tanny’s move. It was Admiral Chisholm’s backup that worried him.

  “Admiral Emily Chisholm was accompanied by a human woman called Indira Jackson and lizard creature named Hazz Shi,” Wen Luu said. “When we told her that there were only three from the Ruckers, she seemed to agree to limit her own contingent. However, Miss Esper was with her and is waiting in the game room as well.”

  “Good,” Cedric grumbled. “Too long away.”

  “There is one other,” Wen Luu said. “I didn’t know quite what to do with him.”

  “The accountant?” Carl asked.

  “Yes. He is called Gordon Gale. I gave him quarters. He was… burdened.”

  Carl clapped Wen Luu on the back. “Great job. Leave everything to me from here.”

  The stuunji captain escorted the Mobius contingent—champions of the stuunji people—to a conference room that had been repurposed as a private backroom casino. The table was covered in green cloth. The chairs were hand-carved stuunji wood but sized for human asses. There were refreshments around the room’s perimeter ranging from cheeses and fruits to hard liquor.

  Admiral Chisholm was standing at a bank of windows, gazing out at the planet whose fate the game would decide, hands clasped behind her back.

  Esper was there too, along with the other pair Wen Luu had mentioned. She was wearing her pink sweatshirt, though it looked a might cleaner than last he’d seen it. Figures these pirates kept a laundry service on board. When Carl entered, she offered a tight smile and a self-conscious wave.

  “Ah, Ramsey,” Chisholm said, turning around. “It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.”

  Carl shrugged. “Got you here, didn’t I?”

  Chisholm glowered at Esper. “Indeed.”

  The door to the game room slid open. This time it was the Rucker contingent arriving. Mriy entered first and bared her fangs at Rai Kub. “This is the one who you got to replace me?” She hissed at the stuunji, who shied from the azrin. “Bad deal.”

  “Let’s get the ground rules in place,” Tanny said as she swept in like a storm. “This is Enzio. He’s going to be representing the Rucker Syndicate, Freeride branch. Win or lose, I’m taking financial responsibility. That clear?”

  Enzio came in behind her, smiling that plastic, cosmo-perfect smile. In his hands, he carried a box and set it down at the center of the table.

  “This,” Tanny said, removing the top and sides of the box as a single unit. “Is the best magic detector currently on the market. I know a certain smart-ass former Typhoon pilot who has a nice track record of cozying up to the best wizards he can find. This will ensure that there is no magical bullshit during the game.” Her challenging look told Carl that she suspected Esper or Cedric of being his more-or-less-literal ace in the hole.

  Let her.

  “Sounds good,” Carl replied.

  The door opened again. A stuffy-looking middle-aged man in a cheap-looking expensive suit waddled in carrying a briefcase. Without a word, he set it down on the table with a thump. Carl knew what lay inside, and his mouth watered as he waited for the lid to pop open.

  The gentleman cleared his throat and addressed the room. With the possible exception of Mriy, he had everyone’s undivided attention. “Lad
ies and gentlemen, my name is Gordon Gale of the firm Lowe, Kaplan, and Kuma. I have assessed the extrasolar properties and assets you have all presented.” He paused to cast a glare at Carl, whose holdings had probably been a bitch and a half to assess. “The chips you are all about to receive are imprinted with individual fractions of those holdings, with each chip being of equal value to the best of our firm’s ability.”

  Gale held up one of the chips. Everyone pressed in close to get a better look. On one side, it had the accounting firm’s logo with an integrated anti-tampering chip. The other side said “Carousel, Parcel 001” followed by a listing of surveying coordinates outlining the boundaries.

  Carl hooked his thumbs in his pockets and nodded, impressed. These accountant types knew their shit and worked quick. They’d only given a couple days’ notice to get this all put together.

  “Any questions?” Gale asked, scanning the room.

  Carl raised a hand. “I got one. How much is each of those chips worth?”

  Gale narrowed one eye in Carl’s direction. “I believe you are the owner and operator of a 2520s vintage Turtledove-class diplomatic shuttle with multiple aftermarket alterations.”

  Blinking his surprise, Carl figured if the guy knew that much already, there was no point denying it. “Yeah.”

  “Well, each of these chips is worth roughly thirty of those. So don’t think about trying to buy more chips once the game commences.”

  Gale deftly removed the chips from the case and assigned them to piles in front of three chairs. The red chips represented the holdings of the Poet Fleet. They’d ponied up New Garrelon and a variety of small mining asteroid belts to avoid being the smallest stack at the table. The blue chips represented Carousel and a few of the uninhabited planets in the Freeride system, along with a secure exchange station that Carl guessed was superfluous to the Rucker operation.

  Carl’s chips were green. Green like the jungles of Ithaca. Green like the fabled dollars of old Earth. When Steve Miller sang “Take the Money and Run,” that was the color of the money he meant.

  There were two decks of poker cards in the case as well, one with a stylized red design on the back, the other identical except in blue. Gale removed his suit coat and hung it on the back of the fourth chair. “Now, unless we have any more questions, the game is Texas Hold‘em, per mutual agreement of all parties. The blinds are one and two chips. By random drawing prior to entering the room, I have selected Admiral Chisholm as first to take the dealer’s position.”