We both place our napkins in our laps and then he places his elbows on the table, folds his hands, and steeples two fingers together under his chin. “Just tell me one thing, OK? One thing and I’ll let the rest go until later.”
“What?” I ask, so fearful of his question.
“Who did you buy these clothes for?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – JIMMY
She slumps a little in her chair.
“Delphi,” I say. “Something’s going on and by the looks of things, you don’t have many friends. I know your dragonbee bot is kind of a score as far as bot friends go, but there’s only so much something so small can do to help you out of whatever mess you’re into. And hey,” I say, putting up my hands. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ve got lots of friends on your side. And that’s cool, I guess. But if you don’t, and you feel stuck, if you’ve gotten involved with something too big and can’t find a way out—then give me a chance. I can help you if you can trust me.”
She leans her elbows on the table and rubs the heels of her palms against her forehead. “They’re for my brother,” she whispers. Then she looks up at me and adds, “And I can pay you back for the clothes, OK? I can. I’m not sure when, just—”
“I don’t need you to pay me back. I’m not worried about the bill. I just want to know what’s going on. This whole stop on Mighty Minions is suspect. Did you have something to do with it?”
She presses her lips together and nods. “I’m the reason your ship got a virus.”
I lean back in my chair. “How?’
She shrugs. “Flicka helped me infiltrate Dicker’s maintenance logs at your last ship stop.”
“That was weeks ago,” I say. “So how come it just appeared now?”
“That was just the first phase. We had to make sure it got in unnoticed. Then we followed you here and sent a bogus communication from the gate captain on Blue Sand Beach.”
I breathe deeply, trying to make sense of all this. “But why? Why do you need me?” I can take a good guess. It’s not a far leap. She’s a Cygnian princess and I’m an Akeelian male with violet eyes. But I want to hear it from her.
“My brother, Tycho,” she says. “He’s my twin. We grew up together. And I know you think that all Cygnian male twins are worthless, but he’s not.”
“How’s he different?” I ask.
“I don’t know, exactly. I just know that our father took good care of him. He educated him, and we grew up together. He wasn’t sent off to the work camps like all the other male twins. He had a life and he was—he is—my best friend.”
“So where is he?”
“He’s being held prisoner on a faraway station run by… we call her the Loathsome One.”
“The Loathsome One,” I say, trying out the name while racking my brain to see if I’ve ever heard of her before. “Can’t say I recognize that handle.”
“No.” Delphi sighs. “You shouldn’t. She keeps a low profile and holds her real identity very close. I don’t know that anyone on her station really knows who she is.”
“So how’d you get involved with her?”
“My father helped Tycho and I escape just before our last birthday. He gave us a ship and some coordinates, but when we came through the second gate, just about halfway through our trip, she had a ship waiting for us. It towed us in, blew our ship to pieces, then stuck us in a cryopod and we woke up on Lair Station.”
“Lair Station,” I say. “Never heard of that, either.”
“It’s not near anything. There’s not even a nearby gate.”
“Hmmm,” I say.
“Yeah. Which means you have to exit the closest gate billions of klicks out, and make your approach using standard cruising speeds.”
“Which gives them plenty of time to see you coming.”
“Exactly. It sucks. We were trapped there in cages for months. And then one day she brought me to her quarters and gave me this mission. She said Tycho had to remain behind and if I didn’t bring you back with me, she’d kill him. I haven’t even seen him since we came out of the cryopod. We were separated immediately after that. I was stuck in a cage all by myself, Jimmy. Literally the only person on the entire level. And Flicka was there. But she was taken away too. We were only reunited because of this mission.”
I think this through for a moment, then ask, “Do you think your father knows you’re missing?”
She shrugs. “I doubt it. He’s a high-ranking official back in Cygnus System. One of the special males who runs things.”
“What’s his department?” I ask.
“Genetics.” She sighs, once again rubbing the heel of her palms against her forehead.