In response, Krassus turned and cuffed Zina, knocking her back. She fell to the floor but landed like a panther, and she hissed fiercely at Krassus.
"Or perhaps," the Xenexian continued, "the two of you are working together to try and make me doubt myself. In which case . . ." He considered it, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I believe that's probably it." He reached down into a case at his feet and pulled out two more bars of gold-pressed latinum, and dropped them onto the table. The table legs creaked slightly from the weight.
The card game had caught the attention by this point of all the rather seedy denizens of the equally seedy bar. Mojov Station was a way station convenient to several frontiers, a place where various types who might otherwise be questioned in more "civilized" establishments on more "civilized" worlds could come to relax, meet, greet, and try to parlay a few extra credits for themselves whenever possible.
Krassus looked at the bet, and felt the blood drain slightly from his face. "I can't cover that," he blustered.
"Seems to me like you're in trouble, then," replied the Xenexian.
Krassus' eyes flickered from his hand (which was a very solid one) to the bet on the table, and his greed was becoming overwhelming. . . to say nothing of his pride over the thought of losing to this pastyfaced Xenexian. Then his eyes caught Zina and he looked back at the Xenexian. "How about her?"
Zina was shocked to hear herself being put up as a bet, but the Xenexian didn't seem the least bit surprised. It was as if he was expecting it. "She worth two bars of latinum? I don't think so."
"What she can provide in straight-up resale would be far less. What Zina can provide in the way of. . . physical gratification . . . she's worth ten times that. I speak from personal experience." Krassus chortled.
"Krassus!"she snarled.
The Xenexian regarded her thoughtfully, "If I won you, Zina . . . would you try to kill me as payback? Or would you show gratitude for one who would treat you far better than a man who'd put you up for a stake in a game of Six-Card Warhoon?"
Zina appeared to consider the point. Then a look of contempt crossed her face as she said to the Xenexian, "Clearly I have no more reason to be loyal to Krassus than he has to be loyal to me. Do what you will, Xenexian . . . and if it falls your way, I'll do what you will, as well."
"Fair enough," said the Xenexian. "It's a bet, Orion."
"Excellent!" crowed Krassus. "We finally have a game for true men, Xenexian! And now let us see which of us is the better!"
The back rooms in the bar were available for rent for just this sort of occasion, as the Xenexian strode into the room, pivoting quickly on his heel to make sure that the Orion girl wasn't behind his back. Zina stood framed into the door, grinning ferally, her eyes sparkling. The room wasn't elaborately furnished; then again, the sturdy bed in the corner wasn't really much more than the room really required.
"I guess Krassus learned who was the better," she purred. "The great fool."
"More fool he," agreed the Xenexian.
"And what shall I call you?" She slinked across the floor, her hips swaying, the scraps of cloth that served as her clothing barely clinging to her.
"Mac," he said.
"And will you sell me, Mac? You own me now. Will you sell me, or keep me?"
"I thought I'd reserve judgment on that," said Mac.
"Until when?"
"An hour or two from now."
She sprang toward him, and his first reflex was to try and shove her away. But she wrapped herself around him in a rather unthreatening manner, her arms behind his back, her legs straddling his hips. "Merely an hour?" she said challengingly with a raised brow. "I think we can make up your mind faster than that."
And then her lips were against his, hungrily, and it seemed as if she weren't a woman so much as she was a force of nature. She practically stole Mac's breath away as she pulled at his clothing, trying to yank his loose shirt off him. He staggered back toward the bed, hit the mattress, and fell back onto it. She literally ripped off his shirt and started to do things down his bare chest.
He pulled her up to face him, looked into her eyes, and felt as if he were being sucked into a maelstrom. Her lips were drawn back, her teeth glittering and white, and he rolled her over so that he was atop her. Somewhere in all of that her clothes fell away, his chest pressed against her, and the heat was overwhelming. Her hands reached below his waist as his own arms extended up toward the pillow that lay at the far end of the bed.
The door to the room opened in complete silence. The Xenexian named Mac did not see Krassus enter, moving with stealth that seemed unnatural in one so large. Zina spotted him, though, but she said nothing . . . merely hissed more loudly to cover his entrance. Krassus carried a large knife, which glittered in the dim lighting of the room. He kept it highly polished, incredibly sharp. Keeping it clean was something of a challenge considering the number of times that he had shed blood with it.
He took two quick, silent steps and was across the room, the knife brought up over his head as he prepared to bring it slamming down. The Xenexian was oblivious, his back glistening with sweat, his right hand under the pillow. . . .
And suddenly there was a shriek of energy which tore through the pillow, blasting it apart, slicing through the air, slicing through Krassus. The energy bolt hit him dead square in the stomach, knocking him off his feet. He dropped the knife and, at that same instant, Mac suddenly arched his back and shoved Zina out from under him. She hit the floor, stunned and confused, as Mac snagged the falling knife from midair with his left hand. In his right hand he was holding the blaster he'd stashed under the pillow.
All of this happened before Krassus had even had time to hit the floor. The momentum of the energy bolt had slammed him back against the door, and he now slid to the floor with obvious confusion in his eyes.
Mac eased himself off the bed. From the floor, Zina looked at the fallen Krassus in shock and then back at the Xenexian. "You . . . you shot him . . . and you . . . you didn't even see him . . ."
"Practice," Mac said evenly. His voice, his demeanor, seemed to have changed. He seemed more in command, more formidable than before. If Zina were a fanciful type, she would have imagined that thunderclouds were massing over his head.
He walked slowly over toward Krassus, who was lying on the floor, clutching his belly. Blood was fountaining out, and Krassus was clutching things that he didn't even want to think about touching, trying to shove them back into his body. Mac crouched down, and his eyes were dead and cold. "Gut shot," he said, almost as if commiserating. "Takes a while to die of those. Painful as hell. And the damage is too extreme for any nearby med facility. You're dead. Of course"—he twirled the knife in his hand with surprising expertise; it seemed to come alive in his long fingers—"if you wish, I can end it for you faster."
"You . . . you bastard . . ." stammered out Krassus.
Mac nodded slowly. "Yes. I imagine so. But even bastards have friends. I've had a few, including one who saved my life once. His name was Barsamis. Name seem familiar?" At first Krassus shook his head, and then his eyes went wide in realization. "Ah. You remember him. Good," said Mac. " Barsamis had his faults, certainly. Something of a lowlife, really. But, as I said, he saved my life on one occasion, and that made me beholden to him. I owed him, and then some Orion slave trader violated an agreement and wound up killing him. Shoved a knife between his ribs." He looked speculatively at the blade in his hand. "This one, perhaps? Was this the knife?"