There was no denying that. “He admitted as much.”
“That alone is criminal,” Kadara contended. Legally, SinBad could not come within a thousand sofads of a commercial sex outlet. Which included Tiffany.
“Except, that I am on medical leave,” Tiffany explained coyly.
“What?”
“I fell out of Erotopia, injuring myself too much to work.”
“So you have not serviced him?” Lady Kadara could not believe it. An air hostess traveling with a sex maniac, and nothing happened. SinBad barely believed it himself.
“I am not even licensed for surface work,” Tiffany added, making their whole criminal odyssey sound scrupulously legal.
Kadara turned back to SinBad. “Is this true?”
“I try to live within the terms of my parole.” Which covered sex offenses, not drug smuggling, or aerial robbery.
“So you are not being paid at all?”
“Apparently.”
Both SuperCats gave him toothy grins. They were paid upfront.
Lady Kadara could see she was being conned, but Tiffany was her only witness. Offplanet law relied on truth testing and brain scans, which did not exist on Barsoom. Greenies never lied, and expected humans to do the same. Jeddara’s commander reluctantly capitulated. “Since you are not my prisoners, please be my guests.”
Kadara dined them royally on roast zitidar, garnished with skeel nuts. Afterward, smiling Amazons propped his hurt foot on pillows, and fed him sweet sompus slices, happy to entertain a man, even a lame, unemployed sex criminal.
It turned out that Tiffany was not the only air hostess aboard. Kadara had picked up a runaway Red girl from Amour, one of the lesser palaces, a quiet dark-haired local, named Jem. Tiffany fussed over her newfound companion, coaxing the Red girl’s story out of her. Jem of Amour had been taken in war from a desert tribe, then sold into sex slavery. That was bad. Being in the same airship with an enslaved sex worker violated SinBad’s parole, as Kadara quickly noted. “This girl is qualified for surface work, so you will not want to stay aboard.”
“Right.” Because of one black-haired teenager, he had to leave this soft billet, with free food, and unlimited women. Why couldn’t Jem be a Greenie? But Jem was a Red girl from Barsoom, Apache most likely. He was Huron, before the tribe expelled him.
Now the Northerners did not want him either. Kadara set him down on the open sward, two hundred haads from where they’d left his sandboat. Tiffany gave him a hug at the gangway, saying, “Sorry I cannot kiss you goodbye.”
Even the hug was frowned on. Kissing him was a flat out violation of her license, and his parole. SinBad watched the silver airship lift off and head north, then he turned about and limped southward. He had no more meds, and the Aymads would want what was left of their shipment. Just thinking about the long walk back to the sand sail made his foot hurt horribly.
Pleasure Palace
SinBad limped along, knowing the Aymads would now be charging him double time for every xat he delayed. This hobbling forced march was not just life or death, he would be paying for each painful step. Thanks to Tiffany. And the Massingales. He expected trouble from the Massingales. Why did pretty women cost so much? If he had half the money he had spent on blondes, he would not have to smuggle. Which would horrify the Aymads, and their many customers. Cut-rate offworld meds were immensely popular.
He could use some miracle meds right now. His foot hurt, and Tiffany was not here to tend it. He missed her already. Tiffany had been a fresh breeze, blowing through his dull life, upsetting everything. Without her, work became a dead bore that left him poorer than before—forced to do yet another run for the
“Number Ones.”
He never made it to his sand sail. By mid-afternoon, black wings circled overhead. Massingales, again. He stopped and waited, having nothing to hide—one beauty of being broke. Joe made a low pass, asking, “Why you walking?”
“You got a bum leg,” Jeramie reminded him.
“We can give you a lift,” Joe suggested. “For a price.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t have a pill.”
They both laughed, turning slow circles around him. Joe shook his head. “You could not have used up all the meds you were carrying. You’re not hurt that bad.”
“We still owe you for that,” Jeramie added. “The bolt in your boot was aimed at us.” Joe agreed. “Sorry you were slow at getting away.”
“We’ll give you a ride back to your sail.”
SinBad ceased limping, and waited. So long as he knew where a fortune in pharmaceuticals lay buried, the Massingales were his best friends. Whether he wanted or not.
Presently, his ride appeared, the Massingale airship, poking over the dunes to the west. Cobbled together from stolen parts, the airship was a semi-rigid gas bag, married to an old silverskinned lander with a lifting body hull. Heat shield, gravity drive, and life-support system had been sold off long ago. The former spaceship was crammed with loot, crawling with cats, and patrolled by pit bulls. Both Massingales had beautiful dark-haired girlfriends, Alyssa and Randi Lynn, who ran the ship when their men were away. Despite their high-flying lifestyle, the hard-charging brothers attracted smart, scarily efficient young women.
Another reason neither Massingale was especially tempted by easy-going blonde Tiffany, whose helpless offworld ways made her barely worth kidnapping, unless you were in the business. On Barsoom, Red girls did you right, but blondes got you busted. Like Tiffany did to him. Neither girl was even into her teens, Barsoom years, but they knew how to handle SinBad, smiling, tending to his foot, and plying him with wine, working on all his weaknesses at once. Which he thoroughly enjoyed, though they were just softening him up for their boyfriends. Shedding their wings, the brothers sympathized with SinBad’s difficulties. “You look like shit. And your offworld girlfriend is in big trouble.”
“Real big trouble,” Alyssa agreed.
SinBad already guessed that. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Yer slippin’, SinBad.” Joe shook his head sadly.
“Gotta change your name,” Jeramie suggested. Both girlfriends smiled, not the least afraid of tending to a notorious sex criminal. Who’d just struck out with an air hostess.
“What’s happening to her?” SinBad asked warily.
“She’s being shipped back to her owners.” Jeramie patted his favorite pitbull. “Folks you stole her from.” Terrible news, but probably true. Joe and Jeramie had friends everywhere, mostly ne’er-do-wells and pretty young women, who were half the population aboard a pleasure palace. Getting Tiffany back offworld was going to be SinBad’s one good deed, to balance against all the bad ones.
“You didn’t tell us she was so valuable,” Joe observed.
Wonder why. “You were set on robbing that wind jammer.”
“We still owe you for that,” Joe reminded him. “And we’ll make it up.”
“How?” Beware of Massingales doing favors.
“We can save your girlfriend.”
“For a fee.”
“Like the meds I was delivering to the Aymads?” SinBad suggested.
“Exactly.”
Damn. He kept forgetting that. Tiffany was going to cost him everything. His cargo, his employers, his criminal reputation. Hopefully not his life, though that too could go, when the Aymads found out how badly he’d cheated them.
Or he could let Tiffany die. That would be the easy way out. He would feel horrible. Both Massingales would be disappointed. So would their pretty, attentive girlfriends. Only the Aymads would be pleased -though not a lot. They expected him to put them first.
“Okay, I’ll do it.” Screw the Aymads. They would hate him either way, but he would feel far worse if Tiffany was dead.