Chapter 5-2
1347 Words
“Cherise, you say?” Ig asked, his one eye searching Jack"s face. “Many the tale"s been told of the folly of falling in love with a w***e, but—”
“She"s not a w***e!” Jack insisted.
“Of course not! Forced into it because she"s an orphan like yourself. Something you"d have done if you weren"t so downright repulsive.”
“I"m not repulsive!” Jack insisted.
“And I"m a beauty queen, too!” Ig threw his head back and roared with laughter. “But you"ve gone and done it in a way that"s quite original,” Ig continued, as if Jack hadn"t interrupted. “A fine fix, it is!”
And Ig had gotten Jack aboard a garbage scow, but not before Jack had extracted a promise from Ig that he"d stop frequenting the Southern Birds.
Now, twenty years later, Jack approached the same alley shop, headed for the same ill-repaired door, the sign above it in grimy letters declaring, “Argonavis Hock and Lucre.”
Jack reflected what a fool he"d been. The rough years had followed, Jack working ship to ship, keeping to himself, avoiding trouble, staying away from smokeshops, snortshops, shootshops, drinkshops, and bodyshops, and somehow working his way to pilot, getting his license (forged), and taking out a loan to buy his own Scavenger.
I made it work, he told himself, pushing the door open.
The lumpy wreck behind the chipped glasma counter just grunted and mumbled, “Whatcha got?”
“Get me a berth on the next garbage scow out of here, Ig!”
The remaining eye swiveled toward him. “Jack!” And the old man barreled out from behind the counter and wrapped Jack with one arm.
Quite a powerful arm. Jack gasped for breath, laughing and hugging the man back.
“What brings you to town, boy?” Ig asked, holding Jack at arm"s length to look him over, a woman peering at them from the back room.
He could see Ig blinking back tears, and he blinked away his own. “Just comin" to see that you kept your promise about the Southern Birds. Looks to me like someone made an honest man out of you, impossible as that may seem.”
Ig nodded vigorously, his head only coming to Jack"s shoulder. “Meet the missus, Jack. Sweetie, come and meet the boy I was always tellin" you about. Jack, this is Gretchen.”
The two greeted each other.
“I told Ig he"d have to stop going to the Southern Birds,” Jack said, “so I guess he got married instead.”
“That ain"t stopped him,” she said, laughing as loud as Ig, her face as much a wreck as his.
“I go to see Cherise, make sure she"s all right,” Ig said. “You been out there? Runs the place now.”
“I arrived yesterday, and Cherise looks wonderful.”
“Aye, doesn"t she?” And Ig winked at him. He turned to his wife. “I"m takin" Jack to the smoke shop. Mind the store while I"m gone, would you?”
“Startin" early today, are you?”
“Quit your gritching, Gretchen. This is a special occasion.”
“Get on with ya, and be back before nightfall or I"m comin" to find you again.”
“All right, all right!” He winked again at Jack and escorted him to the door.
He and Ig went to Jack"s second stop on the way to the spaceport.
The place was nearly empty, and the walls reeked of old smoke and old sweat, but they greeted Ig like a conquering hero and got them a booth in the far corner where they could watch the door and the spaceport across the street.
The smoke was harsh, dry, slightly musty, and poor quality, but Jack breathed deeply, and his stress fled him as he knew it would and a slight euphoria settled in.
Jack calmly put his cube on the table between them, his arm beside it, blocking any view of it. “What is this thing, Ig?”
Ig"s eye went wide, and his mouth full of rotted stubs dropped open. He rubbed his perpetual three-day stubble and whistled softly. “Pre-Circian technology,” he said. With one finger he gestured Jack to put it away, an eye throwing a glance toward the smoketender.
Jack put it in his pocket.
“I"ve heard tales of like objects, traders comin" through, bedazzled looks in their eyes. A tesseract, isn"t it? I seen people brought low in their search for such, dreams of untold wealth in their gaze, not a thought for their safety, their reason obliterated in their l**t for power. I"m told you can read people"s mind with one of those.”
Jack met the one-eyed gaze and didn"t nod. Didn"t need to.
“And change it, too.” Ig just nodded. “Quite the find. Couldn"t happen to a better man.” His eye misted over, and he grasped Jack"s hand cross the table. “But there"s more, isn"t there?”
Jack nodded. “A girl, an orphan.”
Ig threw his head back and laughed. “Got a thing for orphans.”
“Moth to a candle, I guess. Anyway, the little girl thinks she"s a princess, wants me to take her to the palace on Torgas.”
The eye dropped to the table, as though to see through it to the cube in Jack"s pocket. “With that in hand? Might as well be filling the coffers of the mightiest thief we know.”
“I tried leaving her, but I felt so guilty, orphan and all.” He didn"t tell Ig about her unexplained reappearance aboard his ship. “Anyway, Cherise is going to help with a wardrobe, but I got half-a-hold full of jack I need to unload.”
“I"m a hock, not a fence,” Ig said.
“It"s not stolen, it"s just junk. Salvage.”
The eye peered at him without a waver.
“I swear.” Jack held up a hand as if in a court of law. “Well, half-salvage.”
Finally, the eye relented. “For you, Jack, for you, but only the salvage, all right?”
“Thanks, Ig.”
Somehow, Jack had extracted himself from the smokeshop before he"d become completely obliterated, but the poor quality of the smoke had helped. He suspected the shop kept its finer stash for the tourists and served its regulars its second-hand smoke.
Silently, Jack blessed Ig for buying half his load sight unseen as he supervised its transfer from his cargo hold to the lorry, beside it a fueler pumping the Salvager"s fuel tank full.
On leaving the spaceport, Jack decided to take a detour through town. “Take me past the best place in town to get women"s clothes,” he told the driver.
“Take you past it?” the beefy hovertaxi hack asked, his jowls jiggling as he spoke. “Where you goin" from there?”
“Southern Birds,” Jack said. He buckled himself in as the flitter pulled away from the terminal.
“Yeah? Pickin" up a mink stole or a fine pair of earrings for one of the girls out there?”
Disinclined to discuss his business, Jack shrugged. “No, actually, something for my daughter. You take a lot of people out there?”
“Yeah, busy place. That new Madam really knows how to entertain. Don"t let them see what you"re gettin" your daughter. Many a customer has left without all his belongings.”
“Well, I don"t know enough about clothes to get her anything. You ever try to buy clothes for a nine-year-old girl? I"ll probably take her to the boutique and turn her loose.”
“Sounds like a great plan,” the hack said, “if you got a bottomless wallet. She sounds like a real princess, your girl.”
Jack snorted. “She"s a real princess, all right.”
- Writer
