Kilroy Owns the Night: Day 26 (Heavenly)
“Then I suppose you’ll be handing it over.” Max Gentry stood in the cargo hatch, blaster raised. Behind him, Vrex and Gorpl staggered through the last wisps of Fartillery gas. Gorpl had a clothespin clamped over his snout.
“Max!” I said. “You look terrible. Have you considered a heavenly scented candle?”
“Give me the Encyclopedia.”
“Technically, it’s a crystal. The packaging is misleading.”
Mercury stepped between us. “Our arrangement was simple. I get the Herpezoids. Kilroy gets his merchandise.”
“You don’t have an arrangement with me,” Max said.
“Good. I charge extra for assholes.”
Vrex pointed a talon at her. “We are not merchandise!”
“Congratulations,” Mercury said. “You’ve grasped the least important part of this conversation.”
I considered drawing my Multiblaster, but Max already had his finger on the trigger. Worse, my nanochip was still scrolling through the Encyclopedia’s contents. Somewhere between the Siege Engine of Gorth and the Self-Buttering Toast of Andromeda, a warning flashed.
PROXIMITY ALERT: HARMONIC STILL OF THREX-9.
I blinked. The Still? Here?
A metallic clunk sounded beneath the cargo floor. Gorpl went pale. Or whatever color Herpezoids turn when they're scared.
“Vrex,” he whispered, “did you remember to shut it off?”
“Shut what off?” Mercury asked.
The ship shuddered. A nearby crate dissolved into glittering dust. From somewhere below came the unmistakable sound of liquid pouring into a glass. Max lowered his blaster an inch. For the first time all evening, nobody wanted the Encyclopedia.
Which, given our company, was a deeply unsettling development indeed.
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