“I had incentive. Now, where is my sister?”
“I have to make sure it is what I asked for.” Taking the vial from me, he calls out to someone, and the same alien from before joins us.
“Who is that?”
“She is my friend. And as long as she tells me what I want to know…
The woman pulls out a large case, opening it, and I don’t like how many other vials line the inside. Stuck in a foam-like structure, I count the collection of fluids. Sixteen plus Ferrok’s.
She puts the vial into a small box, pressing buttons until it pulses with a blue light and then, she turns to the Trulavian as she lifts it out. I don’t have to know the language to know that she’s telling him I brought him Ferrok’s blood.
“And here I was, thinking you’d do something silly, like bring me fake blood, or blood from one of the others I already have, but no… you did exactly as you were told.”
Laughing, he kicks a bag to me, and small chips I know are money spill out of it. “For your time and trouble.”
“Where is my sister?”
“I have no idea. Never met her, only saw her once and from a distance.”
“What?”
“I needed a bargaining chip, but a bluff worked just as well.” He nods down at the bag. “I may be a liar, but I’m not a cheat. You did a job. I’m happy to pay you for it. Enjoy your wealth and health, and I hope we never meet again.”
The woman with him closes up the case and says what I assume is a goodbye and then follows the Trulavian out.
I stare at the spilled money for a moment too long and then scoop it back into the bag, sealing it up again before I take it and follow them out. Ferrok is waiting for me across the corridor. The fact that I can see him tells me the others are out of sight, and he looks at the bag, eyes narrowed.
“Where’s Anne?”
“Apparently, he never had her.” I shiver and wish I’d called her before I did anything.
“Where’s Mooralan?”
“Following.” He takes the bag from me, eyes narrowing further when he momentarily tips at the unexpected weight. “Come on. Let’s go see where they take my blood.”
We walk down the corridor at a steady pace, not fast enough to draw attention, not slow enough that I get overly nervous. And I see them again when we find Mooralan leaning against a corridor wall with most of his arms crossed.
One of his free hands slips into mine as he says. “We can’t get past security without passenger tickets, but they walked right through, which either means they’re on a private ship with commercial docking clearance, or, they have crew status.”
I flinch when the Trulavian turns, looks right at us and salutes.
He gets on his ship, following his friend and the case aboard.
The ring around the door goes red immediately afterward. “Priority departure clearance.” Mooralan hums, unhappily. “Definitely private transport. Probably paid a lot of money for that docking location and jumping the line for takeoff.”
“I think they have plenty of money to burn.”
Ferrok looks at the bag in his hand.
“Yeah,” I say, before he has to ask. “That’s what he gave me instead of Anne.”
“He still has your sister?”
“No. It was a bluff, and I was too scared to even consider that.”
“You love her. It makes sense that you wouldn’t think he lied about it.”
The light around the door goes out and they look at each other over my head before Mooralan says, “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
