“On who you ask.” Why did he care if she was a carder? It made no sense at all. She eyed the crypto-files. “You must have gotten those off the ship.”
“I did.” His fingers closed around them. “I have a proposition for you.”
She bet he did. “What is it?”
“You run a game for a year, high win rate. You walk with your crypto and with that identity chip your government put under your spine gone.”
Her mouth went dry. “That’s impossible. Removal triggers a mini-bomb.”
Renall grinned. “Our surgeon’s removed a lot of them quite successfully. Your planet is the least advanced in all ways you know.”
Was he serious? Her eyes narrowed. “Nobody does anything for free.”
“Didn’t say it was free. I said high wins, and a whole year.”
True. He had said that. Clara considered that for a moment. “Then what? I just walk?”
“Yes. Like I said. Here’s the thing, without that crypto and without that device, you could use any ID you want. You could get a surgery or two; give yourself an appearance of any planter system. You could even re-enter your home planet and buy a few slaves, right out of the cells.”
Her mouth went dry. Her family! She swallowed hard. “They might not be there after a year.”
“Carders don’t get bought. Besides, I know where they are all at, and I could make it so that they don’t get sold.”
Could he really? She wanted to believe that, but she knew all too well that lies were the first thing people used to gain loyalty, especially when the person they wanted loyalty from had something they really needed and wanted. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then how about this? In three months, if you earn high, I’ll bring your mother to you. She can tell you how the rest are doing.”
Goddamn him. He was hitting her at the hardest points of her hurt. She pursed her lips. This was a negotiation, and she knew it. Might as well negotiate. “You get my mom, and you got two carders willing to work it out for the rest of the family.”
Renall’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t suggest your father first.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mom’s not only better, she’s in frailer health. She might not make it another three months at the serio-camp she’s in. It’s rough in there.”
Renall said, “It won’t be cheap to get her out. She’ll have to work out her costs.”
“Before anything goes to the bigger pot. Yeah, I can agree to that and she will too.”Besides, Mom runs the best table anywhere.She kept that thought behind her lips. She added, “We didn’t discuss my cut.”
“I told you what you get.”
“Bullshit.” Her hackles came up. “I want at least ten percent too. That’s fair.”
Silence filled the spaces between them. Under her feet, the ship let out soft vibrations. There were no windows where they stood, so she had no idea what direction the ship had turned to, and even if she had been able to see, this was an unfamiliar star and planetary system. She only knew Narnlia by reputation and from cryptographs she’d seen of it.
His lips twisted upward. “You can have four.”
“Seven and a half.”
“Five, and that is my final and very fair offer. After all, I’m tossing in the removal and the crypto-file for good measure.”
It was as fair as she would get and five percent of something was better than a hundred percent of nothing.
She’d woken up on a supposed bride ship heading to a colony she had no interest in, and in despair over her family. Since then she’d watched the ship she’d been on go down in figurative flames, and found out the government on her planet was essentially selling sex slaves to Narnlia. And now she was facing a being who turned her on and that she absolutely could not trust, and was about to strike a bargain he might never hold to.
In for a coin, in for a clutch of them, though, right?
She held out a hand. He took it. Little shocks ran through her body. Desire lifted its head once again, and she tamped it down. “Deal,” she said.
