An Easy Job Read online

  I lay on my back and laugh. This is nuts. “Thank you, kids. Holy shit I owe you one.”

  Xun pops her faceplate, scowls. “Captain has questions, sir.”

  I look up, and there’s Ransom, already glaring through the airlock window. “Yeah. Fuck.”

  Ransom and I are in the ops office, watching Perce on the holding cell monitor. He’s on the bench, hugging his knees, expression locked in a grimace. It’s now been six hours since we downloaded, and I have no idea what he’s feeling.

  I’ve had time to figure out what I’m going to tell Ransom. I have a plan.

  “Tell me again: How long were you there before you blew your cover?” he asks.

  “I think it took thirty minutes. Maybe not even that much.”

  “How?” He’s not angry—not much, anyway. Shit happens, right? But he’s baffled.

  I shrug. “He recognized me from home. He put two and two together. One in a billion chance, but there it is.” This is not exactly the truth, and not exactly a lie. Something in the middle.

  “Only one in a billion? I suppose you’re lucky he didn’t just shank you outright.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t have managed that.” Captain huffs like he knows I’m right but also knows I might not have been.

  I’ve done exactly to Perce what I didn’t want him to do to me. That’s how he’ll see it. But, well, the pirates are going to vanish. Change their routes, procedures, everything. We’ve lost them.

  Ransom looks at the monitor, at the miserable man curled up there. “How did you manage such a thorough interrogation in the field? Guy doesn’t look like he’s been wrung out.”

  “I seduced him.” I raise a brow. Just a small leer.

  Ransom knows it’s a joke. “My friend, you are a genuine freak.”

  “Yes sir, thank you.”

  He doesn’t know that while I learned everything about Perce, he also knows everything about me. He knows everything I know about Ransom, like that time at the Academy he rigged the entire lighting system to go out in the middle of exams across three buildings. Exams were cancelled that year. It was his first great triumph.

  Ransom thinks Perce is just another stooge. But I know differently.

  “At least we’re not entirely back to square one,” Ransom says. “We have enough loose threads to follow to … something.”

  “What do you think about my proposal? For what to do with him?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s as good as anything else, I guess. Keeps him out of the wrong hands.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “All right, then.”

  I sigh. “I’m not happy about any of this. Don’t think that I am.”

  “Graff, if it had been anyone else, this would have gone so much worse. This is fine. It’s going to be fine.”

  I nod, unconvinced. Like I should have been able to just talk Perce into agreeing with me. “One more thing—can we revise comms encryption and system security ahead of schedule? I’m feeling a little twitchy.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “Thank you. For trusting me.”

  “Always.”

  It’s so much more than I deserve. If he ever finds out…

  Ransom starts to go, looks back, his thoughtful brow furrowed. “By the way, where is home for you? I forget.”

  I have a pat answer. “Way out of the way.” You’ve never heard of it, oh no.

  “You never talk about home, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  We’ve had this conversation or ones like it before. We always get about this close—he starts to say something more, eyes narrowed, mouth about to open. He always changes his mind. Nods and walks away. I ought to feel terrible, but I don’t. This is better. He doesn’t really want to know what I’m hiding. It’s not even relevant.

  Well, usually it isn’t.

  * * *

  Perce and I are on an entirely different station, several dozen light years away, well within Trade Guild territory this time. We’re standing outside the offices of an interstellar aid organization in need of an operations manager with accounting experience.

  “A job?” Perce stares at the organization’s nameplate, baffled.

  “Or I can take you home and suggest you be charged with abetting piracy. But I thought you’d like this better. It might not be helping Cancri Delta directly. But it’ll get you closer.”

  “I hate bureaucracies,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, I gathered.”

  “But they probably won’t shoot at me.”

  “Very likely.”

  He bows his head, nods like he’s made a decision. “Thank you. This … is better.”

  “And I’m trusting you.”

  “Yes.” He looks at me square on. “How do you stand it? Being so close to Ransom and your crew, being their friend, and they have no idea what you are?”

  “No choice, really. The alternative is not having it at all.” It’s easier for everyone this way. No one ever needs to know. Even Ransom wouldn’t understand if he knew. So I don’t tell.

  “I understand, I think.”

  I hold out my hand, so that he’ll really understand. And he takes it. The pinch, the spark follow, and we know each other, everything that has happened and our memories of it. I see myself through his eyes and … he is still confused. He’s holding both versions of me: my memories and his perception of me, at the same time. It isn’t easy.

  For my part, I see that he has a lot to learn. I’m looking forward to downloading someone’s memories about him in a few years, when he’s had a chance to settle down.

  Our contact breaks, and he gets this daring look in his eyes. He takes hold of my face and plants a kiss on my lips, dry and aggressive. Then he lets go, nods, and walks himself through the office door.

  Just like that. Simplest thing in the world.

  About the Author

  Carrie Vaughn is best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. Her novels include a near-Earth space opera, Martians Abroad, from Tor Books, and the post-apocalyptic murder mysteries Bannerless and The Wild Dead. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2021 by Carrie Vaughn

  Art copyright © 2021 by Eli Minaya