How Dark the World Becomes Read Online Free PDF Page B

going to ask you to.”
    “Good.”
    “You’ve never killed anyone?” she asked after a moment, her curiosity getting the better of her. 
    Boy, what a day to get asked that question, huh?
    “I’m not in the mood,” I answered, and that was the truth. I was tired of hurting people.
    “I need passage off Peezgtaan and to Akaampta for four people: myself, two companions, and a . . . security specialist. A bodyguard, I suppose. Mr. Arrakatlak said that you could provide us with such a person, someone who is trustworthy.”
    She pronounced the planet names like a leather-head, with clicks instead of the velar phonemes— Peezg!aan and A!aampta . Actually, since they are Varoki names, I guess if you wanted to be fair you’d say we use velar phonemes instead of clicks.
    How many guys even know what a velar phoneme is, I wondered?
    “Private charter or commercial?” It made a huge difference in price.
    “Oh . . . commercial,” she answered. Okay, so we weren’t talking the mega-buckage range.
    “Awake or asleep?” That was another big price break, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that one.
    “I think that, for security reasons, we’d need to avoid cold sleep.” 
    “I’ll need the biometrics before I can do anything,” I said.
    She nodded, reached into her briefcase, and pulled out a data tab. I opened the channel on my desk reader, she thumbed the data tab to transmit, and everything started to make sense. Lifting four people off-planet—why had Arrie tried to fob this job off on me? He could snap his fingers (well, actually, he physically couldn’t snap his fingers, which was a serious limitation to his beat persona, but if he could have . . . ) and get jump tickets for four people. 
    But it wasn’t four Human people. One Human—female, 52 kilos, United States of North America citizen, Earth permanent resident. One Varoki—male, 77 kilos, uPeezgtaan citizen and permanent resident. One Varoki—male, 92 kilos, uKa-Maat citizen, Akaampta permanent resident. One Human—gender, mass, citizenship, and residency to be provided. That would be the bodyguard. 
    Marfoglia sounded like a North American, although she looked more Scandinavian. The look could be cosmetic alterations, or it could be Northeast U.S. old money genes, hard to tell. Either way it meant buckage. The citizenship and residency of the other two were probably phony.
    I leaned back in the chair, locked my fingers behind my head, and studied the fine cracks in my ceiling for a moment. I felt a burning sensation where Ricky’s flechette had torn across my shoulder blade, just the reminder I needed that life was becoming more . . . interesting. 
    Interesting indeed. Two leather-heads so hot that none of Arrie’s contacts would handle them. Maybe it was political. Politics always messes up business. Pass them off to Sasha, who doesn’t know anything about leather-head politics, or care a mouse’s fart, and if everything ends in gunfire and blood, Arrie’s still clean. And alive. You had to hand it to the guy.
    “Mr. Arrakatlak said to tell you that he would be very grateful if you could help with this. Very grateful. He told me to emphasize that.” Her voice was businesslike, very controlled, but under it I sensed desperation. She and her leather-head pals were in deep trouble. They had come to the end of the line, and I was it, and they were probably hot as hell and bringing all that heat with them. I wasn’t sure Arrie was capable of being grateful enough to make this worth my while. 
    “Are you and Mr. Arrakatlak . . . business associates?” she asked after a moment. Of course, etiquette prevented me from saying we were, because that would mean Arrie was crooked. She probably already knew, or at least suspected, that, but it wasn’t for me to confirm it. 
    “Arrie and I are kind of friends,” I answered.
    “What exactly does that mean, ‘kind of’ friends’?”
    “Well, if something really horrible were to