Second Thoughts

Portia walked Bea back to her cabin. How was she going to out this? Delicately, she hoped.
“Bea,” Portia said.
“Yes, sweetie,” Bea said absently, lowering herself into a chair.
“I think this is a bad idea.”
“What’s a bad idea. I say, do you want a drink? Always calms my nerves before a mission.”
“I don’t want a drink.”
“Too late, I’m up again.” Bea was out of the chair again and out the door. She took off down the hall with a brisk pace.
Portia followed to keep up with Bea.
“What was it you were say?” Bea ask.
“This is a bad idea.”
“Nonsense. Two grown women can handle their liquor.”
“Not the drinks, the gig.”
“The gig?” Bea was smirking. “My, how square you do sound. The gig.”
“I don’t trust Turkish.”
“Of course not, he’s a pirate.”
“How do we know he’ll keep his end of the bargain?”
“We don’t. We can only hope that the rogue operates under his own moral values and codes, and that those guidelines include honoring bargains.”
“I mean, we’re in a really bad place right now.”
“Laredo is fun.”
“If you’re a pirate.”
“Or like bar fights and I love a good bar fight. Haven’t been in one since your father was born, though. Pity, I had a good jab hook combination.” Bea demonstrated, swaying in an alarming manner, jabbing at the empty air.
“I don’t trust Franklin.”
“Of course not. You barely know him. He smooth talked his way into our family and clearly he wants something. Judging from the way you two were acting this morning, it wasn’t you.”
Portia felt herself grow flush in her cheeks. “I could use a drink.”
“I don’t trust him either,” Bea said. “To volunteer to come with us on a journey we will not be coming back from and for what? What’s his angle?”
“That’s what I wanted to know!”
“I suspect he’s tying to garner enough material to write a sequel to the Clovelly Sisters holo. Imagine, the two sisters reunited after fifty years, the daring and often illegal means they have to go through to meet their destiny. It’s all sentimental tripe.”
“But this is a sentimental rescue mission, isn’t it? And doesn’t it bother you that Franklin’s only hanging around long enough to get a good story and then sell it to the highest bidder?”
“No, not really.”
Bea entered the first bar in the promenade. It wasn’t one Portia would have picked. There was a nice, reputable looking bar across the corridor with little café style tables and waitress wearing pants. This bar had waitress wearing what could be generously described as swimsuits and the rough looking clientele thought it appropriate to hand out ass-smacks as compliments. It was a pirate bar. Portia shouldn’t be surprised. Laredo was a pirate space station. This was a bar you only went into if you were looking for a fight.
Portia felt the eyes on her, assessing the kid and her elderly granny. She would really rather be at the bar across the corridor with the cute little café tables.
Bea approached the bar. “Hey, there, young fellow,” she said, catching the barkeeps attention. “Whisky on the rocks.”
“And you, miss?”
“Club soda,” Portia said meekly.
A thick looking man next to her at the bar snorted.
Bea took her drink and found a table.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?” Was Bea being dense on purpose?
“That he’s using you? Like you’re some kind of resource to be exploited.”
Bea shrugged. “Everyone’s exploiting my story, I got use to it. Besides, the people should know.”
“Know what?”
“That we found the Hope, that the colony did survive and wasn’t gobbled up by some stupid made-up Gorm.”
Bea’s optimism did not penetrate the dark cloud of Portia’s suspicions. She smiled politely for Bea.
“Don’t’ give me that look.”
“What look?” More smiling.
“That one, the humoring an old woman look. You are not humoring me. I am not some senile old woman chasing a fantasy. We are going to find the Hope. My sister is still out there.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Damn skippy. Now I need the loo.” Bea sat down her drink abruptly and left, disappearing into the dark recesses of the bar.
Portia fiddled with her drink nervously. She didn’t need to accompany her elderly granny to the toilets. She wasn’t going to hover around the door in a pretense of looking out for Bea’s welfare.
A man with a large dashing hat and a closely trimmed red beard sat down at the tale with her. He swept off the hat and gave a short bow in one motion. Portia had never been face to face with a man who looked so much like a real pirate before. Sure, Turkish, but he looked more like a suave nightclub owner than actual pirate. This man was all pirate.
“Can I help you,” Portia started.
“You Clovelly?”
“Yes,” her voice tiny.
“An’ you headin’ out to Eden Twelve?”
“Yes,” her voice even tinier.
“I believe we can do business.”
Business with a pirate. Oh joy.
The man produced a small cube made of clear plastic on the table. Embedded in the cube was a chip.
“What is it?” Portia asked.
“The last transmission from the Hope.”
“I already have that,” Portia said. “From just before they landed.”
The pirate was clearly not in the mood for snappy bartering with one liners. “Listen, will ya. This chip came off the Hope, that’s all I’m saying, and it might be worth your time to investigate.”
Portia held the cube in her hand. She held it up to the light. There, etched lightly into the surface of the chip, was a distinct hologram: Crosby Enterprises.
She kept her facial expression neutral as she set the cube back down on the table. “How much to investigate?”
“One thousand UGOs.”
Portia sucked in her breath. That was a lot of credit. “You think I’m smegging made out of money? Five hundred UGOs.”
“That’s an insult. Nine hundred.”
“Six hundred and fifty.”
“No deal.”
“Look, I don’t know how long you’ve been hauling around that little cube there, but I can guarantee you that I’m the only person on this station who’s willing to purchase it.”
“I’ve got lots of bidders. It’s a collectable. This could go for a fortune on auction.”
Portia chewed her lower lip. “It could, but I’m guessing that you don’t really want a high profile sale. I mean, I’m more than happy to arrange the auction details for you.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew the data pad.
She scanned the object and took a picture. Flipping the data pad around briefly, she showed the picture to the pirate. “Unique collectable,” she typed. “Last transmission from the Hope colony ship.”
She stopped typing and looked the man in the eyes. “What else should we say? Where you acquired said object? Who else might be looking for it? Another collector, perhaps.”
“Six hundred seventy five,” the pirate said, running a hand nervously through his reddish hair.
“Sold.” A quick exchange of credit and the cube was Portia’s. No she only needed to figure out how to open the thing.
“What’s what?” Bea returned to the table with another drink.
“Something rare and wonderful,” Portia said. Her fingernail found the minuscule clasp and the cube fell open into two halves, leaving the chip exposed like the seed of a fruit.
Portia delicately picked up the chip and slide it into her data pad.
Before she could even see if it was compatible, a holo simulation sprang to life from the screen. The data pad clattered to the tabletop in surprise.
A young woman was speaking. Portia recognized her as Ofelia Clovelly, the one who gave all the crew reports before the transmissions suddenly ended.
“Mom, I don’t know if you’ll get this. I wanted to make the code hard enough to Tyler not to notice but easy enough for you to spot. Not too hard, I know. Listen, we’re nearly at the new planet but Tyler’s acting…weird.
“I’m worried that he’s going to do something. Something stupid, maybe. Something with Rex, I don’t know, but he’d been more hot headed than usual and everyone’s been calling me Captain Clovelly and that seem to make him more angry. I’m worried.
“Be careful. Get here safely. How do I turn this off?”
A man, a little younger looking than Ofelia, briefly entered the screen and pushed a button off to one side. The transmission ended.
Portia picked up the data pad and hugged it to her chest. That was amazing. They had proof. They were no longer on a fool’s errand.
“I told you they were alive,” said Bea, who did not need proof but had faith.