Page 4 of How to Steal a Galaxy

We need you.

I send back the same number.

We don’t have those kinds of funds.

I send back a number higher than that.

It’s a different mission. Undercover.

I tack on another ten thousand.

They counter with a much, much lower number—although a better one than they started with—and attach it to a message that reads:This is all the funds we have for the job.

I hesitate. I mean, sure, okay, there was alittlebravado in how I spoke to the contact. I don’t actually want Earth swarming with malicious nanobots just because the government’s too inept to inspect the coding of the bots they buy. And it’s been made patently obvious that none of the colonized worlds care about the old homestead, not enough to actuallydoanything.

I get another ping.We need you to talk to Rian White.

I stare at the glowing letters on my dash.

Fuck it.

I’m in.

2

The Museum of Intergalactic History glitters almost as much as I do. The hem of my dress swishes, catching light from the circle luminaries hovering next to the camera drones. I don’t have the face of a celebrity—even though I absolutely grinned at every scanner on the way up the dramatic stairs—so none of the cams turn to capture my visage as I put one elegantly pointed silver shoe on the top step, my leg peeking through the decadent slit up the skirt as ripples of gossamer-like cloth flutter behind me. Not a single drone so much as twitches in my direction.

Which is a damn shame, because I look really hot. Especially in this light.

Rigel is a blue star system, unlike the yellow sun of Earth, and diamond hour is legit. Not only is the afternoon light casting lovely blue shadows over everything, but Rigel-Earth can see more than one star in the sky. The main star is a supergiant, but it’s got a cluster of little sisters—four of them, all blue. This world is far enough away that Rigel doesn’t look that much bigger from the surface of the planet than the Sun looks from Earth, despite being something like twenty times larger, and the sister stars aren’t always visible to the naked eye. But twilight lasts longer, the glow extending for hours, and the sunsrise—if you’re awake for that sort of thing—is almost worth putting up with the people on this planet for.

Almost.

The diamond-hour glow highlights the museum’s portico, the sculpture in the pediment angled to catch the dying light—a giant of a man, kneeling, a sword at his belt hanging down over the entrance, a bow pointed up in a way that, supposedly, lines up with the main star at the equinox. This is a bronzed version of Orion, the constellation Rigel is in, and sure enough, the foot on the right is wearing a shoe enhanced with some glittering blue gem, symbolizing the star.

So fucking pretentious, honestly.

The landing under the portico is marred by a series of scanners, and there’s a little bit of a wait to get inside. Everything here is still pretty mild, but it’s going to get chaotic fast. Part of me wants to revel in the whirlwind I know is coming in the next half hour or so as the celebrities, politicians, and generally famous-for-being-famous people arrive. But the more sensible part of me knows I need to focus. Get inside, start laying the groundwork. And this sort of party always has good food, so that’ll be nice.

I’m arriving unfashionably early. But what was I going to do, sit inGloryand while away the minutes in the docking bay? Not a chance. What I want is inside that building.

One goal. Full speed.

I don’t even bother biting back the grin that curves my perfectly painted red lips.

One of the cam drones notices me. It whirrs closer, the glassy eye in the center of its hovering body flickering as it scans me. There’s some algorithm that’s noting that I’m no one. Literally. No record of this face anywhere except a few innocuous docs in my strategically placed digital paper trail. But when I take a step, and then another, letting the sea-silk slither over my skin, the cam droid follows me. A few more join in.

I don’t mind ending up on these recorders. I know how the drones work; my face is already deleted off its data banks. I’m not naive enough to think a sexy gown and a shiny red smile are enough to splash my image across the tabbies, but it is nice to be appreciated, even if by nothing more than robotic story-chasers.

Ah, well. I turn my back to the drones and head toward the security to get in. A bright digital screen hovers over the scanners, welcoming guests and reminding us of the theme of the event:History as Art, the words written in overlay atop various images of carefully curated feed of Earth—a flowing river, waves crashing on the beach, historical footage of now-extinct glaciers. Every year, the gala picks a charity to benefit. Sol-Earth is the subject of tonight’s fundraiser, and, knowing what I know, it’s no surprise there’s a heavy emphasis on water.

“Just a minute,” one of the guards at the scanners says, pausing the queue as she examines something on her screen. Half a dozen people are ahead of me, none of whom I recognize, but all of whom are used to being important enough to not be delayed. But not important enough for the guest-of-honor entrance happening in an hour.

“There wasn’t this level of security last year,” a man complains.

“You know it’s got to be because of Strom,” his date replies, smirking. Strom Fetor, tech trillionaire, guest of honor at the gala. She’s probably right, but I tell myself that the scanners and the guards are for me. It’s nice to pretend to be important when you get all dressed up.

The Museum of Intergalactic History stands imperiously atop a small hill. Ramps with moving treads curve along both sides of the white stone steps, and most people lining up used them. That wouldn’t have made for quite as dramatic an entrance, though, and I don’t mind waiting now.

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