Page 17 of Relyn
“You want to know why I didn’t throw your nephew to the ravenous hordes,” Relyn prompted.
“In part. I hired you without doing much in the way of background,” Rutra said.
“There ain’t much to tell.”
“Then tell me about Grom.”
“He’s not ready for command. He stood up to Lysh and Ketle okay, I’ll give him that, but he parked us right in front of their guns. And when the shooting started, well, it’s a good thing we didn’t bring him for muscle.”
“He told me that you actually killed the two in the ship.”
“Even that. You see, he’s a little too honest for his own good. Admirable trait in a farmer, that.”
“Horrible trait in a pirate, a cargo transport negotiator. I told his mother as much,” Rutra said with a flubbery sigh. “But you helped him save face back, which in turn prevented me from having to shove someone out an airlock. And good muscle is so hard to find these days.”
Relyn took another sip of the ale he’d grabbed. Honestly, even the bad stuff was pretty good. The captain had taste in that, at least. He raised his glass in appreciation and took another sip.
“Just wondering why your last employer let you go,” Rutra stated, circling back to the question Relyn had avoided early on purpose. Making them work hard for the information was part of his tactics. If he gave it over too easily, it became less believable.
“Let’s just say we had a slight disagreement over personal differences.”
Relyn tasted one of the food cubes on the tray in front of him. High quality in both taste and texture. He would have expected no less.
“He wasn’t willing to pay you enough?”
“Nah, he seemed to think that I should be required to mate his daughter without, you know, mating with his daughter. After he found out she’d made things more permanent than he’d planned, I thought it was prudent to put as much space between us as possible.”
Rutra nodded. “Bloody Mahdfel,” he muttered. That might be another trap. Spies were often too quick to agree. Besides, Mahdfel never had daughters. Only sons.
“I’ve got nothing against the Mahdfel, mind you. They got some swell orphanages. Taught me how to fight. But I haven’t found a rich man yet who didn’t think he could buy his way out of anything.”
“So you don’t like rich men?”
Relyn laughed. “I want to be a rich man, so I can buy my way out of anything. It’s not like I’m sentimental about Sangrin or anything, but it would be nice to be called by my own name once in a while.”
“So Rel isn’t your real name?”
Relyn leaned forward. “Is Rutra yours?” He knew for a fact that it wasn’t.
“I see your point. We’re not exactly in the business of full disclosure.”
“Another reason why you should just pick a nice planet and buy a big farm, or maybe a ranch and give it to your nephew to run. That ship we just got you should more than cover it. And having a few legitimate family businesses comes in handy once in a while.”
Rutra laughed and shook his head. Both of them knew the ins and outs of laundering funds.
“If you’d claimed three kills, that would have been a hundred and fifty. That would be quite a good nest egg.”
“I don’t like claiming bounties for people I kill. I’d rather Lysh be alive than have the money sitting in my pocket.”
“You and Lysh were friendly.”
“No. Think I spoke five whole words to him before the mission. Just, it’s like you said, good muscle is hard to find, and he seemed competent enough.”
“Except he let his pistol misfire.”
“True, and he would have done better to run for cover instead of charging those two, but I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”
“I get that.” Rutra said. He seemed satisfied in Relyn’s story, and they lapsed into a bit of a silence while each man pondered the other.
