Page 18 of Mongrels United
Rim gave a nervous smile that didn’t fully form. “She’s fine. Thank you.”
Nash pulled out the bag of tablets and tossed it on the counter in front of a bank of equipment doing mysterious things, lights jumping over its face. “I need you to tell me what they are.”
Rim stared at the bag as if it might leap up and tear out his throat if he glanced away. Then he reached out a hand and picked it up. He didn’t drop the contents onto his palm, Nash noticed. Instead, he carefully shook two of the tablets out onto the counter.
He bent over them for a moment. “I’ve never seen these.”
“Not something you made, then.”
Rim’s mouth opened. His eyes got wider.
“Come on. You think I don’t know what you do in here in the small hours of the night when everyone is sleeping?” Nash asked. “The unmarked uppers doing the rounds at the moment come from somewhere. They aren’t stamped the way the two other techs I know about sign their work.”
Rim swallowed. “I am a legally certified chemist—”
“Sure. Right. Got it,” Nash said. He pointed at the bag and the two tablets spilled across the counter. “How long to figure out what they are?” He tacked on, “And who made them?” Because if Rim didn’t—which he had half-assumed was the case—that meant there was a fourth lab somewhere on the ship. One hedidn’tknow about.
“I…um…two days.”
Nash laughed. “Tomorrow.”
Rim smoothed his hands down his coat once more. “Testing isn’t a process that can be accelerated at will. Chemical reactions take time to complete that you simply cannot hurry. And I may have to do multiple tests to discern the tablets’ composition.”
“Tomorrow night, then. Same time as now. That gives you twenty-four standards. Are you going to tell me it can’t be done in twenty-four?”
“IfI happen to pick the right test that tells me what they are, then yes, it can be done in twenty-four hours,” Rim said stiffly.
“Better pick the right test, then, huh?” Nash told him.
Rim swallowed again.
Nash patted his arm. “It’ll be worth your while, Rim. Don’t let me down.”
Rim nodded, his eyes blinking.
Nash waved a finger around the room. “You’re keeping your files off the servers, right?”
Rim rolled his eyes. For the first time, he showed a spark of courage. “You continue to treat me as if I am particularly stupid.”
“Nah, not stupid,” Nash said. “Just greedy. I’ve stopped being surprised by how much money can change a man. A lot of it in front of him and he just stops thinking smart.”
“I am not greedy,” Rim said, with a dignified straightening of his shoulders.
“Yeah, you are,” Nash said. “Or you would have stopped doing jobs for me once Anny’s note got paid off. But you didn’t, did you?”
He left Rim to ponder that while running his tests. Out in the Aventine Markets, which had shut down for the day, Nash paused to listen to a muted noise coming from the old tankball arena. A game was on, apparently.
Watching a game would be a mindless way to pass a few hours before going home and trying to sleep. Or going home and sending for Camilla and her little green box of remedies.
Nash wove through the shut-down markets and across the open space to the arena, which was tucked into the corner made by the wide avenue heading to the Bridge, and the terminal of the magline, at the back of the arena, and went into the main concourse. The entry scan read his wrist chip and lowered the gate for him. He was a team owner and could come and go at will.
One of the little perks of owning the Dreamhawks that had never come close to compensating for the cost of running a successful tankball team.
He went up to the owners’ box. It was only a quarter filled with owners and managers he didn’t know well, for this wasn’t a Dreamhawks game. Nash settled in the front row, ordered himself a drink and picked up the details of the game.
The Grey Team were playing the Buccaneers, the Aventine team, with the red and black uniforms. The ball was in the heavy zone while two groundsmen slugged it out over who was going to possess the two-gee heavy ball.
Nash leaned forward to peer through the translucent carbon steel tank down at the two players, and waited for the Grey’s top man to float out of the way. Yep, it was Kailash Rennell down there.
