to Kas’s throat. She hurriedly returned it to its sheath. “Slag it. Sorry. I thought you were . . . someone else, yeah?”
“Okay.” Kas swallowed, her breathing slowing a little. “If you’re not going to kill me, do you think you could get off?”
“Sure,” Zhi muttered, shifting backward. Kas extracted herself and shuffled into a crouch, backing away a few steps. “But how did you get here?”
“I followed you,” Kas said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” She cocked her head. “Well, I guess I meant to at first, but then I got stuck and I didn’t want to get lost—”
“I ’ent following,” Zhi said, scratching the back of her head. “Maybe slow down a bit, yeah?”
“Sorry,” Kas said again. “When that guard started shooting I kind of panicked.”
“You were there?” Zhi said.
“I tried to wave to you!” Kas said.
“I was a little busy, yeah?”
“I understand that now,” Kas said. “I came down to talk to you about the bet, and I saw you run past. I followed you onto the elevator, and then when that pilot—”
“Custis,” Zhi muttered.
“When Custis showed up I hunkered down. And then the elevator turned on, and when we got to the bottom I figured I had better keep up with you or I would never find my way out.” Kas swallowed, some of the color returning to her face. “I wasn’t expecting . . . this.”
I bet you weren’t. Zhi looked the off-worlder over, assessing. She didn’t look quite as . . . off-worlder-y, down here, away from her fancy friends, with her robe mussed and her hair damp with sweat. Doesn’t look half bad, actually, a slightly inappropriate part of Zhi’s mind supplied. Her body had been soft under Zhi’s hips—
Noooot the time, yeah? Her eyes narrowed. What am I supposed to slagging do with her?
“You’re wondering what to do with me,” Kas said.
Zhi knew off-worlders couldn’t really read minds—not like the stories, anyway, not without fancy equipment that wouldn’t work in Earth’s corrosive datasphere—but it still made her sit up straighter. She frowned, then nodded.
“If people knew about this”—Kas gestured at Alpha Zero—“then someone would have told us as soon as we landed. It’d be huge news, especially among scholars. No one did, which means you’re keeping it secret.”
Zhi gave another slow nod. Too smart for her own good, this one.
“Which means now that I’ve seen it . . .” Kas swallowed, apparently not having realized where her own train of thought was leading. “Ah. Maybe . . . we can work something out.” She didn’t sound hopeful.
“It ’ent like that.” Zhi didn’t fancy putting a pretty girl in fear of her life, but mostly she was just tired. She sat down, leaning against the edge of Alpha Zero’s cockpit. “Maybe a month ago I would’ve thought about it, yeah? But now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.”
“I don’t understand,” Kas said. “This thing must be worth a fortune. Why hide it? And why try to scam me out of ten thousand sesterces when you’re sitting on this?”
“It wasn’t a scam,” Zhi said, then paused at Kas’s look. “All right. Was a scam. Can’t blame me for trying.”
“I can,” Kas said.
Zhi sighed. “Blame me, then. That won’t matter neither.” She rubbed the warbot’s flank affectionately. “Alpha Zero might be worth a fortune, but it ’ent me who owns him, yeah? He’s salvage.”
“The law . . .” Kas said uncertainly.
“’Ent about the law. He’d belong to whoever has the most guns, and that means the House. Same as runs Custis.”
“Ah,” Kas said, looking around the hangar. “And I suppose you can’t exactly move him.”
“Not unless it’s under his own power,” Zhi said. “I could strip him down and sell the parts—”
“No!” Kas said with surprising forcefulness. “Do you have any idea what you have here? This is a Third-Empire warbot, almost intact. That’d be . . .” Her hands moved as she searched for a serious enough word. “Practically sacrilege.”
“Dunno what empire he’s from,” Zhi said, “but when I found him I knew he looked killer. Thought about selling the info to the House, but slag them. I wanted him for myself, yeah? So I started working.”
“Working—” Kas looked around again, this time taking in the equipment set against the walls, the welders, printers, and external processing units. “You’ve been fixing it?”
“Him,” Zhi said. “Yeah. Me and Solomon. If we can get him moving, up to the arena, ’ent nobody could stop us, yeah? Could win enough to get out of here for