he now had to get back to the ship by himself and sighed. He might as well get the fun stuff out of the way first. He tapped his comm. “Marit?”
“Yeah, Denver?” Her voice came through loud and clear.
“Things are good on my end.” He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. “Go find us a destination.”
“You got it.”
The impact alert in Sector Three was still blaring away when Denver got to the gate, the mechanical voice declaring that impact was imminent. The “complete lockdown” hadn’t quite happened, whether because somebody realized it didn’t need to, or because the lockdown doors had failed, Denver didn’t know, but the threat had cleared away most of the people. Only a few stragglers remained, looking slightly amused as the voice told them to expect impact in negative twenty-two minutes.
Somebody somewhere had to know by now that the whole thing was bullshit. It was a pretty short jump from there to the realization that somebody had used the alarm as a distraction. Based on what Spence had told them the night before, they had several ships they suspected. The question was, how long would it take them to rally their troops and start searching, looking for proof?
The alarm suddenly cut off midsentence, leaving Denver’s ears ringing. The silence was oddly disconcerting, after all the hubbub.
Time was definitely not on their side.
Denver returned the dialysis machine to the Jiminy before hooking up the ship up to the station’s hoses. Now that he had money, he could afford to have both the fuel and waters tanks topped off.
Next, he hit the market, where he blew a small chunk of their new riches buying as many supplies as he thought his ship’s cargo bay could hold. He’d never purchased so much at once, so it was a bit of a guessing game, weighing their limited space against a trip that could be anywhere from a few days to several months. He ordered several boxes of the usual cheap, tasteless nutritional powder they’d lived off for years before realizing he had plenty of money. For the first time in his life, he could splurge. The realization left him giddy. He ventured into sections of the market he’d never stepped foot in, snatching up flavored nutritional powder, protein bars, dehydrated fruits and vegetables, powdered milk and eggs, real coffee, and a box of spices, half of which he’d never heard of. He finished off with two wheels of hard cheese and several cured sausages made from actual cloned meat rather than rehydrated foodstuffs.
That’d do it for the food, but his crew would want the occasional drink as well. He estimated how much alcohol they might need for a long haul, then doubled it. Not just rotgut moonshine, either. This was “the good stuff,” although he had to count on the man at the shop to tell him so. He arranged to have everything delivered to his bay before making one last stop.
Growing up in the orphanage, there hadn’t been a lot of entertainment, but the one thing from the Old Earth they’d had access to was a worn copy of Pinocchio. It had struck Denver at some point in the night that he didn’t want to start a new colony anywhere that didn’t include “When You Wish Upon a Star.” He coughed up a few more credits for a copy. He couldn’t help wondering if Spence’s sister had ever seen it.
By the time he returned to the Jiminy, Spence was there, directing his friends from the grower’s guild as they loaded the last of the supplies into the cargo bay.
“We got all of them in,” Spence told him. “The ones from the guild, and those others too, with just a bit of room to spare.”
“What ‘others’? There should have only been the crates from the guild.”
Spence shrugged. “They weren’t labeled. It was only four crates, but they were damned big.”
Denver scratched his head, wondering. Maybe Marit or Laramie had purchased something else. Something Denver never would have thought of.
Like cayenne pepper.
But four large crates? What could those be?
Spence didn’t seem to notice Denver’s confusion. He was still talking. “I unhooked the fuel and water lines, so I guess we’re just about ready. All that’s left is our personal stuff.”
He motioned to two trunks stacked up against the door, and a little girl sitting on top of them with her legs crossed and what looked like a stuffed tentacle monster in her lap. She had pale, wispy hair