Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

knickknacks to the floor, and perched on the edge, a look of excitement shining on her face.

“We conducted several tests on your stowaway as she slept,” the doctor began.

“Slept? I was stunned nearly into a coma!” Bek’ah protested.

“Ah yes, sorry about that,” the doctor replied. “Our stunsticks are calibrated to take down anything from a Rincah to a Withaloo. We’ve found that most species that are going to cause trouble are…made of denser musculature than you have.”

Bek’ah just nodded. What the woman said made sense. She was slightly built, even for a Tedibian, and a vessel that docked in many different places would probably expect trouble from larger species than her own.

“You were saying, Alisha?” the captain prodded.

“Oh! Yes, sorry. We conducted several tests, including a full body scan, and upon going over the scans a second time, we found something that may explain the interest our passenger is stirring up.” The doctor looked from Bek’ah to the captain, who motioned for the woman to proceed. “There is a microchip embedded under your skin,” she said, looking at Bek’ah. “If there is sensitive information on it, that could account for the bounty.”

Bek’ah laughed, the sound surprising both the captain and the doctor. “There’s no microchip in me. I think I would know if there were.”

“Not necessarily,” the doctor said. “The chip in question is very small, almost imperceptible to our scan. At first my assistant mistook it for just a slightly denser chunk of bone, but when we looked more closely, we could see what it really is.”

“Where is it?” Bek’ah asked. “It’s not like I just randomly let people cut into me and insert computer parts.”

“It’s sitting right on top of your left patella, partially encased in scar tissue. The chip seems to have been implanted during a surgical repair of your knee. It would be very hard to find if we didn’t know there was something extraordinary about you.”

“Thank you, it’s always nice to be recognized,” Bek’ah said, smiling at the compliment.

“She meant the bounty, stowaway,” the captain said, his voice drier than the Gohara desert on Tideb.

Bek’ah felt her face flush and was glad that her gray-and-black coloration made it almost indiscernible unless one was very familiar with Tedibian expressions. “I knew that.”

The captain looked at her, and now his eyes were a piercing mint green that spoke of frigid mountaintops. “You knew nothing of this?”

Bek’ah held up both hands. “I swear to Bast, Captain. I had no idea there was anything in my knee. I hurt it dancing two years ago at the club, and Dax…son of a litterless kit! That’s why he paid for the surgery and kept my pay coming while I rehabbed the injury. He buried something inside me. Damn him to all the Hells!”

“Can we get it out?”

Bek’ah froze in mid-tirade at the captain’s question.

“Excuse me?” she and the doctor said in unison.

“Look,” Captain Tinbrak said, “a dancer from a dive bar, even one that’s been sold to cover her gambling debt, shouldn’t be worth much more than three thousand credit, and that’s only if she’s extraordinary—”

“Which I am,” Bek’ah said, licking the back of her hand and smoothing the fur atop her head where it had begun to rise.

“Of course you are,” the captain continued. “But I don’t think even you believe you’re seventy-five thousand credit extraordinary.”

Bek’ah shrugged her concession. He was right, but there was no system in which she was going to ever say that out loud.

“So whatever is on that chip must be worth a lot of credit. Almost certainly more than the reward by a factor of four or five. So we need to know what that is. Now, can we get it out of her knee safely?”

Bek’ah looked at the man and wondered just how concerned he was going to be about the “safely” when compared to the “rich” part of the equation. She breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor smiled and said, “We don’t have to. It has a wireless signal.”

Almost faster than she could follow, the doctor whisked her off to the med bay and plopped her onto an exam table. Captain Tinbrak leaned against a nearby wall, the tightness in his shoulders belying the faux-relaxed posture. Bek’ah lay back on the table with her arms folded beneath her head, looking at a monitor beside her as the doctor positioned a scanner over her left knee. The scanner gave a loud BEEEEP, and the doctor looked over her shoulder at the captain with a smile.

“It’s encoded, but it’s a very rudimentary cypher,” the disheveled woman said. “I should be able to crack it within an hour or two.”

“That makes sense,” Bek’ah muttered. “Dax is a pretty rudimentary being, the calico-furred bastard.” The idea of something being implanted in her body without her permission grated on her, and she swore if she ever found herself back on Tideb, she and Corvan Dax would have a very pointed discussion. With the points in question living at the tips of her fingers.

“Come to the bridge when you get it figured out,” Tinbrak said. He looked at Bek’ah. “You. Come with me.” Not waiting for her to reply, he turned and walked off.

Bek’ah sat up and slid to the table, her soft, toeless shoes carrying her across the cold metal floor without a sound. She caught up to the captain as he turned right out of the med bay. “Where are we going?”

“Didn’t you listen, kid? I just told the doc I’d be on the bridge.”

“Kid? I’m probably older than you, Captain. And why would you take me to the bridge? I’m not a pilot.”

“It’s a figure of speech, kid. And I want you on the bridge so I can keep an eye on you and that seventy-five thousand credit kneecap of yours.”

“Ignore him,” the human woman who’d served as her guard/escort said, falling into step beside Bek’ah. “The captain has a thing for Earth vids from almost a hundred centuries ago. Nobody knows