“There are three options,” Elster said. “Either we blow Patel out the airlock now, or we walk away and let them starve to death in there.”

 

The mercenary was casually leaning on the wall as if waiting at a levtran stop for her daily commute, but I knew she was carrying. Plus, her arms bulged like her morning routine consisted of beating the stuffing out of a half-dozen guys like me, then indifferently scanning the cycle’s news as she sipped a capsule of joe.

 

“You said three options?” I was angling for something slightly less mortal.

 

“Option three is, I toss you in the airlock instead.”

 

Getting vac’d would be quicker. But maybe there was still a chance I could save myself. Having Patel around would make that more likely, whether or not they deserved saving. “Let’s let them stew in there.”

 

“Figured you’d say that.” She reached to the control panel, flipped out and rotated the override switch, then pressed the flashing red “Open outer hatch” indicator.

 

“But…”

 

“I wasn’t giving you choices, exhaust-breath. I was just saying there was options. Now move it, we’ve got things to do.” She gestured for me to go ahead of her, the way we came, I presumed out of the wharves. “And don’t try anything stupid. Which, admittedly, is asking a lot from you, given the position you’ve put your backside in. They didn’t tell me what ass-hattery you were up to, but any jerkoff should know better than to get on the bad side of the Organization.”

 

We walked down the deserted gantry, long enough to reach from the station to docked freighters’ holds, wide enough to roll shipping containers side-by-side and slide them out the angled airlock doors. Scattered detritus of machinery and cargo and suits lurked in the crevices between the jutting control boxes and mechanicals. Here a wall panel off-kilter, there one a different gray than the others.

 

Were my senses heightened because of the danger, impending death, blah blah blah blah? None of that malarkey. It was just better to notice that sort of thing than think about whatever brutality Elster was devising to visit upon me.

 

“Hey, I got money, you know,” I suggested.

 

“Patel said that, too.”

 

She was thick, but not dumb. What I heard, Patel was a low-level operative who held credits overnight rather than depositing them right away. Personal cash-flow issues. The sort of infraction that would usually merit a tough talking-to, a broken bone or two, given the amount and that it was a one-time thing. Then again, the Organization didn’t tolerate even the most petty disloyalty. Otherwise, Goodrich ain’t Goodrich.

 

We approached the six-way at the gantry’s base. Elster grunted for us to turn left. At the next one we headed up. Maybe she had sharp eyes and could make out the vestigial Koreanglish physical signage, but the few screens that remained were cracked and blank. We took another couple of turns. We were doing a lot of walking, but were no closer to anywhere likely to get foot traffic, or any chance I’d have for escape.

 

“Maybe there’s something else I could do for you? I got connections.”

 

“Patel was smart enough to shut up eventually.”

 

She was right about the difference between Patel and me. Sure, no one ever confused me for a spacedrive engineer. Anybody can get behind on payments, or mistakenly conduct business on somebody else’s turf, or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But this time I had really screwed the pooch.

 

Despite my always telling other people to keep stuff simple, I had let things get complicated. Pitting one faction against another. Trying to puff myself up into something bigger than I was. Getting careless. Like a jaded pilot doing a lazy-ass pre-launch inspection walkaround because, by sheer luck, she’s managed not to get herself and crew imploded or exploded, and after a while you just don’t think that things will catch up to you.

 

About halfway down a gangway, she stopped in front of a hatch. My doom, whatever it was, probably waited on the other side, ingeniously painful. There are lots of ways for your life to end. I had never imagined that mine would be at the hands of someone like Elster.

 

Grabbing my bicep in a grip so steely enough to make a powervice jealous, Elster drew me inside.

 

”Surprise!” forty people shouted. There was a big banner they had put up: “Happy Birthday, Ozias Goodrich!”

 

Crap, was I relieved. Everyone was there — Hong, Abijabidwe, Ekschmidt, Moreno — everybody.

 

Later, as the party was winding down, I approached Moreno and Elster.

 

“They tell me this party was your idea?” I asked Moreno.

 

“Yeah, Boss, and for just a second there, you looked like you might have been real scared. Great joke, right?”

 

“Something like that,” I replied. Then I turned to Elster.

 

”You did good, kid. You’ve got a job with the Organization. And here’s your first task.” I pointed at Moreno. “Vac him.”

 

His eyes opened wider than Saturn’s rings. “But—“

 

”You got it.” Elster muscled him away.

 

Hong came over. I tilted my head toward the hatch where Elster was dragging Moreno, then back at Hong. ”Vac her,” I told him.

 

“No problem,” Hong replied. “I was a little surprised about Moreno, though. Been with us a long time.”

 

“That’s why he needed to go.”

 

“How do you figure, Boss?”

 

No slacking in the Organization. No disloyalty. Also, no incompetence.

 

“I was vat-grown. No birthday.”

 

Otherwise, Goodrich ain’t Goodrich.