Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci Page B

the bodies first. Now our debt is settled and I have the passes.”
    “You’ll get a good price for them,” I said. “Plenty of takers for something like this.” I liked the feel of them in my hand. I wondered what it would be like to be able to buy them myself. I could go anywhere. I could follow every lead until I found Brother Blue.
    Heckleck leaned in and lowered his voice.
    “I am not going to sell them,” Heckleck said. “I’m going to use them.”
    I froze.
    “Does that interest you?”
    “Why would it interest me?” I said carefully.
    “I could sell you one,” Heckleck said.
    I felt a rush of hope. With a pass like that I could go anywhere. It seemed like an impossible wish coming true. I had to be careful. Heckleck could be tricky. I tried not to show my excitement.
    “I don’t have enough currency on my chit for something as valuable as that,” I said.
    “I see that you have a bag of Brahar salts on your shelf there,” Heckleck said.
    “Yes, I do,” I said.
    “Well, what with the favor I owe you from yesterday, and the fact you gave me an extra trest, and that time that you went left in the corridor, instead of right, which gave me a distinct advantage with the representative from Per, I believe you’ve curried almost enough to earn you a pass. But I’ll have to have that salt. I can see your mind already racing. You are not good at covering up your thoughts from me. You have always been set upon revenge.”
    “Not revenge,” I said.
    “Answers that if you get them will likely lead to you wanting revenge,” he said.
    “You’d get more from someone else,” I said. I had kept a running tally in my head of favors exchanged between us, and while they were many, they were nowhere near the value of a pass that meant ultimate freedom.
    “I knew you would say that, too.” Heckleck said. “But I like you. And there is not much that means much in this world. But liking someone whose species you dislike is something—worth more than currency on a chit. Why don’t you think about it? Or are you too afraid to leave the comfortable life you’ve set up here?”
    My life here was comfortable. It wouldn’t look like that to an outsider, but to me, it was familiar. I knew how to make it good. Out there everything was unknown. Places were unknown. Beings were unknown. I had staked my survival on knowing. Leaving, as much as I wanted desperately to do it, would be hard. But although the unknown was frightening, perhaps there was a different kind of life for me waiting somewhere out there in the galaxy. I reached over to the shelf and took the bag of salts down and gave it to him.
    “All right,” I said.
    “There,” Heckleck said. “This will be a great adventure.”
    “Where will you go?” I asked.
    “Oh, I have my own questions that need answers too,” he said. “But they can wait a little longer while I accompany you.”
    “You would go with me?” I asked.
    “Well I can’t very well have you leaving and traveling around without knowing how to get a ride on a ship, what destinations have the best light skip jump points, who is more amenable to taking on Humans, and how to get information that you require. No, no. Our tally begins anew.”
    “I will owe you,” I said.
    “You already do!” Heckleck said. “I have business to attend to in order to prepare. I want to leave as soon as possible, before more Imperium representatives come with their questions about the disappearance of the first ones. But I don’t want to take the travel passes with me. They’re too hot. Will you hold them for us?”
    “How do you know you can trust me?” I asked. “I might sell your pass to the highest bidder.”
    Heckleck looked amused. As though he were proud that he’d taught me so well.
    “It would only be for an hour or two,” Heckleck said. “And then we’ll be directly on our way.”
    “All right,” I said. I took the cards and put them in my breast pocket.
    “I always knew I could