A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

I had to think about that. I’d lost track. “Almost two years,” I said. “I was up on the space station but a run of bad luck left me stranded down here.” My being ‘cast down’ wasn’t one of my proudest achievements, but it felt good to unburden myself a little. I’d never spoken about it to anyone. Even Floyd only knew bits of the truth. “How about you?” I asked. I knew from her accent that Harmony wasn’t a native. And I felt sure Saphira hadn’t produced many thieves of her calibre.

“I’ve been on Saphira for... nine months. And I’ve been stuck in Cicada City for the last three.”

“Stuck here?”

“I don’t have the cash to pay my hotel bill,” she said. “I think Horace is beginning to get suspicious.”

“That explains the pickpocketing.”

She nodded sadly. “Slim pickings.”

“Something will turn up,” I said. I was thinking that I’d pay her bill when I left. A parting gift. Again, I blame the perfume.

“What are your plans for today?” Harmony asked. The table had been cleared and we were lingering over the last of the coffee.

“I need to check in on Floyd.”

“That’s your robot?”

I nodded. “He’s in the repair shop getting his cooling unit replaced. The desert air was too much for him.”

“And after that?”

“I thought I might go for a stroll,” I said.

“Can I come with you?”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

We walked along the street arm in arm. Anyone seeing us must have thought we were just like any other couple, enjoying the late morning sunshine and each other’s company. I didn’t get to spend many mornings like this. Even when I’d been married they’d been a rarity. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t stay married long. I wondered if Harmony had ever had a husband. Or a wife. But I didn’t ask. Maybe she still had one. And we hadn’t known each other long enough to talk about former relationships. I doubted we ever would. This was simply one of those ‘enjoy the moment’ moments.

We turned the corner where I had first encountered Harmony. I saw her lips twitch into a smile but neither of us said anything. I thought about taking a detour, extending our stroll for a while, but Harmony knew where we were going and guided me towards Danny’s shop.

Floyd was sitting on an old crate with a panel open in his chest. Danny was fitting the rebuilt cooling unit. Danny smiled when we entered. Floyd didn’t. Seeing Harmony behind me, he cocked his head to one side.

“You’re late,” Floyd said.

“We thought we’d wait until the morning rush was over,” I said, glancing around the empty shop.

Danny laughed. “You wait until the sale tomorrow. When I display this lot in the market I’ll be inundated with a customer.”

Harmony was looking at the line of robots Danny had repaired. She placed a hand on the shoulder of one of them and smiled. “We had one of these when I was a child.”

Danny got up and wiped his hands on a rag, went over to stand beside her. I didn’t need Floyd’s sensors to tell me he was much more interested in her than he had been in me.

“What’s she doing here?” Floyd asked in whisper mode.

“I ran into her again last night,” I said. “She gave me my wallet back.”

Floyd could probably tell that I wasn’t telling the whole truth, but he chose not to say anything about that. “Is that all she gave you? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing.”

“She cannot be trusted,” Floyd said. “And neither can you. Not when you’re thinking with that thing in your pants.”

“If all Harmony wanted was the money, she could have taken it last night. The fact that she was still here this morning proves something.”

“It proves that she’s sticking around to get all of it, not just the half you have stashed away,” Floyd said.

“She doesn’t know about any of it,” I said.

“Make sure it stays that way.”

Danny and Harmony had worked their way along the row of old robots and were back with us again.

“And what can you tell me about this old wreck?” Harmony asked, nodding towards Floyd.

“Not that much. I only met Quin yesterday,” Danny said, turning the full power of his smile on her.

Harmony laughed. I think she was only being polite.

“She was talking about Floyd,” I said.

“I know.” He winked at me.

“What happened to his real head?” Harmony asked.

“He doesn’t like to talk about it,” I said.

“A dragon bit it off,” Floyd said.

“I stand corrected.” I shrugged.

“I like this head,” Harmony said. She tapped on it with her knuckles. “It makes him look more friendly.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Floyd said.

“He’s just being grumpy because his internals are exposed,” I said.

Harmony peered into the open panel. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about robots, but there wasn’t really anything that she could see that would raise her suspicions. She’d need to connect a computer up to Floyd to discover what was hidden in there.

“That part’s not original,” Harmony said, pointing. “What is it?”

She was looking in at the scratched box that held the Navigator – Floyd’s real brain as opposed to the processor that controlled the robot suit.

“It’s a storage unit,” Danny said. “A big one.” If he believed it was anything more than that, he didn’t reveal it.

“Must hold a lot of data,” Harmony said.

“It does,” I said, improvising. “We use it to transport data across borders. We disable it so security scans don’t pick it up and then reactivate the link when we get to our destination.”

“Interesting,” Harmony said. “What’s it carrying now?”

“My collection of movies and music,” I said. “There isn’t much data to move around on Saphira.”

“There isn’t much of anything on Saphira,” Danny said.

“Except dragons,” Floyd said. “If everyone has finished poking around inside me I’d like Danny to put me back together.”

“He’s upset because we’ve all seen that he doesn’t