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“It’s none of your….”

“Your mortgage has a bigger appetite than Volga, love. And those diamonds you’re wearing aren’t exactly sale items. From Gustave’s?” Her face pinches. “Don’t get tight, I’m not going through your receipts. But new money all shops the same.” She looks embarrassed, but I keep punishing, because I need her to know there’s only one way out. “So…after the diamonds, the mortgage, the server farm in your spare room, I’d say you have maybe fifty thousand in your account.” By her expession I know it’s less. Lady loves to spend. “Gods. You don’t even pay taxes and you’re broke!”

She’s not done trying. “We could combine our money. Dano. How much do you have?”

“Me?” Dano looks up from his datapad, where he’s texting one of his warm bodies. “Rooting in the wrong mine, lass. I like fliers and Pinks too much to gather commas in the old account. Sin’s a hungry slag. What about you, tinman?”

“I’m dry,” I say.

“Tables leech you?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re a mess of degenerates,” Cyra mumbles.

“I have money,” Volga says from the window.

Cyra wheels on Volga. “How much?”

“All of it.”

“All of your share?” Cyra asks, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“From all our contracts?”

“Yes.” Volga hesitates, embarrassed. “Well…I must eat. And I eat much more than you…smaller people. And I like beer. And I pay my landlord each cycle change. He says I am the best tenant.” She blushes. “And…and sometimes I go to the Cerebian. You know. The zoo? I like the popcorn and the animals. And the people are all so happy. Especially the children. But I go in the middle of the day, so tickets are cheaper,” she adds quickly at the end to mitigate the gross expenditure.

“Volga!” I feign astonishment. “You’re out of control. A regular hedonist.”

“I know,” she mutters, shaking her head at herself. “I know.”

“I’m joking, Volga. You’re as parsimonious as a White.”

“Thank you,” she says, beaming, then squints. “Parsimonious. That is a fine word.”

“That should be more than enough money,” Cyra chirps. “With that much we can get a real starrunner. Maybe even buy a used—”

I toss the last centimeter of my Pernod into her lap.

“What the hell,” she sputters.

“You’re a horrible person,” I say. “That’s Volga’s money.”

“Kinda slagged up, Cyra,” Dano says.

“Because I want to live?”

“I don’t mind,” Volga says. “I will share.”

I know she’s been saving the money from our jobs to buy herself some acreage on Earth. All those dreams of Luna, and now she wants to start a refuge for carved animals that have been discarded by their masters. She told me one night when she was drunk. She wants zebracores and griffins and all other manner of beasties that will probably eat her in her sleep. She doesn’t remember, but I do, and I’ll be damned if I let these other two take her piece.

“Yes, you do mind, Volga. Or I mind for you. It doesn’t matter if we had ten million credits to spend. Wherever we go, they’ll find us and kill us.”

“There’s another option,” Cyra says. “We could take it to Republic Intelligence.”

Dano sniffs the air obnoxiously. “Odd, Eph. A prime spot like this having the smell of rats.”