My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire by Colin Alexander

fights. Hence, we swabbed the decks from one star to the next.



Chapter 6
    T he list that Hvath gave me when we finally found him seemed neither too lengthy nor too onerous. Hvath didn’t say he was done, however, when he stopped speaking. Instead, he came to a drawn out pause before starting up again.
    “There’s one other that you’re stuck with. It’s not a very good one because it means that you won’t be able to eat at the same time as most of the crew.”
    Hvath actually looked sorry about it. Kolgorinn had not been popular, most bullies aren’t, and Hvath had come up with a device to keep him away at mealtimes. Up to this point, I had taken it as a minor stroke of luck that Kolgorinn was rarely in the mess when I was eating.
    “What is it?”
    “You’re the one who brings the meals in to the prisoner.”
    “Prisoner? You mean the Little Mistress?”
    “That’s the one,” he nodded. It’s only temporary, obviously, which is good for you because I doubt you can trade it.”
    I didn’t see why it should be such a problem, but Hvath was explaining even before I asked.
    “You pick up the meal at the mess and bring it down to the cabin. The guard there will let you in and you take it in. Once you do, you stay until she finishes it and you see that she finishes it. She’s no good to Carvalho if she starves to death. Same reason, anything that goes in with you comes out with you. And finally, hands off! Just think of it as valuable cargo. Mess it up and Carvalho will mess you up.”
    That, I thought, was clear and to the point.
    The late meal that day was my first time on the job. The covered tray was waiting for me at the mess. There was a bowl of pureed something that looked like oatmeal and smelled like cabbage. Dull as shipboard food was, this was duller. The single utensil the Srihani favored had been altered. The tines were clipped short and the cutting edge had been removed, converting it into little more than a soupspoon. Whatever little potential it had for being used as a weapon was gone.
    I took the tray to a corridor in the area where the officer quarters were, up near the bridge. With a single female prisoner on a ship full of male pirates, Carvalho wasn’t about to put her in the brig. Since there was no place to run to on a ship in interstellar space, it was more important to keep her isolated from the crew than to prevent her from running away. The brig, although secure, was really just a holding area. Had Carvalho used it for the Little Mistress, there would have been no place to put the rowdies while they cooled off. Instead, they’d sealed off a stretch of corridor and put her in one of the rooms. The entrance to the corridor slid open when I pressed my hand to the plate. It slid closed again as soon as I had passed through.
    Seated outside the door was one very bored looking guard. Quite possibly, that was the worst duty on the ship. I waited at the door for him to leave his seat, having been told that the door to the room hadn’t been keyed to my hand.
    “You got Kolgorinn?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    He shook his head, as though reluctant to believe it. “I’d have bet the wrong way if I’d heard it was coming. I wish I had seen it. Don’t worry about this job. It won’t be forever. Anyway, you’re only stuck here for the meals.”
    He let me in, then closed the door between us. The best word to describe the cabin inside was barren. It was a standard ship’s cabin, but almost everything that was not an integral part of the walls and floor had been removed. A bathroom was set into the inner wall of the cabin, proof that this had belonged to one of the upper officers. Its door had been fixed in the open position. The only furniture in the cabin was the bed, a Srihani bed being like a large beanbag filled with gelfoam, and a small table next to it. The room reminded me of the modified utensil. Carvalho intended to leave no possible way for his prisoner to commit