“So, what’s the scope?” Grail asked leaning back against a smooth white wall rosery beads in a hand and a cigarette hanging out of the side of what one could only assume was a mouth jagged saw like teeth and little in the way of lips to cover them. Grail was wearing what looked like a leather jacket with a badge on one arm that had a picture of a firebug on it. His legs were bent the opposite way to how you’d normally assume legs bent and his feet could be described as chicken feet if a chicken had feet a foot long and made of some kind of black zero-g processed carbon material. Grail had two normal arms crossed in front of it then a second pair of what seemed more like claws over the shoulders, a third pair hung somewhat loosely to the side.
“You’ll be carrying a flesh bag from Tyranous station to IL-44 station. They’ll be under and escorted by some remote expert system.” Klink, a four legged robotic thing said with a posh old world accent the kind of accent you encountered in mind spikes set in the age when people travelled the seas in sailing ships.
“And my payment?” Cold blue light shone down on the little four-legged robot. Grails visual sensor seemingly focusing down on it.
“Half up front, half on delivery, payment is twelve Karma and a million chits.” The four-legged machine scuttered back and forth for a moment.
Karma was how you did business, Karma meant you were worth something a measure of your cool, or skill, or honesty, or whatever. If people gave you it it meant you could get a thing done. If you didn’t have it all the money in the universe didn’t mean shit. Karma was life.
“A lot of Karma.” Grail stood up. “You good for it?”
“Sure we’re good for it, check the pass.”
The blue light flashed a moment. “Okay, looks legit to me, what’s the danger? You don’t give out that kind of Karma for a simple meat bag.”
“Expect to have to make a quick exit and have to deal with Tyranous station family. They wont want you to leave. Manage to get away from the station don’t relax till you’ve handed over the meat sack.” Something about the way they kept changing how they described the cargo was amusing them.
“Fair enough, I’ll take the job.”
“I thought you would.”