“Now leaving Rylean space,” Dick reported a short time later, as Lilliana joined him on the forward command deck.
“Excellent,” Lilliana said. “Time to drop a dime on Roquelaire, as the saying goes.”
“What exactly does that mean, anyway?” Dick asked.
“Ratting somebody out,” Lilliana explained.
“Yes, but, where does it come from?” Dick asked. “I gather that a ‘dime’ was a coin of some sort. I just don’t see how it applies to the situation.”
“Well, it was a coin worth ten cents, in an Old Earth currency system,” Lilliana said. “And we know from surviving advertisements that ancient telecommunication systems often had usage fees that cost ten cents a minute, so to ‘drop a dime’ literally meant to make a call across the network… and somehow or other, it came to mean making a call to tip off the authorities.”
“Ah,” Dick said. “It always fascinates me how these old idioms came to be. In any event, should I take it you’re not fully confident that our unique diplomatic status would actually protect us from detention?”
“Boy, howdy… Regan’s performance drew too much attention,” Lilliana said. “That was all part of the plan… aside from buying Handy the time she needed to do her part, the surveillance on the ship forced Roquelaire to come inside and close the deal on our turf. Otherwise, I would never have had a chance to slip the Donna into his pocket.”
“But, of course, that leaves our ship under a cloud of suspicion,” Dick said.
“Worse than suspicion: probable cause,” Lilliana said. “That’s why I’m not doing this anonymously. Regan was tracked leaving the museum, and Roquelaire was seen boarding this ship minutes before it took off. We’d be the obvious suspects. By reporting the theft and turning in the ‘thief’ ourselves, we muddy the waters enough to at least stop them from coming after a sovereign ship in interstellar space.”
“Ah, well, now that we’ve got that cleared up, I suppose you should probably get to it,” Dick said.
“Right,” Lilliana said, taking her seat behind the communications console. She took a few moments to compose herself, checking her appearance in the small screen which showed her face in real time so she could gauge her expressions during video communications.
When she was satisifed that she was the very picture of outraged innocence, she keyed up the screen for contacting the Rylean authorities. She had just put the request for conference through when the intraship network lit up flashing red.
Scowling, she paused the outgoing request and opened the channel.
“The Gypsy, we have a problem,” Regan’s voice said.
“Dragons or demons, I’m sure you can handle it,” Lilliana said, as smoothly as she could. “I’m about to make a very important…”
“It’s the engine, ya see,” Regan said.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure you can slay it and I’ll hear the full story later,” Lilliana said. “Now…”
She was cut off by Galatea’s voice coming on the line.
“As much as it pains me to say it, this sexually confused reprobate is correct,” Galatea said. “We have a real problem. We need to shut down the engines, in approximately… well, now would be good.”
“Give me one good reason why we should shut down our engines when we’ve just left the boundaries of patrolled space and would be a target for any pirate, scavenger, slaver, or necromancer who happens to be scanning this part of the perimeter,” Lilliana demanded. “In no more than ten words.”
“If we do not, we shall explode,” Galatea said. She paused, then added, “I hate Regan.”
“Wait, what did you do to us, Bard?” Lilliana asked.
“Nothin’!” Regan said.
“I was just using up my last three words,” Galatea said. “Can we please shut down the engines?”
“Dick?” Lilliana asked.
“I’m seeing some minor fluctuations in performance,” Dick said. “But nothing that’s really unusual, considering we’re breaking in new bars.”
“It’s the bars that’re the problem, like,” Regan reported. “One o’ them’s a ringer.”
“That filthy rat!” Lilliana swore. “He must have switched one with an electroplated dud after we scanned them.”
“Why in space would he sabotage the ship that was supposed to be carrying the painting to safety?” Dick wondered.
“That’s a really great question an’ all,” Regan said. “But a better one is can we kill the fuckin’ engine afore it blows us all past kingdom come?”
“Oh, right,” Lilliana said. “Dick, start dumping speed. Regan, watch our velocity and prepare for emergency shut down.”
“And then what?” Dick asked.
“Then we figure out how to strangle a dwarf from across time and space.”
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