At least I didn’t end up like that, but I’m headed in the same direction.

“Do I get a lawyer?” I ask when their argument hits a lull. “’Cause I really think—”

“Shut up,” Zinne says without turning around.

I shut up. As the security officer begins to rant again, I focus on trying to squirm my way out of my handcuffs, to no avail. These things are damn tight.

“Do you realize how quickly something like that could spread through our planet?” Zinne continues. “What kind of irreparable damage it could do? Devan flora are plant killers, Shey. Crop destroyers. Ecosystem ruiners.” Gaia doesn’t have much to destroy, as I recall, but it probably won’t help my situation to point that out. “This could have been like the Nibiran plague all over again. There is a reason such things are illegal. There is a reason that breaking those laws is punishable by death.”

I grimace at the reminder. While I haven’t given in to total panic yet, I have no illusions about where this hovercraft ride is taking me: the death penalty. No trial. No chance to contact my family and get them to bail me out. I need to figure this out on my own, and time is ticking away. I look down at my handcuffs, suppressing a groan. I’m lucky that they’re a simple pair of low-tech metal bindings, but my wrists are chafed raw already, and I’m nowhere close to being able to squeeze out. Drom boasts that she once dislocated a finger in order to escape from some, but I don’t think I have the grit to do that without making enough noise to get Zinne’s attention. Then I’d meet the same fate as that poor broker, plus a dislocated thumb.

“Hey, does Gaia have one of those off-worlder advocacy groups?” I ask, cutting off another rant on responsibility from the officer. She turns to glower at me.

“We do not,” she says. “And if you keep squirming around like that, I’m going to tase you.”

I go still, and she returns to berating Shey. It’s slowly dawning on me that I really screwed up this time… possibly for the last time. I was caught red-handed selling a Devan plant to the daughter of the president. I’m about as thoroughly fucked as a person can be.

I’ve never been much of a planner. My survival depends largely on the occasional stroke of genius… or luck, as other people usually call it. But by the time the hovercraft stops and lowers to the ground, neither genius nor luck have struck, and I’m starting to get concerned. I’m not fond of the idea of dying over a stupid plant. I always thought I’d go down with Fortuna. Something dramatic, with fireworks and shit.