Chapter 2.2 (1/2)
2.2
The flock of sandworms was completely destroyed by the arhan and it landed near Dingo. The rear opened and a c.o.c.kpit appeared. Angela jumped down from it. Dingo greeted her with applause.
“Excellent job. I didn’t expect for you to be able to kill them all.”
Angela walked over and glared at Dingo who towered above her.
“You’re supposed to be my guide, but all you do is cause problems. How can you explain this?”
“Oh come on”, Dingo retorted. “Now I will help you with your work. As they say, you roll my log and I’ll roll yours.”
Angela noticed two canisters behind the buggy. A wire was tied to the back of the buggy. Were they really the cause of that sand cloud?
“What are these canisters? If you wanted to escape, you had to get rid of the extra load. Or are you completely stupid?”
“Actually I didn’t want to escape. And I purposefully dragged them after me.”
“Huh?”
“Sandworms are very sensitive to metallic sounds. Just a little noise and they go mad with rage.”
Angela was puzzled.
“I don’t understand. You lured them?”
Dingo looked at the horizon. A dust cloud was heading their way.
“There they are.”
Trucks appeared out of nowhere. Seeing a pile of sandworm corpses, they stopped. Men began to come out. The mountain of insect corpses was an incredible sight. Someone joyfully yelled, “A huge catch!”
Clearly not expecting this, Angela frowned. And here Dingo spoke, “Well gentlemen, here is the sale promised. For 300 nano-carat per person, take as much as you can carry!”
He held his cowboy hat upside down. The satisfied people put cash and coins into it. After this, they came back to their trucks, took their meat cleavers and went to cut up the sandworms. They were all butchers. Stunned, Angela watched things unfold before her. She became enraged.
“Listen up…”
“Oh, thank you. I didn’t even ask you, but you helped. What a wonderful employer I have. I’m sure you and I will get along.” Dingo said while counting his money.
Folding her arms, Angela continued silently raging. Mad screams wouldn’t lead to anything. While displeased by looking at the working butchers, she said, “Regarding the reward.”
“As always, satellite information about the underground resources. I’m counting on you.”
Angela took out a memory card from a terminal in her arm.
“Cash would also be nice, but Deva doesn’t use them.”
Dingo reached for the memory card, however, Angela pulled her hand back.
“Payment will depend on the success of the mission.”
“Hey, maybe it will be worthwhile to win my trust over a deposit?”
Angela glanced at Dingo.
“You’ve been trying to sabotage my mission from the very beginning. What trust is there to be?”
“You’re really trying to slander me,” Dingo said unperturbedly and then smiled bitterly, “It’s just that I thought you would surely kill all those worms if you saw…”
“Oh really!”, Angela flared up. “You aimlessly wasted 37 minutes and 20 seconds of my precious time! And for me every second counts right now. This is real sabotage!”
Dingo even backed away from such pressure.
“Why are you so angry? The operation starts tomorrow. None of the agents of the security system have even arrived, except for you.”
“Exactly. This is the perfect opportunity to get ahead of them. For this, I even finished the development of my body early.
“So that’s why you look like a teen. I thought you just liked this.”
Angela snorted at him again. Dingo decided to stay silent.
“Now listen. If someone gets to Pioneer before me, you won’t get your payment either. So take this seriously.
“You try to get a raise even in situations like these?”