Finwell Bay
Author: Nathan Lowell
Date: 2020-09-15 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fantasy; Space Opera; Fiction; Space; Paranormal
Description: When Jimmy Pirano gets called to the home office, his sister Angela gets stuck with sorting out the mess he leaves behind. Otto Krugg must find a way to continue after his losses. Can he find happiness on the other end of the South Coast?

This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

Visit us on the web at: www.solarclipper.com

Copyright © 2017 by Nathan Lowell
Cover Art J. Daniel Sawyer

First Printing: April, 2017

Books in the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Series

Trader Tales

Quarter Share
Half Share
Full Share
Double Share
Captain’s Share
Owner’s Share

Seeker's Tales

In Ashes Born
To Fire Called
By Darkness Forged*

Shaman Tales

South Coast
Cape Grace*

Fantasy by Nathan Lowell

Ravenwood
Zypheria’s Call
The Hermit of Lammas Wood

* Forthcoming

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Unwin Yards: 2375, January 3
Chapter 2 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 5
Chapter 3 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7
Chapter 4 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7
Chapter 5 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7
Chapter 6 Unwin Yards: 2735, January 11
Chapter 7 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 25
Chapter 8 Dree System: 2375, January 30
Chapter 9 Dree System: 2375, March 5
Chapter 10 Jett System: 2375, April 3
Chapter 11 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 3
Chapter 12 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5
Chapter 13 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5
Chapter 14 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5
Chapter 15 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 6
Chapter 16 Jett System: 2375, April 7
Chapter 17 Jett System: 2375, April 28
Chapter 18 Viceroy System: 2375, April 28
Chapter 19 Viceroy: 2375, May 9
Chapter 20 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 9
Chapter 21 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 10
Chapter 22 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 11
Chapter 23 Viceroy System: 2375, May 13
Chapter 24 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17
Chapter 25 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17
Chapter 26 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17
Chapter 27 Ice Rock: 2375, June 20
Chapter 28 Siren System: 2375, July 8
Chapter 29 Moe’s Mining: 2375, August 15
Chapter 30 Siren Orbital: 2375, August 25
Chapter 31 Siren System: 2375, August 30
Chapter 32 Viceroy System: 2375, September 25
Chapter 33 Mel’s Place: 2375, October 7
Chapter 34 Mel’s Place: 2375, October 9
Chapter 35 Viceroy System: 2375, October 12
Chapter 36 Tehas System: 2375, October 24
Chapter 37 Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29
Chapter 38 Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29
Chapter 39 Tehas System: 2375, November 10
Chapter 40 Deep Dark: 2375, November 10
Chapter 41 Deep Dark: 2375, November 12

Chapter 42 Telluride System: 2375, November 15

Chapter 43 Telluride System: 2375, November 16

Chapter 44 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

Chapter 45 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

Chapter 46 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

Chapter 47 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

Chapter 48 Deep Dark: 2375, November 18
Chapter 49 Port Newmar: 2376, January 12
About The Author

To my friend, John Ward.
He wanted this book to be filled with
kidnappers, ransoms, double-crosses, and derring-do.

Yeah.
Sorry, John.

Chapter 1
Unwin Yards: 2375, January 3

Four months in the yard felt like four stanyers. The credits we had squirreled away didn’t simply evaporate. They melted like ice on a griddle. They sizzled and popped, spattering everywhere and sometimes burning as they left our accounts.

Every time we turned around, a yardbird looked back at us. I woke one morning to find an electrician running cable under the deck in the cabin. Chief Stevens had words with the yard boss about the drilling in officer country at 0200. When they disconnected the water, we had to move off the ship and into Visiting Officer Quarters at the yard. In the grand scheme of things, the incremental cost of moving off the ship got lost in rounding errors. At the time it felt like credits we couldn’t afford to lose.

The payoff came when Pip, Chief Stevens, Al, and I stood in the overheated visitor’s gallery to watch a yard tug ease the cream and red ship out of the massive zero-gee dock and into space. We had an empty can mounted for stability. The contrast between the rather beat-up can and the new paint job with the huge, spiraling red Phoenix Freight logo on the forward nacelle made me appreciate how far we’d come since we’d limped into the yard.

“Captain Wang?” The yard boss—a lanky man with the unlikely name of Zebulon Dakota—bustled into the gallery. He never moved slowly anywhere, a characteristic I greatly appreciated given the number of credits we paid per stan. “We’re moving you over to dock nine baker to finish the inside work.”

“Are we still on track for yard release?” I asked.

“Three weeks from today, if we don’t find something else to fix.” He grinned at me. It had become something of a joke around the crew. We hadn’t been able to fix anything without first replacing, shoring up, patching in, or otherwise having to deal with at least one other thing we hadn’t expected.

Dakota said, “We’ve got to finish up some work in engineering to get the Burlesons dialed in and the emitter coils will need final adjustments before you get away. There’s a lot of cosmetic work to replace the paneling in the spine, around the crew berthing, mess deck, and galley. Environmentals are all live. The scrubbers will degrade faster than normal because of the new materials, but we’ll toss in a couple cases of filters before you leave.”

Chief Stevens asked, “What about the fusactors? Last time I was aboard, Lars Erik had the cores out and was chewing the bulkheads over a power flow problem between them.”

Dakota grinned at her. “Mr. Duryee managed to get that ironed out. When he reloaded the cores, they balanced clean to six sigma over the last seventy-two stans.”

The chief’s eyes widened a bit at that. “Excellent. I’d have been happy with five.”

“We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn,” Dakota said. That was another inside joke. Unwin put their motto—“Exceeding Expectations”—on everything from their yard workers coveralls to the twenty-meter-tall signs on their dry docks. It became tedious after the first week, aggravating by the end of the first month. We finally realized that the yard crew said it every time they could possibly fit it in. I twigged when they pulled the consoles out of the bridge and discovered they needed to run all new cabling the length of the ship.

The systems supervisor had brought me the bad news. “Sorry, Skipper. That cabling doesn’t have the bandwidth it needs for these new consoles. It’ll cost another hundred thousand or so. Probably an extra couple of weeks, too.” He had shrugged and—with a perfectly straight face—said, “We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.”

Great guys and gals. Every one of them had done their darnedest to bring the Chernyakova up to—and, yes, even exceed—standard.

Watching the ship inching out of the massive dock made all the frustration, anxiety, and hard work feel worthwhile. We’d exorcised her ghosts. The time had come to start her new life.

“How soon before crew quarters are habitable?” Al asked.

Dakota scratched the back of his neck and looked at the deck between the toes of his boots. “They’re habitable now.” He emphasized the word habitable. “I’d give them a few days to get the paneling back on.”

Al nodded. “But we could start recruiting?”

“Oh, sure. We can even loan you a shuttle. That would simplify recruiting on the orbital.”

“It would,” Al said. “Thank you.”

We all waited for it. Dakota seemed to take some amount of pleasure in teasing us. He smiled and nodded, consulted his tablet, then said the words we knew were coming. “We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.”

When we laughed, he joined in.

Chief Stevens looked at Al. “We still have a list of the crew who flew in with us?”

“Of course. I’d take any of them who want to come back,” Al said. “Especially that galley crew. Sharps, Franklin, and Adams. If they’ll come back. I’ve got Sharps on a contact list. I’ll drop her a note. See if she’s still available. If she’s half the steward I think she is, she’ll have Franklin and Adams both at the dock a stan after we say we need them.”

“Think it’ll take that long?” Pip asked.

“No, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“What was that one guy’s name?” I asked.

“The one with the hair?” Al asked, a wry grin on her lips. “Or the one with the eyes?”

She surprised a laugh out of me. “The ordinary spacer who asked all the questions.”

“Bentley.” Al and the chief answered together.

“Virgil Bentley,” Al said.

Dakota cleared his throat. “Sounds like you’re well on the road. See Evans in Transport for the shuttle. Plan on being able to move your people in on the tenth? That will give us a few days to finish up the odds and ends. The chandlery will make deliveries here as long as you tell them the dock number, so replenishment shouldn’t be an issue.”

I stuck out a hand. “Thanks. That’s the best news I’ve heard all stanyer.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, but shook my hand. “It’s only the third of January,” he said, with a crooked grin. “But we hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.” He ducked down the ladder out of the viewing platform and left us all laughing in his wake.

Chapter 2
Dree Orbital: 2375, January 5

Pip commandeered a corner table at the Rock and Roll. I admit to having been a bit skeptical when he told me about the place, much preferring one of the quiet publike establishments to a musical venue. I should have known better. Their signage included an asteroid and a dinner roll. “Wait till you try their beer,” Pip said waving me into a seat beside him and pouring a frosty glass of a pale amber brew.

Chief Stevens and Al looked to be about half past a beer each and smiled in greeting.

“I invited Sharps to lunch,” Al said. “She said she’d be here at the top of the hour.”

I looked at the chief. “Any word from Doherty?”

“I dropped him a message day before yesterday. No response yet. He may have found a berth already. Good environmental spec ones are few and far between.”

The beer turned out to be a smooth ale that reminded me of a wheat beer with a nutty, yeasty aroma. From the color, I expected something more like a hoppy, pale ale. “Given what we learned at Breakall, what’s the consensus on recruiting here?”

“I’ve got the contract language for The Articles. Base contract from the CPJCT’s boiler plate factory with a ten percent bonus on base salary,” Pip said.

“That’ll attract attention,” Al said, licking the foam off her upper lip. “You sure we want to do that?”

Pip nodded. “I am. We need to get people we can take into Toe-Hold space with us who won’t jump once we’re there.”

“He’s right,” the chief said. “We’ll have to wade through a lot of applicants, but that just means we’ll have a deeper pool to draw from.”

“Bentley’s already accepted,” Al said. “Wanted to know when he could report.”

“He make able spacer?” Pip asked.

“He didn’t say. Want me to ask?”

“When’s the next testing period?” Pip asked.

Al pulled out her tablet and looked it up. “Ten days.”

“We’ve been on the beach for months now. Tell him if he hasn’t made able spacer by now, I’ll kick his butt and bust him to cargo loader,” Pip said.

“Barbell isn’t rated for a loader,” Al said.

“He doesn’t know that.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Chief Stevens said. “That lad’s a tiger.”

“Offer him a helm slot at spec three if he can qualify as ship handler,” I said.

Al grinned at me and started punching keys on her tablet.

Pip’s expression soured. “You poaching already?”

“We’re not rated for more than a cargo master. You’re getting a raise. What else do you want?” I grinned behind my beer.

He grumbled and reached for the pitcher.

Chief Stevens smiled. I thought she smiled at me, but I noticed she was looking over my shoulder. “Ms. Sharps,” she said.

“Chief.” Melanie Sharps slid into the chair beside me and nodded around the table. She looked a lot more poised than she had when we all met her on Breakall. “Skipper. Mr. Carstairs. Al.”

“You ready to go sailing again?” Al asked, snatching the pitcher away before Pip could reach it and pouring a glass for Sharps.

“You know it,” Sharps said. “I’ve been working on some new recipes. I think you’ll like them.”

“Who else are we expecting?” Pip asked.

“Only other invite went to Jeff Doherty,” Chief Stevens said. “He hasn’t replied yet.”

Pip nodded and waved a hand to flag down one of the servers. “Let’s eat. I always plot best on a full stomach.”

I laughed at him. “You plot best with a couple of beers inside you.”

“That’s a pretty full stomach,” he said. “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”

“Probably worse.”

Pip rolled his eyes and reached for the pitcher while the rest of us placed food orders. By the time the waiter got to him, he’d emptied the pitcher and held it out. “Refill this. The fish sandwich any good?”

“Passable, but the grilled chicken breast is top notch,” he said.

“That,” he said.

The waiter nodded and took the pitcher. “Be right back.”

I looked at Chief Stevens. “Did Dakota give you any idea when we could move the ship?”

“He’s still saying a couple of weeks.”

Al grunted. “He’s been saying that for a couple of months.” She paused to take a pull off her beer. “We can shuttle crew over, but the logistics aren’t that clear to me.”

Pip smiled at her. “What? You remember that stampede?”

Al rolled her eyes. “I was in that stampede, thank you very much.”

“So was I,” Sharps said. “And I still thank you for the opportunity.” She raised her glass to Pip.

“What if we stagger divisions?” the chief asked. “Cut down on the number of people applying all at once.”

“Digital applications first. We can sort them out and cut it down to the best few before we invite anybody anywhere,” I said.

Al nodded but the chief tugged on her nose.

“Chief?” I asked.

“Sometimes the best people for the job aren’t the ones with the best jackets,” she said.

Her words made me think of Stacy Arellone. The woman had a disciplinary record longer than my academy transcript, but I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather have in my corner. I paused with my beer halfway to my mouth.

“So, you know what I mean,” the chief said.

“Yeah.” I sipped and tapped the glass back onto the table. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

We paused while the waiter shuffled food onto the table and poured a fresh glass of ale for Pip from the new pitcher. After a perfunctory check with us, he earned a bonus to his tip by leaving us alone. I always appreciate observant staff.

“Rachel and Alan are both still available and want to sail with us again,” Sharps said. “That cuts down on potential applicants. They did good work for us coming over.”

“We aren’t looking for cargo personnel either,” Pip said.

“So fill out a blank roster for Deck and Engineering? Post it and see who comes to call?” I asked.

“That works for me, Skipper,” Chief Stevens said. “Much better than throwing darts at a list of applicants.”

“Logistics?” I asked.

Al bit her lip and shrugged. “We could rent an office pretty cheap.”

Pip shuddered. “I still have nightmares about the hordes descending on us in Breakall.” He glanced at Ms. Sharps. “No offense.”

She grinned. “None taken. It would have bothered me, too.”

The waiter chose that moment to circle past our table. “Everybody still good here?” he asked.

“Do you have a private event room?” Pip asked.

“What, now?” the server asked, his eyes getting just a bit bulgy.

“No. If we wanted to reserve it.”

“We have one, yes. What kind of event?”

“Beer and cheese tasting,” Pip said with a grin. “You have beer and cheese?”

The server blinked a couple of times and his head twitched just slightly to the side. “Yes,” he said, drawing the syllable out. “Maybe you should speak to the manager? She’s a little busy with the lunch rush at the moment.”

“Where is this manager?” Pip asked.

The server nodded at a petite redhead drawing beer behind the bar. “That’s her. Lori. She’ll be able to answer your questions when the rush thins out.”

“Thank you,” Pip said.

“My pleasure,” he said and circulated to the next table over.

“I thought for a second there he was going to say he hoped to exceed our expectations,” Al said into her beer.

The chuckles around the table left Ms. Sharps looking from face to face.

“Sorry, Ms. Sharps,” I said. “Yard humor. We hear that phrase about twenty times a day from everybody we talk to over there.”

She nodded. “I can see where that might get old.”

“You have no idea,” Chief Stevens said, and poured a little more ale into her glass.

The meal wound down just as the chrono clicked over to 1315. Our server cleared the rubble off the table. “Can I get anybody anything?” he asked, piling empty and near-empty plates along his arm with reckless abandon.

“Coffee for me,” I said. “Perhaps a dessert menu?”

“Anybody else?” he asked looking around the table.

“I’ll take a coffee,” Sharps said.

“Me, too,” Chief Stevens said. “But I’ll pass on dessert.”

He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. He was back in about a tick with coffees and a dessert menu. “Lori said she’ll be along to speak with you about the room shortly.”

I looked over the dessert menu but didn’t see anything that really appealed to me. The beer left me feeling bloated. I slipped the menu onto the table and pulled the coffee closer.

“What do you like for dessert, Skipper?” Sharps asked.

“You sucking up already?” Al asked with a wink and a grin.

“Why, however could you think such a thing?” she asked, then grinned. “Just preparing my strategy for later.”

The redhead, Lori, approached the table while we were still laughing. “Somebody’s having a good afternoon,” she said. “You wanted to see me?”

Pip nodded. “You have an event room we can rent?”

“We have a room, yeah. What kind of event?”

“Our ship is coming out of the yards and we need to recruit crew.” Pip shrugged. “Ship won’t be ready for a couple of weeks, but we’d like to get the process going and we need a place to meet them.”

“So you’re going to have a beer bash?” Lori asked. Her expression appeared polite and professional but her voice carried a tone of ‘are you mad?’ with it.

“Last time we recruited, we had many more people than we could hire,” Pip said.

“I’m sure,” Lori said. “Work is always scarce. Having the yards helps some, but crews get left here all the time while their ships get tied up. Sometimes for months.”

The weight of beer in my stomach suddenly doubled.

“We’d like to see how the various people get along. What better way than to have a little party?” Pip asked.

“Maybe you should see the room first,” Lori said.

Pip smiled. “Excellent idea.” He stood and looked around the table. “You coming?”

Lori took us to one side of the pub near the kitchen and pressed a release. A person-sized door opened in the bulkhead and she led us through into the next compartment over. She flipped a couple of switches and ceiling lights came on, illuminating an area as large as the pub.

“We got this space from Orbital Management with the idea that we’d expand into it, but the pub doesn’t actually need the space. We’ve been using it for weddings and birthday parties.” Her voice echoed against the blank walls.

“So you could set up a buffet in here?” Pip asked.

“Sure. Finger foods, tap a couple of kegs. We’ve got a list of bands if you want dancing.”

Al laughed. “Oh, there’ll be dancing all right, but I don’t think we’ll need a band for it.”

Lori looked from Al to Pip to the chief and back to Al.

“Tap dancing across the truth, spinning a few yarns along the floor, and waltzing us around enough to get the job,” she said.

Lori grinned. “Can’t blame them for that.”

“I don’t,” Al said. “I’d be disappointed if they didn’t want it enough to work for it.”

“How much?” Pip asked.

“Room’s a hundred per stan.”

“Food and drink?”

“How many people?”

“Say, two hundred?” Pip looked at me.

“Two hundred people. Two stans. Maybe some tables and chairs. Data pickup,” I said.

Lori blew out a breath and her eyes focused somewhere other than on us. “Call it two grand. We’ll bring in a five-tray buffet and keep it stocked. Couple kegs of beer. Buy as many of them as you want at two hundred each after that,” she said with a grin. “We’ll make more.”

“What size?” Pip asked.

“Half barrel.”

“Fair price,” he said and looked at me.

“Don’t look at me. I’m just the bus driver. You’re the CEO,” I said.

Lori’s face wore an expression that fell halfway between “are you people pulling my leg” and “holy crap, I’ve just scored.”

“Two enough?” Al asked.

“Two kegs?” Pip snickered. “You’ve got to be kidding. What will the rest of you drink?”

“Two events,” Al said.

Chief Stevens tilted her head to port a few degrees. “Deck and engineering?”

“Would make sense,” Al said.

“The idea has merit,” I said. “How will we pick them, though? That’s a lot of people in a room.”

Chief Stevens nodded. “Yeah, it would be but if we do it all in one go, it’ll be the same number, just jammed together.”

I tried to juggle the probabilities in my head and failed.

“How do we find candidates who aren’t just interested in free beer?” Ms. Sharps asked.

“We don’t tell them there’ll be free beer until they get here,” Pip said.

“How long do you think that’ll last?” Al asked.

“We’ll have to try it and see,” Pip said. “Where’s the entrance? I assume it’s not through the pub.”

Lori led us toward the far bulkhead. “These panels slide away. You’ve seen our main entry on the promenade. Same size, but without signage in the insert. The compartment designator lights up on the outside when we want it to. We can put your event name out there.”

“How do weddings handle it?” the chief asked. “They’d have to deal with gate crashers.”

Lori shrugged. “Show your invitation at the door. We can take out just one panel, limits the access to an area you can cover with a table and a couple of people.”

Pip looked at me. “All right, genius. How do we issue invitations to people we don’t know?”

“Have them show the ad on their tablets?” I said. “Run their public profiles to make sure they’re actually deck or engineering before they come in?” I looked at Lori. “Can we put up a screen of some kind about here?” I stepped back a couple of paces from the entry. “Nobody can see in until they get past the watchdogs?”

“You can put up whatever you like so long as it’s gone when your time is up and doesn’t leave marks,” she said, a faint smile on her lips.

“This is all well and good,” Al said. “My original question still holds.”

“Are two enough?” I asked.

Pip shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Why don’t we start with one and see if we get enough people to fill our rosters. How many do we need?”

“Two mates. A second and a third,” I said. “At least one spec two ship handler and a spec two astrogator. I’d take a spec three to round out three watch sections along with some combination of able and ordinary spacers for messengers.”

“That’s eight. What about some quarter shares?” Pip asked.

“Let’s see who we get first,” I said.

Pip looked at the chief. “What do you need for the back seats?”

“CPJCT says we need four in power, three in propulsion, and at least four in environmental. Make it four in each section with a spec two or three and some combination of wiper, engineman, and mechanic for each.”

“Twelve for you,” he said. He looked at Al. “We need to do this twice?”

“I’m thinking more of how many might show up rather than how many we might take.”

The chief nodded. “She’s right. We only need twenty hands but we want an open field to choose from and if Breakall was any indicator, we’ll fill this room a couple times over.”

“Let’s start with one,” I said, looking at Pip. “Unless you wanna override me on this? If we can’t find enough likely candidates, we could do it again.”

He nodded. “I like it. When?”

Lori pulled out a tablet and consulted it. “The room’s booked tonight and tomorrow. We’ve got something coming in on the eighth and another on the tenth. You can have the seventh, ninth, or eleventh. There are more dates after that. How soon do you want it?”

“If we have the crew lined up, we could move them over on the eleventh and get them settled,” the chief said.

“When did Dakota say we can move over to the orbital?” I asked.

“The twenty-fourth unless something else breaks,” the chief said.

Pip nodded. “We’ll take the seventh. You want a deposit?”

“Yes, please.” Lori flipped a couple of screens on her tablet and tapped some keystrokes. “One night, two stans. Five-tray buffet and two kegs. I said two grand. I’ll stay with that. Half on deposit. The other half at the beginning of the event.” She looked up. “Food is your biggest expense. Buffets cost a lot. If you need to trim costs, that’s where you should do it.”

Pip shook his head. “That’s fine. Fair price for what we want and I’m not going to chip the paint over petty cash.” He looked at me. “Good with you?”

“Hey, I’m a stockholder, too,” Chief Stevens said. “You should ask me.”

Pip gave a theatrical sigh they could probably have heard in the pub next door. “Very well, Chief. Good with you?”

Chief Stevens looked at Lori. “Can we get those little meat-filled dumplings?”

Lori looked blank for a moment. “Like dim sum?”

“Yes. Like dim sum. Or even real dim sum.”

“Sure. You want to pick your menu now or leave it to us?”

The chief shook her head. “As long as there’s dim sum.”

Pip looked at her with a mock frown and a wry smile. “You held up progress for dim sum?”

“I love those little suckers,” she said.

“Are you good with this now?” he asked.

“Carry on, dear boy.”

Pip looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m good. Let’s make it happen,” I said.

Pip held up a thumb. “Where do I sign?”

Chapter 3
Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

I had to give it to Pip. The man knew how to get things done in a big way. In the two standard days between signing for the facility and the actual event, he managed to get the chandlery to print up a three-meter-square banner of our logo on a frame with a clever spring-fit mounting. It stood perfectly as a backdrop behind the entry at the venue.

Al and I watched as Pip and the chief lined things up the way they wanted, spreading a cloth over the entry table and measuring the clearance to make sure nobody could enter without checking in with whoever guarded the table.

As the event got nearer I found myself wondering how we’d make it work. I’d failed the course at the academy that taught wandering around in a crowd of strangers, drinking beer, and chewing finger food. Even when I was a kid back on Neris, my mother never made me go to the faculty receptions.

While the minutes ticked down, I became more and more convinced that we had embarked on a foolish venture.

“We should have just hired an office and set up appointments,” I said, wiping my palms against my pants.

Al shook her head. “We’d be interviewing from now until hell froze. I bet you we leave here with the people we need.”

“How?”

“What do you mean how?” she asked. “We’ll mix and mingle and compare notes at the end. Announce the winners of the job lottery and off we go.”

“So, you’re going to walk through a crowd of two hundred people. Keep their names straight. Talk to them and find out if they’ll fit in our merry band of ne’er-do-wells and scofflaws for two solid stans, and then be able to compare notes with us at the end of the night?”

“Certainly not.” She stared at me like I’d sprouted a new head on each shoulder. “We’ll use the badges.”

“The badges?”

Al took me by the arm and dragged me to the table where Pip and the chief were just laying out stacks of oblong labels a little smaller than the palm of my hand. “Tell him about the badges.”

“Neat little things.” Pip held up one of the labels. “Mark on them like paper.” He pulled out a marker and wrote “Cargomaster Phillip Carstairs” on one. “Peel off the backing and it sticks to whatever you press it on.” He pulled the backing off and slapped it on his left breast pocket. “You try.”

“This is a bit silly,” I said.

He grinned. “We haven’t gotten to the good part.”

Al, the chief, and I all put our ranks and names on the badges. I slapped mine on my upper chest and looked at Pip. “All right. Now what?”

With a stage magician’s flourish, out of his pocket he pulled a roll of gold foil stars mounted on backing paper. “These little beauties will sort our catch for us.”

The chief kept pulling her lips in between her teeth. I got the feeling she was trying not to giggle. Whether at the situation in general or me in particular, I wasn’t sure—and that made me uneasy.

“All right, Carstairs the Unbelievable. Show me your trick,” I said.

“We have to try to talk to everybody who comes through that door. Well, gap, but you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” I said, pressing my hands against my thighs so I wouldn’t choke the life out of him.

“So, we need a way to know if we’ve talked to somebody.”

“Yes. So we give them a gold star?”

“Precisely, but that’s not enough. We need to know who to keep and who to show the door.” He held up his roll of stars. “So, I’m talking to you and you are an interesting candidate that I think we might want to keep around.” He peeled a star off the roll and stuck it to my badge. “There. You’re tagged. Later in the evening, we can corral the people who have four plus tags.” He looked at Chief Stevens. “I assume you want to play along?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this,” she said.

Pip peeled another star off. “Now, I also chatted with the chief and decided that she just doesn’t seem to fit. So I tag her with a minus tag.” He stuck the star onto her badge. “Nothing personal, Chief. I think you’re swell and we’re going to make beautiful music together, you and I.”

The chief laughed.

I looked at the chief’s badge and down at my chest. “Uh. How do you tell them apart?”

“They’re chipped—badge and star, both.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

He pulled a little penlight out of his pocket and shined it on my badge. The gold star glowed green. “Green is yes.” He pointed the pen at the chief. Her star glowed red. “Red is no.”

Al grinned at me. I suspected my expression carried my sense of utter consternation clearly.

Pip held up the roll of badges. He tapped the next one in line, then peeled it off and stuck it on me. “So far so good?” he asked.

“Keep going,” I said.

He tapped the next label in line twice, peeled it off, and stuck it on me. His eyebrows went up as he looked at me. “Got it?”

“Which is which?”

He shined the pen light on my badge. The last star glowed red.

“If I like them, tap the star. If I don’t, tap it twice?” I asked.

“See? You’re trainable,” Pip said. “Tap before you peel. It doesn’t take much.” He held out a roll of stars to me. “And don’t fiddle with them. They’re sensitive.”

“All right, smart ass. How will we know if we’ve seen everybody?”

He reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a roll of foil wrenches, which he handed to the chief with great ceremony. Without speaking he pulled out a roll of foil ship’s wheels, handing it to Al. He reached in and pulled out a final roll, holding it up for us all to see.

“Are those beer bottles?” Al asked.

He beamed.

“I gotta hand it to you,” I said. “I had no idea this kind of thing even existed.”

“I know,” he said. “You’re lucky you have me.”

The hole in his scheme seemed too obvious. “Other than the possibility of fritzing the label, which doesn’t seem trivial to me, how will we know who’s got the lucky tickets? We going to shine lights on the crowd?”

Pip giggled like a little boy. “That’s the best part.”

He pulled a blank badge off the pile and wrote “Sam” on it. He peeled the backing off and slapped it on his sleeve. “Now, if each of you would give me a yes vote?”

I tapped a star and stuck it to the Sam badge. Al tapped one of her stickers and the chief followed suit. Finally Pip tapped one of his beer bottles, peeled it off, and stuck it to the badge. The entire badge glowed a pale green. “Four yes votes makes the badge glow on its own. Has to be four. If the badge detects more than four, it turns black. Less than four, no response.”

I had to hand it to him. He’d thought of everything.

Almost.

Chapter 4
Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

The staff from Rock and Roll laid out a long buffet table and wheeled in a portable bar. Pip’s setup at the front of the compartment looked good. The staff opened one panel in the bulkhead at 2000 and I settled in for the duration. The applicants trickled in, a few at a time at first. They looked a little sheepish coming around the side of the huge banner and peering around the huge empty room. They stood clustered around the entry. Newcomers had to push through the crowd but stopped at the first empty floor space, adding to the clot just inside the door.

I glanced at Al, with her bald head, huge arms, and just the tiniest hints of surgical steel in various places. For just a moment, I wondered if we’d miscalculated. With the chief backing up Pip out front, it fell to us to welcome them. Of course. We could do this. I was a starship captain. Al was—well, Al.

“We split this up wrong,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

“What’s that, Skipper?” she asked.

“We need a ringmaster in here. That’s Pip’s role.”

I looked up at her as she looked down at me, a curious look in her eyes and a twisted grin on her face. “The hell,” she said and strode into the middle of the room. “Any spacers in here?” she asked, her voice booming around the room.

The group lurking at the edge of the banner looked around at each other. I’m not a mind reader, but I swear every single one of them was thinking “What have I done?”

Al stood in the middle of the floor and put her hands on her hips. She glanced at the bartender and then nodded to the uniformed server at the buffet line. “I asked,” she said even louder than before. “Are there any spacers in here?”

One skinny drink of water with tightly cropped hair and shiny boots stuck his thumbs in his belt and stepped forward. From where I stood, he looked like he might have weighed in at fifty kilos. He took about three steps out of the pack and stood his ground. “Who wants to know?” His voice wasn’t very loud, but it was steady. I saw a couple people behind him flinch.

“First Mate Alberta Ross of the Chernyakova. Who’s askin’?”

“Spec Two Astrogation Dale Jensen, late of the tanker Alabaster. What do you want?”

Al looked at the bartender and grinned. “Barkeep? Mr. Jensen needs a beer.”

The worthy at the tap nodded to Al and then looked at Jensen. “Ale or stout, Mr. Jensen.”

Jensen looked over his shoulder at the crowd of wide-eyed spacers still clustered around the edge of the banner before turning to look at Al again. He bit his lips together and took a deep breath. “S’all the same to you, Ms. Ross? I’d rather a good cup of coffee.”

A quiet twitter of laughter came from the crowd behind him and I saw Jensen’s jaw clench even from across the big room.

Al turned her head to look at me. “Skipper? One of yours.”

I nodded at Jensen. “Mr. Jensen, I’m Captain Ishmael Wang. I happen to know the coffee in this establishment is quite good. Let me buy you a cup and we’ll chat, shall we?”

Jensen dropped his thumbs from his belt and did a credible not-marching parade from his place near the door.

When he passed by Al, she nodded. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jensen.”

“Thank you, sar. Nice to be here.”

“Now,” Al bellowed. “Lemme ask again. Any spacers in here?”

The resulting roar brought a concerned Lori from the back of Rock and Roll, eyes wide. I nodded Mr. Jensen toward the buffet table and smiled at Lori.

“Just doing a little ice breaker. We’ll keep it down,” I said.

“I was worried that something had gone horribly wrong,” she said. “That was ... startling.”

“You should have been in here,” the waiter behind the buffet said with a broad grin.

“You do have coffee back there, don’t you?” I asked him.

“I do,” he said and limbered up a tall thermal pump. “It’s pretty good, too, if I do say so myself.”

“Pour one for Mr. Jensen here, if you’d be so kind? And I’ll take one, too.” I placed the almost empty beer glass on one of the bussing trays.

Lori and the waiter shared a look before she backed away from the mob of spacers heading for the buffet line. “Let me know if you need anything, Captain.”

“Thank you, Lori. One of us will holler.”

She laughed and left back through the connecting door.

I turned to the drink of water from the Alabaster. “So, Mr. Jensen. What brings you here tonight?” I asked. “Clearly not the free beer.”

He shook his head and accepted the coffee from the waiter with a nod. “Thanks.” He looked at me and then down at his feet for just a moment. “I saw the ad and I need a job,” he said.

“You like astrogation?” I asked.

“I do, sar,” he said. He looked at his shoes again and then back over his shoulder.

“What do you like about it?” I asked.

“It’s like magic, sar. You’re out there and there’s nothin’ but these little pinpoints of light all around and you know they’re all movin’ every which way. In spite of it all, you can take a ship from here to there and back again.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, Captain.”

I tapped a star and stuck it on his badge. “I think you just did, Mr. Jensen. Nice talking with you, but I need to circulate.”

“Of course, Captain. Thank you for the time.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it.

“Be sure to say hello to Al,” I said.

“Al, sar?”

“Ms. Ross.” I nodded at her. She stood across the room near the bar with a gaggle of men and women in various shipsuits and uniforms.

“Is she really your first mate, Captain?” Jensen’s gaze seemed riveted on her.

“Yes, Mr. Jensen. And if you like astrogation, she’s your teacher.”

His head snapped around and he stared at me, eyes as big around as his coffee cup. “She’s an astrogator?”

“Well, she’s first mate so she put in her time as a second. A skipper I know once said she could plot a course to the gates of hell and back. I’ve no reason to doubt that assessment.” I grinned at him. “And no real desire to test it.”

He smiled back. “Thank you, sar.”

“Carry on, Mr. Jensen.”

I realized the waiter still held my coffee and I took it from him. “Sorry. Distracted.”

The waiter shook his head. “Not a problem, Captain. I’m enjoying the floor show.”

I laughed and sidled out of the way so another group of spacers could get at the food.

A young woman in a dark gray shipsuit with white piping stepped up to me. “Captain? I’m Mary Torkelson, spec two ship handler.”

I held out a hand and she gave it a good shake. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Torkelson. Are you enjoying our little job fair?”

She looked around the room and shook her head. “This is nuts.” She stopped, frozen for half a heartbeat. “Sar. That is, uh, I’ve never seen anything like this, Captain.” She glanced up at me as if to judge how far into the soup she’d fallen.

“You’re right, Ms. Torkelson. It’s nuts.”

She looked relieved. “So, you’re really looking to hire crew here, sar?”

I chuckled and looked around the room. “Doesn’t look much like a job interview, does it?”

“No, sar. It really doesn’t.”

“What ship?” I asked.

“Sheila Unwin. Barbell out of Robison in Ciroda, Captain.”

“What brings you to our little soiree, Ms. Torkelson?”

“Ship’s in for major refit. She’s going to be tied up for almost a stanyer, sar.” She shrugged. “Unwin Yards. They do good work but I can’t wait that long.”

“I’m familiar with the yard and the problem, Ms. Torkelson. What’s the biggest problem with sailing a Barbell?”

She nibbled her lower lip a bit and stared into space. “They’re bricks, sar. Get ’em pointed in the right direction and you’re good, but if they get off the curve, it’s a stone bitch getting them back on the line. That’s also their biggest strength, I think. They’ll punch through a squall line like it wasn’t there. Keep a handle on the sails and your keel stable, they’ll carve right on the curve.”

I laughed. “You like sailing bricks?”

“I do,” she said, a bit of wonder in her voice like maybe she never considered it before. “Grew up on fast packets with my folks. Chance came to work on a bigger boat, I took it.”

“You on the Sheila long?”

“Five stanyers? Started out there as able spacer. Took a while to get up to spec three and just loafed along after that. They didn’t have a spec two ship-handler berth so I didn’t really push it until I realized we’d be here at the yards for so long. I volunteered to be part of the transport crew, but I knew I’d need to find a job when we got her here.” She grinned. “Then I piled on and got the pips on the first try.”

“How long you been on the beach?” I asked.

“Since October.”

“Ready to get off the station?”

She laughed. “You have no idea, Captain.”

I tapped a star and pressed it onto her badge. She craned her neck to look down at it.

“You’ll want to collect the whole set,” I said.

“Thank you, Captain.” She held out a hand. I shook it and she wandered off.

The evening went on like that. After the first couple, I had what felt like an endless parade of spacers queued up in front of me. Some I tapped. Some I double tapped. One second mate looked like a keeper until he lost focus, his eyes trailing a shapely able spacer in a shipsuit that might have been a tad too snug about the bottom and chest.

“Mr. Ulrick?” I asked, drawing his attention back to me.

“Sorry, Captain, but did you see that?” He turned back to watch the spacer walk away. “That’s fine.”

“I did, Mr. Ulrick.” I double tapped a star and pressed it onto his badge.

“Would you like to hear more about my experience on the Mable Maru?” he asked.

“That’s fine, Mr. Ulrick.” I nodded to the next person in line and Ulrick faded off into the crowd in the wake of the shapely spacer. I suppressed a sigh.

I don’t think I saw even half the attendees before Pip went to the middle of the floor and held up his hands. “All right, you lot,” he said. “Listen up.”

It took a few moments for the hubbub to die down but Pip stood there waiting with one hand still in the air. “Here’s the problem,” he said. “You all need to see each officer present. That’s me, the captain over there,” he pointed to me. “Chief Engineer Margaret Stevens.” Margaret waved a hand. “And our lovely and talented first mate, Alberta Ross.” Al stepped up and raised her beer in a toast. “We’ve almost used up our time in this facility, but I’ve made arrangements with the management for another stan. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we’re losing the buffet and bar.” Jeers and catcalls followed that announcement. “You’re welcome to go next door to the Rock and Roll and buy yourself anything you like,” Pip said. “But—and this is the important part—anybody who doesn’t have all four stickers on their badge when the hour is up? Well. You’re out.”

One spacer stepped forward and raised his hand.

“Yes?” Pip said.

“How do we know who we haven’t seen?” He pointed to his badge. “I’ve got two stickers but what do I need?”

Pip sort of stopped moving for a moment and blinked several times. “You’ve spoken to two officers and can’t remember which two?”

The poor sod looked abashed but shrugged and nodded.

Pip shook his head. “I can’t imagine that anybody meeting and speaking with Ms. Ross could forget her any time soon, but I suppose.”

“Oh, I remember her,” he said, grinning.

“Did you speak with me?” Pip asked. “My charm and overbearing personality didn’t make any impression?”

“Uh, no, sar. I haven’t spoken with you, yet.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

Chief Stevens spoke up from her corner. “How many people didn’t realize you needed to speak to each of us?”

Most of the hands in the room went up.

I saw the bottom fall out of Pip’s world as his jaw hit the floor.

“Hold up, one tick,” I said and pulled Pip aside. “How many people are here? I can’t get a good count on it.”

He shrugged. “Something over two hundred. I was into my third bundle of badges when I closed the doors.”

I waved Al and the chief over. “Cattle-call time. We each take a corner and start screening. You checked their public profiles, right?” I looked at Pip.

He nodded. “Yeah. They each are who they look like.”

“We’re making it too complicated. This is a sniff test. We get a bunch of glowing badges and bring them in for a second interview,” I said. “I’ve already sniffed a few I don’t want to see again. Tag ’em now. Bag ’em later.”

“Makes sense,” Al said.

“Do it,” the chief said.

Pip nodded and turned back to the crowd. “All right then,” he said. “The four stickers are stars for the captain, a ship’s wheel for the first mate, a wrench for engineering, and mine’s the beer bottle.” That got a laugh. “We’re each going into a corner of the room. You’ll get a tick or two with each of us and we’ll give you a sticker when we’re done. Collect all four and gather in the middle. Questions?”

“That’s not much of an interview, sar,” one spacer said from the middle of the pack.

More than a few people nodded and made grumbly noises of agreement.

“No, it’s not,” Pip said. “We’ll make some decisions and call some of you back for second interviews.” He grinned. “Interviews where we actually sit down and talk. That fair?”

“Look at it this way,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the mumbling in the back. “Normally you’d drop an application in our queue and we’d bring you in or reject you based on your jackets, right?”

Most of them nodded.

“This way you get to meet us and make your case in person. If you don’t make the cut, at least you had some input to the process beyond tossing your jacket into the void and hoping.”

Pip looked at me with a grin. “You know, this captain thing seems to suit you.”

“It’s a curse,” I said. “But it’s mine.”

He looked back at the crowd. “Anybody who doesn’t understand the instructions, raise your hand.”

Nobody raised a hand.

“If you don’t speak English, raise your hand.”

A smattering of laughter rippled across the room but nobody raised a hand.

“Captain?” Pip pointed to the corner I’d been backed into early. “If you’d take your post.”

I walked back into the corner and lounged against the bulkhead. All this standing around had killed my feet, but it wouldn’t be too much longer.

“If you do not have a star on your badge, you need to see him.”

A horde broke off from the main group and descended on me. I lost track of what else happened in the room and just focused on the person in front of me. “One line,” I said waving the group to line up along the bulkhead. “Thanks for coming out.” I looked at the first person in line and nodded. “Name and rank?”

“Annear, Katherine, able spacer, sar.”

“What are you looking for in a berth, Ms. Annear?”

“One that’s moving, Captain. I’ve been on the beach for almost a stanyer now and I need to get back out soon.”

“You ever work on a Barbell?”

“No, sar. I was on a tanker for a while, went to a mixed freight hauler. Washed up here when she went into the yards and didn’t make the cut to get my old job back when she came out.”

“You like sailing?”

She paused and looked past me for a moment. “I never gave it that much thought, Captain. It’s what I do. Can’t imagine doing anything else, but like it?” She chewed the corner of her mouth for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

I tapped a star and pressed it onto her badge. “Thank you, Ms. Annear.”

She smiled and looked down at the star. “Thank you, Captain.”

She started across the floor toward the chief and the next person stepped up.

“Name and rank?”

Chapter 5
Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

My feet throbbed in my boots and my head felt stuffed with cotton candy. The coffee stuck to my tongue. Two extra hours in that cursed room and we finally had everybody tagged.

That was when we discovered the fatal flaw in Pip’s brilliant plan.

Nobody had a green badge.

“How is that even possible?” the chief asked when we put our heads together. “I’d have thought random chance would have given us at least one.”

“Now what?” I asked.

Pip chewed his lip and tugged on his ear. He stared at the deck and I could practically hear his brain ticking over. “Two possibilities. Release this group back into the wild and start over.”

I gave him a squint-eyed stare. “The other possibility?”

“Find the people who have green votes from you and either Al or the chief,” he said. “They’re not going to be working for me on the ship. At least not directly, so anybody I downvoted but you and Al liked probably deserves an extra look. Same with the chief.”

“Let’s try that,” Al said. “See what we got.”

Pip pulled out his pen light. “Let’s do this.”

He went to the front of the room and raised a hand. Silence fell almost immediately. Some of those people looked more dragged out than I felt and I didn’t blame them. Life on the beach could sap your will to live. I’d never been in the position, but I’d seen what it did to people who had.

“I’m going to have you queue up here and I’m going to shine this light on your badge. We’ll pull some of you aside, but if we don’t, thanks for coming. It’s not that you’re not a good person, just not the right person for the jobs we have available at the moment. We appreciate your interest in Phoenix Freight.” He paused and let that sink in. “Any questions?”

Nobody raised a hand. Judging from some of the dark looks being passed around in the crowd, anybody who had a question had better hold it. The night had already gone on too long.

“All right,” Pip said, and indicated a slot in front of him beside the banner. “Line up.”

The first three all had no green votes but after that he started finding people with the requisite combinations of green stickers. Pip pointed them to the corner where Al, the chief, and I stood propped up against the bulkhead.

I pulled out my tablet and grabbed their idents while we waited for Pip to finish screening the remaining candidates.

“How soon will we know, Captain?” an able spacer asked.

Her name tag said Christi Reed. “Maybe tonight. We need to see how many of you we can collect from the group at large.”

“What are you looking for?” another asked.

“Ms. Torkelson, right?” I asked.

“Yes, sar.”

“We’re looking for people who’ll fit in and have the skills we need.” I shrugged. “Simple, really. We’re just getting the ship out of a four-month refit. We had a few people stay with us during the hiatus but we need a full crew who’s willing to sail with us.”

Reed asked, “Why wouldn’t we be willing to sail with you, Captain?” The look she gave me turned dark.

The chief stepped up. “You ever hear of the Empress Nicole?”

Most of the growing crowd in our corner shook their heads but a couple of people stared at Chief Stevens like she’d just farted and was trying to blame somebody else.

“Mel’s Place?” the chief asked.

The same people shook their head but those who’d looked askance before began sharing looks with each other.

“Dark Knight Station?” she asked.

“Toe-Holds,” somebody in the back said.

The chief nodded. “Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. We’re not at liberty to get into the details now, but we’ve got a good ship, a great captain, and we need a crew to fly with us.”

“Even if it’s into the Toe-Holds?” that same voice asked.

“Even if,” the chief said.

“Wait a tick, sar. Are you Chief Engineering Officer Margaret Stevens?” a man in the front asked.

“I am. Who are you?” the chief asked.

“Able Spacer Chong Go,” he said. “You’re not the Dr. Margaret Stevens who wrote the books on engineering, are you?”

“Yes, but not many able spacers know that.”

“I wanted to be an engineer since I was a sprout,” Go said. “I read everything you’ve written.”

“Even my Treatise On Harmonic Resonances Across Burleson Emitter Frequencies?”

He frowned for a moment, staring at her. “No, but I read your Harmonic Frequencies. It was about shipboard vibrations caused by sympathetic resonance amplification of fusactor-capacitor coupling problems.”

Al looked at the chief. “You have a fan.”

The chief grinned at the man. “Why didn’t you go into engineering?”

“No berths. I got started as a spacer apprentice and just worked up the ladder over the last stanyer.”

The chief looked at me. “Mind if I poach this one?”

I looked at the growing throng gathering around us. “I don’t remember tagging half these people,” I said. “But it’s been a long night. Be my guest.”

The chief pulled Go out of the line and they got their heads together off to the side.

Pip joined us soon after that and grinned. “That’s all of them,” he said.

“If you’ve given me your ident, you can go,” I said. “We’ll do callbacks tomorrow and Thursday. We’ve only got a few slots to fill, so some of you will be disappointed, but at least you know the odds. If you haven’t given me your ident yet, step right up and we’ll get you out of here.”

The last applicant left and the four of us took a collective deep breath.

“I’m exhausted,” Chief Stevens said.

Lori came up from the back of the room. “If you’re done, we can close up the front,” she said.

Pip nodded. “Yes, please. How much extra do we owe you?”

“Two hundred for tonight.” She paused before asking, “Do you want Thursday?”

Pip looked at us before answering. “I think we got what we wanted this time around,” he said. “Let me have the bill, and we’ll clear out. Thanks for being flexible.”

“You’re very welcome. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“First time for us, too.” Pip shrugged and had the decency to look a bit sheepish.

Chapter 6
Unwin Yards: 2735, January 11

After four grueling days of interviews, callbacks, and decision-making, we finally had a complete crew roster. For all its flaws, Pip’s badge-and-sticker plan had given us a good pool of candidates. I wouldn’t say I wanted to take them all, but some of the choices proved to be tough.

Sharps, Franklin, and Adams had ridden over with us on the tenth and begun the process of bringing the galley up to snuff. The yard offered us one of their crew shuttles between shift changes so we could get everybody else aboard in a single go.

I met them at the shuttle dock at 1330. Al got off first and grinned. “They’re not terribly excited.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

She just chuckled and shook her head. “I’ve seen boxes of kittens with less enthusiasm.”

They streamed out of the shuttle and I shook every hand that came off. I couldn’t help but remember my own first day as a spacer, walking through the orbital at Neris and thinking how strange everything was. If it hadn’t been for Pip, I don’t know what I might have done. This wasn’t the first day for any of these people, but every single one of them thanked me for hiring them on.

As the last of them disappeared down the passageway toward the ship, one of the yard pilots came along to reclaim the shuttle. “Crews always look glad to leave the ships, but twice as happy to come back,” she said.

“Being beached and watching your credits drain away is daunting,” I said.

“True, but it’s still more fun to watch them come aboard than it is to watch them leave.” She nodded to me. “Safe voyage, Captain.”

“Safe voyage,” I said as she ducked through the lock and into the shuttle.

It gave me a lot to think about as I followed in the noisy wake of my new crew.

When I got to the ship, it still seemed wrong to walk in through a lock that didn’t have a watchstander behind it. I hadn’t been able to shake that feeling of wrongness the whole time we’d been at the yard. With a couple of weeks left before we’d be able to move the ship to Dree Orbital, we’d have plenty of time to remedy that problem. I made my way through the ship to the mess deck where the aroma of fresh coffee convinced me to pull a cup from the urn before sticking my head into the galley. Adams saw me and said, “Captain on deck.”

“As you were.” It wasn’t a ceremony I had grown used to and still felt a bit odd when somebody made the call.

“How can we help you, Skipper?” Sharps asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Just checking in. You probably heard the new crew come aboard.”

“Yes, sar. We got the chandlery order yesterday to replenish perishables and round out our pantry a bit. The yard did a good job keeping our existing stuff from thawing. We finished stowing everything this morning.” She looked around. “I think. It’s been a bit hectic, but we’re planning on full crew for dinner mess. Ms. Adams will cover the wardroom service, if that’s satisfactory?”

“Quite. Thank you.” Looking around at the shining, spotless galley with new cook tops and upgraded ovens made me smile. “Some days I miss it,” I said.

Sharps grinned. “The galley, sar?”

“Life was a lot simpler when all I had to deal with was an empty coffee urn.”

“Yes, Captain. I can see where that might be the case.” She looked around. “I’ve no desire to leave. As challenging as it can be to cook for thirty odd people in the middle of space, I don’t think I’d ever want to stop.”

“We’re lucky to have you, Ms. Sharps.”

“I’ll let Mr. Carstairs know if there’s anything we need,” she said.

“Carry on, Ms. Sharps.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said.

I turned to go but stopped at the door to the mess deck. “One other thing, Ms. Sharps?”

“Yes, sar?”

“If Mr. Carstairs approaches you with some odd-sounding plans for your deep stores? Give him a good listen?”

She blinked a little bit. “All right, sar. I certainly shall.”

It felt strange walking through the ship, knowing we had a full crew aboard and not seeing anybody in the passageways. The smell of new plastics and fresh paint clung to my nose. I had to admit it was marginally better than the stink of welding torches, but only marginally. I swung into deck berthing and a spacer just inside the hatch shouted, “Captain on deck.”

“As you were,” I said, loud enough that I hoped everybody heard. “Any issues down here?”

Al came out from one of the quads. “A bit of a bind on this one bunk. Nothing we can’t handle, Skipper.”

I lifted my mug in a toast and left. I had to get out of the habit of walking all over the ship whenever the mood struck me. I had officers who dealt with the details and my presence—concerned or not—didn’t help that. I climbed the ladder to the cabin and settled in for an invigorating game of “catching up on reports.”

My coffee was gone long before the last report was, but after three solid stans of mind-numbing routine, I had to stand up and walk around before I fell asleep.

I started with a walk down the spine to engineering. The spine always felt a little colder than the rest of the ship to me, and I used that chill to try to get some blood flowing. I found Chief Stevens hunkered over the console in her office. She looked up when I knocked on the door frame.

“Skipper. What brings you to this end of the universe?”

“Reports,” I said.

“Reports? Whose reports?”

“My own. If I didn’t get up and move, I’d have fallen asleep.”

She laughed. “I know that song too well.”

“I’m not interrupting anything chiefly, am I?”

“Chiefly?” She laughed again. “Not hardly. Just checking spare-parts records and tankages. I checked in a whole pallet of parts today. I should have waited for the crew. It would have given them something to do.”

“Still a couple weeks until we can leave?”

“Latest report from Dakota said the twenty-third.”

“What do we do with the crew until then?” I asked.

“I’m organizing the watch schedule. Assigning people to sections. There’s not much to do here now, but there never is when the ship’s tied up.” She shrugged. “I’ve got Penna organizing engineering berthing at the moment. We’ll do some training drills and make sure everybody has the knowledge their rank says they should.”

“Good idea. I may steal it.”

“You might as well. I stole it from somebody else.”

“I stuck my head into deck berthing. Al’s taken the lead there. Did I see you added Go in as a mechanic?”

She grinned. “I did. He’s not actually got the rating yet. The next exam period will come by before we leave here. I’ll send him over to the Orbital to take it.”

“Can he pass it?”

“I gave him the sample test. He blew it out of the lock.” She grinned. “I’ve got him studying for spec three fields now. He’ll have that down by the time he can take the test again.”

“By the way, what was that title you gave him at the screening?”

The chief looked blank for a moment. “Oh, the treatise on whatever it was?”

“Yes.”

“Bogus. I get a lot of engineering types sucking up.” She clasped her hands under her chin and made her voice squeaky. “Oh, Chief Stevens! I’ve read all your work and you’re a genius!”

“So you feed them a title that you didn’t write?”

“Yeah. More reliable than asking them about one I did. The posers almost always say, ‘Of course, Chief,’ while the legit engineers look like I’ve just told them there’s a new volume of Sex and the Single Mechanic that they didn’t know about.”

“Is that a thing?”

“Oh, dear boy. You’ve led a charmed and sheltered life.” She grinned at me.

That grin made me laugh. “On that note, I need to get back to the reports. I’ve two weeks to catch up on all the stuff I haven’t done since this morning.”

“Good luck,” she said. “Reports breed faster than fertile reactors.”

The metaphor had me scratching my head all the way back down the spine. When I settled back into my seat on the console, I had to admit the yard had done a great job making the space bright, clean, and up to date. The new consoles blazed through the work and my new chair felt comfy enough to sleep in.

But when I looked around the empty, largely sterile, compartment, I felt a pang of regret. I looked over my shoulder at the blank bulkhead that would have been an armorglass port on an Unwin tractor. I knew that the cabin lay meters back from the bow of the ship, almost directly under the bridge. From a design standpoint, it made perfect sense. My logical mind kept fighting with my emotional one, which insisted there should be a port there.

I tried to picture the cabin on the Tinker after Fredi moved in. Her tea service. The artwork on the bulkheads and around the cabin, even on her desk. I looked up at the blank spot above my desk and smiled.

I crossed to my grav trunk, the only one left after I unloaded all of Pip’s empty Clipper Ship Lager bottles, and pulled out my master’s license. I’d been living aboard for a week, but hadn’t unpacked more than a change of shipsuits and my hygiene gear. I looked around at the blank bulkhead panels for a moment before the console bipped with a new set of reports. I stuck the license back in the trunk for the moment. I’d get to it.

Chapter 7
Dree Orbital: 2375, January 25

Moving the ship out of the yards and docking at Dree felt like coming home. “Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Declare liberty as soon as we’ve cleared customs, if you please,” I said.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Al said.

I stepped out of my chair and dropped from the bridge to clear the way for the crew trying to be ready to go ashore as soon as possible. After two weeks mostly cooped up in the ship while it remained tied to the maintenance docks, the urge to get out felt nearly overwhelming. It wasn’t that we’d been cooped up aboard ship. We’d spend weeks at a time locked in between ports. It was being tied to a dock, mere kilometers away from a perfectly good orbital with all the delights such a metropolis provided but just tantalizingly out of reach.

I remembered port-side watches as being deadly after just a few days. Two weeks in a row left much of the crew mentally moribund.

Customs clearance proved to be pro forma and within a few ticks I heard liberty being announced though the ship. The berthing areas lay too far away for me to hear but I imagined the sound of cheering. I settled into the chair behind my desk and contemplated the message queue. It stood empty except for the local traffic notices, the final bill from the yard—which I forwarded to Pip in case he didn’t already have it—and little else, for a change.

It felt odd sitting there in the near quiet. A faint whisper from the blowers, now reduced to minimum again. No workmen hammered the ship’s ribs or beat on its skin with rubber hammers. The propulsion system lay back there at the other end of the fragile spine, ready to thrust us unbelievable distances into the Deep Dark at my command.

The chrono clicked over to 1715. In the galley, I knew Ms. Sharps would be wrapping preparations for a port-side dinner mess after two weeks of feeding the crew three times a day. It felt good to get a routine down, even if it wasn’t the routine of a working vessel yet.

The cabin was a box to keep the captain from rattling around in the ship, disturbing the crew like a loose marble in the overhead, rolling back and forth with the minute shifts of gravity and velocity too small for the human cargo to detect but enough to drive them mad unless somebody found the small glass ball.

I wondered when I’d grown so dark.

The terror of sailing the ship from Breakall, coupled with the need to stand too many watches over too short a period of time, had left no room for navel-gazing at the time. I never felt that way in the small ships where the officers outnumbered the crew. The Agamemnon with her custom-painted cabin. The Iris.

How long had it been since the Iris? A little more than a stanyer since I left her. A little more than eighteen months since Greenfields. Herring—or Patterson, whatever his name—had disappeared like smoke in the wind. Gone down the Toe-Hold rabbit hole where TIC held no sway, no power. Gone and leaving me staring at the walls of the cabin on a ship once filled with ghosts.

Who was the captain who occupied this cabin before he died? Did I even know his name? I couldn’t remember.

I closed my eyes and saw her as I always saw her. Sapphire daggers that cut my heart so that it could beat. So that I could live.

I heard the cabin door latch snick and opened my eyes to find Pip standing there, staring. “From the sublime to the ridiculous,” I said.

He grinned his brilliant grin and gave me a flourishing bow. “Jester extraordinaire,” he said. “At your service.” When he straightened I noticed the grin didn’t reach his eyes. He threw himself into one of the visitor chairs and propped his boots on my desk.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“You mean, like now? For dinner maybe? Or are you speaking in a more existential context?”

I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. “Any of the above.”

“Personally, I’m ready for some fine dining port-side on the company’s dime.” He grinned again and the gleam returned to his eye. “Since I’m the CEO, I approve the expense.”

“Does the company have any cash left?” I asked. “That last bill had a lot of zeros at the end.”

“We do, thanks in no small part to my partner’s deep pockets and the foresight of our illustrious board of directors.”

I stared at Pip for several long moments. “What’re the odds of finding him?”

Pip sighed and looked up at the overhead. “Pretty good, actually.” He looked back at me. “The larger question for you to ponder is ‘Then what?’”

“What do you mean?”

“What will you do when you find him?” he asked.

I sat there trying to sort out something rational.

“Hadn’t thought that far ahead, eh?” He sighed dramatically and shook his head. “Ishmael, Ishmael. This will require some significant thought. Sure we’re weeks, possibly months, from jumping into the Deepest of Darks, but that gives you time to formulate the perfect plan. A retribution that makes the skies tremble and the lands weep.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out if he was mocking me or goading me. Or both.

“Or we can play it by ear when we catch up with his sorry hide,” he said with a casual shrug. “Your call. Literally, your call.”

My jaw worked open and closed a couple of times. I was trying to say something. Anything. He’d so derailed me, I couldn’t find the handle on my tongue.

He nodded as if I’d spoken. “I know,” he said. “I know exactly what you need.”

“You do?”

“Beer. You need beer. Do you have any civvies left over from the Great Grav Trunk Purge of ’74?”

“Yeah, of course, but—”

“Excellent.” He popped to his feet and headed for the door. “Let me find something less comfortable to wear and I’ll join you in—say—five ticks?” He stopped at the door. “No, don’t get up. I can show myself out.”

And he did.

Leaving me sitting there wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing.

The dusty scuff marks on the far side of my desk convinced me that it had really happened.

I put my head down on my desk and laughed. Sometimes I was an idiot.

When Pip stuck his head into the cabin, I was ready for him. I’d broken out the comfy jeans, tossed a polo shirt on under my only half decent jacket, and was just slipping into my least reputable pair of boots.

“That’s more like it,” he said.

“I’ve missed you, you crazy bastard.”

He grinned. “Of course you have. Who wouldn’t? Now let’s go. I hear an imperial pale ale calling my name from somewhere on the oh-two deck.”

I followed him out of the cabin and down the ladder. “Not a lager?”

“Maude, no. Only decent lager on this side of the Deep Dark is at Odin’s Outpost. He makes his own, you know? Mines the water from asteroids plucked from between the stars.”

As Ms. Torkelson signed us off the ship, I realized that I really had missed him. He’d been around while the yard reworked the ship, but we’d each been too busy in our own little worlds. The lock levered shut behind us and I wondered, briefly, what he had been up to. I was certain it had nothing to do with finding Patterson or establishing new trade routes.

I was equally certain he’d never tell me. I’d just have to wait and see.

Chapter 8
Dree System: 2375, January 30

Pip scored a can of ceramic clay bound for Jett. After being tied down for so long, everybody in the ship was ready to shake the reefs out and go someplace else. The chief thought it would be a good distance to test the Burlesons after their refit. Left to my own devices I might have taken something a little closer, just to make sure they worked.

She laughed. “It’s not how far you bend space that matters, Captain. It’s whether you can bend space at all. After that it’s just decimal points and power. We’ve got plenty of power. What we need to know now is how much power it’ll take.”

I had to agree with her. She wrote the book on the subject. If she thought it was right, it was—almost certainly—right.

“Coming up on the safety perimeter, Captain,” Al said from her station.

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Are the generators ready to spool up, Chief?”

“Safety interlocks are still engaged, but the systems are ready to deploy sails and keel at your command, Captain.” The chief smiled at me across the bridge. She preferred to ride “up front,” as she called it, rather than back in engineering control. She liked the scenery better.

“We have cleared the safety perimeter, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Pull the interlocks and give us some sail, Chief.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Interlocks released. Sails and keel deploying.”

“I love it when you talk salty, Chief.”

“How are we on helm, Ms. Torkelson?” Al asked.

“Helm responding normally, sar. Course locked and we’re on the beam.”

“Thank you, Ms. Torkelson,” Al said. “Secure the auxiliaries, Chief.”

The chief keyed a few commands on her console and the almost inaudible rumble of the kickers from the stern faded out to nothing. “Auxiliaries secured. Safety locks set, Ms. Ross.”

“Thank you, Chief. Captain, the ship has cleared the safety perimeter. Sails and keel are deployed. Auxiliaries have been secured and safeties set.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Secure from navigation detail. Set normal watch throughout the ship.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Securing navigation detail. Setting normal watch.” She looked at the chronometer. “Logged at 2375, January 30, 1725 hours.”

After some last-minute business with announcements and a juggling of crew, I stood and stretched. “Thanks, everyone,” I said. “How long do we have until we jump, Mr. Reed?”

“Five weeks, plus or minus a day, Captain.”

“Well, nothing to do now but wait, I suppose.”

“There are always reports, Captain,” Chief Stevens said.

“Yes, Chief. Yes, there are.” I left the bridge so everybody else could and ducked into the cabin. I needed to visit the head and wash my face. Sharps would have the dinner mess ready in the wardroom in a few ticks. It would be a shame to be late.

While I was there, I sat at the console to sort through the pile of reports stacking up. It amazed me how fast the queue filled. Most of it just required me to read and initial. Al handled the personnel issues with a level of aplomb I don’t think people expect of a first mate with that much steel in her skin. The chief seemed to float above a sea of reporting that never dragged her down into the dark depths. It didn’t take very long for me to initial, file, and pass the reports on to archive.

I opened the ship’s log and filled in a cursory entry with the specifics of our cargo and destination. During our ride over from Breakall, I’d spent some time working back through the log entries. I knew I was only seeing the surface. More happens aboard the ship than ever goes into the log, but this one seemed particularly sparse.

The date record had long gaps—weeks at a time—when the captain made no entries. I wondered if he kept a second log where he wrote down what happened in Toe-Hold space, where he kept all the things he couldn’t write in the official log.

I almost wished I had a secret log, a journal for my own use rather than an archive of ship’s business. Mal Gains had left his therapist hooks in me. I couldn’t stop replaying that final meeting where he had me talking about my clothes. What did it matter?

The chronometer clicked over to 1755 and an alert popped up on my console. I’d had to program it to remind me of meal times, or the days slipped their leashes and I had to hunt them down. They all blended together in the yard with no watches and no crew. No cargo to haul. My only focus for months was to get the ship back into space. To fly her away, whole and clean.

I slapped my console closed.

I knew it wasn’t as straightforward as that. We had nearly gutted the Chernyakova. The foundations remained, but almost everything else had been refurbished, replaced, renewed. The paint and polish were simply the clothes that hung on the reformed bones of the ship.

If only I could put myself in a yard somewhere and come away whole and clean.

The thought left me holding on to the cabin’s door knob—half in, half out. There was something there. Something important.

“Are you all right, Captain?”

Our new third mate, Kim Fortuner—a sprightly young woman with a ready smile and a deadly wit—stood at the head of the ladder leading down to the mess deck.

“Yes, Ms. Fortuner. Just struck by a sudden thought.”

She smiled and nodded. “That can hurt, sar. I know the feeling well.”

She surprised a short laugh out of me and I closed the door behind me to follow her down the ladder. “How are you adjusting to life aboard?” I asked.

“Well, Captain.” She paused as if to evaluate her answer. “Very well, considering. Having a job made the stress of being a beached junior third mate almost evaporate. I’ll be able to catch up on my student loans.”

“That’s a feeling I know well, Ms. Fortuner. Very well, indeed.”

We arrived at the wardroom and she stepped aside to let me enter ahead of her.

I held the door for her and waved her in. “I’m the captain. Last in, first out.”

She blushed. “I should have known that, Skipper.”

“My mother also taught me to hold the door for a lady, Ms. Fortuner. Don’t let it worry you.”

Chapter 9
Dree System: 2375, March 5

Things settled down on the long run out to the Burleson limit. The ship’s long legs did it little good until we could clear Dree’s gravity well. Mr. Reed’s calculations told us we could jump directly from Dree to Jett. According to Chief Stevens, we could have jumped two BUs beyond Jett without straining the big capacitors that drove the Burlesons and let us bend space-time to our mortal wills.

With that perspective, I understood the chief’s suggestion that a quick jump to Jett was just what the Chernyakova needed for her post-yard shakedown cruise.

The crew seemed to be melding together nicely as well. I suspected Al’s particular interpersonal skills had a lot to do with that, as well as Chief Steven’s long decades of experience in forming engineering crews—with their various skills, priorities, and expectations—into a machine nearly as precise as the fusactors that gave life to the ship itself.

I’d never felt superfluous in any of my prior commands, such as they were. We always had some problem to solve, some issue to resolve. I snorted a little laugh at myself. An expert in dysfunctional crews, I felt adrift with the well-oiled machine I’d created with the help of some very unconventional collaborators. Had Frederica deGrut ever felt superfluous?

I looked around the wardroom at my assembled officers. Al had the watch, but everybody else lounged over their desserts. “My plan is to go to navigation stations at 2000 hours. It shouldn’t take very long, and nobody will have to wake up to make the jump.” I looked at the chief. “Any problems showing up back there?”

She shook her head. “We’ve burned through a lot of scrubber cartridges, but we expected that. Outgassing from the new materials and extra particulates from construction has started to decline. That’s about it. I’m a little nervous, actually.”

“Too smooth?” I asked.

“Precisely. The yard did a heck of a job. Even eked some extra power out of the fusactors. So far no harmonic displacements in any of the systems. We’ll know how well the Burlesons work in about a stan, so that’ll take the worry out of that factor, one way or another.”

“Mr. Reed, any problems with the navigation?”

“No, Captain. We’re within a few hundred meters of where we should be. We’re on the flat now and could jump any time we wanted.”

I looked around the table and nodded. “Thanks for your hard work, folks. We got here because of what you do. Keep doing it.” I stood and left the wardroom so the others could do what they needed to. There were days I missed being a messmate that nobody paid any mind to.

At 1950 I climbed the ladder to the bridge. I found Al and Thomas Reed already there. Ms. Torkelson had the helm as part of the first section. Going to navigation stations wouldn’t make any difference to either Al or Ms. Torkelson.

“Are we set, Al?”

“I think so, Skipper. Is the chief going to join us tonight?”

“No. She’ll be hanging by the Burlesons, just in case.”

“I think she just wants to see those bad boys light up,” Reed said.

I grinned. “You’re probably not far off the mark, Mr. Reed.” I looked at Al. “Make it happen.”

Al made the announcement and I watched over her shoulder as the engineering section checked in. “We are at navigation stations, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross,” I said. “I’d like to go someplace else this evening.”

Al’s grin showed up clearly in the bridge’s subdued lighting. “Did you have any place in particular in mind, Captain?”

“I was thinking Jett is nice this time of night.”

“Jett sounds lovely, Captain. Mr. Reed, the captain would like to go to Jett this evening. What say you?” Al asked.

Reed looked over his shoulder at her. It took him a couple of heartbeats to catch up. “Course to Jett plotted and locked, sar. Ship dead on course.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Systems, are we ready to jump?” Al asked.

“Systems green for jump once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said from her console.

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner. Astrogation, are we ready to jump?”

“Astrogation is green for jump twice, Ms. Ross.” Reed seemed more relaxed as the familiar litanies spooled out.

“Thank you, Mr. Reed.” Al keyed a few strokes into her console and waited a moment. “Engineering reports green for jump, Captain. Ship is green for jump thrice.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed.” I paused for a moment and wondered, so very briefly if my next words would be my last. “Hard a-lee.”

Jumping direct from Dree to Jett had the startling effect of watching a sparkling necklace of stars explode into a wash of multicolored jewels on a glowing backdrop of nebulous gas. The nebula itself lay some light years beyond Jett, but that knowledge took nothing from the dramatic result. Everyone on the bridge gazed forward at the sight. Few jumps had the same effect. Most transitions left one feeling that nothing much had happened. Only the system primary would show as a solid pinhead of light in the distance which had not been there before.

“Jump complete,” Reed said. “Position and vector confirmed. Logged at 2375, March 5 at 2010. Waiting on course correction for Jett.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed,” Al said. “Report when ready.”

We sat for half a tick while the calculations filtered in from the celestial navigation array, through the ship’s systems, and out to Reed’s console.

“Chief Stevens reports Burlesons locked, sail and keel ready for deployment, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross.”

“Plot established and locked, sar,” Reed said.

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Helm?

“Plot locked. Sail and keel deployed. Ship answers to helm, sar.”

“Thank you, Ms. Torkelson,” Al said. “Ship has jumped to Jett, Captain. Burlesons secured, sails deployed. Ship answers to helm. The universe appears to be unfolding as it should.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Log it and secure from navigation stations. Set normal watch throughout the ship.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Log and secure from navigation stations. Set normal watch throughout the ship.”

I waited for Al to make the appropriate announcements and log entries. The captain’s chair gave me an excellent view around the bridge and out into space on all sides. The bridge roof blocked the view upward, of course, and the ship’s mass obscured much of the downward view, but what I could see left me breathless. I hated to leave, but Al didn’t need me looking over her shoulder and the other officers needed me to leave the bridge so they could follow.

At that moment, the rigid priorities and protocols felt binding—like the sleeves of a shirt that was just half a size too small.

I stood, stretched, and headed for the ladder. “Excellent work, everyone. Thank you,” I said before dropping down the ladder and ducking into the cabin. I wanted to talk to the chief about the status of the drives, but I also didn’t want to jog her elbow so soon after transition. I pulled up my tablet and dropped her a message. “Buy you coffee, spacer? Whenever you’re back on this end of the ship?”

Her response came almost immediately. “You bet.”

I didn’t have to wait long. I barely had a chance to use the head before I heard a knock on the door. “Come.”

The chief bounded in, a massive smile on her face. “Where’s my coffee?”

“We’ll have to go pick it up. I thought I’d have a little more time.”

She flopped into a visitor’s chair and let her arms hang off the sides. “In a tick. You want to know about the drives.”

I sat in my chair and nodded. “Of course.”

“I love these Origami T’s. They are so smooth. I don’t understand why more ships don’t run them.”

“Cost?” I asked.

She made a rude noise with her lips. “Yeah, there’s a bit more sunk cost. Makes the ships a tiny bit more expensive by the time you add in the extra fusactors, the upgraded power, and field emitter buses. Maybe a couple of percent more. That’s all, but we just jumped six BUs and cut out a whole extra jump and realignment between Dree and Jett. Operationally, that probably doesn’t seem like much but those little pieces add up over time.”

“Well, there’s probably also the reality that the CPJCT has organized most of the Western Annex into strings of ports two or three BUs apart.”

She nodded. “True. Hard to justify having long legs when short arms will reach the cookie jar. It still makes me happy to be able to make a six-BU jump with two hundred metric kilotons.” She pursed her lips and brought her hands together to steeple in front of her chest. “You know, with a fleet of these, we could remap Diurnia.”

“Probably remap most of the Western Annex,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “You think?”

“Dunsany Roads is spread out across twenty or twenty-five BUs, but Siren is only five BUs from Dunsany Roads itself. Almost nobody but fast packets make that run.” I stopped when I realized that she was grinning at me.

“Gotcha,” she said.

“Why hasn’t somebody done it before this?” I asked.

“You ponder that over the next stanyer or so,” she said. “It’s not an accident.”

“You know?”

She shook her head. “I have my theories, but I don’t know.”

“It has to do with Toe-Hold space.”

“You’re just guessing.”

“Yeah, but it makes sense. This configuration isn’t common where I’ve been flying. None of DST’s Barbells had legs like this.”

“When do you think we’ll make our first jump out there?” she asked.

“Depends on Pip. I’m just the bus driver.”

She made the rude noise again. “You sell yourself short.”

“I think he wants to make one more pass in CPJCT space before jumping out into Toe-Holds.”

She settled herself down into the chair. “Can I ask? What has he told you about Toe-Hold space? What do you know of it?”

“He’s been spinning some yarn about how dangerous it is. How TIC has sent ships down that haven’t come back. He wanted the Chernyakova because it has the complete set of Toe-Hold charts that TIC hasn’t been able to acquire.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “You believe him?”

“Do I look that dumb?”

“Ha. I thought he had you wrapped around his finger.”

“He spins stories like other people sneeze. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it half the time.” I toyed with the spare stylus lying on the desk. “I've never caught him in an outright lie, but he's a master of misdirection.”

She tilted her head to the side and her eyes narrowed like she might be trying to focus on me. “Why do you go along with him?”

I shrugged. “Why not? You know what kind of mess I was last stanyer. Christine Maloney knew.”

“You had reason.”

“Yeah, but I also need to get beyond it.”

“No argument on this side of the desk.” She laid an ankle on the other knee.

“So I go to Port Newmar, Pip finds me there. I’m pruned back to my roots and he starts to feed me bullshit. I could have stayed and worked with my therapist. Taught class in the fall.” I shook my head. “Pip’s story—bogus as it almost surely is—gives me a kind of trellis to regrow on. It gives me something to do that’s bigger than myself. We brought the Chernyakova back from the dead. We found what looks like a good crew. We’ve got some solid financial backing thanks to you and Alys Giggone.”

“And you’re not CEO.”

“And I’m not CEO. I was never cut out to be CEO. One of the painful lessons I learned in Diurnia. One of many. I’m a competent captain when I pay attention to the job. Pip was born to be a CEO. He’s always been the wheeler-dealer.”

“That’s not what Alys says.”

“We work best as a team.” I laid the stylus aside and folded my hands on the desk. “I think Alys Giggone has a limited perspective based on a narrow sample of our work.”

Chief Stevens started laughing. “You really have no idea.” She shook her head. “No matter. Have you thought about how you’re going to handle the crew?”

“About Toe-Hold?”

“Yeah.”

“The deck gang already knew about it before I hired them,” I said.

“You asked them?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

I shook my head. “Actually, they either asked me directly or hinted strongly that the Chernyakova might be going places that weren’t on the usual itineraries and they’d be fine if that happened. After the beer and cheese party at Dree, anybody who wasn’t comfortable with the idea probably bailed on us.”

The chief’s smirk did little for my equilibrium.

“I feel like I’ve stumbled on a whole separate universe that everybody knew about but me,” I said.

“Well, not everybody,” she said. “But you didn’t spend your formative years in the Deep Dark, did you.”

“No, Neris over in Dunsany Roads. Corporate brat.”

“Did you ever take any history courses?”

“Yes, but even at the academy Toe-Hold was a footnote. It was ‘how we got here in the distant and forgotten past,’ not ‘a whole separate and thriving society outside our walls.’ It wasn’t even that in the university enclave on Neris.”

“It wouldn’t have been. Corps have been sweeping Toe-Hold space under deck plates for a century or more. The academy can’t very well admit it exists since they actively censor most references to it.”

“You mean like history books?” I asked.

She laughed again. “I mean like where the Chernyakova came from.”

“I thought we suspected it’s from Toe-Hold space.”

“We do. Because it’s the only answer for how a ship could be sailing around in such disrepair. The only question I ever had was about the odds of it going belly-up in CPJCT space when it clearly spent most of its life in the Toe-Holds.”

“So Pip’s whole ‘Daughter of Darkness’ story?”

“The name actually can be translated that way. Roughly. That was brilliant on Pip’s part.”

“The skulking around, sneaking into the ship to find the hidden charts?”

“That’s curious,” she said, not smiling. “TIC gets chart updates for Toe-Hold space almost as fast as the Toe-Holds generate them. You two sneaking onto the ship might have been a lark, but our Mr. Phillip Carstairs does very little larking about, for all his jesterlike appearance. That piece makes me wonder what he was really looking for.”

“We didn’t find much. Once it was clear the ship had Toe-Hold charts, Pip backed off. We sat at the brow until TIC showed up.”

“Eldorado.”

“Eldorado?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”

“Ancient myth from old Earth. Lost city of gold. Eldorado.” The chief folded her fingers together on her lap and snuggled farther back into the chair. “Ever since the old Board of Exploration got assimilated by the CPJCT—probably even before—there have been stories of lost systems, lost colonies even. The tale always follows the same path. Explorer finds rich system. Holds out on BoE registration. Goes back to retire and get filthy rich away from the prying eyes and clutching tax collectors of the BoE or, later, the CPJCT. Explorer makes his final jump and leaves his wealth lost between the stars when he secures his last field coil.”

“And somebody just happens to have a chart showing where the wealth drifts unattended in the Deep Dark?”

“That’s it.” The chief shook her head. “The thing of it is, there are probably hundreds of those.”

“What? Stories?”

“Lost fortunes.”

“You mean real ones?”

She nodded. “Think about it. Starting in 2152 and for a century after, prospectors flew those little scout ships out into the Deep Dark. We hear about the successful ones. The ones that have systems named for them.”

“Like Oswald Newmar,” I said.

“Just like Oswald Newmar, but for every Oswald there were dozens—maybe hundreds—of people who went out into the Dark and either disappeared or never reported anything worth developing.”

“So you’re saying the Chernyakova has a map to Eldorado?”

She shook her head. “Nothing of the sort. I’m just saying that there are charts and there are charts. Some get shared. Some get hoarded. If our ship’s jester wants these particular charts, it has nothing to do with TIC wanting to know where the Toe-Holds are. At least not the known ones.”

“Because they already know,” I said.

She nodded.

“If we ask Pip, he’ll probably spin a tale.”

“No ‘probably’ about it.” She straightened up in her seat.

I shook my head. “Now what?”

“You were going to buy me coffee.”

I smiled. “So I was. Wardroom or mess deck?”

“It’s the same coffee.”

“I know, but the ambiance is better on the mess deck.”

“It’s also free.”

“Not exactly. The ship pays for it and that in turn comes out of our shares. Everybody pays for it.”

She laughed and scrubbed her face with her hands. “Mess deck coffee is fine. I take mine with a shot of rum and just a touch of sugar.”

“I don’t think Ms. Sharps stocks rum.”

“You fetch the coffee. I’ll fetch the rum,” she said and stood up, heading for the cabin door.

“Why Chief Stevens, I had no idea.”

“You still don’t if you want those drives to keep purring.” She stopped at the door. “You gonna sit there all night, or are you gonna buy a girl a coffee?”

By the time I got back to the cabin, she’d already returned. A small silver flask rested on my desk. I put the mugs down and slid one toward the chief. “Just a touch of sugar.”

She picked up the flask and poured a splash into the coffee. The sharp, spicy scent of rum wafted across the console. She held the flask out to me. “I hate to drink alone,” she said.

I laughed and pulled my mug closer. “Not just now. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

She spun the cap back on her flask and nodded. “You’ve done good work, Captain. Very good work.”

“What? The ship?” I shrugged. “Just doing what needed doing.”

She stood and took her flask and coffee mug with her. “Not the ship.” She opened the cabin door and slipped out into the passage. “Thanks for the coffee, Skipper.” She raised her mug in a toast and closed the door behind her.

I sat there for a few ticks, staring at the coffee mug and pondering what the chief had told me. I picked up my mug and headed for the bridge.

Al looked up when I climbed the ladder. “Evenin’, Captain.”

Ms. Torkelson turned at the sound of Al’s voice, then glanced at me before snapping her head around to stare at the helm readout in front of her.

“Good evening, Al. Ms. Torkelson.” I took my seat in the raised chair and slotted the mug into the arm socket. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you for a while.”

“Something we can help with?” Al asked.

“Just looking for a quiet place where I can look out and see the stars,” I said.

Al gave a little chuckle. “We got plenty of that, Captain.”

I turned the chair around so I looked out the back of the bridge, out over the length of the ship into the star fields beyond. I sipped my coffee and pondered.

Chapter 10
Jett System: 2375, April 3

We’d managed to kill most of our momentum and went to navigation stations just after breakfast mess. The chief sat with us on the bridge, which made communications with the engine room feel much smoother. We’d made good time in from the Burleson limit and stood to make a nice early delivery bonus for our trouble.

“Tug reports ready to take us under tow, Skipper,” Al said.

“Very well, Ms. Ross.”

I kept thinking about what Pip might actually have planned. Not that I really expected to come up with any answers until he revealed them, but the situation was like a sore tooth. I couldn’t stop fiddling with it. I also hadn’t seen much of him on the whole voyage from Dree and was worried about what plots he might have hatched.

The approach to Jett felt both routine and brand new. The familiar silver can-shaped orbital loomed closer as the tug inched us in. I couldn’t even think of how many times I’d docked at Jett, either on the Tinker or, later, the Agamemnon. Docking in the refurbished Chernyakova felt odd. Like she wasn’t supposed to be here.

The docking clamps engaged with their customary thump-clunk and the tug cast off to find his next ship.

“My compliments to the tug crew, Ms. Fortuner. Smooth as glass,” I said.

“Aye, aye, Captain. Message sent.”

“Shore ties latched. Shifting to shore power,” the chief said.

“Log us in, Ms. Ross,” I said.

“Logged, Skipper.”

“Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Set port-side watch through the ship and declare liberty at your discretion,” I said.

She made the announcements and I took my leave from the bridge to clear the decks for the departing crew.

I’d no sooner planted my carcass in the chair behind my desk when Pip strolled into the cabin. “I was just thinking about you,” I said.

“Nothing good, I hope.” He plopped into the chair across from me.

“Wondering what kind of mischief you’ve gotten into. Ms. Sparks hasn’t complained about your meddling in her stores rotation.”

“And why would she? She hasn’t seen it in action yet.” He grinned. “As it happens, our can made a nice profit and an early delivery bonus.”

“Got an outgoing cargo?”

“Not yet, but I’ve got a line on one. Thought you might like to trot along with me while I scope out the deal.”

“We’re not going to some seedy dive in the oh-two deck are we?”

He placed a hand on his chest. “You wound me.”

“You always say that.”

“Do I?” He shrugged. “Anyway, no. Up in retail land on the eight-deck.”

“Ooh. Should I dress up?”

“Uniform of the day is spiffy-casual.”

“What the heck is spiffy-casual?”

“Slacks, shirt, no jacket.”

“That’s pretty specific.”

“We’ll want to blend in.”

“No jacket?” I squinted at him. “This isn’t something silly is it?”

“Silly? You wound me.”

“You said that already.”

“You keep wounding me.”

“What time?”

“Dinner’s at 1800. They keep a shipboard schedule.”

“Who does?”

“The people who need a can dragged from here to there.”

“Where’s there?”

“Ever hear of Mel’s Place?” Pip asked.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Little Toe-Hold settlement about half way between here and Venitz.”

“They want a can of something?”

“Well, not just any something. It’s pretty specific.”

“Will you tell me now or do I have to wait until Al slaps it out of you?”

He started to do the pose again so I said, “Yes, I wound you. Got it. Again. Next joke? This one’s getting stale.”

“Can of black malt.”

“Black malt?” I asked. “Two hundred metric tons of black malt?”

“Roughly. I’m not sure how the mass volume ratio holds up. A full can, at any rate. It’s for making beer.”

“I know what black malt is. Where are we taking it?”

“I told you. Mel’s Place.”

“So why do we need to meet with these mysterious strangers to pick up a can of black malt?”

“They’re concerned because they don’t know us. They’d just like to meet the people who’ll be carrying a few million credits worth of cargo for them.”

“We carry cans worth millions of credits all the time.”

“One point four,” Pip said.

I stared at him.

“Billion.”

“One can worth one point four billion credits?”

“It’ll make a lot of beer.”

“A billion credits,” I said, still in denial.

“One point four. Almost one and a half, actually.” He grinned. “Come on, we carry that much all the time. Two hundred million kilograms of stuff adds up fast.”

“I thought we were going to make another test run,” I said, stalling to give my brain a chance to catch up.

“I did, too, but they contacted me very soon after we jumped in. They know the Chernyakova from the old days.”

“When they sailed without spares and alarms?”

“They know the ship changed hands. Seem interested in the new owners. That’s us.”

“Everybody in the quadrant knows it changed hands.”

“Well, there you go. A chance to make a good connection with an old client.” He jumped up and clapped his hands together. “Jeans and a pullover. Ship boots. No need to try to impress them. They’re already impressed.”

“Where is this spiffy-casual place on the eight-deck?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t know it. You need an invite.”

“Try me.”

“Aubergine’s?”

“Simon Aubergine? The art critic?” I asked.

Pip stopped. Just like that. I’d never actually noticed how much he moved around. He always moved something. Head. Hands. Legs. Arms. Head and legs. Until that very moment when he stopped and stared at me. “You know Simon Aubergine?”

“This quadrant has been my home for almost twenty stanyers. You think I live under a rock?”

He blinked. “Well, yes, actually.”

I stared him down.

“Christine Maloney,” he said.

“She’s in my file.”

“No. That’s how you know Aubergine. She has an art gallery here on Jett and is constantly butting heads with him in the press.”

“You have a file on her, too?”

“All the important people. She’s an important people.” Pip restarted, a hand flapping against his thigh. “So, yeah. Aubergine’s having an opening with a buffet dinner.”

“I thought you said we needed an invitation.”

He held up a gold embossed card. “For two. I thought you’d make a delightful plus one.”

“Why don’t you take Al?”

“She’s my second choice if you turn me down.”

I felt my eyeballs roll.

“Be ready. 1730. I’ll pick you up. Don’t be late.” He ducked out the door before I could think of anything to throw at him.

Still he made a good case. If we were going to be on the hook for one point four billion credits’ worth of cargo, I really wanted to be in the loop. I wondered what our take on that would be and how far this Mel’s Place was.

Chapter 11
Jett Orbital: 2375, April 3

Pip knocked on the cabin door for a change. He didn’t wait for me to answer, but I gave him credit for progress. “You ready?”

I’d tried on the jeans and didn’t like the way they fit considering I was going to be hanging out with the rich and famous. I pulled out a pair of black silk pants with a crease sharp enough to scrape paint. I didn’t remember where I got them but I always felt like a million wearing them. Instead of a polo shirt, I went with the pullover I got the last time I was shopping with Stacey Arellone. Pale gray with a subtle pattern and a mock turtle collar. Stacey always said I looked like a holo star in it. A pair of polished boots and I was ready to roll.

Pip looked at me from the door, tilting his head to the left and then the right. “Yeah. That’ll do,” he said at last. He wore a pair of gray slacks, a burgundy pullover, and some pointy-toed boots I’d never seen before. His silver earring glinted in the light of the overhead.

“So much for jeans and a polo shirt,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah. All right. Shall we go?” he asked.

I slipped my tablet into a pocket in my trousers and waved him on. “Sooner started. Sooner done.”

“You’re going to be a joy to be with tonight, aren’t you?”

I grinned at him. “I hope to exceed your expectati—”

He smacked me in the shoulder.

I was still laughing when we went through the lock.

The venue—I’d hardly call it a restaurant—looked about like I’d expect. The whole promenade facade had been replaced with brushed steel plates from deck to overhead. They looked like they might withstand a meteor strike. The entry, by comparison, featured a matched pair of chubby cupids in what looked like marble but were probably something like styrene plastic. Instead of looking at each other over the entrance, they faced away from each other, posed wing-to-wing, apparently ready to pace off a duel to the death with their little recurved bows. The actual door part of the entrance consisted of a pair of armorglass panels stained a rich, royal purple.

I leaned over to Pip and lowered my voice. “I’d give it three cheddars.”

He looked at me like I’d spoken to him in ancient Greek. “What?”

I nodded at the entrance where, even unfashionably early as we were, the beautiful people already gathered.

“I don’t know you,” he said.

“When we get done here, let’s go around to the other side of the promenade.”

He frowned at me, his eyes blinking rapidly. “What’s on the other side of the promenade?”

“I’m not sure. I just have a hunch. Come on. It’ll do you good to get off the ship for a bit.”

He grimaced but we’d come to the head of the line where a suavely coiffed bouncer ruined the lines of his tasteful short-sleeved purple pullover by wearing a gauche nylon shoulder holster with what looked like a plastic replica needler in it—all in matching aubergine. He held up a ham masquerading as a fist and stopped us before we could step on the industrial grade purple door mat. “Do you have an invitation, sirs?” His tone and body language clearly gave the message that, of course, we did not.

Pip pulled it out and handed it to the gorilla.

“Phillip Carstairs?” The man seemed perplexed.

“Yes? How might I help you, my good man?” Pip asked.

“Then who’s this guy?” He nodded at me without ruffling a single curl on his head.

“My plus one, of course.”

The man looked over our heads at the muttering beautiful people behind us.

“He’s your date?”

“Actually, he’s my captain, but that’s neither here nor there. You’ve asked for my invitation. I have presented said invitation and correctly identified my companion as my plus one. Is there some other requirement? Identification, perhaps? A quick call to Simon?”

His eyes got large. “I couldn’t interrupt Mr. Aubergin—”

Pip pulled out his tablet. “That’s fine. I can. Don’t you fret your pretty little head about it.”

The bouncer thrust the invite back into Pip’s hand and stepped out of the door. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Carstairs.”

“Thank you, Reginald. My regards to your au pair.”

We breezed through like we owned the place and wondered who left the doors open.

“Don’t tell me you have a file on him,” I said after we’d cleared the clutter of slow moving freights at the door.

“Oh, heavens, no. Only the important people.”

“You had me worried.”

“I ran Aubergine’s employee roster this afternoon. He’s Reginald Alexander. Twenty-eight. Former Mr. Jett. Sleeping with his au pair, one Heidi Baxter from Diurnia, when his spouse is away on business, which is four out of every five weeks.” He looked at me with one of his little “ain’t I cute” smiles. “You’re catching flies now?”

I closed my mouth and swallowed.

Pip snagged a couple of champagne flutes from one of the circulating waitstaff. He thrust one at me. “Here. Try not to spill it on yourself.” He took a sip and began a slow meander along the passage, examining the various art installations, sipping his champagne, and—I hated to admit it—fitting in.

The image of the Clipper Ship Lager–swilling Phillip Carstairs sipping delicately from what appeared to be a real crystal champagne flute made me smile. I followed along in his wake. The art itself struck me as vaguely pretentious, like a twenty-something trying too hard to be an artiste.

We found ourselves in front of a rather large painting mounted under modest spotlights. As nearly as I could tell it looked like about ten square yards of untreated, white canvas with a single red fingerprint squarely in the center.

“Is it white or gray, do you suppose?” I asked.

Pip pursed his lips and tilted his head, obviously considering his answer.

A young woman, looking nearly emaciated in a simple shift of unbleached muslin, stood beside me and answered. “White, of course,” she said. “The symbolism. Unmistakable.” One long, knobby finger toyed with a stray ringlet over her left ear while she sipped from the flute in her right hand.

“I believe you’re correct, my dear,” Pip said. “The single red touch of man bringing death to the universe.”

It was one of those moments when your brain goes ‘zip’ and everything looks wrong for just a moment while you find your balance again. I did my best not to stagger.

“Are you the artist?” Pip asked.

She gazed up at the canvas. “Ah. No.” She sighed. “Perhaps someday I can capture something as striking, as visceral. For now?” She shrugged one bony shoulder. “I can only admire.” With another heartfelt sigh, she drifted along the passage, her shift wafting in the breeze of her languid passing.

I looked into the glass and back at Pip. “What the hell is in this?”

“Just champagne, I think,” he said with a shrug. “The psychotropics are probably aerosol.”

“I have to admit, I’m impressed. You studied art criticism?” I turned back to look up at the canvas again.

“I studied the signage,” he said, looking down at the small, black and white label at the bottom edge of the installation.

“The Death Of The Universe.”

He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

I looked up at it again. “Can you imagine Erik James doing something like this?”

Pip stared up, his head turning this way and that as if perhaps measuring the canvas with his eyes. “If he did, we’d probably feel something.” He turned and followed the bony waif deeper into the gallery.

I granted him the point and sauntered along in his wake. The evening was proving to be full of surprises.

We’d gone three steps into the next gallery when a fleshy man wearing too much gold jewelry and an impeccably tailored suit in purple velvet made an entrance from the other end and stood, poised for just a few heartbeats too long, for his public to admire.

Polite applause spattered around the room, followed by a murmur of quiet admiration.

“Simon Aubergine, I presume,” I said, looking at Pip.

“The man. The legend. The client.”

“Wait, what?”

“The client. He’s the one we’re here to meet.”

“No, I got that. Aerosol psychotropics?”

Pip shrugged. “Are they bothering you?”

“It’s odd,” I said.

Pip snickered. “You have no idea. It’ll pass when we get out into fresh air again. Just don’t make any life-changing decisions while you’re here.”

“Like signing up to transport a can of beer-making materials?”

“I was thinking more about buying a painting,” Pip said. “This stuff is dreadful.”

A robust young man wearing an aubergine loincloth and two quarts of cooking oil stood near-by, his massive shoulders being caressed by an appreciative audience. I could smell the warm oil wafting from his pecs. It smelled like a cheap canola that had been too long in the can. He shot us a nasty glance. His audience didn’t seem to have heard.

“You might keep your voice down a bit,” I said.

“Or I might not.” Pip shrugged. “Depends.”

Aubergine swanned through the adoring crowd, following some serpentine path only he saw.

Pip sighed and walked up to one of the many plinths in this hall of sculpture. He strolled around the sculpture once, twice, and on his third time around caught my eye. “Brilliant, isn’t it?”

I blinked a couple of times to peel some of the grimy feeling off my eyeballs and followed Pip around the display, trying to make out what we were looking at. “It looks like a bolt,” I said, leaning close to Pip and keeping my voice low.

“It is a bolt. I’d say a sixteen millimeter by one. Probably twelve centimeters long.” He leaned in to look closely. “Threaded backward.”

“Why does it have two nuts?” I asked.

Pip’s head swiveled in my direction. “Seriously?”

I shrugged.

“We may need to get you out of here,” he said. “The—uh—atmosphere isn’t doing you any favors.”

Aubergine appeared beside Pip, emerging from the crowd like a magician’s trick rabbit without benefit of a hat. “Carstairs, my dear boy. You made it after all,” he said.

“Amazing show, Simon. Simply amazing.” Pip clasped his hands together in front of his chest. “How do you find such talents?”

Simon ran a pudgy digit up the side of his nose and winked. “Trade secrets, dear boy. Trade secrets.” He turned his piggy eyes in my direction. “You must be the famous Captain Wang,” he said.

I gave him credit for getting the pronunciation right. “Must I?”

“Ah, modest as well,” Simon said. “The man who invented the Starliner Cruises and then disappeared with his billions? Famous seems hardly sufficient.”

I started to correct him when Pip stepped in front of me. “You’ll have to pardon Captain Wang. He’s had rather a blow recently and isn’t quite himself.”

“Really? Who am I?” I asked.

Pip motored on over me. “Did we catch you at a bad time, Simon?”

Simon took Pip’s arm and they wandered off across the gallery, seemingly engrossed in their conversation so completely that no one else was in the room. I glanced around and realized that other than the three of us, only a half dozen other people actually were in the room. A couple of them stood near the exits carefully not watching us. I pondered, very briefly, where everybody had gone but the enigmatic bolt drew my eye again. Standing proudly upright, hexed knob on top and balanced on the narrow end. Two large nuts threaded onto the base. I marveled at the engineering and wondered how the artist had carved not only the threads backward but had tapped two hunks of machine steel backward as well.

The small brass plaque on the base identified the piece as “Erector Set.”

Standing back from the piece, I sipped my champagne and pondered.

Pip stepped up beside me and joined me in contemplation. “You’re finding this interesting?” he asked.

“It’s most curious,” I said. “Why screwed backward?”

Pip bit his lip and studied the piece for several moments before speaking. “A mystery for the ages,” he said. “We’ll probably never know.” He nodded at the exit. “Come on, Ishmael. Let’s find some fresh air and some food. I’m getting a tad peckish. Aren’t you?”

“Excellent idea. I thought we were going to eat here.”

Pip grimaced and shook his head. “I saw the buffet. Nothing I’d want to eat. Little nibbles of nothing and all at the wrong temperatures.”

“In that case, yes, by all means. Our cargo?”

“Handled,” he said. “We’ll pick up the can tomorrow. I’ll explain the details when we get back to the ship.”

I glanced around. We’d entered a gallery with many more people in it. I nodded. “Wise choice, I think.”

“You have no idea,” Pip said and pulled me toward the door.

We stepped out of the gallery into the cool, refreshing air of the promenade. Reginald still guarded the door, and the line of beautiful people snaked down the promenade toward the lift.

“You were going to show me something on the other side of the promenade,” Pip said.

“Indeed. Indeed.” We started to walk around the orbital core. The cool air felt lovely on my face and after only a few steps I felt quite revived. “It was stuffy in there, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“A bit, perhaps, yes.” Pip looked over at me. “Are you feeling any better?”

I took several deep breaths of the cool, refreshing air. “Yes. Quite. My head’s beginning to clear.”

“You had me going there for a while.”

I looked at him. “Had you going?”

We continued our stroll and he didn’t speak for several ticks, just bit his lower lip and glanced my way occasionally.

After we had covered maybe a quarter of the promenade he looked away from me and asked, “So what do you remember about our little visit?”

“Reginald somebody who’s sleeping with his au pair,” I said.

“Keep going,” he said.

Slowly, at first, then with greater speed, the evening replayed itself in my mind. “The aerosol,” I said.

Pip nodded and shrugged. He chewed his lower lip and his eyes fairly danced in his skull.

“You let me in there without any warning or preparation?”

“I told you about it,” he said.

I stopped in mid stride and shoved him up against the bulkhead. “Not until I was already half-gassed.”

Pip smiled at me. “Easy, big guy. You’re still half-gassed and I apologize. I should have given you the antidote, too.”

I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming. “There was an antidote?” The words came out in a hiss so angry I almost didn’t recognize my own voice.

Pip shrugged. “Of course.”

I leaned my head back and took a couple of deep breaths so I didn’t have to see his face. I was afraid I’d punch it in. “I’m still half-gassed,” I said to the overhead.

“Yeah. It’s almost over and I’m truly sorry, my friend. I had no idea you’d get hit so hard, so fast.”

I took a few more deep breaths, blowing them out from my diaphragm. With each breath, I felt more normal. More like myself. Less like some rampaging idiot. I swung around and propped my back against the solid bulkhead, pumping slow even breaths in and out of my lungs.

The evening played out in my head again. I started laughing.

“You all right?” Pip asked. I heard worry in his voice for the first time.

I managed to stop laughing long enough to gasp, “Yeah. I think so.” I took a few more deep breaths and shook my head, hilarity finally under control. “If you ever do that to me again, I swear I will drop you out of the nearest airlock.”

He grinned. “Fair deal. For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. That was a cheap trick.”

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I said.

“It doesn’t, but maybe this will make it up to you.”

I looked at him.

“Three hundred million,” he said.

“Three hundred million what?”

“Credits.”

I felt my knees weaken and had to push to prop them up. “That’s our take?”

He nodded. “One can. Three hundred million.”

“What’s the catch?”

“We only have to deliver it to Mel’s Place within eight weeks.”

“It’ll take us four to get out of Jett’s gravity well,” I said.

“You remember Margary?”

“Sure, what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Their orbital was on the outer edge of the system.”

I realized then what he was getting at. “They’re a mining station in the Deep Dark?”

“They’re almost into the Burleson limit. With any luck we’ll jump right into their front door.”

“That’s not as good as it sounds. We’ll still need to match orbits.”

“Yeah. We’d need a good navigator,” Pip said. “Somebody who can plot a course to the gates of hell and back again.”

“Do you think Reed can handle that?” I asked.

Pip stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Take a few more deep breaths and replay this conversation.”

“One of these days, I swear I’m going to strangle you.”

“Before or after you drop me out the nearest airlock?” he asked, grinning like it was all one big joke.

I closed my eyes and sagged against the bulkhead. “Al.”

“Al,” he said. “Good chance for her to pass on her skills to Reed.”

I took another deep breath and pushed off the bulkhead. “Come on. I want to see if my hunch was right.” I continued on around the promenade, Pip running a few steps to catch up with me.

We didn’t have to walk much farther. We came to the display windows of crystal clear armorglass. Behind them, pale cream and gray bands highlighted sculptures and paintings, tapestries and fiber art. I followed the curve of the promenade around, drawn by a new wonder at each step. We got to the closed and darkened entry. A simple sign above the door featured a single word in flowing script. “Christine’s.”

Pip looked up at the sign and then back at me.

“Yeah. It’s hers,” I said.

We stood there for what must have been several ticks until the display drew us on past the entry, where I reveled in the beauty and vision presented behind the armorglass. Even the glass itself contributing to the feeling of life protected.

We got to the end and stopped. I looked back along the curved glass and almost hated to keep going.

“Wow,” Pip said.

“Yeah.”

“She sailed with you for a stanyer?”

“Yeah.”

“And you walked away from her?”

I looked at him and considered. Had I? Finally, I shook my head. “No. She’s an amazing, brilliant, talented, powerful woman.”

“But?” he asked.

“But not for me.”

“You’re sure?”

I looked at the display again, running my hand down the smooth, cold glass. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

We started walking again. The lift wasn’t far. We’d be back on the ship soon.

“We should get something to eat before we go back,” Pip said.

“Sharps will have something stocked in the ready cooler.”

“Yeah, I know, but I need something else.”

“What? Beer?” I asked.

He laughed. “No, my system has had enough excitement for one day.”

I checked the chrono mounted in the bulkhead above the lift doors. “2300? How did it get so late?”

“We spent a lot more time at Aubergine’s than you think.”

“How can he get away with that?”

Pip shrugged. “It’s common practice in a lot of shops. Get you in. Get you to lose track of time. You’re more likely to buy something.”

“It’s not illegal?”

“Nope.” He shrugged. “Simon pushes the envelope but as long as nobody complains, he’ll keep doing it.”

“What if we complain?”

Pip looked at me. “Who would you complain to?”

“TIC?”

“CPJCT jurisdiction. As long as he’s not breaking any laws, they can’t do anything.”

“It’s not illegal?” I asked again.

“Nope.”

I pressed the call button and stepped back from the doors. “Doesn’t seem right.”

“It’s not right, but we’re not talking right or wrong here. We’re talking the law.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” I asked.

“Yes, but I think the last time you were the one telling me.”

The lift arrived and the doors opened on an empty car. We stepped in and I punched oh-two.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “That sounds like something I’d say.”

“It does.” Pip nodded his head. “You know what else is something you said?”

I laughed. “I’ve said a lot of things. Which one did you have in mind?”

He folded his hands behind his back and stared at the door. “Why does it have two nuts?”

Only the doors opening to an influx of rowdy spacers on the oh-two deck saved him from being strangled.

Chapter 12
Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

I found it difficult to sit in the cabin while the ship was docked. I had no place else to go, but wandering the ship felt a bit desperate. I could appreciate why Leon Rossett had taken to writing romance novels on the side. I had no real desire to go ashore, so I found myself sitting on the darkened bridge with a cup of coffee in the holder, looking aft at the traffic around the orbital. I told myself I was thinking. I might have been.

The orbital’s cargo lumpers had taken our can. Without it, the thin straw that made up the backbone shone starkly bright in the lights from the orbital and contrasted against the darkness beyond. Knowing it wasn’t actually white, regardless of what my eyes told me, made me smile.

While I watched, a team of jet jockeys wrestled a new can into place, practically at my feet. That would be the one going into the Deep Dark. The logistics of the operation felt fuzzy in my mind. Getting the can out was the easy part.

Getting a can back, not so much, and without a can, we wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Pip came up the ladder and started when he saw me sitting in the captain’s chair. “Ishmael. Eris take it, I didn’t expect to see anybody up here.”

“They’re bringing in the can now.”

“Yeah. I wanted to watch them latch it down.”

“You worried they’ll get it wrong?”

He shook his head. “First time I’ve ever taken on a cargo I couldn’t lift on my own.”

“The chief says she thinks we can jump seven BUs with a full load.”

“That’s almost as far as the Son,” Pip said.

“Real long legs for a Barbell.”

Pip brought out his tablet and flipped to a schematic of the ship. Each latch around the forward and aft nacelles showed red. As we watched, the latches turned green one by one until the whole can flashed green when the crew locked the final one into position.

“All we have to do now is deliver it,” Pip said.

“One more day of liberty and we’ll pull out at 0800 on the seventh,” I said.

“Can Reed handle the navigation?”

“If not, then I’m sure Al can help him out.”

A heavy step on the ladder made us both turn. “Al can help who out with what?” Al asked.

“Grand central station, up here,” I said.

“Mr. Reed with navigation,” Pip said.

“We got charts?” she asked.

“Pip thinks so,” I said.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to look for. If we don’t, we’ve got a huge problem.” I looked out at the can locked to the ship. “I don’t think they’d appreciate it if we back out of the deal now.”

Al shook her head and the steel bits in her eyebrows, nose, and lips flashed in the reflected light of the orbital at the bow. “Boys, boys. There’s an easy way to find out.” She crossed to the navigation console and fired it up. She threw a leg over the back of the seat and settled down to the keyboard. I crossed to look over her shoulder as she keyed in a few commands. “Mel’s?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Pip said.

She nodded, typed in a short string, and pulled the overlay out to show a wider range. A red spot blinked on the chart. “There it is.” She shrugged. “We’ve got the charts. Might need an update but we can get that from Mel’s.”

“How long to get there?” I asked, still feeling gun-shy over missing a deadline.

“Six weeks, probably,” Al said, cranking in some tools and taking a couple of rough measurements. “Yeah. About that. Most of it in Jett trying to get out.”

I felt somewhat better getting confirmation from Al. “All right then.”

“What are you going to do now, Skipper?” Al asked.

I shook my head. “Honestly? I don’t know. Reports are caught up and if I ever see another one I may just toss my console.”

“You know that one has come in while you’ve been moping up here, don’t you?” Pip asked.

“Moping?” I asked.

He grinned at Al. “What would you call it, Al? Sitting up here alone on the empty bridge staring out at the Deep Dark?”

Al smirked at Pip. “I’d call it trying to find a little peace and quiet,” she said.

“Yes, I know another one has come in,” I said. I looked at Al. “What do we need to do before we leave?”

“Crew-wise, we’re good. One more day of liberty will even out the sections in terms of work and play.”

“I hear a but,” I said.

“One of the officers has me worried,” Al said, glancing at Pip.

“You’re worried about Pip?” I asked. That was when I noticed they were both looking at me.

“Not exactly, Skipper,” Al said. “Perhaps we could take this discussion to the cabin? Away from big ears?” She glared at Pip.

“I’m the CEO, I should be in on this,” he said.

“He’s the captain and it’s ship’s business,” Al said, crossing her arms so her muscles flexed.

Pip heaved a dramatic sigh. “I thought you liked me.”

Al made a rude noise and started down the ladder. I followed, leaving Pip standing there, looking down at us, a very puzzled expression on his face.

Al stepped back and let me lead into the office. I closed the door behind her after she entered. “I know what you’re going to say, Al,” I said, taking my seat behind the desk and waving her into one of the visitor chairs.

She dropped into the seat and leaned back, crossing her legs. “You do?”

“I think so. You’re having trouble with an officer and you’re bringing it to me.”

“And?”

“And so the officer you’re having trouble with has to be me.”

She blinked a couple of times, but a smile threatened to break out around her teeth. “Egotistical much?” she asked.

I laughed. “Probably, but not in this case. I’ve watched you over the last few months. You manage people. You’re a genius at it. You need me to intercede with another officer as much as I need a third leg. Or a fourth one.”

“What if it’s the chief?” she asked.

“You’re just testing me now.”

“It’s you.”

“Spell it out for me, if you would.”

“You hide in the cabin. You don’t seem to take any joy in doing anything. You will—very occasionally—retreat to the bridge in the dark. You’re giving every sign of a deeply depressed person.”

“That caught my attention,” I said.

“I know you know about it. I’m worried that you’re not doing anything about it.”

“What should I do?” I asked, feeling the anger building at the back of my head. “It’s not like there are a lot of therapists on call out here.”

She did smile at me then—the kind of smile I didn’t see on her face very often. “You’re the captain. If I ever saw anybody born to be captain, you’re it.”

“What about Alys Giggone?”

“Don’t toy with me,” she said, but the smile never left her face. “Look around.”

The words tripped me up and I found myself unable to process. “Look around? Around where?”

“This compartment would be a good start,” she said. “The ship in a wider context might be a good second choice.”

She really was beginning to get under my skin. “Here? What am I supposed to look at in here? This is the cabin. There’s nothing here.” It was all I could do not to snap at her. I could feel the pressure building in my neck.

She didn’t answer, just widened her eyes at me.

“What? What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“You saw the cabin on the Lois,” she said.

“Of course.”

“Who lived there?” she asked.

“What kind of question is that?” My tone held more bite than I expected.

She arched an eyebrow and didn’t back down. “Just answer it.”

“Alys Giggone.”

“Who lived in the cabin on the Tinker?”

“Leon Rossett.”

“After him?”

“Frederica deGrut.”

“Who lived in the cabin on the Agamemnon?”

“Philip Delman. Where is this going?”

“Who lived in it after Delman?”

“I did.”

“There we go.” She sat back again although I’d never noticed her leaning toward me.

I looked down at my hands where they lay pressed to my console, palms flat against the metal, fingertips white against the strain. We sat like that for what might have been a long time.

“Look around,” she said, her voice quiet, coaxing.

I did. Blank walls. Default gray, out-of-the-box-panels, installed weeks ago in the yard. I looked up at the empty spot above my desk where my master’s license should have been. I hadn’t even done that.

“When was the last time you took a tour of the ship?” she asked.

I didn’t have to think back very hard. “The day the crew came aboard.”

“That strike you as a good thing?”

I looked up from my hands. Was it? I wasn’t sure any more. “You and the other officers don’t need me poking my head in every ten ticks.”

“I wouldn’t argue. When did you ever do that?”

“When the crew was coming aboard and getting settled. I was underfoot. It made me realize that I needed to take a step back. I needed to give you and Tom and Kim room.”

“Tell me about Fredi,” she said.

Just the woman’s name soothed the jangles down my back. “Amazing woman. Spectacular captain. She used to get on my case about being married to the station. I should have listened to her sooner.” I shrugged.

“She lived in the cabin on the Tinker.”

“She’d invite me for coffee or tea whenever I got back to the ship. Sometimes she’d kick my ass. Sometimes she’d pat me on the back. Sometimes both. Figuratively.”

Al smiled. “She lived in the cabin on the Tinker,” she said again.

I nodded. There was a knob in my throat I couldn’t seem to speak around.

“Tractors get such a bum rap,” she said. “That armorglass wrapped around the bow. What color was your cabin on the Agamemnon?”

“Blue. Two shades. I yanked the conference table out. Useless space. Put in two couches and a coffee table. Plenty of room for staff meetings. There weren’t that many of us.”

“You’re the captain, Ishmael. You’re allowed to live here.”

I looked around the cabin again. It was easier than looking at her.

“What do you miss the most?” she asked.

The images came unbidden. Sleep-dazed eyes and bed-tousled hair, the smiling lips still swollen from the night before. “That port on the Agamemnon,” I said.

Al didn’t call me on the fib. I knew she knew. I’d never been a good liar. We sat there, silent, for perhaps two ticks before she spoke again. “We need you, Ishmael.”

I sighed and looked across the desk at her.

“The crew needs to know you care,” she said. She made a show of looking around the stark walls before turning back to me. “If you don’t care for yourself, why should we believe you care for us?” She paused and smiled again. “My shrink used to say ‘fake it till you make it’ when I was dealing with depression. She told me to just go through the motions even if I didn’t believe it would help.”

“Did it? Help?”

“Just recognizing you’re in the hole helps more than you might expect. It opens the possibility that it wasn’t always like that and didn’t always have to be that way.”

The pressure in my head began subsiding as I considered her words. “Do you still fake it?” I asked.

She gave a small shrug. “Not as much now. Sometimes. I don’t expect it will ever go away entirely, but I can forget about it for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. I think I’m getting better.” She stood and knocked a knuckle against the surface of my console before heading for the door.

As she swung it open and stepped out into the passage, I finally found my voice. “Al?”

She looked back over her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“Just doin’ my job, Skipper.” She pulled the door closed until the latch clicked, leaving me sitting there contemplating the box that held me.

Chapter 13
Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

The Barbell’s cabin wasn’t that much bigger than a tractor’s. The easiest way to lighten it up would be with paint. It’s how I’d dealt with every other cabin. Before I visited the chandlery to get paint chips and order a paint crew, I had one other stop to make.

I ducked into the head and sluiced off a couple layers of misery under the shower before slipping into a pair of jeans, a polo, and my comfiest boots. I slung a jacket over my shoulders, slotting tablet and ident into the pockets as I left. I stopped at the door and looked back into the compartment. On one level I thought Al had been overreacting to the situation. On another, I knew she’d been exactly right. For nearly two decades, I’d lived to be in space. Longer, really. Ever since I shook the dust off my boots at Neris and launched myself into the unknown.

The Chernyakova’s cabin felt like a prison. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t. Rationally, when I was able to think about it rationally, I knew it was a symbol. It belonged to the ship and the crew. Looking in at the sterile, gray walls, I knew I’d let them down.

Inside, where rational thought carried no power, I knew I was fooling myself. Prettying the place up wasn’t going to make a single bit of difference. It made me remember Mal Gains’s question about a snake missing its shed skin. The question distracted me long enough to close the door and head for the brow. We’d be getting underway again soon. I hoped I’d have enough time to fix at least some of the damage.

I got off the lift on the eight-deck and made my way around to Christine’s. I admired the pieces in the display cases but hurried to enter before I changed my mind. A young woman wearing a smock top over jeans and sandals met me at the door with a smile. “Welcome to Christine’s.”

“Thank you.” The main entry felt small, almost intimate, with a few pieces on display in niches around the room. “I’m sorry to ask this but, you don’t use aerosols here, do you?”

She put her fingertips to her lips and stifled a small laugh. “We’re not Aubergine’s, sir. No. We don’t drug you to get your credits.”

“I didn’t think so. It didn’t seem like Ms. Maloney’s style.”

The young woman tilted her head and frowned. “You know her?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen her for some months, but yes. I’m a little surprised that she’s kept the gallery open.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Taking over the family business can be taxing.”

She put her fingers to her lips and laughed again. “Perhaps you don’t know her as well as you think.”

I stood there in the soft light, surrounded by beautiful pieces, and nodded. “And perhaps I’m not thinking as clearly as I thought.”

She looked alarmed. “I assure you, sir—”

I shook my head. “No, no. It’s something I brought with me. Not anything I’ve picked up here.”

She straightened and faced me. “Of course, sir. Is there something in particular you’d like to see?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I find myself afflicted with a dreadful case of blank walls.”

She smiled. “Do you have a style that you prefer?”

I thought about it for several moments, letting my eyes rest on a piece in the foyer. “Delight me,” I said. “Show me pieces that I can look at for stanyers.”

A smile graced her lips. When she turned to look around the gallery, I saw a smudge of paint on her left ear lobe. “Let’s see if there’s anything in here that will delight you,” she said and led the way into a side gallery.

I followed her through the galleries and halls for what felt like moments, but which consumed most of the afternoon. So many of the pieces spoke to me in languages I didn’t know, but none of them spoke the words I needed to hear. Several hours later we came to the end—or, more precisely, the beginning—when she led me back into the foyer.

“I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time. You must have other duties,” I said. “I haven’t purchased a single thing.”

She shook her head and smiled. “My job is to introduce people to the art in the gallery. Spending an afternoon with a new customer who doesn’t buy anything is no hardship.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve given me quite an education and I think I need to process a little before I go any further.”

She held out her hand. “It’s been my pleasure, sir. May I ask your name so I can tell Christine you called?”

“Ishmael.” The voice came from the entry.

I turned to see Christine Maloney standing in the door. The ice in me melted a little more, and I just stood there, drinking her in.

“Christine. I didn’t know you were on the orbital,” the young woman said.

“Just arrived. I wanted to be here for the Arts Gala next week. What brings you here of all places, Ishmael? I can’t believe it.”

“I have a new ship,” I said.

She blinked as if waking. “Oh, of course. The Chernyakova. The shipping news exploded when your name showed up connected to the company that bought her. Phoenix, was it?”

“Yes, Phoenix Freight. I’m surprised you remembered.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Risen from the ashes of Icarus? How could I forget? That was clever.”

I laughed a little laugh and looked at my boots for a moment. “There were a lot of ashes. More than enough.” I shrugged. “Speaking of Icarus. It’s going well?”

She clasped her hands in front of her face and shook her head. “It’s insane. I’ve had to buy three more Higbees just to keep up with the bookings.” She shook her head again. “Stacy will be so angry that she missed you. How long will you be here?”

“We got a can tied on today. We’ll be leaving at 0800 on the seventh.”

“How long have you been out of the yards? I thought that overhaul would take months.”

“It did. We jumped a can from Dree to Jett as a shakedown cruise.”

“Oh, very new.” Her eyes widened. “That’s why. You had to gut that ship.”

“Mostly. Yes.”

“Of course. You need something for the bulkheads in the cabin.” She looked at the young woman. “Dierdre, what have you shown him?” The excitement virtually sparkled off her in waves.

Dierdre laughed. “Everything. He’s been here since just after lunch and we’ve been through the whole place.”

“You didn’t buy anything, did you?” she asked, placing a hand on my arm.

“Sorry. No.”

“Good.”

Dierdre and I shared a look. Apparently neither of us knew what was happening.

“We don’t have much time, if you’re leaving day after tomorrow,” Christine said. “Are you doing anything now?”

“We were just finishing up,” I said. “I’ve no plans beyond going to the chandlery for paint chips. I’d hoped to find a few inspiration pieces to key from but I didn’t see anything that I felt I had to have.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not surprised. So? Give us a tour?”

“A tour?”

“Of the ship. Professional courtesy and all that.”

“Now?”

“If you’re not doing anything.” Christine turned to the young woman. “You need to come see this.”

“What about the gallery?” she asked.

Christine walked to the door and flipped a switch. “Closing early today. This is much more important for your work.” She stood by the door, one hand on the latch. “Well, Captain Wang? Show me your new girl?”

I laughed and it felt good. “I’ve missed you.”

She grinned. “I’ve missed you, too, but come on. We’ve got work to do.” She pulled the door open and nodded her head toward the promenade.

We made good time back to the ship. Christine maintained a running commentary for Dierdre’s benefit, regaling her with tales of refitting and refurnishing the Iris. I expected the memories to hurt more than they did. Hearing Christine Maloney waxing poetic about having her little restaurant in space made me smile.

I keyed the lock open and found Mr. Bentley at the brow. He stood and smiled as I climbed the ramp but his eyeballs practically bugged out of his head when Christine Maloney and Dierdre followed me aboard. “Mr. Bentley, would you log two guests aboard for me, please.”

“Of course, Captain.” He cracked the log and looked up at me.

“Ms. Christine Maloney.” I spelled Maloney for him. “And Dierdre.” I looked to the young woman. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your last name.”

“Oh,” she said, stepping up to the desk. “Darling.” She spelled it for him.

I looked at Christine with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” she asked. “Don’t be that way.”

“Well, ladies, this is one of the crew that sailed with us from Breakall before we had the ship overhauled. Able Spacer Virgil Bentley. Mr. Bentley, Christine Maloney and Dierdre Darling.”

“Ladies.” Bentley stood politely after closing the log. “Always a pleasure to meet the captain’s friends.”

Christine grinned at me and nodded to Bentley. “Charmed, Mr. Bentley.”

“I’ve promised them a brief tour of the ship. Would you give Ms. Fortuner my compliments and let her know we have guests aboard?”

“Aye, aye, Sar.”

I nodded toward the passage. “Well, now that you’ve seen the foyer, let me show you the dining room.”

Christine laughed and Dierdre appeared to be trying to look everywhere at once.

I took them up the passage and past the mess deck. We stopped so Christine could look in. “Dinner mess was over about a stan ago,” I said. “Most of the crew is probably ashore.”

“It’s a lot bigger than the Iris,” Christine said.

“You own a fleet of Barbells and you’ve never been aboard one?”

She shrugged. “I leave that stuff to Jarvis and he makes fun of my little boats.”

“You let him get away with that?”

“My little boats contribute more to the bottom line than his. I remind him of that every quarter.”

I heard a clattering of footsteps followed by a moment of silence before Ms. Fortuner strolled sedately around the corner. “Oh, good evening, Captain. Mr. Bentley informed me we had guests aboard.” She smiled at Christine and Dierdre.

“Christine Maloney, this is Third Mate Kimberly Fortuner. Ms. Fortuner, Christine Maloney.”

Ms. Fortuner’s eyes grew very round for a moment before she blinked them back into their sockets long enough to shake Christine’s hand.

“And may I present her colleague, Dierdre Darling. Dierdre, Third Mate Kimberly Fortuner.”

“You work here?” Dierdre asked, almost shyly.

Ms. Fortuner smiled and shook Dierdre’s hand. “I do, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“Would it be an imposition to peek into the galley?” Christine asked.

“Let’s see if Ms. Sharps is receiving guests,” I said.

Chapter 14
Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

We found Ms. Sharps staring into her tablet and Ms. Adams with her head in the cleaning locker. Sharps looked up when I stuck my head into the galley. “I have a couple of guests who’d like to see the galley, if that’s satisfactory, Ms. Sharps?”

“Of course, Captain.” She smiled.

Adams closed the locker door and turned to look.

I stepped through into the galley, followed by Christine and Dierdre. “Christine Maloney, this is Spec One Melanie Sharps and mess deck Attendant Rachel Adams. Ms. Sharps, Ms. Adams, this is Christine Maloney and her protégé, Dierdre Darling.”

Sharps’ eyes got round and she stared for a moment before extending a hand. “Ms. Maloney, it’s an honor.”

Christine smiled and shook the offered hand. “Thanks for letting us peek in, Chef.”

After the handshakes and greetings all around, we stood there for a moment while Christine’s gaze swept the immaculate space. “This feels huge,” she said.

Sharps looked around and shrugged. “We need to feed a couple dozen crew and half a dozen officers while underway. Takes a bit of space, sar.”

Christine shook her head, her eyes twinkling. “I’m just a spec one, same as you. My mess deck and galley is just one big compartment, but I only have to feed ten or a dozen at a time.”

Sharps frowned and cocked her head to the side. “Your mess deck? Aren’t you—that is, I thought—”

“Yes, I’m majority stockholder and chairman of the board of DST,” Christine said with a small shrug. “But I’m also the Spec One Chef on the Iris. It’s much more fun than hanging around Diurnia.”

Adams’ eyes bugged out and she wiped her hands on the sides of her shipsuit.

Sharps took a deep breath and straightened her spine a bit. “Well, this is where we do the work. I’ve got three freezers and a half dozen pantries. We’ve the capacity to feed the whole ship’s complement in one sitting, although watchstanders trade in and out. I couldn’t do it without Ms. Adams here and Mr. Franklin. He’s on liberty at the moment.”

Christine smiled and nodded to both Sharps and Adams. “Thank you, both. We won’t take up any more of your time. It’s fun to see another galley after spending so much time in mine. If we ever dock at the same station, you’ve a standing invitation to come visit. Both of you.”

“Thank you,” Sharps said. “Very generous. I’ve often wanted to see one of those love boats up close.” Her eyes grew round and she bit her lip. “Sorry. That slipped out.”

Christine laughed. “They’ve been called worse.” She nodded to me and led Dierdre out of the galley.

“Thank you, Ms. Sharps, Ms. Adams. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No problem, Skipper,” Ms. Sharps said. “I’m honored. It’s not every day I get to meet and greet the high and mighty.”

I chuckled and followed Christine out. I found them standing in the middle of the mess deck.

“This is where you got the idea for the table on the Iris?” Christine asked, waving a hand at the tables.

“No, that was inspired by the galley on a fast packet named the Bad Penny.”

She nodded. “Well, the cabin? We have work to do.”

I grinned and led her up the ladder to officer country.

When we got to the cabin, Christine winced. “How long has it been like this?”

“Since they put in the paneling,” I said.

“How long ago?”

“Couple of months.” I shrugged. “I could probably find the documentation if it matters.”

“How long were you on the Iris before you painted the cabin?” she asked.

“I don’t remember exactly. That whole thing happened so fast, it’s all rather a blur.”

She nodded and glanced at Dierdre. “What do you see here?”

“Gray,” she said. “Lots of gray.”

“What should be here?” Christine asked. “You spent the afternoon with Captain Wang. What would you do with this space if he asked you to decorate?”

Dierdre frowned and took a deep breath before scanning the room with a slow gaze. “May I?” she asked pointing to the door to his sleeping compartment.

“Of course,” I said.

She took the three steps into the next compartment and stood at the entry for several moments. She turned and came back out. “This space is hard. This room is the captain’s cabin?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s my bunk room and head in there.”

She nodded. “The bed sorta clued me in.” She grinned at him. “You have official functions here?” she pointed to the deck with both index fingers.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“This is his home, Dee,” Christine said. “All this space. He has some meetings here, usually small groups. One or two people. A ship this size has a wardroom?” Christine looked at me.

“Yes. We tend to use that for command meetings.”

“Is that what Frederica deGrut did?” she asked.

I thought about it. “Mostly, yes. It’s handy to the galley and has a seat for every officer and a few extras.”

She nodded and looked back at Dierdre. “We used the mess deck on the Iris for similar functions. This is his home. Think of it as a formal parlor. His bedroom and private space is in there.” She lifted her chin toward the sleeping compartment.

Dierdre nodded and her gaze started jumping around the room from the door to the desk to the small conference table and finally along the walls. “You have any objection to color?” she asked.

“Objection?” I asked.

“Some people don’t like color. They want neutral.” She waved a hand. “This is the opposite of color.”

“Tell me about this space,” Christine said.

Dierdre glanced at me.

“Forget him. Talk to me, Dee.”

“Dark. Oppressive. It’s cold and impersonal. Even the ceiling is gray. The floor is gray. The gray is too dark.” She looked at me again and shrugged. “What are you looking for?”

I looked at Christine who nodded at me. “I’m tired of living in a gray box. When we decorated the Iris, it came alive. I was hoping I’d find some inspiration at the gallery.”

“Did you see anything you liked?” Christine asked.

“Several pieces, but nothing that begged to come home with me.”

She looked at Dierdre. “Where’d he spend the most time?”

“The print gallery, actually,” she said.

“Interesting,” Christine said and looked at me. “Why the prints?”

“They’re big. They’d cover a lot of bulkhead,” I said.

“Several of them are active with slashes of high contrast colors,” she said.

“I was looking for an inspiration piece,” I said. “Like the fiber art we got for the Iris.”

Christine pursed her lips and gazed around the compartment. “Yeah. Not here. You’re not that kind of guy.” She raised an eyebrow and pulled a familiar shape out of a pocket, holding it up to the light. “You were this guy for a long time,” she said, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

I pulled out the seabird I’d taken from the Iris. “I’m not sure I’m this guy yet.”

Dierdre’s eyes all but bulged out of her skull. “Are those...?”

Christine nodded. “Yes. Captain Wang here has an extensive collection of whelkies. He gave me this one.”

Dierdre stepped closer to peer at Christine’s dolphin, burnished dark by the years I’d held it in my hand. I could almost feel it in my palm again. “This is exquisite,” Dierdre said. She turned to look at the seabird in my palm. “It’s a shearwater,” she said, surprise in her voice.

“Is it?” I asked. “I know it’s some kind of seabird, but not what kind. How do you know?”

“My mother works for Pirano Fisheries on Umber over in Dunsany Roads. I used to summer with her there.”

“I visited their orbital once,” I said. “Stanyers ago now.”

“Shearwaters were everywhere. They never seemed to land on the platforms except during nesting season,” Dierdre said. “I used to sit on Mother’s balcony and watch them for days. They’d hardly seem to move but sailed along on the prevailing winds.” Her finger sketched the shapes over the whelkie without actually touching it. “They have these long narrow wings and a tapered tail. It’s unmistakable.”

“There’s your theme, Ishmael,” Christine said, nodding at the whelkie in my hand.

“I didn’t see anything at the gallery that fits that theme,” I said. “Did I?”

“Depends on how you visualize the theme,” Christine said and looked at Dierdre. “Spin me a story about this room.”

Dierdre nodded and began a slow spin. “Leave the floor this dark gray for now. Ceiling needs to be lighter. Maybe alice blue or azure.”

“Not sky?” Christine asked.

Dierdre shook her head. “The walls asparagus green except that short wall by the door. Make that something that pops, like a teal.”

“Too bright,” Christine said.

Dierdre stopped and squinted her eyes at the bulkhead in question. “Drop the saturation a few degrees. I want deep water there as accent.”

“Style?” Christine asked.

Dierdre shook her head. “We don’t have anything in the gallery at the moment.” She considered the long bulkhead beside the desk. “We could do something clever with a mural. Take the outline of a shearwater and lay it on in a smoke white along there.” She waved her hands toward the bulkhead as if stroking her vision onto the bulkhead by force of will.

“What about in there?” I asked, pointing at the sleeping compartment.

“Carry the color scheme in. Ceiling, main green. Add a deeper blue-green for the wall by the bathroom. If we do a mural on this wall, we could replicate the shape in a smaller scale in there.”

Christine’s gaze swept the room again and she nodded slowly. “Yes. Neutral enough that almost anything would go on it.”

“Reds and browns would pop. Lighter greens and blues would make it monochromatic,” Dierdre said. “I think it would work.”

Christine looked at me. “Do you think it would work?”

I tried to visualize it and failed. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be any worse than these default gray panels.”

“You’re hesitating, Ishmael,” Christine said. “What are you thinking?”

“We have tonight and tomorrow to get this done.”

“Two stans, tops,” Christine said. She waved a hand. “There’s nothing here to get in the way of a paint crew. If I didn’t know better, I’d say nobody lived in here.” She smiled at me, a sad little smile.

“We could have the base coat in tonight and do the mural tomorrow,” Dierdre said.

“We who?” I asked.

“Have you forgotten how to paint a bulkhead?” Christine asked.

Chapter 15
Jett Orbital: 2375, April 6

Mid-morning found me staring at the sea-green bulkheads and wondering how long it would take to scrub the paint smell out of the air. “It’s subtle,” I said.

Christine finished pulling the arc of tape off the fresh paint and balled it into a sticky mass. She raised an eyebrow at me before stepping back to admire our handiwork. “I suppose,” she said. “I’m not sure I’d call a three-meter-long shearwater ‘subtle’ but I’m not you.”

I grinned. “From a distance, probably not. Up close, it’s going to be too big to actually make out.”

Dierdre pushed a strand of hair back from her face with the back of her wrist and nodded. “He’s right. Do you like it?” She looked at me.

“Very much.”

“It’s still dark,” Christine said. “The blue ceiling helps.”

“You don’t think it’s too cold,” Dierdre asked, looking up and then down at the gray decking.

“I don’t,” I said. “It feels ...” I had to stop and think what it felt like. “Right,” I said at last.

Christine smiled at me. “Good. It should be dry in a couple more stans.” She rummaged in a pocket of her slacks and pulled out a small package, tossing it to me. “Catch!”

I snagged it and found I held an unmarked strip of metal. I frowned at it, trying to figure out what it was.

“It’s a magnet. When the paint’s dry, use that to hang up your license.” Christine lifted her chin in the direction of the blank spot over my desk. “Should work.”

I recognized it then and smiled at her. “Thanks.”

Al knocked on the open door frame and stuck her head in.

“First Mate Alberta Ross, I’d like you to meet Christine Maloney and her protégé, Dierdre Darling. They’ve been helping me decorate.”

Al grinned at me and nodded to the two women. Her gaze raked the bulkheads and took in the brightly colored overhead. “I love it.”

“Better than the gray box?” I asked.

Al winked at me. “Much better, Skipper.” She looked at Christine. “Here for the Gala, Ms. Maloney?”

“I am. Just getting in a little field work before I have to dig into the organizing committee review.”

I felt my jaw open on its hinges.

Al looked at me and drew herself up. “What? You think I don’t follow what’s happening in the quadrant?”

My teeth clicked when I snapped my jaw closed. “Not at all. I just never thought of you following the art scene.”

Dierdre ducked her head and Christine laughed. “You’re being provincial, Ishmael. My father started the Gala and DST’s simply continuing the tradition.” She looked at Al. “Have you submitted any pieces, Ms. Ross?”

Al’s eyes bulged slightly and she glanced at me. “Uh. No. Not this time around. No. Been busy getting the ship ready.” She looked at the deck. “Next season, maybe.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing them,” Christine said.

“Is there something you need, Al?” I bit back the question I wanted to ask.

“Chief said we’re ready to get underway as soon as the crew’s aboard. I’ve been working with Mr. Reed on the navigation.” She gave a kind of nod toward Christine and Dierdre. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“We need to get going, Ishmael,” Christine said. “I’ve got work to do and I’m sure you’ve got ship’s business to attend to.”

“Thank you for this,” I said, waving my hand around at the bulkheads. “You and Dierdre really got me out of a bind. Bill the ship for the service, will you?”

Christine smirked and Dierdre grinned.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” Christine said.

“Can I escort you out, Ms. Maloney?” Al asked, glancing at me.

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. I’d be delighted.” Christine nodded to me with a sly wink. “When will you be getting underway?”

“Probably after breakfast mess tomorrow,” I said.

She nodded again. “Safe voyage, Ishmael.”

“Safe voyage, Christine. My love to Stacy.”

Al stepped aside to let Christine and Dierdre leave.

“Would you see me when you’re done, Al?” I asked.

The look she gave me carried plenty of warning. “Aye, aye, Skipper. Couple of ticks?”

“No rush.”

She closed the door behind her as she left.

I took my seat behind the desk and pulled up my ship’s status screen, thumbing through the departmental reports and signing as I went. Pre-launch routine. We’d do a verbal followup at breakfast mess, but the activity distracted me and I wondered—not for the first time—what Pip had gotten me into.

I was only about halfway through when the knock came. “Come in,” I said.

Al ducked into the cabin and plunked herself down in one of the visitors’ chairs. “You wanted to see me, Skipper?” She glanced up at the gray outline on the wall.

I snorted. “Yeah. I wanted to thank you for the suggestion that I get my head out of my butt.”

She slouched down and folded one leg over her other knee. “I hope all this means you’re going to get out and wander around the ship a bit.” She waved a hand at the bulkheads.

“Yeah. I’ll be making the rounds.” I looked down at my desk. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to her. “Navigation?”

“Tom’s got it. We’re going to need to make three jumps to get to Mel’s and we’ll bleed off some velocity in the dark. Should be no longer than six weeks. Probably less.”

“Less? It’s going to take five weeks to get to the Burleson limit.”

She shook her head. “Four weeks, tops. We’ll get out far enough to satisfy the CPJCT regs but we’re going to make a short jump closer in and going slower than normal.”

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize it. “We’ll start slower and jump sooner.” The solution snapped into place. “The Burlesons,” I said, and opened my eyes.

“Exactly. We’ll have a hell of a load on, but we’ve got muscle in the back now. They can handle the load for a shortish jump. We’ve plotted half a BU for the first leg and we’ll be carrying a lot less velocity into the Dark than normal.”

“So we don’t have quite so much to lose on the other end.”

She nodded. “We’re also going to jump into an interim system and drop as much as we can there before we make the final leg into Mel’s. We’ll have plenty of fuel and use the kickers to match orbits. If we do it right, should be only a few days, maybe a week in-system on that end.”

“And we’ve got time to spare.”

Al nodded. “That we do.” She looked around the room. “It’s not that much difference, but it’s a lot better.”

“The colors aren’t actually gray,” I said.

She grinned. “No, but I like them.” She stood up and stepped back from the bulkhead. “That’s your whelkie, isn’t it?”

“Dierdre identified it as a shearwater. We used it as a theme.”

Al nodded, slowly at first but more firmly. “Sky above. Gray water below. Sea green with the solitary bird.”

“That’s a bit much,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow at me. “If you say so, Skipper.” She tilted her chin at the spot above my desk. “You finally going to hang that license?”

I picked the magnet Christine had given me off the desk and held it up. “Soon as the paint’s dry.”

She blessed me with one of her brilliant smiles. “Need me for anything else?”

I shook my head. “We’re done.”

She started for the door but stopped with a hand on the latch. She spoke over her shoulder without turning around. “You don’t wanna ask about the Art Gala?”

“Someday, maybe.”

She twisted her neck farther so she could look at me. “Fair enough. Thank you.”

I shook my head. “Thank you, Al.” I tossed the magnet a couple of times in the palm of my hand. “For everything.”

She snorted, and I could have sworn she muttered “Any time, Boy Toy” as she left.

Chapter 16
Jett System: 2375, April 7

We secured from navigation stations just before lunch mess. The undocking and departure fell right into place. As the tug gave us a little extra push over the safety perimeter, I wondered if their skipper knew where we were really headed. The manifest said we were heading for Blanchard in Venitz. I also wondered if we’d ever get there.

Ms. Sharps delivered a wonderful lunch of quiche and fresh greens, with a vanilla pudding for dessert. It left me sated but not stuffed, a feeling I greatly appreciated as I sat back in my chair and scanned the table. Al’s seat remained empty. She had first watch and I knew one of the stewards had taken a tray up to the bridge. I noticed that everybody else was looking at me.

“Well?” I asked. “Any issues?” I looked at Chief Stevens.

“None in engineering yet,” she said. “Overhaul seems to be holding together.”

I turned to Tom Reed, our second mate. “How’s it look from your end?”

Reed shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “I’m having to adjust my thinking a bit, Skipper, but I’ll confess that I’m finding it way too interesting to worry about whatever rules we may be breaking.”

Pip cleared his throat loudly and looked to me.

I nodded.

“Actually, we’re not breaking any regulations,” he said.

Ms. Fortuner looked up at that. “I thought we were smuggling stuff into the Deep Dark.”

Chief Stevens chuckled. “Not exactly,” she said. “We’re taking a can out to a Toe-Hold station that has no recognized standing with the CPJCT, but there’s no regulation against doing that. We just can’t dock with a can that’s not recognized as coming from a CPJCT port.”

“But we can’t even lay in a course to a Toe-Hold station,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Actually,” Mr. Reed said, leaning over toward her. “Actually, we can lay in the course. We just can’t file a flight plan for one.”

Ms. Fortuner blinked a couple of times. “So we can go there as long as we don’t tell them?”

Chief Stevens smiled and nodded. “Basically.”

“All right,” Ms. Fortuner said, looking back and forth between me, the chief, and Pip. “We take this can out to this place and drop it. How do we get back?”

Pip nodded and raised his coffee mug in a toast. “Excellent question. The answer is we have to smuggle a can back in from Toe-Hold space when we want to go back.”

“When we want to go back?” she asked.

“We can carry whatever we like for as long as we want as long as we stay in Toe-Hold space,” Pip said. “I’m hoping to develop some lucrative business connections for Phoenix Freight before we head back to CPJCT space.”

“How long will that be?” Fortuner asked, looking at me.

“A few months, probably,” I said.

“A few months?”

“It’s not that much different from our normal trips,” Pip said. “The stations are a little different than you’re used to seeing. They’re not all standardized. Sometimes they look more like factories than tin cans.”

“Most of them are factories,” Chief Stevens added.

Ms. Fortuner looked at me again. “Have you ever been to this Toe-Hold space, Captain?”

“No, Ms. Fortuner, I haven’t. First time for me.”

“I have,” the chief said, smiling. “Many times. Met my third husband at Bar None.” She paused and tilted her head a bit. “Or was it my second. No matter. The thing to remember is that these stations have been here longer than CPJCT orbitals. Without them, the CPJCT wouldn’t have had the foundation to set up the Western Annex.”

“I feel like I’ve missed out on something,” Ms. Fortuner. “Like there’s some compartment on the ship that I never knew existed.”

“Welcome to my world, Ms. Fortuner,” I said.

“Surely, they covered it at the academy,” the chief said. “History of the Diaspora. Second term?”

Ms. Fortuner blinked several times and stared into her coffee mug. “Possibly,” she said at last. “I was a bit of a mess that term.” She looked up at us. “Long story, but now that you mention it, they talked about some ancient history. The guy Port Newmar was named for. That stuff?”

Chief Stevens laughed. “Yes, Ms. Fortuner. That stuff.”

“I thought those were all just stories.”

“They are,” Pip said. “They just happen to be true and the stations are still there.”

“Why doesn’t CPJCT want us to go there?” she asked.

Pip and the chief shared a glance. “That’s a really long story,” the chief said. “The short answer is money and politics. The longer answer should probably wait until we have time and few beers.”

Ms. Fortuner seemed to examine the chief’s face, her brow furrowed in concentration. She looked at Pip, who smiled at her, and then at me. I don’t know what she saw in our faces, but she shrugged. “They have beer at this station?”

Pip laughed. “They have beer at all the stations. Some good. Some not so good. But beer.”

I heard footsteps in the pantry. “We should probably vacate so Ms. Adams can clear.” I took the last drag off my coffee cup and stood. “See you round the docks.” I left the wardroom door open as I left and headed for the cabin.

When I got to the top of the ladder in officer country, I stopped with my hand on the latch of the cabin door and looked at the ladder that went up to the bridge. “No time like the present,” I muttered and continued on up.

Al grinned at me when I stepped onto the bridge. “Captain on the bridge.”

“As you were,” I said. “Not like I haven’t been here before.”

She laughed. “No and you’ll be here again, I’m sure.”

“How’s she handling, Ms. Torkelson?” I asked.

“Like a brick, sar.” She glanced over my shoulder. “A very solid brick.”

I wandered toward the front of the bridge and stared out at the stars ahead of us. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sar. It certainly is.”

“Anything interesting happening, Ms. Ross?”

“Seems like the ship’s getting back to normal, Skipper.” I turned to see her grin glowing in the light of her console.

“Good to hear, Ms. Ross.” I smiled back and nodded to Ms. Torkelson. “I’ll get out of your way.”

As I dropped down the ladder, Al said, “Any time, Skipper. Any time.”

I wandered aft along the spine, trying to remember how many times I’d made the journey on the Tinker. It felt odd, trying to bring those memories back. Newer memories seemed so much fresher. I’d spent the better part of twenty stanyers on the Tinker. The two stanyers aboard the Agamemnon and the Iris seemed much more vibrant, more real. In spite of that I marked the Visual Site Inspection status stations without having to think of them. Sometime before too long or perhaps recently, one of the Environmental Section crew would have checked these off on their long walk around the ship, much as I had done so long ago on the Lois. I got to the engineering end before realizing that I hadn’t thought of the dead messenger on my way through the spine. I stopped and looked back down the long passageway, clean and gleaming with new paint and fresh decking. Perhaps the ghosts had been exorcised in the yard after all.

I found the chief in her office. She looked up from her console with a grin. “Stretching your legs?”

“Just seeing if I can find my way around,” I said.

She nodded. “Anything I can help with?”

“Wanna give me the tour?”

“Love to.” She tapped a couple of keys on her console before securing it and coming around the desk. “You probably know your way around as well as I do.”

I had to grant her the point. I just shrugged. “I’d like your take on what’s back here now that we’ve had a chance to get it shaken out a bit.”

She shot me a sideways glance and a smile. “Of course.”

We stuck our heads into Engineering Central, surprising Wicklund and Wallace in mid-discussion about something—discussion that chopped off when Wicklund said, “Captain on deck.”

“As you were,” I said. “Let’s keep the formalities to a minimum, shall we?”

“Aye, aye, sar,” they both said.

I glanced at the chief.

“They’re not used to seeing you this far aft, Captain,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “The cabin’s getting a bit cramped. Figured I better move around a bit more.”

The chief smirked and led me down the ladder to the engine room. “Al got to you, I take it?”

“Yeah. You might say that.”

“I smelled the paint. Are you ready to show it off yet?”

“Stop by after dinner mess. It should be dry by then.” I nodded at the scrubbers as we walked by the cabinets. “Have they settled in?”

The chief patted the case. “No worries there, Skipper. We rotated cartridges about twice as often as we needed to and got them on a good rotation. We’ve got spares for a couple stanyers.”

I stopped between the two big Burleson drives and looked forward the length of the engine room. “Think we’ll need that many?”

She shrugged. “Rather have ’em and not need ’em.”

“Can’t argue that.” My gaze traveled along the lines of the fusactors hulking along the port side.

“You looking for something, Captain?” Chief Stevens’s voice barely reached my ears over the sound of the blowers.

I looked at her and shrugged. “Yeah. Aren’t we all?”

She snorted a laugh. “Don’t start getting all existential on me. I’m old enough to be your great-grandmother. That’s a fool’s question. You know the answer and you’re no fool.”

“I’m wondering what Alys Giggone did on the Lois,” I said.

“In what way?”

“That was a big crew. We all knew her, as much as any crew can know an officer.”

The chief nodded. “Do you think you really knew her? Or just the image that she wanted to project?”

I looked down at the skid panels on the deck and thought about it, running the toe of my boot over the nubs. “I don’t know.”

“Something to think about,” the chief said. “One memory that comes back to you about her?”

“Meeting her in civvies at a flea market one time.”

“What makes that stand out?”

“She was a captain out of uniform as much as when she was in one.”

She clapped me on the back of the shoulder with a mischievous smile. “So are you, Ishmael. Give yourself a chance to heal, but have a little faith in yourself. I’ve got reports to do. You know where to find me if you need anything.” She headed off toward the ladder, leaving me there looking at the massive machines that let us sail between stars.

Chapter 17
Jett System: 2375, April 28

We called the crew to navigation stations for the jump just after lunch mess. I made Mr. Reed go over the jump calculations with me twice. The system parameters all checked out and I found no good reason to postpone the jump. My inner astrogator said we were jumping too close, but Al and Mr. Reed convinced me—after much math wrangling and many simulation runs—that what we were doing was perfectly safe, if not exactly within the CPJCT orthodoxy.

Chief Stevens cast the final straw on the pile when she pointed out that none of the Barbells I’d ever sailed had had the Burleson drives needed to pull it off. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, your standard three-BU limit gets you where you need to be,” she said over coffee in the cabin one night. “The normal production Barbells do what they need to do in the most economical package. We aren’t sailing a standard Barbell. We have the legs—and the need for them—to do long-haul freight in ways that a production Barbell can’t. We’re just using the legs this ship has to carve some time off the outbound leg. We’ll do the same thing on the other end.”

I must not have looked convinced.

She winked at me. “Trust me to know how the drives work.”

So we went to navigation stations in the early afternoon and prepared to jump a fully loaded Barbell into what I hoped was empty space, half a Burleson Unit into the Deep Dark.

“Captain?” Al said. “Shall we go somewhere else?”

I glanced at her and then back over my shoulder at the system astern. “Let’s.” I faced forward again and settled down in my chair.“Mr. Reed, the captain would like to go to somewhere else this afternoon. What say you?” Al asked.

“Course plotted and locked, Ms. Ross. Ship dead on course.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Systems, are we ready to jump?” Al asked.

“Systems green for jump once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said from her console.

“Astrogation, are we ready to jump?”

“Astrogation is green for jump twice, Ms. Ross.”

“Chief?”

“Engineering reports green for jump, Ms. Ross. Ship is green for jump thrice.”

“Thank you, Chief. The ship is green for go thrice, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

Mr. Reed punched the button and we jumped. “Jump complete,” he said. “Position and vector confirmed. Logged at 2375, April 28 at 1427.” He flipped a couple of windows aside. “We’re a little more than half a BU away from Jett. We are within one percent of target position and on course for main jump.”

“Chief?” Al asked. “Burleson status.”

“Burlesons charged and ready for main jump.”

“We are ready for main jump, Captain. At your command,” Al said.

“Let’s do it again, Mr. Reed. Ready about—hard a-lee.”

When Reed punched the button, the star pattern shifted noticeably but no system primary showed ahead. The dim, brown dwarf star at the heart of the system didn’t shine brightly enough to show up to the naked eye.

“Position, Mr. Reed?” Al asked.

“Validation. Mark’s Star. We are on course and within two percent of target position. Logged at 2375, April 28 at 1431.”

“Chief?” Al asked.

“We’ve enough for one more,” she said.

“Mr. Reed, do you have the next jump?” Al asked.

“Jump plotted and locked. Ready for jump.”

“At your command, Captain,” Al said.

“Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

Reed punched the button again and the shift from darkness to brilliance almost looked like somebody had flipped a light switch in the bridge. A red giant star gleamed against the backdrop of the Deep Dark a few degrees off the port bow. Glowing swaths of red and green gauze arched across the sky, blocking the light from distant stars and bathing the bridge in a soft glow. It wasn’t bright enough to read by, but after days in the near-darkness of the outer Jett system, it glowed on every face on the bridge.

“Position validation,” Reed said. “The Cobwebs. We are plus three percent on target and a few degrees off final course to Mel’s Place. Logged at 2375, April 28 at 1433.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed.” Al looked at the chief. “Chief Stevens?”

“Capacitors charging. Full in two stans.”

“Mr. Reed, if you’d feed course corrections to helm?”

“Aye, aye. Course corrections to helm.” He selected some data on his screen and clicked it. “Course corrections to helm.”

“Helm?” Al asked.

“Course plot locked. Ship responding to helm,” Ms. Torkelson said.

“Estimated time to position for next jump, Mr. Reed?” Al asked.

“Three stans, Ms. Ross. Maybe a little less if the winds hold.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Captain, the ship has completed planned jumps.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Secure from navigation stations. Pass the word that we’ll make our final jump into Mel’s Place after the dinner mess,” I said.

Al made the announcements and I stood up from my chair. “Thank you, everyone. Good work.”

I left the bridge, dropping down to officer country.

Able Spacer Bentley stepped back from the foot of the ladder to make way. “Afternoon, Skipper,” he said. “Clear sailing up there?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bentley. It’s gorgeous.” I ducked into the cabin and wished—not for the first time—that the Barbell’s cabin came with armorglass ports. The Cobwebs were spectacular. I had a feeling I’d be spending much of the afternoon inspecting the bridge, just so I could look out.

I heard three raps on the door.

“Come.”

Al stuck her head in. “Gotta minute, Skipper?”

I waved a hand at a visitors’ chair and plunked down on my side of the desk.

Al came in and latched the door behind her before sitting. “How you doin’, Skipper?”

I felt my eyebrows rising. “All right, I think. Why?”

She shrugged. “You’ve been busy the last couple of weeks. We really haven’t had a chance to touch base.” She turned to look at the shearwater on the wall. “You and the chief argued pretty hard about the short jump.”

“I’m having to adjust a lot of my thinking this trip,” I said.

“Have you talked to Pip lately?”

“Other than meals in the wardroom?” I shook my head. “Why?”

“Wondered if you had any better idea about what he’s really doing out here.”

“It’s something with the astrogation database.”

Al looked back at me, her brow furrowed. “How does that work?”

“When we broke in back at Dree, he only wanted to know if this ship had Toe-Hold stations in the database. We identified Odin’s Outpost and a couple of places he recognized over in Dunsany Roads. After that, he was happy to give the ship back to the caretakers.”

“You broke in?” Her brow wrinkled in the other direction as her eyes got wide.

“Well, mostly we conned our way aboard by pretending to be the relief crew and arriving early.”

Al sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers in front of her mouth.

“What?” I asked.

“He talked you into it?”

“Of course. I’d already been aboard. I knew what the ship was like inside.”

“He convinced you to do it so he’d be able to judge for himself?” One eye brow arched. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“He thinks he did, yeah.”

“He thinks he did what?”

“He thinks he convinced me to sneak aboard so he could look for himself.”

“He didn’t?”

“Not so much. I went along with him, sure. Mostly I was interested in what he was looking for. Or at. He really didn’t need to see the condition of the ship to put his deal together to buy it.”

“Have you pinned him down?”

“You ever try to rivet gelatin?”

She snorted.

“I’ve some suspicions but mostly I don’t know enough about Toe-Hold space to make any real guesses.”

“Care to share?”

“There’s someplace he’s looking for. He thinks this ship might have been there.”

She leaned forward at that, resting her elbows on her knees. “Any idea what?”

I shook my head. “It’s a place. Maybe a thing at a place, but the place is the key.”

“Why?”

“Astrogation data. He was blowing smoke about not having access to the Toe-Hold astrogation data and needing to see if this ship had the charts.”

She frowned. “You bought that?”

“Six months ago I didn’t even know Toe-Hold was a real place.”

“More like real places.” She glanced down and then back up at me. “You know, those charts are really easy to come by, right?”

“I do now. I didn’t then.”

“So why is he looking for a place?”

“Hunch. He wasn’t looking for Toe-Hold charts. If I had to guess, he’s already got a full set on a thumb drive in his grav trunk.”

She raised that eyebrow again.

“Think about it. He’s been running his own fast packet around the Western Annex for almost two decades. Jumping through the Deep Dark is practically his family’s business model. If anybody knows his way around Toe-Hold space, I’d bet on Thomas Carstairs.”

“Pip’s father?”

“Yeah. The whole family, probably. They all run fast packets. I never got the impression from Pip, but just considering the scope of his operation? They’re doing well. We turned a profit just on the run from Port Newmar back through Diurnia to Breakall. He wasn’t even trying and he scored something like five kilos of diamonds.”

“That’s not that many industrial diamonds,” Al said. “You know they make them now, right?” She gave me a crooked grin.

“Jewel grade.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she looked across the desk. “Five kilos of jewel-grade diamonds?”

“That’s what he said.”

“You believed him?”

“Doesn’t matter. It was a box that looked like it could hold five kilos of jewel-grade diamonds, and he collected a payment from a broker on Breakall for the delivery. Coulda been data. Coulda been drugs, for all I know.”

Al shook her head and ran a hand over her scalp. “Why this ship?” She stared down at the deck between her boots.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“If he already has the charts, any ship would do,” Al said.

“Not quite.”

Her head came up like it was on a spring. “Not quite?”

“What if it’s not a regular Toe-Hold?”

Her eyes got very large and round. “You think he’s looking for a secret base or something?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think he needed Toe-Hold charts. I don’t think he was looking for just any ship. I think he was looking to see if this ship was the one he needed. Something in the astrogation database convinced him.”

She chuckled and looked back at the deck. “Will you ask him about it?”

“Wouldn’t do any good. He’d just tell us a story.”

Her head bobbed up and down a couple of times. “Does it bother you?”

“Which part?”

“That you don’t know where he’s taking you.”

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know what it meant even if I did know where we were going.”

She looked up again. “What it meant?”

“I know where we’re going. In a few stans we’re jumping into a system called Mel’s Place.”

“Yeah. And?”

“And what’s Mel’s Place? I don’t expect there to be an orbital. I’m told there’s a system primary and some belts. There’s a station, but it’s not CPJCT. What is it?”

“Well.” Al sighed. “It’s a private station. Mel Colby established it back in the day. Must be close to two centuries ago, now. Last I heard her great-grandson was running the place.”

I felt a laugh bubbling up. “That’s what I mean. How does that even work?”

Al looked at me again. “You’ll see when you get there.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And until I get there, being told won’t matter much.”

She pursed her lips and her head bobbed again. “So having Pip tell you what he’s looking for wouldn’t make much difference to you.”

“Yeah. In the first place, he’d probably spin some yarn that’s only half the story. In the second, it’s likely to be incomprehensible even if he told me the whole truth. I’ll just have to wait and see.”

“What if it’s dangerous?”

“What he’s looking for?” I asked.

She nodded.

“We’re not exactly in a battleship here.”

“That’s my point,” she said.

“The ship has been there before. It survived then.”

She frowned. “How do you figure that?”

I held up a finger. “He’s looking for someplace in Toe-Hold space.” I held up a second finger. “It’s not on the normal charts.” I held up a third finger. “He wanted this particular ship.” I held up a fourth finger. “The only way this ship would have the astrogation data necessary to get there is if it had already been there at least once.”

“You’re thinking it recorded the location when it jumped to it?”

I shrugged. “Makes sense.”

“What if it’s not actually real? Just a data point that somebody loaded to gyp fortune hunters.”

“It could be that, too.”

A slow smile crept across her face. “And you’re just going to wait and see.”

“That’s my plan.”

Al sat back in her seat, letting her hands drop into her lap. “You’re not chasing Patterson?”

I shrugged. “I’m guessing that Patterson will find me.”

She laughed. “Because Pip.”

“Because Pip.”

“What’ll you do when you find him?”

“When he finds me?” I asked.

“Or that,” she said.

“Pip seems to think I want revenge.”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know.” I flattened my palms against the desk and stared at the smooth surface between my fingers. “He got away with murder. I’d like to see him brought to justice.”

“You know that’s not likely, right?” Al asked.

I nodded without looking up.

“Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“I don’t think I’m there yet.” I looked up at her. “I’m mostly numb. At least when it comes to that.” I paused for a moment and changed the subject. “Artwork?”

A wash of color slid up the sides of her neck. “What about it?”

“I didn’t know you were an artist. What media?”

“Paint some. Draw a lot. Ink doesn’t need much mass and pens are cheap. Paper is always a challenge.”

“Is that what you submit to the Arts Gala in Jett?”

“I’ve submitted paintings. A few sketches and some pen and ink.” She picked at the side of her left thumb with the fingers of her right hand. “It’s relaxing.”

“Can I see some of your work?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t got anything on me. Left it in storage at Breakall.” She glanced up at me. “Wasn’t sure we’d make it to Dree and haven’t had a chance to get it.”

“How long were you ashore in Breakall before we came along?”

“Two months.” She shrugged and shook her head. “I wasn’t really looking. I coulda bought passage to Diurnia. If it came to that.”

“You just decided to hang out?”

She gave me a weak smile. “I needed a break. Never really bonded with the last crew. Too many skippers who wanted something I’m not.” She shrugged again. “I gave up my berth and went ashore at Breakall. Don’t know why there. Just felt right.”

Somebody tapped on the door.

“Come.”

Chief Stevens stuck her head in. “Am I interrupting?”

I shook my head and Al stood up. “I’m just leaving,” she said.

The chief came in and held the door for Al, who closed it on her way out.

“Are we all right?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

She came in and lowered herself to the chair. “You seem a bit subdued.”

“I am. I’m off balance and still trying to find my place in the universe.” I grinned at her. “More figuratively than literally in this case, but Toe-Hold space hasn’t added much to my stability.”

“You know I’d never advise you to jump if there was any hint of danger, right?”

“I know. It just runs counter to everything I know or thought I knew.”

She nodded. “Being aboard this ship can’t be helping.”

I looked around the cabin. “I think I’m coming to terms with that part of it. The refit helped.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said and bounced to her feet. “I just wanted to check in.”

“Thanks, Chief. We’re good. I’d tell you if we had a problem.”

She nodded and smiled so hard her face wrinkled all the way up to her scalp.

After she left I sat there for several more ticks thinking about the conversation. I wondered if my feeling off-balance was because we were heading into a region I had no knowledge about, or because I brought the off-balance feeling with me.

Chapter 18
Viceroy System: 2375, April 28

We jumped into Viceroy early in the evening watch, just after dinner mess. I don’t know what I expected but given the completely routine jump into the outer edges of a nondescript system, I suspect what I didn’t expect was that it was—frankly—completely normal. The system primary burned a little hotter than most CPJCT systems. The effect pushed the Goldilocks zone outward a bit. It was also rather energetic, which gave the sails a lot of bite. The place reminded me of Margary with the station well out from the primary and positioned above the outermost belt. It orbited the primary instead of a planet—at least according to the system data. We dropped into the system too far out to see it.

“How’s it look, Mr. Reed?”

“I plot us docked within twelve days, Captain.”

“Should be plenty of time,” I said. “Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross.”

“Secure from navigation stations, aye, aye.”

I slipped down the ladder to officer country and ducked into the cabin. It had been a tense day for me. I wasn’t comfortable jumping into strange stations. The whole thing set me off.

I’d no sooner plopped into my chair before Pip breezed through the cabin door, knocking on it as he swung it open.

“I hear we’re only a few days out,” he said, flouncing into a visitors’ chair. “Love what you’ve done with the place, too.”

“Under two weeks. We’ll be well under the deadline, if Reed’s correct. I have no reason to think he’s not.” I glanced up at my master’s license above the desk. “Thanks. It’s feeling a little more like home.”

“I suspect we’ll have a couple of days on station before I can line up another can.”

“You’re not already finagling for one?” I asked.

He grinned. “Well, yeah. I am, but we’re the new kids in town and the people who have the kinds of cargo we want aren’t going to be just taking us at our word.”

“You don’t already have contacts here?” I asked.

He gave me a half smile and a shrug. “Might have a few. I’ll need to reach out to them and the most reliable connection will be in person.”

“You’re not going to play aerosol games with me again, are you?”

He shook his head. “Once was enough. I learned my lesson.”

“When are you going to tell me what we’re really doing out here?”

He shrugged again. “What you don’t know, you can’t tell.”

“I already know too much.”

His grin widened. “Really?”

“I know you’re not here for charts. I know you’re here looking for something that’s not on the charts. I know whatever it is, is in the databases for this ship.”

His smile froze for just a heartbeat. If I hadn’t been staring at him, I might have missed it.

“I also suspect—although I don’t know it—that you’ve already got what you wanted from the astrogation data and it’s stashed on a drive somewhere.”

He settled back in the chair and scratched behind his right ear with a fingertip. “That’s close,” he said. “Not quite enough to be dangerous but close.”

“Oddly enough, I believe you,” I said. “What’s next on the agenda?”

He folded his hands together over his chest and smiled the old Pip smile. “Next we wheel and deal and try to make some credits. We still have stockholders to keep satisfied.”

“So, not much different than what we were doing before?”

“Basically. We need to get established out here so people aren’t watching us every time we undock.”

“Is that likely?” I asked.

“Very. This is Toe-Hold space. Stations have rules but the people out here take care of their own and they don’t take it very kindly when outsiders stick their noses in.”

“Especially with one of their own ships?”

He grimaced and nodded. “The news is already out here. Chernyakova is a known item. It didn’t surprise anybody that they didn’t make it back.”

“Why did the auctions fail?” I asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I’m as surprised as you.”

“Fill me in on this station.”

“Melisande Colby set it up back in 2165. It was one of the earliest Toe-Holds and made a lot of the Western Annex possible. She had fuel and metal available when most Toe-Holders were scratching for ice. Nobody messed with Mel while she was alive. Her daughter took over in 2210 or so. Mel died in 2215 and a few of the Iron Mountain trolls thought that meant Mel’s Place was ripe.”

“Not so much?”

“No.” Pip shook his head and sighed. “Mel’s Place is one out of a half dozen systems they call the Royalty group. This system—Viceroy—serves as a kind of hub. They build their own mining ships from the keel up here. Consort does the electronics fabrication they need. Monarch has some of the purest water ice going. Among just those three systems, there’s enough gas to supply CPJCT with fuel and atmosphere for a century, not that they need it.”

“So the Royalty group is like a quadrant?”

“Something like. They work together. Everybody’s within a BU of here. Viceroy—and Mel’s Place—is the heart of it.”

“What about credits?”

“What about them?” Pip asked.

“Do we have any out here?”

“Toe-Holds use the same banking system as CPJCT. They built it for the Toe-Holds first. CPJCT just piggy-backed onto it.” Pip shrugged again. “How else do you think anything got built out here in the first place?”

“So CPJCT can see where we are? What we’re spending credits on?”

His sly smile made another appearance. “No. That’s the beauty of it. CPJCT can only see what happens in CPJCT space. Anything that happens out here, stays out here. It’s all masked and coded. We see we got paid. We don’t see who paid us. We pay a bill, the credits come out of our account but the payee only knows they got paid.”

“Who watches the watchers?”

“You ever hear of High Tortuga?”

I sat back in my chair. “You’re joking.”

“No, why? You’ve heard of it?”

“I’ve heard the name.”

“Bankers. Massive communications and computing power. They’ve been the backbone of the Western Annex since before there was a Western Annex. Messages between systems all go through High Tortuga. Credits, same. Everything anybody buys or sells anywhere this side of the Home Worlds goes through High Tortuga.”

“Pirates?” I asked.

He frowned. “They’ve been called worse but they’re making it from transaction fees. Every station, every system pays a pittance to be included. The transaction fees feed the bulldog and everybody else in the Far Shores. We’ll probably visit them before we’re done.”

“Is there a handbook or something?”

“What? To Toe-Hold space?”

“Yeah. I feel like I’m just flailing here.”

“There’s a tourist guide.”

I blinked. “A tourist guide?”

“Of course. How else would tourists know what’s going on out here?”

I felt my eyes rolling up as I leaned back to look at the overhead. “You don’t happen to have a copy?”

“Not on me. We can get one when we dock.”

“Let’s do that, shall we?”

“All right. Should be easy enough to find. I’ll order a copy as soon as we get within a few days of docking.” He pulled out his tablet and made a note. “Anything else you can think of?”

“We’ll be able to resupply the ship, I take it?”

“Sure. Mel’s is the hub.” He shrugged. “Not much on seafood, but they’ve got their own vegetables and meat. Fresh and fresh-frozen, mostly. Not much need for canned goods.”

“Coffee?” I asked.

Pip grimaced. “That’s not as common.”

“We shoulda got a can of coffee.”

His eyes widened and he absolutely beamed. “Yanno. Two hundred metric kilotons of green coffee beans? Somebody with a roaster could clean up out here.”

“What about tea?”

“They grow Camellia sinensis in most of the stations. Or what passes for it. I believe Regent has some farms in the Goldilocks zone. One of them does. I’d have to check.” He looked down at his tablet again, making a note. “You’ll probably want to get used to the tea. At least while we’re docked.”

I sighed and looked around the cabin again. The gray-green, even with the blue overhead and the shearwater on the bulkhead, was still a lot of gray. “Do they have flea markets out here?”

Pip looked up from his tablet. “The whole place is a flea market. You’ll see.”

Chapter 19
Viceroy: 2375, May 9

I spent most of my time during that last day on approach on the bridge. Part of it was to see the process of docking with a Toe-Hold station, but a larger part was just to take in the spectacle. Orbitals look like giant tin cans in space. They’re bright and silvery with antennae on the top and bottom. The docking rings are always in the middle. Seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Mel’s Place, by comparison, looked like a carnival in space. The short-range scanners showed that it stretched out for kilometers and had protrusions in all directions—some up, some down. Some appeared not to be connected to the station at all, simply moored to the conglomeration by grav fields.

Colored lights spread across the whole field. They gave a festive air to the station. Fixed atop the central construction—an oddly lopsided cuboid—stood a flashing display that must have been twenty meters or more on a side. It flashed MEL’S PLACE three times, blanked for a heartbeat before blinking EAT HERE then GET GAS for three cycles, then repeated. We could read it from two kilometers out.

Al caught me staring at it and grinned. “It’s different,” she said.

I shook my head. “Different doesn’t seem to be sufficient.”

“Tug standing by, Captain,” Mr. Reed said. “They’ll take us in.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw a black and yellow striped tug easing up on us from astern. “Link us up, Mr. Reed. Stand by for lock, Chief.”

“Link, aye,” Mr. Reed said.

“All engineering propulsion secured and ready for tug,” Chief Stevens said.

The tug snagged us smoothly and eased us forward for the last couple of kilometers. The docking ring looked like any standard ten-meter ring, complete with dock number and lights picking it out of the dark. It looked strange only because I was so used to the shining surface of orbitals. The gallery on either side of the ring showed no lights and only one other ship—an ovoid bulk tanker by the looks—nuzzled against the station.

“Doesn’t look very busy,” I said.

“They’ve got eight galleries,” the chief said. “Some bigger than this. Probably more capacity than an orbital. We’re in the quarantine section, I suspect.”

“Quarantine?” I asked.

“Until they figure out if they can trust us,” Al said. “Common practice out here.”

“Can we trust them?” I asked.

“I trust them more than CPJCT,” Al said.

I glanced over at her.

She shrugged. “They’ve been around longer, have had to do everything for themselves, and helped build the entire Western Annex in the process. What they don’t know about managing the unknown doesn’t exist.”

“And we’re the unknown,” the chief said.

I settled in and let my brain chew on that for a while. What I remembered from the academy fought with what I saw in front of me. While I watched, another yellow and black liveried tug snugged onto the tanker and had it sliding back within a few ticks.

“We’ll have the gallery to ourselves, it seems,” Al said.

The docking ring loomed closer and the tanker angled away, her tug helping to spin her horizontally even as it pushed the ship away from the station. I saw the blocky S surrounded by stars on the side that marked it as a Saltzmann ship.

“They’re a long way from home,” I said.

The chief snorted.

I looked over.

“Where do you think they started?” she asked. “I bet they still run over half their operation out here.”

Al shrugged. “It’s not smuggling if you never dock on the High Line.”

“High Line?” Mr. Reed asked.

“CPJCT space. It’s called the High Line out here.”

“They have ships that just work Toe-Holds?” he asked.

“Why not?” Al asked. “Toe-Holds need hauling. They’re more self-sufficient, but they still have products they need to move around. Somebody has to do it. Saltzman’s been here from the beginning.”

We got to five hundred meters and the tug slowed us even more, angling us toward the docking ring and easing us into the slot as smooth as butter. The ship nudged the station and the docking clamps thunked into place.

“Shifting to shore power,” the chief said.

“Tug ready to cast off, Captain,” Mr. Reed said.

“Thank them for me, Mr. Reed.”

I looked back in time to see the tug’s bow thrusters fire to push them straight back from our stern. The pilot blinked his running lights once and zipped below us to disappear under the station.

“We’re docked, Captain,” Al said. “Logged at 2375, May 9, 1125 hours.”

“Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Do we have protocol for port access?”

“Station security is waiting at the brow, Captain,” Al said.

“Would you ask Mr. Carstairs to join me there?”

“He’s already there, Captain,” Al said.

“Of course he is,” I said and slipped out of my chair and down the ladder while Al secured the ship from navigation stations and set port-side watch.

When I got there, I found Pip leaning against the watchstander’s table with Ms. Cheuvront just bringing up the brow watch console. “What’s the drill?” I asked, nodding at Pip.

“They’ll introduce themselves. You’ll introduce yourself. They’ll ask you questions. You answer.” He shrugged. “They might give you some instructions, then they’ll probably go away.”

“And if they don’t?” I asked wiping my palms against the sides of my shipsuit.

“We play it by ear. What else?” He winked at Ms. Cheuvront.

“Pop the top, Ms. Cheuvront,” I said and stepped up to the lock opening.

“Pop the top, aye, sar,” Ms. Cheuvront said and keyed the hydraulics.

I found myself holding my breath, wondering what the atmosphere would smell like, and braced for the worst when I stepped out onto the dock. The warm, moist air surprised me with its fresh clean scent. The only real mechanical odor came from the hydraulic system that opened our lock.

Three people in matching jumpsuits waited for us. Two carried batons and the third, an oversized tablet. The man with the tablet spoke. “Captain?”

I nodded. “That’s me. Ishmael Wang.” I jerked a thumb at Pip. “My cargomaster, Phillip Carstairs. We’ve a can to deliver here.”

He consulted his tablet and nodded. “Your first time at Mel’s Place?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” Pip said. He looked at me and gave an apologetic shoulder roll.

The tablet guy thrust it at Pip. “Thumb, sir?”

Pip rolled his left thumb on the pad, which flashed to a new screen. I didn’t get a good look before the man pulled it back and looked at it. His eyebrows rose fractionally.

“I see. Thank you, sir.” He touched a few keys and his tablet beeped once. “We’ve approved unlimited visas for you and your crew, Captain. Standard terms apply.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving Pip a side-eye.

“Docking fees will be automatically deducted from your ship’s account. You’ll be notified in person should that account fall lower than—”

“Yes, yes. We’ve got it. Thank you,” Pip said, interrupting the man in mid-stream.

The man gave him a sour look. “Of course. Enjoy your stay at Mel’s Place.” He turned and marched away down the gallery, his two guards following without a word or a look back.

“Welcome to Mel’s Place,” Pip said, a chirpy smile plastered on his face.

“Permanent visa? Standard terms?”

“No. Permanent means we can live here,” he said. “Unlimited visa gives crew the run of the station as long as we want to stay docked and we promise to pay our bills on time. Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“Don’t spit on the decks. No fighting. No energy weapons. No slug throwers.” He frowned. “I’m pretty sure glass ammo is legal here. I’d have to check.”

I sighed and looked back into the ship. “Where would you check?”

He pulled out his tablet and flipped through a couple of screens. He turned it to show me his connection to the station net with “New visitors information” emblazoned across the top. “You can probably find the traveler’s guide to Toe-Hold space, too,” he said.

He put his head down and started flipping screens. “Yeah, there it is. Glass is legal, but only in needlers. No blades longer than twenty-five centimeters.” He looked up with a nod at the ship. “Should we make an announcement?”

I looked again and found a couple of crew peeking around the edge of the lock. “We better.”

Pip led the way back into the lock and I nodded at Ms. Cheuvront. “Button it up.”

The lock closed behind us.

I pulled out my own tablet and accessed the ship’s intercom system. “This is the captain speaking. Crew meeting on the mess deck for all hands not on duty in ten ticks. That is all.”

“Anything I should know about, Captain?” Ms. Cheuvront asked.

I looked at Pip who shook his head. “Normal watch, Ms. Cheuvront. Nobody in who’s not crew. Anybody wants in, call for the OOD,” I said.

“So basic port duty protocols, sar?”

“Until we find something that needs to change, yes,” I said.

“Aye, aye, sar. Can do.” She smiled and took her seat behind the desk.

“Would you have Mr. Reed and your messenger meet us on the mess deck?”

“Aye, aye, sar.” Ms. Cheuvront bent to the task while Pip and I headed into the ship.

When we got to the mess deck, Ms. Sharps already had the lunch mess almost ready to serve and the crew had assembled. I nodded to Mr. Reed and went to the port side where I could talk to everybody at once. A few crew slinked in after us and I did my best not to notice.

“We’ll declare liberty after lunch mess. This isn’t a CPJCT port. The normal rules don’t apply. How many have been to Mel’s Place before?”

A few hands went up.

“Mr. Carstairs has some updates.” I looked at Pip and leaned back against the bulkhead.

Pip stepped forward. “So, station net has visitors’ access with the local rules and regs. Unless you know what you’re doing is allowed, assume it’s not. Just because one guy jumps off the top deck, doesn’t mean you can. Blades under twenty-five centimeters. I’d avoid all other weapons. You’re unlikely to need them, anyway. If you’re not sure of your hand-to-hand, travel in a group. While some of you are probably now thinking about staying aboard, this is no more dangerous than Diurnia and I’d give you the same advice there. Questions?”

A wiper in the back raised his hand.

“Mr. Schulteis?”

“What’s our visa, sar?” he asked.

“Unlimited,” Pip said. “I’ve been here before and vouched for the ship so don’t make me make the captain make you walk home.”

I heard a few chuckles.

“Anybody else?”

An engineman raised her hand.

“Ms. Moore?”

“Anything we should do here, sar? Like something we’d kick ourselves for missing?”

He grinned. “There’s a restaurant here that has a beef and brew to die for. You’ll find it in the station services on your tablet. The various bars and pubs aren’t what you’re used to seeing. Some of the watering holes aren’t exactly welcoming to crews, but you’ll be fine near the docks. Check the station services menu if you’re looking for anything special. Chances are you’ll find it here but you’re likely to pay more for things you’re used to and less for things that are local.” He paused and looked around the room. “As far as the station is concerned, we’re all tourists. Don’t be jerks, but if there’s something going on you don’t understand, ask.”

Bentley raised his hand.

“Mr. Bentley?” Pip asked.

“Uniform of the day for liberty, sar?”

“Whatever you’d wear to the oh-two deck at Diurnia,” Pip said. “Or was that a subtle suggestion we have lunch and declare liberty?”

“Both, sar.”

Pip looked at me as the crew laughed.

“Thank you, everyone. We’ll get out of here so Ms. Sharps can get lunch going. If you go ashore, remember we’re guests here. Don’t put your feet on the furniture.”

I left the mess deck followed by Pip and Mr. Reed. We went around the passageway to the wardroom and found Chief Stevens, Ms. Fortuner, and Al waiting.

“You didn’t want to hear the announcement?” Pip asked.

“What announcement?” Ms. Fortuner asked.

“About visiting Mel’s Place.” I took up a plate and started down the lunch buffet.

“I’ve been here before,” the chief said.

“Anything we need to know about?” Al asked.

“We have unlimited visas, so we can go anywhere not restricted to station personnel. We’re better off staying close to the docking galleries but there’s plenty to keep us busy here.” The chief followed me down the serving line. “Other than that, not really. Pay your bills and don’t start fights.”

“How did you know about the visa?” I asked.

“It’s on my tablet along with the station net information about restaurants, bars, and other entertainment for the visiting spacer.”

“You really need to pay attention to the details, Captain,” Pip said. “Half the things you need to know you could look up yourself.”

I snorted and took a seat. Mr. Franklin appeared with a carafe and poured coffee, left the carafe on the table, and retreated to the pantry.

When everybody found a seat, I looked at the chief. “How are we on tankage?”

“No problems. Price is good. No restrictions on quantities. They’ve got everything we need for keeping the ship going.”

“How are we on the delivery?” I looked at Pip.

He took a sip of coffee. “The cargo handlers will have the can off by 1800. We’ll need another one before we can leave.”

“Any leads?”

“Several. The station produces massive amounts of refined metals. We’ll have a new can of something by this time tomorrow.”

“How long do you want to stay docked, Skipper?” Al asked.

“Chief? How much time to fill the tanks?” I asked.

“We’ll be full by 0600.”

“We need any spares?” I asked.

“We can always use consumables. Scrubber cartridges and the like. I’ve filed a replenishment order with the locals. Should be here this afternoon. We didn’t use that many.”

I looked at Pip. “After lunch mess, would you get with Ms. Sharps and see what we need for stores?”

“We’re getting our heads together around 1400,” he said. “I want to see about getting some of the fresh vegetables and local meat.”

“Anything I’m missing?” I asked, looking around the table.

Head shakes and shrugs were all the answer I got, so we settled down to lunch. After the big build-up about traveling to Toe-Hold space, it worried me that it felt so anticlimactic.

Chapter 20
Mel’s Place: 2375, May 9

Pip collected me just before 1800. “Come on. We’re going to a steak house I know. You’ll love it. Put some civvies on.”

“How civvie?”

“There’s no dress code here. Something with pockets.”

“With pockets?”

“Do you own anything without pockets?”

“Only underwear.”

“You’ll probably want to wear that, too. Back in five.” He left me standing in the cabin, staring at the closed door.

I sighed and rummaged up a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved pullover, and a jacket. I picked a comfy pair of ship boots. With no way of knowing how far astray he planned to lead me, I figured I better have good footwear.

Within a few ticks we walked out of the ship and down the docking gallery. The warm, moist air still felt weird. Docks were supposed to be cold. My brain just couldn’t keep up.

“They must have some monster scrubbers here,” I said.

He shook his head. “Multiple redundancy. They’ve got small scrubbers scattered everywhere. If any one of them fails, the station doesn’t die. No reason to have one big one when small ones are just as cost effective.”

Pip and I were the only ones in the gallery. “Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Hold your jets. We’re the only house on a dead-end street. If we see anybody here, it’s going to be station security or our crew.”

“Where are we on the can?”

“They took it half a stan ago. Our accounts have been credited, in case you wondered.”

“New one?”

“We have some choices. Where do you want to go?”

“I’m just the bus driver. What’s the most advantageous?”

“Can of frozen foods going to Dark Knight Station. A dozen Burleson Units up toward Port Newmar.” He pursed his lips and blew a breath out of his nose. “Good for a quarter million credits. We’d need to haul ore back, probably.”

“Back to here?” I asked. “Don’t they have plenty of ore?”

“Lots of places have surplus smelting capacity. Ice Rock always needs metal ore and they’ve got the capacity to smelt it.”

We made it to the end of the gallery and Pip pushed through an airtight door into a short, wide passageway opening onto an broad plaza. The place wasn’t exactly crowded but I think that was more a factor of the size than the number of people in it. I hadn’t seen a space that big since I left the parade ground at Port Newmar. The overhead soared thirty or forty meters above us. Globe lights hung to within five meters of the deck while tiny points of light flickered randomly on the ceiling.

Pip took a couple of steps past me and stopped, looking back. “What?”

“This is huge.”

“You were expecting shoe boxes?”

“I didn’t exactly get a good feel for the scale from the bridge.” We resumed our stroll, Pip leading the way diagonally across the plaza.

“These are old shipping cans. They welded them together and slapped vac-seal on the inside,” he said.

“Barbell cans?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Older but about the same idea. Remember the old ‘space trains’ they talked about at the academy?”

“Precursor to the tractor designs?”

“Yeah. They took six cans at a time. Jumped them where they needed them and left them.” He lifted his chin toward the overhead. “They collected the empties here. Used the goods and then salvaged them for housing.”

“Weren’t those the ships that only jumped like half a BU at a time?”

“Yeah. Took forever to get out of the gravity wells and even then, a rocking horse had more legs.”

“So, what’s this place we’re going to?”

“It’s just across the plaza. Local beef. Local beer.”

“And we’re meeting somebody here to do a deal with?”

Pip drew himself up and placed a hand on his chest with a dramatic flair.

“Yeah. I wound you. I know,” I said. “Are we?”

He shrugged and started off across the plaza again. “Not this time. No.”

“When are we going where you really want to go?” I asked.

“I’ll let you know,” he said. “We need to make a little more noise out here first. You ever been to Iron Mountain?”

I looked at him.

“Oh, sorry.” He shrugged again. “You didn’t get out much.”

“When were you here at Mel’s?”

“We graduated in what? ’58?”

“Yeah.”

“Came out here the next year. Good credits. Nobody bothers you.”

“I thought you were bored with the cargo picking game, small ship stuff,” I said.

“Who told you that?”

“You did. Back at Port Newmar.”

“Yeah. Well, I sometime embroider the truth a little.”

“Embroider? I’ve seen less needlework on twelfth-century tapestries.”

He stopped and stared at me. “Really? You’ve seen twelfth-century tapestries?”

“Well, not in person. I’ve seen pictures.”

“Where?”

I stared at him. “Art history? The academy? Second term? You sat next to me?”

“I sat next to you in every class. It was the only way I could pass.”

“The nudes.”

His eyes brightened. “Ah, yes. Now I remember.” He nodded at a steel-clad door. “Here we are.”

“You sure? Looks like a closet.”

“I’m sure,” he said and pulled the door handle. It didn’t budge and his hand slipped off.

I had to catch his shoulder to keep him from falling backward. “Maybe they’re closed for repairs,” I said.

He scowled at me and pulled out his tablet. After a few ticks of flipping through the various screens he looked up at the panel above the door and back at his tablet. “Odd.” He looked around and walked over to a couple of maintenance workers in station coveralls. After a short conversation he came back to the door. “Forgot something,” he said. He rapped a knuckle on the metal in an odd pattern, paused, then rapped again.

A narrow panel opened at the door at head height. The hidden person behind the slot said, “Yeah?”

Pip said, “Mel sent me.”

“Mel’s dead.”

“Your point?”

The slot closed and the door swung inward. “Welcome to the Speakeasy, gentlemen.” The person behind the door turned out to be a rather small, wiry man in some outlandish garb consisting of a dark coat with a long split tail over a ruffled white shirt and a tie in the shape of a bow. He wore a wide, shiny belt around his waist and black pants with what looked like a velvet strip down the outside of the leg.

As a uniform, it was obvious why he wanted to keep it behind a locked door.

“Two for dinner, please,” Pip said. “Reservation under Carstairs.”

The man paused for just a heartbeat and nodded. “Of course, sir. Right this way.”

He led the way through an amazing room trimmed in what appeared to be dark wood and some kind of red brick. I caught the aroma of grilled meat on the air. My mouth exploded in saliva.

The maître d’ led us to a nook along one of the bulkheads and we slid into the booth. “Martine will be with you shortly, gentlemen. Please enjoy.” With that he slipped away, the odd tails at the back of his coat fluttering in his passage.

I looked at Pip and found him grinning at me from across the narrow table. “Fun, huh?”

“I don’t even know what this is.”

“It’s the best beef and brew house in the Western Annex. All locally sourced beef. They brew their own beer.”

A young woman in a black gown swished up to the table and smiled. “Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Martine. I’ll be taking care of you this evening. Today’s special is prime rib. Today’s tap is a full-bodied porter with just a touch of fruit. Would you like menus?”

Pip glanced at me and shook his head. “That sounds lovely. We’ll have the special and the tap. Medium rare. Mashed. Green salad with a vinaigrette.”

Her lips twitched as if suppressing a smile. She glanced at me.

“I’ll have the same.”

“Of course, sir.”

After she swished away, I raised an eyebrow at Pip. “I feel a little under-dressed.”

“It’s all part of the show.”

“What is this place?”

“It’s a replica of an old-Earth restaurant thing.” He shrugged. “We won’t be bothered here and the food is great. Relax.”

“Who’d bother us anyway?”

“Well, you? Probably nobody. I’d just as soon keep a low profile for a while longer.”

“You have any unpaid debts here?” I asked.

“No. Nothing like that.”

Martine returned and placed two tankards of a dark beer, a pair of green salads, and a basket full of fresh yeast rolls on the table. “Your meals will be right up,” she said and wandered off again.

The salads crunched under our forks, and the tang of the vinaigrette lent just the right counterpoint. The porter, I had to admit, rolled smoothly over my tongue.

“If the beef is as good as this, I’m in heaven,” I said.

Pip grinned but didn’t speak.

As I speared the last leaf from my salad, Martine returned to swap out the empty plates for full ones. The dark aroma of the beef with the tang from a small globe of horseradish went straight to my head, and I dug in. It took me a few ticks to get myself under control enough to speak. “You say they raise this beef here?”

Pip nodded. “It’s a relatively small operation compared to the big growers like Bar None, but they make up in quality what they may lack in quantity.”

We finished the meal in near silence and I refused a refill on the porter.

Pip thumbed the tab and we left. “You’ve been quiet,” he said as we exited through the metal door. A line of people lounged against the front of the building, apparently waiting for their turn in heaven.

“Wondering how much longer we’re going to tip-toe around out here.” I glanced around. “I’m not sure how much I can say or even what I shouldn’t say here.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Nobody’s paying us any attention. What’s on your mind?”

“Herring. Patterson. Whatever his name is. If I’m covering you by supposedly looking for this guy, shouldn’t we be—I don’t know. Looking for him?”

“We are.”

“Really?” I glanced over at him.

“I’m looking for a can going to where he is.”

“You know where he is?”

Pip shrugged. “Of course.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow in his general direction.

“All right,” he said. “Not exactly, and he may be moving around.”

“Where was he last?”

“Last positive location was Iron Mountain.”

“You think he’s still there?”

“I haven’t heard that he’s left nor have I heard that he’s shown up anywhere else.”

“So?”

“Most people here don’t deal with Iron Mountain. They don’t ship to them. They don’t buy from them.”

“What are they? Pariah?”

“Basically,” Pip said, glancing at the store fronts as we passed.

“Really?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. They’ve a reputation as being a bit less than neighborly.”

“How so?”

“Hijacking the odd mining barge. Extortion on some of their smaller neighbors. The usual bully kind of stuff.”

“Piracy?” I asked.

He looked at me like I’d finally lost my mind. “How would that work?”

“No idea.”

“Neither does anybody else. Easier to steal the cargo once it’s on a station.”

“That happens?”

“It can. It’s frowned on.”

“Frowned on?” I asked. Passersby probably heard the note of incredulity in my voice.

Pip sighed. “Frowned on, yes. Usually with a side of interceptor missile and permanent persona non grata status. When you need a station visa to walk around, being declared a major nuisance—and living down to your reputation—has a way of making life a bit challenging. Mostly they stay close to home and get what they need by smuggling stuff in and out of the High Line.”

I thought about that for a moment. “It didn’t take much for us to get a can of malt out here.”

“So you see the issue. They’re close enough to Tellicheri that they don’t really need to deal with the locals here. Which leaves them free to be snotty.”

“Which makes it tough to get a cargo from here to there,” I said.

“You never were dumb,” Pip said.

“Can we get a can on spec and fly it out there?” I asked.

“It’s either that or deadhead a can in there and bring it back out after we’ve kidnapped Patterson.”

“Wait, what?”

He frowned at me. “Deadhead a can?”

“No, kidnap Patterson.”

He shrugged. “What were you planning? Killing him there? The Empress Nicole would definitely not approve.”

“Empress?”

“Well, the original is long dead, but her children still run the place. Whichever one is on the throne takes the name and adds a serial number. I think the current one is three. Might be four but I haven’t heard of any succession lately.”

“Kidnapping?”

“He’s not going to come along quietly. What were you planning on doing with him, anyway?”

“I thought I’d take him back to TIC,” I said.

“Uh huh. All right then. We’d need to kidnap him, then lock him in a stateroom somewhere until we could get back.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then you turn him into TIC and we’ll probably be locked up for some kind of vigilantism or something. Certainly kidnapping and false imprisonment as soon as we dock in a Confederation port.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea, when you put it that way.”

He shrugged and kept walking. “It’s not, no matter how you put it.”

“Why did you suggest it?”

He stopped in his tracks. “Me? You’re the one who wants to take him back to TIC.”

“What else would I do?”

“I don’t know. Drop him out an airlock. Probably better without the suit. It would be over faster that way.”

“That’s not justice. That’s murder.”

“Yeah. Probably. But murder is really such an emotionally charged word. Underway you’re the captain. You can pretty much do whatever you want. Capital punishment is actually part of your job description. You might get into some trouble in the High Line but you’re in the Toe-Holds now.” He glanced at me. “He tried to kill you, didn’t he?”

“I don’t really know. He cut me up pretty good. Killed Greta. Killed Gramps.”

“Gramps?”

“Kirsten Kingsley’s grandfather. Was my engineer for a time before I fired him for dereliction.”

“Who’s Kirsten Kingsley?”

“One of the vice-presidents of operation for Diurnia Salvage and Transport. I’m surprised you don’t have a file on her.”

Pip pursed his lips and continued down the long, paved path. “Sounds like I’ve got some work to do.”

I followed along beside him, my head spinning.

“You hadn’t really thought about it, had you?” Pip asked.

“No. Until you suggested I should be looking for him, it never occurred to me to pursue him.”

“You went along readily enough,” he said.

“Well, of course. I wanted to see what you were up to. You needed me along for some reason.”

Pip gave me a sidelong glance. “Really? You’re not looking for revenge?”

“Revenge is for losers. Justice would be nice, but I have a suspicion that’s not going to happen either.”

Pip frowned at me. “Why not?”

I sighed and started ticking off the points. “First, Toe-Holds are spread out all over. Second, they’re decentralized and I doubt that there’s a handy index of residents. Third, just from what I’ve seen, probably every station has more people than the average CPJCT orbital.”

“Your point?”

“Ceramic needle in a field of haystacks.”

“Ceramic needle?” he asked.

“You couldn’t find it with a four-ton magnet.”

He nodded. “Fair point. Burning it down and searching the ashes isn’t an option in this case.” He pursed his lips and looked at the deck for a few steps. “Mel’s is a big place. Been here a long time. Some are much smaller. Just a few people. There’s a Jesuit mission studying cosmology that’s only got about two dozen residents.”

“Jesuits?”

“Religious group.”

“I’ve heard of them. Cosmology?”

“Study of the universe,” he said. “You studied it yourself at the academy. I sat next to you.”

I chuckled and he grinned at me.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No place in particular. Just stretching my legs. You want to head back to the ship?”

“I’d like to find something to hang on the bulkheads. They don’t have a flea market here, do they?”

He shrugged. “Probably but not like we’re used to. A local would probably know. What did you have in mind?”

“Something to break up the gray. A splash of color. I don’t know.”

A pair of women walked toward us, arm-in-arm with their heads together. They wore civvies like they were uniforms and walked like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Pip lifted a hand. “Excuse me. Are you residents here?”

They stopped and looked at us. “I am,” the one on the left said. “What of it?”

“Is there anything like an arts district? Tourist shops? Rug merchants?” he asked.

They looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Pip looked at me and I shrugged. “Sorry to bother you,” I said and prodded Pip along the passage.

We got about three steps beyond when the woman called after us. “Sorry. Really. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

We looked back at them.

The same woman said, “It’s just—have you looked where you’re going?” She waved a hand at the line of shops along the walkway.

The passage was lined with small shops, all dark. Display windows, mostly shuttered.

I felt myself frowning until I caught the name of the shop right beside us. “Bonaventure Gallery.” I scanned down the line and saw “gallery” and “studio.” Even “ceramics” and—yes—“rugs.”

I looked at Pip and he laughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” she said. “They’ll open around 0900 tomorrow if you want to come back.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She lifted a hand and flickered a few fingers in a wave, and the pair resumed their leisurely stroll along the artists’ walk.

I stood there for several moments, letting my gaze slip from dark window to door to lintel to transom. The street itself felt like a work of art. “What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked.

Pip glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”

“How many artists do you suppose this station supports?”

Pip looked left and scanned right. “All these, at least.”

“That’s my point. How many artists does Jett support?”

“At least two galleries’ worth,” Pip said. “No idea how many artists use the space or how many more might have little galleries tucked away on the orbital.”

I nodded to grant him the point. “How many here?”

“Can’t tell. I’m not sure how many of these are single-person showrooms or actual galleries of different artists brought together.” He shrugged. “Where are you going with this?”

“That’s a lot of artists. Even assuming these are single-artist enterprises, which I suspect they’re not? This is a lot of artists.”

“So?”

“So how can a Toe-Hold support this many artists?”

Pip snorted and nodded back toward the ship. “I think the fault isn’t in the number of artists as much as your perception of life in Toe-Hold space.”

I fell into step, paying more attention to the shops as we passed. “I’m having a bit of a disconnect,” I said. “These stations exist without the benefit of CPJCT rules and regulations, right?”

“Also without the costs of CPJCT rules and regulations,” Pips said. “Continue.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Granted. I guess I expected people to be living in shipping crates and scratching for their next meals.”

Pip laughed and looked up at the overhead far above us. “Well, we are in shipping crates,” he said. “Just really, really big ones.”

I laughed along with him for a bit. “And I can’t fault the quality of the food, if dinner was any indication.”

“You’re used to a different culture,” Pip said. “Each Toe-Hold is unique. Each has its own flavor and character. Mel’s is a hub.”

“So you said. I heard the words but I guess I didn’t understand what they meant.”

“It means this is like a big city planetside. You lived in a city, didn’t you?”

“Back on Neris? Main company port city.”

“You lived in Port Newmar.” He elbowed me a little.

“Well, not in Port Newmar, but I take your meaning.”

“Port Newmar is a smallish city. The academy and the spaceport make it feel more cosmopolitan, but it’s still a smallish city. You never went planetside at Dunsany Roads, did you?”

I shook my head.

“New Dunsany is ten or twenty times bigger than Port Newmar. You understand what that means?”

“I think so. At least theoretically.”

“People from all over the planet travel there. It’s the place to be seen. It serves as the Confederation seat and the administration offices have their own blocks.”

“It’s a hub,” I said.

“It’s a hub. Like Mel’s Place is a hub. There are others, but you’re right about this place having more people than live on an orbital. Probably five or six times more.”

“So the question isn’t how it can support that many artists, is it?”

He shook his head. “More like ‘why does it support so few?’”

We walked along in silence for a bit.

“Why aren’t there more artists on the orbitals?” I asked.

Pip’s eyebrows flicked up and down a couple of times. “That’s a very good question.”

Chapter 21
Mel’s Place: 2375, May 10

We’d established the policy of securing the wardroom while docked to cut down on the amount of work the stewards needed to do. With the attractions portside, few of the crew stayed aboard other than the watchstanders. When I got to the mess deck it wasn’t much of a surprise to find Al and Ms. Fortuner holding down the designated officers’ table.

“Morning, Skipper,” Al said as I slid a tray onto the table and took a seat.

“Al, Ms. Fortuner.” I took a sip of coffee to lubricate my vocal cords. “Did either of you get ashore yesterday?”

They both shook their heads.

“I had the overnight duty,” Ms. Fortuner said. “Tom’s got it today.”

“I got out and stretched my legs a bit yesterday, but didn’t stray too far from the ship,” Al said.

I looked at Al. “Feel like taking an adventure with me?”

Her fork froze half way to her mouth and she looked at me across the table for a moment before resuming her meal. She swallowed and wiped her lips with a napkin. “What kind of adventure?”

“I found some shops I want to visit. You’ve been here before, I believe?”

She nodded. “Not recently, but I’ve been here.”

“I don’t know the local customs, so I thought having somebody along would be prudent.”

“And Pip’s too small to be much of a deterrent?” Al asked.

I laughed. “Honestly, I never thought of it that way. We were out strolling last night, but—like you—didn’t get far from the ship.”

Ms. Fortuner asked, “What’s it like?”

I took a bite of omelet and considered my answer. “There’s a plaza just off the docking gallery. We didn’t get any farther than that. It’s ... well ... the best way to describe it is large. It’s very different from an orbital, more open, more spread out.”

“Grab a nap,” Al said. “Maybe we can take a stroll this afternoon if the Captain doesn’t keep me too long.”

“We’ll be back by lunch, I think.”

We finished breakfast and bussed our trays. Ms. Fortuner headed for her bunk.

“Meet me in the cabin around 0900, Al?”

“Will do, Skipper.” I refilled a cup to take with me and stuck my head into the galley to check in there. “How’s it going, Ms. Sharps?”

She looked up from stirring a pot on the back of the stove. “Very well, Captain. Mr. Carstairs has made some interesting suggestions about rotating our stores.”

“What do you think?”

“You know what he’s suggesting? Using excess stores capacity to buy and sell?”

“I do. He knows exactly what he’s doing at this point. We always ate well when we were on the Lois McKendrick together.”

“I think it’s kinda brilliant, Skipper.” She paused. “Do you have any reservations?”

I shook my head. “Just make sure you have enough variation on stores that we can all eat well for eight weeks. That leaves a lot of deep storage that you can use.”

“That’s what he said, too, sar.”

I started to leave but paused at the door. “If he pushes too far, don’t be afraid to push back. You’re the hand that feeds us. I trust you to make sure you’ve got what you need to keep doing it.”

Her eyes widened a bit but she nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Sharps.”

I took my coffee up the ladder to the cabin and stood there for a few moments scanning the bulkheads. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do there but I needed to do something. I took my tablet and snapped images of the various bulkheads and the overhead to make sure I had the colors correct. My mind kept seeing the compartment as gray, but the only gray was the deck. The darker gray-green bulkheads just felt like gray. Looking at the smaller images on my tablet reminded me that they weren’t. I’d held the line on the accent wall, too. It was more navy blue than the lighter teal that Dierdre had wanted. The overhead was barely blue at all—more of a faint powder blue that took the light from the overhead fixture and diffused it across the cabin. With the smoke white shearwater and the charcoal gray deck, the space felt much less like the box I’d grown accustomed to—but I still tended to think of it as a gray box when I wasn’t actually looking at it.

I sipped the coffee and put the mug on my desk. I needed to find some civvies and I wanted a shower first. Al would be prompt and I didn’t want to keep her waiting—or embarrass us both by being only half dressed when she arrived.

I stripped out of my shipsuit and grabbed a quick splash, lining up some slacks and the gray pullover I’d worn at Aubergine’s. I pulled it on and nearly jumped out of my skin when Pip said, “Suitably arty.”

“Gods, don’t you knock?” I asked, steadying myself against my bunk.

“I did. You were showering.” He lounged against the door jamb.

“You’ve been there the whole time?” I asked.

“Pfft. I was out here the whole time. Your coffee’s cold, by the way.”

I sighed and tossed the wet towel into the laundry fresher. I put my ship suit on a hanger and dropped it onto the rod in my closet. “Where are we on cargo?” I asked.

“I’ve got a can of frozen food bound for Dark Knight Station coming this afternoon. We’re good to go after that.”

“You ready to tell me what’s going on yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

I walked toward him, making him move from the door frame so I could get into the main cabin. “You’re going to need to level with me soon.”

“I will.”

I picked up my now-empty coffee cup and looked at him. “I mean it. This lying thing is getting old.”

“When have I lied?”

“Almost every time you open your mouth.”

He started to pull up into his “I’m wounded pose” but I held up a hand. “Don’t. You drank my coffee.”

He shrugged and walked to the visitor’s chair, plunked down in it and crossed one leg over the other knee. “We going shopping this morning?”

“I am. I asked Al to go along. You wanna come with us?”

“Sure. We can be the three mouseketeers.”

“What’s a mouseketeer?” I asked.

“I thought you were the ancient lit guy.”

“You mean musketeer?”

“Is that how you pronounce it? Old guys with swords and all for some and some for me or whatever?”

“You read it?” I didn’t know whether to be shocked or dismayed. Perhaps both.

“Don’t judge me. You’re the one always quoting old books.”

“Where’d you even find it?”

He shrugged. “I picked up an archive disk at a flea market at Port Newmar a few stanyers ago. Why? You wanna borrow it?”

“You still have it?”

“It’s a lot of books. I don’t think I’ve read even half of them.”

A knock on the door interrupted us.

“Come in,” I said.

Al stuck her head through the door. She nodded at Pip. “I’m ready to go, Skipper.”

Pip jumped up from the chair. “I think we’re about done here.” He looked at me. “Shall we away?”

I stood and made sure my tablet was in my pocket. “May as well.” We stopped at the mess deck long enough for me to drop the cup into the dirty mug rack before leaving the ship.

After we’d walked a ways along the dock, Al asked, “So you have someplace in mind?”

“I want to get some artwork for the cabin,” I said, looking straight ahead.

“There are some galleries just off the plaza,” Pip said. “We saw them last night, but they were closed.”

“Is that why you wanted me to come along?” Al asked, looking at me.

“You’ve an eye for art.” I looked up at her. “You were the one who said I needed to make the cabin my home, as I remember.”

Her lips twitched a couple of times before she smiled. “True. What are you thinking? Painting on velvet?”

Pip snorted.

“I was thinking maybe something with a little color to stand out from the dark green bulkheads and the gray decking.”

“The bulkheads aren’t gray?” Pip asked.

“Dark green,” I said. “Except for the bulkhead by the door.”

“Almost gray,” Al said. “But green.”

I pulled out my tablet and showed Pip the digitals I took of the colors.

He hmphed. “I never noticed. I guess I was so used to seeing them as gray.”

“What color is your stateroom?” I asked.

“We painted all the staterooms an eggshell white,” he said. “Chalk white overhead and ran a textured brown and gray across the decks.”

I looked at Al who nodded back.

“Was I in that meeting?” I asked.

Al and Pip both shrugged.

“Why didn’t we paint the cabin the same color?”

Al snorted. “You didn’t even have bulkheads until three days before we left the yard. The staterooms had been painted for weeks by that time.”

“I figured you’d do something special when you figured out what you wanted,” Pip said.

Al nudged me with an elbow.

“And I lived up to your expectations eventually,” I said.

We made the turn into the plaza and I took one of the more direct paths toward the gallery row we’d seen the night before. Some floral scent wafted through the air. It took me a few heartbeats to spot the planters tucked away near the path.

The plaza itself had a steady parade of people wandering through. Some seemed to be on their way someplace but more of them looked like they just wanted to stroll.

The shops had their lights on and the doors open. The passersby drifted in and out all up and down the passage. It could have been any street in the touristy district of Port Newmar if not for the lack of sky above.

The first shop we came to featured digital images. Space-scapes, some near a single planet with a primary peeking around it, some at a distance from a ringed planet. A spectacular shot showed a Barbell backlit by a pale green gas giant. We drifted through without finding anything I had to have. Pip stopped to examine a few, but Al wandered freely without being called to. With a nod to the gallery worker, we left and moved down the street.

Three shops along we came to an artists supply store. Pip started to go past but I headed in.

“You going to paint your own pictures,” Pip asked with a grin.

“Never know,” I said and continued on into the shop.

Al followed but her face, normally smiling and open, closed down. She glanced at me once we cleared the door but drifted at her own pace around the crowded interior. Where the other shops had been set up with open sight lines and art on display, this store had narrow aisles, racks of supplies that I couldn’t imagine what they might be used for, and rainbows of colors in more media than I knew existed. The smell permeated the whole space—a soft, oily scent like a perfume. I found the whole shop enchanting, even though I had no idea what to do with any of the stuff in it.

I found myself looking at bound pads of paper. I couldn’t remember seeing that much paper in one place since I’d left Neris.

“Are you an artist?”

I looked to my right where an older man in a smock with the store logo stood smiling at me. “Uh. No. I was just marveling at the amount of paper.”

He chuckled low in his chest. “It’s one of the old crafts. We make our own here on station.”

Al stepped up beside us and the kindly gent smiled and nodded to her. “You make your own paper?” she asked.

“Indeed. Mostly fabric scraps, but even here there’s a fair amount of waste paper.” He pulled one of the bound pads out of the rack and lifted the cover.

Al reached out and touched the corner of the surface. “Watercolor paper?”

He nodded. “Finest we make. Three hundred grams per square meter. Machine-pressed and air-dried. Twenty sheets per pad.” He tilted his head. “You’re the artist, aren’t you.”

Al might have blushed but I nodded. “She’s the artist.”

He glanced at me and nodded to her again. “How can I help you?”

Al started to step back and shook her head. “I’m not really—”

“Al,” I said. “What do you need?”

She looked at me and back at the pad of paper. “I don’t need anything.”

“You left all your supplies behind,” I said. “What do you need?”

She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. Her nostrils flared and her hands formed ham-like fists at her sides. I occasionally forgot how massive she was, but in that moment she made me very aware of it.

“What would Christine want to see?” I asked.

The shop attendant stepped back and closed the cover on the pad of paper. He smiled at me and winked, then looked at Al, waiting.

“I don’t have room for paint and canvas,” Al said.

“Al?” I said, angling my head to look up into her face. “You’re allowed to live.”

She snorted, clearly recognizing her own words being used on her.

“What do you have room for?”

She looked at the deck and shook her head as if trying to deny me.

I looked at the shop man. “All right. She’s an artist. She didn’t bring her stuff with her on this trip. What does she need?”

“Well,” he said, pursing his lips in thought. “A couple of notebooks. Some drawing pencils.” He looked at Al, taking her in from her shaved scalp past the piercings and tattoos down to her boots. “Perhaps a few watercolors and brushes.”

Al turned her head to look at him, her eyes hard.

He gave her a small grin in return that crinkled up the right side of his face. “What? You think I can’t see you?” he asked.

“Pen and ink,” she said. “Black, red, blue, green.”

“Point sizes?” he asked.

“Three aught, aught, one, and four.”

He nodded. “What else?”

Her gaze flicked to the paper tablet still in the man’s hands. “Watercolors?”

“You want a set?”

“Field kit?” she asked.

“Of course. What do you prefer? Tube or solid?”

“Solid,” she said.

“I’ve a nice double pan of twenty-four.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll throw in a refill set in case you don’t get back for a while. Brushes?”

“Got a utility pack of fans, riggers, and filberts? A couple of combers and flats?”

“Angular?” he asked.

“No, but I’ll need a couple of mops.”

“Of course. I can make up a pack for you. Various sizes?” he asked.

“Nothing too big,” she said.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Pip stepped out from behind a rack and held up an oversized digital tablet. “One of these.”

“What is that?” I asked, almost by reflex.

“Drawing tablet. You can draw on it, paint with it, and it saves your pictures for you,” the shop keeper said. “Great tool for beginners. Not as responsive as paper and pencil, but good enough to learn the basics.”

I glanced up in time to see Al’s grin before she schooled her features into a scowl. Judging from the satisfied smile on the shopkeeper’s face, he’d seen it too.

“Would you like a drawing basics course book to go with that?” he asked Pip.

“Sure, why not.”

“If you’ll excuse me one moment, I’ll just grab those items.” He disappeared around the racks and reappeared a few moments later behind the counter. He plopped an armload of materials onto the surface and started scanning codes into his hand-held. “One thing,” he said, looking at Al. “The pens come in a set from three-aught up to four. It’s cheaper to buy the set of seven than the four individuals.”

“Set, then,” she said.

He nodded and continued scanning. After a few moments he looked up.

“Anything else?” he asked again.

“Is one pad enough?” I asked.

“Buy two, get one half-off,” the shopkeeper said with a wink.

“Yes, please,” I said.

He slapped two more pads onto the pile and held out the tab for me to thumb.

“Did you get Pip’s drawing tablet?” I asked, looking around for Pip.

“Oh, no, I didn’t.”

Pip held up the device. Beep.

I thumbed the tab before Al could get her hand up.

“You didn’t need to do that, Captain.”

“I owe you, Al,” I said. “This is just credits.”

The shopkeeper looked at the tab and his eyebrows rose. “You’re the captain of the Chernyakova?”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

He expression softened and he shook his head. “No. Thank you for bringing her home.”

My breath caught in my chest for a moment. “I couldn’t help the crew.”

He shrugged. “Nobody could.” He busied himself bundling up the package for Al and said no more.

“What you getting, Ishmael?” Pip asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll know it when I see it.”

The old man handed the package to Al. “Something specific, Captain? I know most of the artists along the row.”

“I need some décor for the ship’s cabin. Perhaps some fiber art or a carpet.”

He glanced at Al then at Pip before looking back at me. “About four doors down to the right, my friend Dan Absalonson has a carpet shop. Look for Dan-Dan the Art Man. His wife does knotwork hangings and mobiles and the like. He might have something you’d be interested in.”

“Prints? Paintings? Bright colors, lots of motion?” I asked, thinking about what Dierdre had said.

“Right across the passage from Dan’s shop. You’ll see it.” He grinned. “Can’t miss it. Really.”

We thanked him and trooped out onto the plaza again, turning right and sauntering along. Pip seemed fascinated by his sketch pad. Al had her bag of goodies hooked into one paw and scowled at people going by as if to dare them to say something.

I counted the shops as we passed—a digital arts studio followed by a digital arts gallery. I stopped after that because across the way I saw what the old guy had meant. The entire storefront from deck up to about three stories had been painted with giant, brightly colored characters. Masks and capes, tights and strange logos on their chests, swirled and danced—or perhaps, battled—above the heads of the passersby.

Al chuckled in her chest. “He wasn’t kidding.”

“What?” Pip looked up from whatever he was doing on the tablet. He knew the moment he spotted the facade. He stopped walking. “Mighty Aphrodite,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“The carpet shop should be across from it,” Al said. She put a hand on Pip’s shoulder to get him started again and we found an oversized storefront with the unlikely sign “Carpet Diem” hung on a stanchion over the door.

“Your rug merchant appears to have a pun-ish streak,” Al said with a nod at the sign. “Why do you want a rug anyway?”

“If he has what I’m looking for, you’ll see,” I said.

She and Pip shared a glance and I stepped through the open door into a dimly lit room. It ran a good five meters up and at least twenty meters deep. The deck had some intricately patterned rugs scattered around in what looked like a haphazard arrangement, but my eye insisted some pattern existed there. The far wall held odd racks with various sized carpets hanging from the arms.

“Welcome to Carpet Diem.” A slightly built guy appeared from the back of the store. He stood a few centimeters taller than me but had shoulders and arms to give Al a run for her money. “What can I sell you today?”

“I’m looking for some luggage,” I said.

He stopped dead in his tracks about two meters away and tilted his head to one side for a moment before his face lit up and he cracked open a grin. “What did you have in mind?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got a bare deck and could use some wall hangings to help deaden the sound.”

“Shipboard?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Any idea of color? Pattern?”

I pulled up my tablet and opened the images. “This is my palette. I’m looking for something that would give me a bit of color.”

He angled his head to look at the tablet. “Yeah. I can see why.”

Al snickered.

“No offense,” he said.

“None taken. That’s why I need some color. The deck could use a treatment but most of the bulkheads are bare.”

He ran a hand over his chin and frowned. “So, red? Yellow?”

“Possibly. The overhead is this pale blue color. If the carpet pulled some of that down to the floor ... ?”

He bit his bottom lip and his head started bobbing. “Then smaller, bright pieces on the bulkheads. Could work.” He nodded a couple more times. “How big?”

“The open deck space is pretty small. Maybe three by four meters?” I looked at Al. “You don’t happen to know off-hand?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“Three-and-a-half by five,” Pip said and held up his new tablet. It showed a passably accurate rendition of the floor plan of the cabin.

“How accurate is that?” I asked.

He held up his ship’s tablet in the other hand. “Downloaded from the yard blueprints. Probably within a few millimeters.”

Al slapped him on the back. “I always wondered why he kept you around.”

Pip drew himself up and said, “You have it backward, Ms. Ross. I keep him around and only because I need somebody to drive my ship.”

Al laughed and Pip shrugged.

“Our ship,” I said.

He screwed up his mouth in a grimace. “Well, if we’re going to split hairs, the stockholders’ ship, but we’re keeping this good merchant from his labor with this digression.”

The man, presumably Dan, asked, “Does he always talk like that?”

“No,” I said. “Usually I talk like that. I think I’m starting to rub off on him.”

He looked back and forth between the two of us with a side trip to Al, blinked a couple of times, and then held out a hand toward Pip. “Could I see that?”

Pip handed him the drawing tablet and put his ship’s tablet back into its holster.

“Captain’s cabin?” he asked, glancing up at me.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Where do you want to put carpets?”

I pointed out the open rectangle between the door and my desk. “Here. And perhaps a smaller one there.” I pointed to the bunk room.

“This door swings open?” Dan asked, pointing to the main door in the cabin.

“Yeah. Swings in.”

“Clearance?”

“Maybe a couple of centimeters. There’s soft lip on the bottom to seal it against air flow when it’s closed.”

He nodded. “I know the type.” He lifted his head as if sniffing the air and looked at the rugs hanging on the wall. “Yes,” he said after a few moments. “I think so.” He crossed to a rack deeper in the store and started flipping through rugs, flapping them on their racks like pages in book. I only glimpsed them as he flipped but the patterns seemed too complex for carpets and the colors fairly gleamed in the dim light of the store. He stopped on one and stood back.

Al said, “Wow.”

The rug looked like some picture I’d imagined from Arabian Nights. The base color matched the pale blue of the cabin’s overhead, but there the color similarity stopped. Lines of tan formed a wide border around the four sides while in the center bloomed an oval mandala of flowers in shades of dark blue.

I stepped up to it and started to reach out for it before looking to Dan for permission.

He grinned and nodded. “You can’t hurt it. Go ahead.”

I let my fingers brush across the fabric. It felt like some kind of animal fur. When I pressed my hand into it, it gave slightly. “This is amazing.”

“Nain-style Persian knotted rug. A hundred knots per centimeter.” He brushed his palm across the surface. “Very nice work.”

“You didn’t make it?” Pip asked.

Dan shook his head with a laugh. “I don’t have the skill, talent, or patience.”

Al raised an eyebrow. “Handmade?”

“Machine-knotted. I was talking about programming the machines. I can’t imagine how they used to do these when all they had was yarn and fingers.”

“Lots of time, I suspect,” Pip said, stepping forward to run a hand across the surface. “Will they slide on the decking?”

“Depends on the decking material. They’re pretty solid because they’re not smooth on the bottom.” He pulled a corner up to show us the back. “I also have some velcro you can use to tack them down. Most shipboards want them secured against zero-g. Nothing worse than trying to swim through one of these things.” His chuckle made me think he knew this from personal experience.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“We can bring it over and install the velcro for you, if you like,” Dan said.

I eyed the size and hefted the corner. “This weighs a ton.”

“You’ve got the mass allotment for it,” Al said with a cheeky grin.

“I was thinking more along the lines of trying to carry it ourselves.” I looked at Dan. “Delivery and installation would be a good idea, I think.”

“Good choice,” he said. “You want another for the bedroom?”

“You have one?”

He led the way down to the next rack that held smaller carpets. He paged through until he found the mate. “Two by three. Same maker. Same quality. Pattern’s just a little different to account for the difference in size. Should fit in that open space at the foot of your bunk.”

“I’ll take them both,” I said. “Hangings?”

Dan waved me forward and we went through a door in the back wall of the shop. “Hon? You’ve got some customers.”

A slender woman looked up from a bench and smiled. “Welcome. How can I help you?”

Dan said, “I’ll just get those carpets taken down and get the installation order in. Is this afternoon acceptable?”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

He smiled and left.

The woman stuck out a hand. “Kadi.”

I shook her hand, her strength surprised me. “Ishmael. This is Al and Pip. I’m looking for something to put on my bare walls. Some fiber art. You came recommended.”

She beamed. “Thanks. Do you have any idea what you want?”

“Not precisely. Something colorful, like a Frenchette, maybe? I’m open to anything with more structure to it.”

Her eyebrows went up and she chuckled. “Well, if you know William Frenchette you’re already ahead of most of my customers.” She hmmed and looked at the deck. “Let’s go see if anything I have appeals to you.”

She walked even farther back and around a corner. The other side looked like a giant spider had exploded, festooning the walls with tangles of silk. Some were plain nets studded with beads. Others looked like they might have been knitted. One piece in a navy blue had a masklike quality to it that drew me. Clever knots formed the base while more cords formed the outline of eyes and a mouth, even a peaked nose running down the middle.

“What do you see?” Kadi asked.

“A face,” I said.

“What expression?”

I stepped back and blinked several times, trying to get a feel for what kind of expression I saw. “I can’t tell. I know there is one. I thought surprise at first but now it seems more like delight.”

“The blue one? It looks a little uneasy to me,” Al said. “Like it’s not quite sure how it feels.”

Kadi looked at Al with a kind of surprised expression of her own. “Really?”

Al shrugged and shifted her bag of art supplies to the other hand.

Kadi looked at Pip. “Do you see a face?”

Pip shook his head. “Not really. Maybe. The features are there but I don’t see any expression on them.”

“Interesting.” She moved down the wall and found another masklike hanging. “How about this one?”

White cords and tight knots formed the shape. “I see this one as being calm. Serene.”

Al shook her head and offered no comment.

Pip said, “No. I don’t see any expression in this one either.”

“Are either of these to your liking?” Kadi asked, looking to me.

“Both of them. I like this white cord. Do you have anything else bright like this?”

We spent maybe half a stan rummaging around in Kadi’s closets, unearthing fascinating pieces of art. In the end, I had half a dozen works lined up on her table when we left: a pair of long, narrow, knotwork panels in some natural fiber; a stylized sun sculpted from a smooth, synthetic, yellow cordage; and three of the masklike hangings—the blue and white ones we’d seen first and another one in blue.

We settled up with Dan and Kadi and left the shop. “Shall we visit?” Al said, nodding to the striking shop across the passage.

I shifted my grip on my purchases to get a better handle on them. It felt like they wanted to escape. “I’ve got as much as I can carry now,” I said.

Pip shrugged and fiddled with his sketch pad. “I’m good.”

“Let’s go back to the ship,” Al said. “I could go for a cup of coffee and a bit of a sit-down, myself.”

I led the way back and our little parade marched silently all the way. I wasn’t sure about Pip or Al, but I know I had a lot to think about.

Chapter 22
Mel’s Place: 2375, May 11

The carpet installation went off without a hitch. I was still adjusting to the change in acoustics the next morning when Pip stuck his head in. “Good, you’re here.”

“I’m still marveling,” I said. “It even feels warmer, but I know the temperature hasn’t changed.”

He picked his way across the carpet and plopped into the visitor’s chair. “I can’t believe I’m walking on that.” He shook his head. “The can’s locked in. They took care of it yesterday while you were decorating. How soon can we scoot?”

“Tomorrow lets us even out the liberty schedule. The cycle begins again after that. What’s the priority?”

He shook his head. “None. Just a straight-up transport job. We had to front a collateral payment equal to our payout, but it’s covered.”

“How much was it?”

“Two-fifty.”

“Doesn’t seem like much of a payout.”

“Two hundred fifty thousand credits.”

My heart rate spiked. “Where’d we get that much?”

“We did just get paid for the delivery here so our account isn’t exactly printed in red. Yet.”

“Somehow I get the feeling this did not come as a surprise to you.”

He shrugged. “It didn’t. We didn’t pay it, either. We bought cargo insurance to indemnify the shipper in case of loss. High Tortuga was happy to have us. It was a pretty small premium and lets us build up our rating with them.”

“What is this collateral for?”

“So we don’t sail off and sell the cargo on our own. If we do, we forfeit the collateral. It’s like a security deposit on an apartment.”

“Wouldn’t we be ahead of the game if we did?”

“Short term, yeah. Probably. Long term, we’d never get another contract.”

“So, not the best strategy.”

“Having the standing with High Tortuga reduces the amount of collateral we’ll need and reduces the insurance premiums we need to pay. It’s just part of doing business here.”

Something flipped on a light in my head. “CPJCT didn’t bother with it because—in theory—you couldn’t just fly away without docking in a CPJCT port and getting caught with the stolen cargo.”

“Yeah. Except that’s exactly what we did with the can coming here.”

I felt my eyeballs bulging out of my head.

“Relax. The cargo will never be reported stolen. When we dock there again, we’ll have another perfectly legit cargo. Just not the last one they saw us with.”

I shook my head. “I’m having to trust you on this because it makes no sense to me.”

“I know,” he said. “What do you want to do tonight? Another run at the Speakeasy?”

“Al’s got the overnight watch. What’s the chief been doing all this time?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her to talk to since we docked.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I haven’t seen her either.”

“What’s to do here besides eat?” I asked.

He looked at me with his head cocked to the side. “You thinking of a walk on the wild side or something?”

“I was thinking music, theater, something like that?” I shrugged. “This place seems to have an active art scene. Does it include performing arts?”

Pip frowned at me for several moments. “You want to find a concert.”

“Or a play. Or even a club with live music.”

Pip pulled out his tablet and started flipping screens. I did the same. It took a little searching but eventually I found a listing of coming attractions on the station net. “Fancy a play?” I asked.

“A play?”

“Starry Night Theatre Troupe presents ‘One Bad Act Spoils The Fish’ tonight at someplace we’d need a map to find.”

“Never heard of it.”

“The play or the troupe?”

“Either. Where’d you find that?”

I flashed him the listing and we both started running through the offerings. I felt a certain level of astonishment at the sheer number of them.

“Gallery opening?” Pip asked.

“Doesn’t scratch the itch.”

“Randy Robot’s Triple-X All-Nude Review?”

I raised an eyebrow at him across the desk.

He shrugged. “Wasn’t sure what itch you were looking to scratch. Don’t blame me.”

I spotted a small box ad. “Malty’s Falcon, Pub and Grub.”

“Malty’s Falcon?”

“Dunno. Beer is made with malt. Falcon is a bird.”

“Beer is good.” Pip scrolled his screen. “There it is. They’re featuring a ‘Jazz Trio’ tonight. Whatever that is.”

“I’m guessing it’s not a dance band with four-meter speakers and a bass line that jiggles our giblets.”

Pip snorted. “Did you just say that?”

“Don’t judge. Can we find this place?”

Pip tapped his screen a few times and nodded. “It’s not that far away. Near one of the other docking galleries.”

“Should we ask the chief and Ms. Fortuner if they want to join us?”

“Would seem polite.” He tapped a few times. “Invites out.”

“That settles this evening’s festivities,” I said.

Pip nodded and holstered his tablet. “What do you want to do now?”

“I want you to tell me what we’re doing here.”

Pip stared at me for a couple of heartbeats. “I take it you want a more direct answer than an oral treatise on man’s existential purpose.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m looking for a ship.”

“Any particular ship?”

“Yes, a very specific ship.”

“Would you like to expand on that a bit?” I asked. “Or even just explain why you’re not telling me the full story?”

“What do you know about the Manchester Mega?”

“Nothing. What is it?”

“It’s a ship. A big ship. Rumored to have a hauling capacity of nearly a thousand metric kilotons.”

“Rumored.”

“Rumored. I’ve never seen it but I have reason to believe that the Manchester Yards built a base out here in Toe-Hold space about twelve stanyers ago in order to build this beast.”

“Are you looking for the ship or the base?”

“Both.”

“If they’d succeeded in building it, wouldn’t we have heard?”

He bit his lower lip and glanced down at the rug. “We think they succeeded in building a prototype. We don’t know what happened to the prototype or where the base is.”

“That’s a long time to hide a base, isn’t it?”

Pip nodded. “It is. The only thing that travels faster than light is rumor. There might be nothing to it.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

“About ten stanyers ago Manchester seeded some spare parts for the Mega to the chandlery at Siren. That was a couple of stanyers after the ship was reputed to be ready for trials. TIC discovered it when they busted a smuggling ring or something. I never got the full story.”

“Seems rather an odd way to ship parts to a clandestine yard to service a ship nobody had ever seen,” I said.

“Yeah. Which is why TIC has been trying to find out how much of the story is rumor and how much is true.”

“Can’t they just lean on Manchester?”

Pip turned his gaze on me and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Trade secrets. The ship is demonstrably not in a CPJCT port. CPJCT has no jurisdiction over it, wherever it might be.” He paused.

“Because if it’s in Toe-Hold space, TIC has no jurisdiction.”

Pip nodded and smiled. “So leaning on Manchester didn’t work.”

“If it’s not in a CPJCT port, why would Manchester put parts in Siren?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it. Best guess is that the ship was on trials in Toe-Hold space and Manchester expected them to dock at Siren for the announcement.”

“But it never arrived.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the sticking point. The parts were at Siren. The ship wasn’t. A Toe-Hold freighter bought the parts as spares, but some engineering third officer spotted the problem and blew the whistle on it.”

“Which is where TIC got involved, I take it?”

“They might have been in on it from the beginning. Could be something they stumbled on.” He shrugged. “Above my pay grade.”

“We’ll get around to why we’re here, eventually?” I asked.

“The ship was a ghost. Never found. Always a rumor something big was out here, but nobody had seen it themselves.”

“What about the base?”

“That’s where TIC had some success. They found the name of a ship that they believed serviced the base. They couldn’t be sure and they couldn’t find the ship.”

I sat back in my chair. “The Chernyakova,” I said.

He nodded once. “The Chernyakova.”

“Why didn’t TIC impound the ship when we docked it at Breakall?”

“They didn’t know about it until the second auction was underway, for one. It took a while for the news to filter up the chain.”

“So the ship had already had one failed auction before they even found out?”

“Yeah. That’s the story I was given.”

“How did you get involved?”

“The theory was that the high bidders would be Toe-Holders who knew about the ship’s history so they watched the auction. A start-up operation from Ciroda won the second auction, but they never took possession of the ship. Funding problems. That’s when the action authority tightened the rules and Jim Waters contacted me.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked. “Why are we out here instead of some TIC salvage crew?”

He bit his lip again and stared at me. “It’s in the astrogation database somewhere.”

“What is?”

“The location of the Mega. And I don’t know which one it might be. There are thousands of entries in there I don’t recognize.”

“You looked?”

“Of course. I had plenty of time in the yards while the ship was being refurbished.”

“It should be in the ship’s log,” I said.

“The operative phrase there being ‘should be.’”

“You checked.”

“Yeah. No record in the captain’s log or the navigation logs. At least none I can recognize.”

“You checked the captain’s logs?”

“Of course. There’s no record in the log of any ports prior to Breakall. Not even the ports she visited in CPJCT space before the accident.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, only the captain was supposed to be able to see the captain’s log. On the other, how did Pip have the skills to accomplish it? I pushed that issue aside for the moment. “What are you looking for?”

His jaw worked back and forth a couple of times while he stared at the deck. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at me across the desk. “Just that. I don’t know. I figured I’d know it when I saw it, but there are a lot of unfamiliar places on that database.”

I chuckled and sat back in my chair, enjoying his discomfort too much, probably. “You thought it would say something like ‘Mystery Ship?’”

“No, but I thought the number of choices would be limited enough that we could check them out.”

“And they’re not?”

He shook his head. “At least a thousand we couldn’t identify. Not in any of my resources. They could be empty spots in the middle of the Deep Dark, private stations being kept out of view for one reason or another. Who knows. Maybe just places where the crew liked the view. That’s why I picked a can going to Dark Knight. They’ve got the best source of astrogation data for Toe-Hold space.”

“What will that do for you?”

“I’m hoping it’ll identify some of the places I don’t recognize.”

“Which will limit the number of unknowns,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What if the place you want is one of the knowns.”

He shook his head. “Too much potential for visitors. This thing has been unreported for a long time.”

“What makes you think it’s still out there somewhere?”

“Because the Chernyakova is supposed to have visited it just a few weeks before you found it in Breakall.”

“That was still a couple of stanyers ago.”

“Which makes it more likely that it’s not on any other chart or somebody would have stumbled on it.”

“It’s not at a station, is it,” I said, pieces of the puzzle dropping into my head.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting notion. Why do you say that?”

“Hasn’t been seen for a long time. Somebody trying to buy spares for an unknown ship. No reports. No rumors coming out of backwaters. An experimental design on trials in the Deep Dark somewhere in Toe-Hold space.” I shrugged. “Logical conclusion?”

“It broke down somewhere,” Pip said. “Somewhere back of the beyond.”

“Makes sense.”

Pip’s gaze focused somewhere far away.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Somebody else knows it’s out there.”

“One would suspect that Manchester knows,” I said. “That would have been a huge investment.”

“Somebody knows where to take the parts—and one might suppose—knows the parts are needed. Else why arrange to pick them up?” he said.

“That’s a good point.”

“Somebody sent the Chernyakova out on a resupply run as late as a couple of stanyers ago.”

“What’s kept them from recovering the ship? Ten stanyers is a long time.”

Pip settled into the chair and frowned. I could practically smell the wheels turning in his head. “Burleson drive failure,” he said.

“So they can’t jump it out.”

“They’d have to build a yard around it,” he said.

“It could be anywhere.”

He chuckled. “That’s always been the problem. It’s probably one of the locations in the astrogation database.”

“One of the locations we can’t identify.”

“Logically, yeah. We just need to narrow the field down a little. There are too many for us to follow up on until we do.”

“So we’re going to check it out anyway?”

He smiled. “Precisely.”

“What makes you think this isn’t just a snipe hunt?”

He shook his head. “Hunch, but it could be.”

“And you’ve got an ace in the hole.”

His eyes widened and a smile teased his lips. “I do?”

“You always have an ace in the hole.”

“Nice of you to notice. What do you think my ace is?”

“A joker.”

“A joker?”

“Somebody else knows where the ship is.”

“Yes, but I don’t know who that is,” Pip said, lacing his fingers over his chest. “That doesn’t do me any good.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Whoever it is knows the data is on the Chernyakova.”

“And?”

“And by swanning around from station to station we give him plenty of time to find us.”

Pip’s brows met over his nose. “What good would that do? He already knows where the ship is.”

I shook my head. “Maybe, but that’s not why he’s looking for us.”

“Why, then?”

“Because we have the location somewhere in our astrogation database.”

Pip sighed and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “And he’ll need to make sure we don’t find it,” he said.

“There’s another possibility,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“He doesn’t actually have the location and wants to get it for himself.”

Pip straightened up and looked at me. “That’s possible.”

“Either way, we’re bait,” I said.

“Of course we’re bait,” Pip said. “Always have been.”

“How does that help?”

“When somebody comes sniffing after us, we’ll be ready for them.”

Chapter 23
Viceroy System: 2375, May 13

Leaving Mel’s Place felt strange. We filed no flight plans and only needed to notify traffic control a stan before undocking so they could get us a tug and make sure we’d paid our bills. The tug showed up without any fanfare and gave us an easy ride away from the local station traffic before kicking us out toward the Deep Dark. To be fair, traffic from our docking gallery consisted of us. Short range showed a lot of traffic on the far side of the station, mostly small ships and shuttles.

We only had to kick off from the station for a stan before we were outside the safety perimeter and were able to bring up the sails and keel. We only had to run out for half a day beyond that before we were far enough out to make a short jump. I waited until after breakfast mess before calling the ship to navigation stations.

“Status, Ms. Ross?” I asked when we all got comfy.

“We are at navigation stations, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross,” I said. “Do we have someplace else to be this morning?”

Al’s grin showed up clearly in the bridge’s subdued lighting. “There’s an empty piece of nowhere out there a ways, Skipper.”

“Sounds delightful, Ms. Reed.”

“Mr. Reed, the captain would like to go somewhere other than here this morning,” Al said.

“Course to interim jump plotted and locked, Ms. Ross. Ship dead on course.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Systems, are we ready to jump?” Al asked.

“Systems green for jump once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said from her console.

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner. Astrogation, are we ready to jump?”

“Astrogation is green for jump twice, Ms. Ross.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Chief?”

“Engineering reports green for jump, Captain. Ship is green for jump thrice.”

“Thank you, Chief. Captain, the ship reports green for go thrice.”

“Thank you. Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

He punched a key and we bent space. The Deep Dark ahead seemed a bit different but if I hadn’t been watching, I might not have noticed.

“Position validation,” Reed said. “We’re here, Captain. Wherever here is. Logged at 2375, May 13 at 0918.”

“Does it have a name?” I asked, looking back and forth between Al and Mr. Reed.

“It’s apparently called ‘A Wide Spot For MP,’ Captain,” Mr. Reed said.

Al nodded. “Most of the stations have scouted clear jump points within a BU or so of their systems so outbound vessels have a short-legged jump.”

“How convenient,” I said.

“They want ships moving. Which is something we should be doing, Captain.”

“Chief?” I asked.

“More than enough legs, Skipper.”

“Mr. Reed?”

“Next jump locked. We are on track, Captain.”

“Any reason not to jump, Ms. Ross?”

“None, Captain. Ship is still green for go thrice.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

The view out the front shifted again and Mr. Reed began his assessment.

“Position validation,” Reed said. “We’ve jumped two percent long but within operational parameters. Logged at 2375, May 13 at 0924.”

“Long range?” I asked.

“Clear, Skipper,” Al said.

“Chief?”

“We could do a half-power jump now if you wanted, but we’ll have full juice by dinner.”

“Recommendations, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

His head jerked around to face me. “Me?”

“You’re the astrogator.”

“We’re going to need two full and one short hop for Dark Knight, Captain.” He tapped a few more keys and looked at his displays. “Half a jump now won’t buy us much. Doing the two full and then a recharge for the final hop puts us in-system by this time tomorrow.”

The numbers made me dizzy. “We just left Mel’s this morning and we’re going to be in the Dark Knight system by tomorrow?”

Al laughed. “Welcome to Toe-Hold space, Skipper. They won’t all be like this, but most stations are where ships can get to them easily because they don’t have to be deep in the gravity wells to support Goldilocks.”

“Don’t forget the Burlesons back there,” the chief said. “Twenty-four BUs in three jumps instead of eight cuts down the transit time by a lot. How many back-to-back jumps could the Tinker make?”

“We only ever made a double,” I said. “And that was about it for us.”

“After sailing for five weeks instead of five stans,” Al said.

“True.” I tried to let my brain absorb the whole paradigm shift. I knew the logic but my habits fought me. “Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Set normal watch.”

While she made the announcement, I stood up and looked around at the empty space between the stars for a moment before dropping down the ladder to officer country. I found Pip at the bottom, and the chief slid down from the bridge to join us.

I looked back and forth between them. “Is this a social call?”

“Of course,” Pip said.

The chief grinned. “You got a hot date?”

I opened the cabin door and led the small parade in. The chief closed the door behind her and we all took seats.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I’m just along for the ride,” Pip said.

“You’re CEO,” the chief said. “This is company business.”

Pip gave an airy wave. “Stockholder grievances already?”

The chief grinned. “Not exactly, no.” She looked at me. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“Dark Knight Station.”

“After that?”

I shook my head. “No. Depends on what we find there.”

She looked at Pip. “Do you know?”

“Not really. No.”

“That’s what I thought. You’re just going to sail around out here until somebody bites?”

Pip gave me the stink eye but I held up my hands in surrender. “I haven’t said anything.”

“You two,” the chief said around a laugh. “I buried my first husband out here in the Toe-Holds before you two were born. You’re using us for bait.” She stared at Pip.

Pip started to put his hand to his chest but I cleared my throat and gave him a little shake of my head. For once he thought better of what he was about to do and simply brushed down the front of his tunic. “Whatever do you mean?” he asked.

She sighed. “You wanted this ship. You brought it back to Toe-Hold space. You took the first cargo you could find to get to Mel’s and now we’re going up to Dark Knight.”

“It’s where the can is going,” Pip said.

“Uh huh. And you left a much more profitable can bound for Bar None sitting on the dock.”

“Did I?”

“You also left a high-priority can bound for High Tortuga that we might have delivered in the same amount of time.” She gave him a narrow-eyed look and pressed her lips together in a tight line. “You’re not going to try to tell me you didn’t see them.”

“We need to see Inky,” Pip said.

The chief’s face went slack for a moment. “Inky? Something wrong with our astrogation data?”

“It’s incomplete,” Pip said with a glance at me. “There’s at least one station that’s not listed. I want to see if Inky’s data shows any more.”

The chief’s eyes narrowed again. “Which one?”

“Port Lumineux.”

She looked back and forth between us for a moment and pursed her lips. “Port Lumineux? As if.”

Pip shrugged.

The chief gave a quiet snort. “So, Captain,” she said, placing some emphasis on the title. “Will you tell your chief engineer what’s going on?”

“He’s looking for a ship that’s supposedly lost out here,” I said. “The Chernyakova’s last stop in Toe-Hold space was a supply run to it. The location is in the database somewhere but it’s not labeled so we don’t know which jump point, empty system, or stand-by coordinates it might be.”

Pip scowled at me but the chief sat back in her chair with a soft “oof” sound. She looked at Pip and back at me. “That’s what he told you he’s doing?”

“Eventually. Yes.”

“Eventually?”

“I’ve been asking for weeks. He told me just before we left Mel’s.”

“And you believe him?”

I looked at Pip for a moment. Did I?

He looked back at me with his eyes slowly widening and his face growing slack.

I looked back at the chief after what seemed like a long time. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s consistent. It seems to fit the evidence. The Chernyakova is known out here.”

She stared at me for more than a few heartbeats without speaking. After a glance at Pip she said, “Some ground rules.”

Pip sat up in his chair and opened his mouth, but the chief steamrollered him.

“I’m the chief engineering officer on this ship. I don’t appreciate being lied to.” She glared at Pip. “You’ve been spooling out yarns ever since I came aboard. Even before that.” She nodded her head sideways at me. “He knows it. I know it. I suspect half the crew knows it. Why?”

“Need to know,” Pip said.

She snorted. “Don’t give me that operational security crap. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m hip deep in this operation already and whether you accept it or not, I need to know. Your operation needs this ship sailing and I’m the one charged with keeping it that way. You’re either going to straighten up and fly right or I’ll have a little word with Captain Waters.”

Pip’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack for a heartbeat, so fast I almost didn’t see it.

The chief looked at me. “And you,” she said. “It’s time for you to put on your big captain panties and figure out how to run this boat. I get that Pip’s your oldest friend and all, but you know he’s been lying like a cheap toupee and you’ve let him get away with it. Al did a good job getting you jump-started but you’ve still got your head up your ass. The paint job is good. The décor is lovely. You’ve made a few passes through the ship so the crew knows what you look like. Great. Keep doing that. Do more of it.” She paused and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “But we’re in Toe-Hold space. You can’t let him lead you around by the nose like some dumb ox. You’re a better captain than that.” Her expression softened. “You’re a better man than that.”

She let that settle into silence for a moment and sat back in her chair again.

“Now,” she said, looking back at Pip. “Try again. The full story or so help me Hannah, I’ll walk when we dock.”

Pip looked at me, but I just waited. He sighed. “About a stanyer ago, Waters contacted me about the Chernyakova. The second auction was underway but Waters knew it would fall through. I don’t know how and I didn’t ask. He had some information that the Chernyakova’s last stop before jumping up to the High Line was a supply run to the lost Mega.”

The chief looked at me and I nodded. “Go on,” she said.

“We got aboard and made sure the astrogation database was intact. If I’d been thinking, I’d have grabbed a copy then.” He shrugged. “I was focused on making sure it was there. It was.”

“How did you know?” she asked.

“We plotted a few jumps and found Toe-Hold stations I knew weren’t on standard databases.”

She looked at me again and I nodded again. “Go on.”

“Waters and I had a meeting after and he gave me the green light to go ahead with getting the ship.”

“That was why he came to see us?” I asked.

“Yeah. Well, and it was good to see him in person again.” Pip gave a sideways grin. “He was amused, but also pleased that I’d found a way aboard.”

“Couldn’t TIC have just gone aboard and searched?” the chief asked. “They certainly knew where the ship was.”

“Waters said they didn’t have sufficient probable cause and they didn’t want to tip their hand about their interest in the ship,” Pip said.

The chief’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head.

Pip held up his right hand. “Truth. I swear.”

She folded her arms across her chest and nodded. “Thin, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s at least plausible. Continue.”

“On the way to Dree, I grabbed a copy of the database for safekeeping. The drive is in my grav trunk. I ran it against a standard Toe-Hold catalog, and about a thousand locations aren't indexed. They're there and named but they lack any identifying data.”

“Why that many?” the chief asked.

“Probably just jumps in the Deep Dark. Long jumps between known stations,” I said.

“What about plotting them out?” she asked.

Pip looked blank but I caught her meaning immediately. “Like see if any of them line up between stations?” I asked.

“Would seem logical,” she said.

“Worth a try,” Pip said.

The chief pursed her lips and nodded. “So what’s really going on?”

Pip looked at her with his head cocked sideways. “I don’t follow.”

“Bait. You were planning on using the ship for bait before you knew what was on the database.”

“Why do you say that?” Pip asked.

“Back in Breakall. You insisted the ship keep its name.”

Pip nodded. “Yeah. What about it?”

“What difference would it have made to your plans if we'd renamed it Jimmy Brick?”

He shrugged. “None, I guess.”

“Then why did you insist that we keep the name?”

“Did I?” he asked.

“Yes, you did,” I said. “And you haven't answered the question.”

He stared at his hands for a moment. “I thought we’d need the ship’s name to flush out anybody who might have known her in the past.”

“So, you planned her as bait, all along,” the chief said, scowling at him.

He gave the kind of half-hearted shrug a kid might give when caught with his hand in a cookie jar. “Planned is too strong,” he said. “I thought it was something we might need before we got to the end.”

“Why?”

“Somebody else must know about the Mega. I figured we might want to know who they are.”

“And you think that’s something we don’t need to know?” she asked.

He sighed. “I’d hoped to keep it contained.”

“Never occurred to you that somebody who knows the Mega exists might have wanted to keep that knowledge to themselves?”

“Well, of course.” Pip looked as confused as I’ve ever seen him.

“How do you think they’d do that?” she asked.

“I’d expect them to come to us to try to find out what we knew.”

The chief leaned forward in her seat and leaned her elbows on her knees. She sighed and shook her head. “It didn’t occur to you that they might just take out the ship and everybody aboard?”

“Not without knowing if we’d told anybody first,” Pip said.

She twisted her head around to look at him. “That’s the best you got?”

He shrugged.

She sat up and pressed herself back into the chair. She held her lips in a tight line and her jaw worked like she was trying not to grind her teeth. She looked at me. “Captain, we’re in over our heads here.”

“I have to agree,” I said. “Recommendations?”

“First, we need to know what this is really about.”

“I told you,” Pip said. “Somewhere out here is a mega-hauler. This ship’s last jump in Toe-Hold space was to that ship.”

She shook her head and gave him a glance. “That’s what you’ve told us. Here’s how that looks from my perspective. Assuming such a ship exists—and I’ve got enough scuttlebutt and suggestion to suspect it really does—it’s been two stanyers since the Chernyakova visited it. Why would it still be there?”

“Because it can’t jump,” Pip said. “Something happened to the Burleson drives.”

She stared at him. “How long has the ship been rumored?”

He gave a quick shrug. “At least ten—maybe twelve—stanyers. Maybe longer.”

“This is Manchester Yards we’re talking about here,” she said.

“I get that. The question is why would Manchester be involved in building the Mega?” Pip said.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the chief asked.

“Because there’s no market for it.”

She frowned. “A ship that can jump a million metric kilotons? There’s no market?”

“Where would they sail it? A ship like that would spend so much time maneuvering in the gravity wells that a standard Barbell could outperform it.”

The chief shook her head. “Nice try.”

Pip’s face clouded. “What do you mean?”

“I know who owns Port Lumineux,” she said. “The question is why do you want this ship so badly if it can’t jump?”

“To find out if Iron Mountain is using it as a staging area for raids around Toe-Hold space,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Think about it. A ship that can handle the equivalent of five cans. It’s got power, life support, even docking capability. It’s a free-floating station.”

“Docking with it would be a pain,” I said.

“No worse than Odin’s Outpost,” Pip said. “Ever think of how difficult it would be for a clipper to dock there?”

I hadn’t, but I saw his point. With no system primary to provide the wind, sails were useless. Kickers burned fuel too fast to actually slow a clipper down enough to dock before the tanks dried up.

“What if it’s not in the Deep Dark?” the chief asked. “What if it’s in a system?”

“That would make it more likely that it’s still there, not less,” Pip said.

“How do you figure that?”

He ticked off points on his fingers. “It’s easier to dock with and maneuver around. It’s got some raw materials handy as long as there’s a gas giant and a supply of asteroids. It would make a great foundation for a station.”

“Why hasn’t Manchester stepped up?” I asked.

Pip looked at me. “Failed design? Stolen ship? I don’t know. They put a lot of time and effort into it and they haven’t done anything with the concepts.”

“What about the new Eighty-Eights?” the chief asked.

“What about them?” Pip asked. “Good ships. Diversified cargo.”

“They also have very long legs,” the chief said.

“Well, so do we and it’s still a pretty standard setup for a Barbell, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “I’ll concede that point, but that’s the first new design Manchester’s come out with in over a decade. Coincidence?”

Pip pursed his lips and frowned. “Possible. It’s also possible that Manchester discovered that their design didn’t work. That the Burlesons needed to push that big a mass were just not cost effective.”

“Or that they tended to blow up,” I said.

He nodded. “Or that. But if Manchester decided to cut their losses on the Mega project, it makes sense they’d pursue another—less radical—option.”

We sat there in silence for a few heartbeats. “Iron Mountain isn’t going to be pleased,” the chief said.

“If we find out what they’re doing?” I asked.

She nodded. “So, why are you so intent on finding it?” she asked, looking at Pip.

“It’s his mission,” I said.

Pip closed his eyes and hung his head forward as if I’d struck him.

The chief’s eyes popped open wide. “His mission?”

“Sure. It’s why Waters sent him out here.”

“Waters didn’t send him out here,” the chief said. “He just agreed not to arrest him if he tried.”

“Why would he arrest him?” I asked.

“Let’s just say Mr. Carstairs engages in some interesting trading activities that run counter to the CPJCT’s interests,” she said.

I felt my eyes narrow as I stared at Pip. “Do you?”

He shrugged and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Might have carried a load or two that didn’t actually clear through CPJCT.” He shrugged. “Not much different from our old flea market operation.”

I felt bowled over. “A TIC agent smuggling?” I asked.

Pip’s head jerked up as he looked at me and then turned to the chief.

“A TIC agent?” she asked and then laughed. “He told you he was a TIC agent?”

Her question made me stop and think. Had he actually said it? “Not in so many words, no,” I said after some consideration. I looked at him. “Are you?”

He glanced at the chief and then back at the deck. “No.”

“Then what’s with Waters?” I asked.

Pip shifted in his chair but didn’t answer.

“You said TIC was sending one of their best agents out with us,” I said. “That’s not you?”

He didn’t look up when he shook his head. “I didn’t know who they’d send, but I know Waters and I knew he’d send somebody.”

“And did he?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think he did.” He looked at the chief. “Didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.

The chief shook her head. “Not me. I’m not sure who he sent.”

“How do you know about Pip?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ve known about Pip for a long time,” she said. “You’re not the only cadet that got flagged at the academy. With his family ties, he’s been the topic of almost as many conversations as you have, Captain.” She shrugged.

“But we have a TIC agent on board?” I asked.

Pip shrugged and looked at the chief.

“I’ve no doubt of it. Probably more than one,” the chief said. “It’s not me.”

“But you know who it is?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I have some suspicions but nothing definite.”

I looked back and forth between them for a few heartbeats. “Now what?” I asked.

The chief crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. She frowned for a moment and shook her head. “We’re playing with fire here.” She looked at Pip. “You’re the CEO but he’s the captain. You want my advice, you’ll stop lying, if you can. He needs to know what’s going on without all the embellishment and without leaving things out.”

I found myself being pulled in two directions. One, she was saying things that should have come from me. Two, I hadn’t done it.

Pip squirmed in his seat a bit but nodded. “You’re right, of course, Chief.” He looked at me. “Sorry, Ishmael.”

“Can you stop?” I asked.

“Can I stop what? Lying?” His head twitched a little to one side.

“Yeah. You lie as easily as you breathe. Can you stop?”

His face got red. I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or anger. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped in mid-breath and closed it again. He glanced at the chief and then back at me. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can try.”

“All right. Let’s see.” I grinned at him. “How can you function after drinking that much Clipper Ship Lager?”

He shot me an impish grin and I prepared myself for disappointment. “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Then where did all the empties come from?” I asked.

“I bought empties to fill your trunk with.”

“You did what?” the chief asked.

“I had a second grav trunk that I filled with Clipper Ship before we left Port Newmar,” I said. “When we came aboard in Breakall, I discovered that all the beer was gone but he’d filled the trunk with empties. What I don’t understand is why?”

“To make people underestimate me. If they think I’m drunk, they’ll either ignore me or discount me. It works really well when you tell them about how much I drink.”

His answer stunned me. “Why?”

“Easier if they don’t pay much attention to me.”

I shared a glance with the chief who shrugged.

“Is that why you bleach your hair?” she asked. “To make people think you’re old and feeble?”

His eyes widened for a moment before he spoke. “I don’t—”

“The chemicals show up in the environmental logs,” the chief said.”

He sighed. “I got tired of people making assumptions about my temper because of my hair color. It’s easier this way.”

I saw the tension in the chief’s face ease and she sat back in her chair once more.

Pip looked at the chief, then at me. “Are we done here?”

I shrugged and the chief nodded.

“I’ll go see if any of these unknown locations line up,” he said. He stopped at the door without looking back. “Sorry,” he said, and left, closing the door behind him.

I looked at the chief. “Now for me?”

She shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“What do you think I should be doing?” I asked.

“You could stop lying to yourself,” she said. “It would be a start.”

I sagged back in my chair. “Am I?”

She shrugged again. “Why did you let him lead you around? You knew he was lying.”

I took a deep breath and thought about it, my gaze fixed somewhere near the door, not looking at her. “I don’t know,” I said after a few heartbeats.

“Don’t you?”

I thought about it some more. Did I know? “It’s hard to judge from the inside,” I said. “Too easy to pick a pat answer and roll it out. It was easier to let him lead since he knew the neighborhood. This Toe-Hold space is so completely foreign, I don’t know where to step.”

A gentle smile curled her lips. “It’s less foreign than you think.”

“There are whole cultures out there that I could step in and put the ship in danger,” I said.

Her head rocked back and forth a couple of times. “Yeah, there are whole cultures out there.” She paused and shook her head. “There’s a culture in here, too.”

I stopped for a dozen heartbeats to consider her words. “And I’m still not paying attention to the culture in here?”

Her eyebrows did a little upsy-daisy on her forehead. “I didn’t say that. I’ve been so busy writing I haven’t paid that much attention myself for the last few weeks.”

“The new edition?” I asked.

She nodded. “It can be all consuming, which is why I don’t revise frequently. There are those who spend their lives on revisions, even when they have nothing new to say.” She smiled at me. “But you’re ducking the question.”

“Which question?”

“Why did you let him lead you around?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” I said.

She shook her head. “Probably, but that’s not the reason.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I met you before. Back on Port Newmar.”

“I remember, but I’ve changed a lot.”

She smiled and shrugged again before standing up. “I met you right after, too,” she said. “You haven’t changed that much.”

She started for the door.

“That’s it?” I asked. “You’re just gonna stick that out there and leave me with it?” I almost laughed at the absurdity—or perhaps it was nervousness.

She stopped halfway out. “No,” she said. “I’ll leave you with this. What would Fredi do?”

The door closed behind her with a quiet click, but I barely heard it over the echoes in my head. What would Fredi do? I leaned back in my chair, stared at the blue overhead, and pondered.

Chapter 24
Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

If Mel’s Place was a bright bustling city, Dark Knight Station was one large factory in space. The station itself lay out on the edge of the system. A gas giant lay on the far side of the primary and the largest solar array I’d ever seen hung above the tangle of galleries, constructions, and left over bits of ships, tanks, and shipping containers. I wasn’t sure how much power it generated, but perhaps the materials were cheap here.

Also like Mel’s Place, they relied on voice communications to establish our approach and docking. It all seemed to work well, and we’d docked just before lunch mess. As before, Pip and I met with station officials, but we’d cleared visas for the crew on approach so our meeting was simply a pro forma exercise.

After lunch, I found myself back in the cabin, chasing my demons around in my head and asking “what would Fredi do?”

We had the basics covered. The ship was operating at CPJCT levels of expertise with all the crew, ratings, and experience necessary to keep the ship sailing safely. We had plenty of provisions and fuel. We still had months’ worth of spares.

Pip opened the door and stuck his head through. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. Come on in.”

He took his customary seat. He’d been subdued since our conversation with the chief. Nothing like being reamed out by an expert to convince you to pull in your wings a bit.

“I ran some plots against the navigation data. I got Tom to help,” he said. “About half of the positions are on a straight line between two known stations.”

“That leaves what? Five hundred?”

He grinned. “About that. More than we can search.”

“So, what’s next?”

“I’m heading up to the chandlery to see Inky. Wanna come along?”

“You going alone?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Unless you want to come with me.”

“Civvies?”

“I was just about to change. Nobody wears undress in Toe-Hold space.”

“What’s the dress code here?”

“Same as Mel’s. Most places are the same. Comfy and colorful, as a rule.”

“Gimme a couple ticks,” I said.

He nodded and left me to rummage in my grav trunks. I didn’t have a lot of colorful clothes, but I had some comfy jeans, a dark pullover, and my favorite ship boots. I probably wouldn’t win any prizes for best costume, but I’d be comfortable.

I stepped out of the cabin in time to meet Pip coming along from his stateroom dressed in dark slacks under a scarlet tunic with gold piping down the sleeves, and highly polished boots with pointy toes. “That’s comfy?” I asked, taking in the outfit.

“It is surprisingly comfy,” he said. “And colorful.”

Chief Stevens strolled up to us wearing some kind of flowing pantsuit outfit in a jewel green with black frogs toggled down the front. “Good, you’re ready,” she said. She eyed me up and down and shrugged. “Maybe we can take you shopping while we’re here.”

I looked at Pip.

He shrugged. “She asked if she could go with us.”

“No complaints here,” I said. “I just wish I’d known how colorful you meant.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Nobody will look at you twice.”

I wasn’t so sure but followed the chief down the ladder and off the ship.

The docking gallery felt huge, but like Mel’s Place, also felt warm and slightly humid. I caught a whiff of something like exhaust—or maybe fried food. I couldn’t tell. The place swarmed with people.

Pip and the chief blended in with the crowd, their outfits not standing out as particularly bright or gaudy. A few of the passersby had more outlandish outfits than the chief and Pip, but many more simply showed a flash of color in the form of a neckerchief or shirt. I felt like a crow in the company of peacocks.

Pip led the way along the docking gallery to a wide, open bay with a long counter across the back. The scents of soap, lubricants, and too many bodies wafted out into the area. I glanced up to see “CHANDLERY” spelled out in two-meter-tall fluorescent yellow letters. The level of traffic in and out made me blink.

Chief Stevens caught my eye and grinned. “A little busier than you’re used to?”

“Feels like an ant hill in here,” I said.

Pip faded to his left and led us along the bulkhead to a simple wooden door. A couple of beefy types watched us with flat eyes but didn’t prevent Pip from opening the door and ducking into the narrow passage beyond.

Grit scraped under the soles of my boots but the passage seemed to be well maintained. Fixtures along the overhead cast enough bluish light to see by. Every once in a while I heard voices behind the bulkheads, but they were quiet and indistinct. A low, chest-rattling hum came from somewhere off to the right. I was about to ask Pip if he knew where he was going when he stopped in front of an elaborately decorated door. He tilted his head a bit and studied the door for a moment before pushing it open. We followed him in.

The dim lighting highlighted the artwork along the bulkheads. An orrery with twelve planets on silvery wires and a roiling red primary at the center hung from the center of the overhead. A narrow-shouldered man wearing high-heeled boots, blue jeans, and a leather jacket over a ruby red shirt stepped back from the counter and nodded to us as he left.

The clerk straightened up from behind the counter and looked at each of us. Her mouth opened and her eyes widened when she looked at the chief. “Maggie?”

The chief smiled and reached both hands across the counter. “Hello, Inge. How are you?”

The woman took the chief’s hands and they leaned together to kiss cheeks over the counter. “I’m well. You?”

The chief grinned and shrugged a shoulder. “I could complain, but at least I’m between husbands.”

Inge laughed—a light, bubbling trill. “Someday, Maggie. Someday.”

The chief shrugged. “Might happen. I’m not holding my breath.”

Inge turned her gaze on me and I realized that what I’d taken for a pale shirt embroidered with colorful patterns was, in fact, her skin covered with fantastic tattoos. She wore a simple halter top that exposed most of her upper torso. I had to force myself to stop staring at her ink and look her in the eyes. She smiled and held out a hand. “Inge Sonjasdotttir,” she said.

I shook her hand. “Ishmael Wang.”

“Pleased to meet you, Captain Wang.” She held out a hand to Pip. “Hello, Phillip.”

He shook the offered hand with a glance at the chief and me. “Hello, Inge.”

“How can I help you today?” she asked, looking at each of us in turn.

“I need an updated astrogation loader,” Pip said.

“Anything in particular?” she asked.

“We’ve got a lot of unidentified jumps in our astrogation database,” Pip said. “I’m hoping an update will tell me what they are.”

She reached under the counter, pulled out a thumb drive, and skittered it across the counter toward Pip. “Latest identified jumps and stations as of last week.”

He scooped it up and slipped it into a tunic pocket. “Thanks.”

“Have you done any new charts since the last time I was here?” the chief asked, looking at the framed artwork around the room.

It took me a moment but I realized that what I’d taken for some kind of abstract art was a series of charts done in exquisite detail. I crossed to the bulkhead to get a better look. Inge and the chief followed me.

“That’s new,” Inge said. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen that one.”

The nautical chart depicted a nearly semicircular bay including contour lines for water depth and land height. A small label under it said “Starvey Bay, St. Cloud.”

I stepped to one side to give the chief room to examine it. My eyes locked on the next one. I recognized the harbor at Port Newmar from my days sailing on the academy’s sloop. The colors and shapes took me back so completely I could practically smell the brine and hear the creak of the rigging.

“Do you like it, Captain?” Inge stood just behind my right shoulder.

“I do,” I said. “I think I have a place reserved for this in the cabin. It’s for sale?”

She nodded. “It is.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

She trilled her laugh again. “I’ll package it up for you. Will you take it with you or should I have it delivered?”

I stepped back and she tilted the frame, breaking its magnetic hold on the bulkhead so it fell into her hands. She walked away, back behind the counter, giving me a breathtaking view of the images inked into the skin of her back. Her white skin seemed to glow in the dimness, each shift in musculature giving life to the images there. “I’ll take it,” I said, pulling myself back into awareness.

She glanced over her shoulder with a knowing smile.

The chief asked, “Heard from Demetri lately?”

Inge shrugged a shoulder as she slipped the framed chart into a protective sleeve. “Not in a couple of months now. He’s a busy man.” She frowned and bit her lip.

“What’s he doing these days?” the chief asked.

“He’s still busy developing his station. He comes to visit a couple times a stanyer.”

“Still? How’s it coming?”

She shrugged again. “It’s still very limited. I’ve visited a couple of times. He’s doing well enough that he can import what he needs and still turn a profit. I’m not ready to give up my business, and he’s not willing to sell out.”

The chief patted her forearm where it lay on the counter. “Some things are worth waiting for.”

Inge snorted. “He’s just impossible enough.”

The chief laughed. “But not impossible enough to turn away from, eh?”

“Exactly,” Inge said. “Is there something else?” She looked from Pip to me.

I shook my head. “That’s enough for me.”

Pip held up the thumb drive and flicked the case. “I’ll have this back to you by tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Very well.” She held out a tablet for me to thumb.

I saw there was no charge on it for the update. “You can put his update on this bill,” I said, nodding at Pip.

She shook her head. “No charge for updates. Just the chart.”

I looked at the chief, who nodded.

I thumbed the tab and she slid the chart across the counter. “Hope you enjoy it,” she said.

I tucked the package under my arm and Pip led the way back out of the office. We traveled single-file down the narrow passageway. I felt a little dazed by the encounter. “She has a lot of tattoos,” I said.

“That’s why some people call her Inky,” the chief said. “Play on her real name.”

“She doesn’t sell the updates?” I asked.

Pip looked back over his shoulder. “As long as I get the drive back to her before we leave, updates are free. Under normal circumstances, that’s the way of it.”

“Way of what?”

“Toe-Hold space,” the chief said. “You’ll find a lot of scammers and gougers. People who’ll try to cheat you out of your last credit. You’ll also find people like Inge who do what they can to make sure people have what they need to survive.”

“And astrogation data is survival?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Pip said. “The data is easily come by but if you don’t have it—or don’t know you need it—jumping around blind in the Deep Dark is a risky business.”

I had some appreciation of what jumping blindly into a rock storm or nebula might do to a ship, so I saw his point. It still seemed odd that valuable information wasn’t being sold.

Pip led us all the way back to the ship and we separated at the cabin.

“I’m going to see what I can find out with this update,” Pip said. “Shall we do dinner on station?”

“I’m up for it,” the chief said.

“Sure, why not?” I said. “Meet here at 1800?”

Pip gave me a jaunty wave and headed down the passageway. I stepped into the cabin with my prize and began tearing into the packaging.

“Where are you going to hang it?” the chief asked, leaning against the open door frame.

I cleared the last of the packing material and held it up at arm’s length. The jewel tones of the chart added a splash of color in the nearly monochromatic color scheme of the cabin. I rotated slowly around but didn’t see any place that felt right in the cabin. A step into the sleeping compartment showed me the empty bulkhead just to the left of the door to the head. The magnetic latches caught the bulkhead and the chart looked like it had always been there.

I came back out and found the chief still standing in the open door. I dusted my hands together. “Done.” It took me a moment to gather the loose packaging into a bundle for disposal. “Something I can do for you, Chief?”

“I thought you might like to go shopping.”

“Shopping. Shopping for what?”

“Clothes? Souvenirs?” She shrugged.

“I just got a souvenir. You think I need new clothes?”

“Not necessarily, but you do stand out a bit. You might have noticed that the populations out here are a bit more flamboyant than you’re used to.”

“We didn’t dress that much differently at Mel’s Place.” I gave her outfit a scanning glance.

“You didn’t, maybe, but I suspect Pip did. I know I did.”

“Al didn’t.”

The chief arched an eyebrow. “Al? Really? How much surgical steel did she wear ashore?”

The thought gave me pause. “Granted,” I said after a few heartbeats.

“You don’t have to buy anything. I just thought it would be nice to get you off the ship for a bit.”

“Without Pip,” I said.

She shrugged but said nothing.

“Let’s go. Lemme check with Pip.” She backed out of the doorway. I took a quick walk down to Pip’s stateroom and knocked on the door.

“Yeah?”

I stuck my head in and found him hunched over his console. “I’m going ashore with Chief Stevens. Bip me if you need anything.”

He nodded without looking up. “Clothes shopping?”

“Apparently.”

He nodded again. “Have fun.”

I closed the door and walked back to meet the chief at the top of the ladder.

“Does he know what he’s doing?” she asked.

“I presume so. He’s been slicing and dicing data as long as I have. Maybe longer. I don’t know that I’d trust him with a system backup, but matching databases looking for discrepancies? Sure.”

“As long as he doesn’t overwrite ours,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure he’s working from a backup.”

She grinned at me and punched me in the arm. “You’re not giving me a lot of confidence, Captain.”

I rubbed my shoulder and scowled at her, but I couldn’t hold it and laughed.

“Where are we going?”

“Main Street,” she said.

“Really?”

“You’ll see. Shopping district for the station. They’ll have some nice clothiers. Also some shabby places.”

“Something for everybody?” I asked.

“Just about. If you can think of it and want to buy it, you’ll probably find it there.”

“Sounds charming.”

“Don’t judge until you see it. You might be surprised.”

She led me out of the docking gallery and through a wide, arched passageway into a plaza. It wasn’t as big as the one at Mel’s, but what it lacked in foot-print it made up for in height. My neck almost cramped as I looked up and up and up. I saw green plants growing in baskets and vines hanging from planters.

“They like their greenery,” I said.

The chief glanced up. “Organic scrubbers,” she said. “They use a lot of them here. Require no power—other than the light—and these are bred for low-light conditions.”

We crossed the plaza and ducked down a narrow alley that opened up on a wide boulevard lined with shops. It was hard for me to think of this wide passage as anything other than a street. People walked along, some alone and others in groups of up to five or six. Some obviously had someplace to be, while others didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“The place to be seen?” I asked.

“It’s one of them. The station likes to keep things peaceful so they make sure people have what they want, so long as they pay for it.”

She led me along the near side of the street. “Here we go,” she said after a couple of blocks.

We stopped in front of a narrow shop with a single display window and a skinny door. The window looked like something from a history book with elaborate lettering declaring the establishment to be Marc’s on Main. A display showed a collection of shirts, shoes, and hats. The top half of a mannequin wearing a teal turtleneck pullover under a brown leather jacket with some kind of furry lapels held pride of place in the middle.

The chief walked up to the door and pulled it open, holding it for me and waving me in. The sound of a tiny bell ringing floated from the opening.

I grinned at her and soon found myself in a tiny boutique that could only be described as quaint. The odd fragrances I associated with fabrics filled the place. The scent of good wool left my nose feeling like it had been cuddled.

The tinny, tinkly sound stopped when we closed the door. I looked up at it, half expecting to see a bell on a spring attached to the door itself.

“Welcome to Marc’s.” A youngish looking man—perhaps a few years younger than me—strode from behind a curtain at the back of the shop. He scrubbed the palms of his hands together and smiled in obvious pleasure. “How can I help you today?” He stopped halfway to us and held out his arms as in an embrace. “Margaret? I had no idea you were in the area. How delightful to see you.”

The chief took each of his hands in each of hers. They performed the cheek-kiss ritual I’d seen before. “Marc,” the chief said. “You look better every time I see you.”

“Am I old enough for you yet, my dear?” Marc asked.

“Of course, but what would Indeo say?”

“She left me. Ran off with some miner with dirt under his nails and huge piles of credits in the bank.” Marc sighed dramatically. “It was almost three stanyers ago, my dear. Wind past the sails now.”

“Well, I’m happy to see you’re completely miserable, Marc,” the chief said with a grin and a pat to his cheek. “Let me try to assuage some of your black mood by helping my friend here. Ishmael Wang, please meet my friend Marc. Marc, Ishmael Wang.”

He smiled and nodded to me, holding his hands together at his chest and offering a small bow. “Mr. Wang, a pleasure. Any friend of Margaret’s is welcome.”

She gave him a playful slap on the arm. “Any man with credits is welcome, you young fraud.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Well, also true.” His darting gaze shuffled up and down my body a couple of times. He paused at the top of my head with each scan. “Fleet?” he asked.

“Sadly,” Margaret said. “Can you help him anyway?”

He smiled. “Of course. Some of my best customers are fleet.” He held out a hand to usher me to a spot on the flooring. “If you’d stand here, Mr. Wang, we’ll measure you. Do you have any particular style or colors in mind?”

I stood on the mark and watched as a sketch of my body appeared on the monitor mounted at eye level. “I’m partial to blue and green,” I said. “I like wearing a jacket because it gives me better pockets.”

“Do you use them?” he asked. “The jacket pockets?”

“Sometimes.” I thought about it. “I like a pocket for my tablet that’s not in my pants.”

He nodded. “Here’s what you appear to be wearing now,” he said. The display showed a good approximation of my outfit, right down to the worn heels on my ship boots. “Serviceable, to be sure,” he said. “A tad ... how should I put it ... drab?”

I smiled. “Drab is a good word.”

“And no jacket? Why is that?”

“The only ones I have are just as drab and a bit worn.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘dated,’ Ishmael,” the chief said.

Marc’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Ah,” he said. “Been some time since you’ve updated, I take it?” He studied my pullover and jeans. “Yes. Some time.”

“Several stanyers,” I said.

Marc sniffed. “I’d have thought decades but no matter. You prefer comfort over style? Would you like to appear younger or older than you are?”

“Comfort, and I’d like to not appear at all.”

Marc took a deep breath and squinted at me for a moment before glancing at the chief. “You enjoy trying my abilities, don’t you, my dear?”

The chief found a chair tucked into a corner I hadn’t noticed and lounged on it like it was a chaise instead of a plain, straight-backed chair. “Always, Marc. You’ve never let me down yet.”

“Speaking of which,” he said. “What happened with that dear lad you brought in here the last time? Oscar? Oliver?”

“Ogden?” she asked.

“Yes. Delightful boy. I never took you for a cradle robber.”

She snorted. “He’s gone back to his mother.”

“Ah, a momma’s boy?”

“My grandson,” she said.

Marc’s eyebrows shot up as he turned to her. “You might have told me before now.”

“Why? You were with Indeo. I should provide you with the pedigree of everyone I bring in?”

Marc winked at her. “One never knows. I thought you had claim to him.” He looked me. “Does she have a claim on you?”

“The other way around,” I said.

Marc blinked and the chief laughed.

“She’s my chief engineer,” I said.

His eyes widened as he looked back and forth between the two of us. “Of course. You’re the captain.”

“I am.”

He looked at me hard in the face. “Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. “Of course. My apologies, Captain. I should have seen it before.”

“No harm, no foul. I still need some clothing.”

He nodded, his eyes narrowing as he looked from me to the screen and back again. “It makes sense now. You want to blend in well enough to not be noticed.”

I shrugged.

He smiled and shook his head. “That’s not possible. Not entirely.”

“You mistook me for someone else when I came in,” I said.

His smile widened. “Blame her. She provides you with excellent cover with those who know her, but I suspect not so much with strangers.”

“What are you saying, foolish boy?” the chief asked in mock indignation.

“Hush, you,” he said, tossing a grin at her like a wave across the room. “Your reputation, carefully crafted over decades, precedes you.” He smiled solidly at her. “You wear it well. It suits you. What I’m saying is that our dear Margaret the Bold is seldom seen in public with the same handsome man. You, Captain, are nothing if not a handsome man. Ergo, people who know her see you as her arm candy.”

“People who don’t aren’t fooled?” I asked.

“Starship captains are ... special.”

I chuckled to myself, remembering Alys Giggone in a towel in the steam room on the Lois McKendrick such a long, long time ago.

Marc nodded even though I’d not spoken a word. “You know what I mean.”

“What would you recommend?” I asked.

He looked at his screen, his eyes narrowing and the fingers on his right hand playing a tattoo on his lower lip. “Comfort over style.” He paused and looked at me. “What if I can give you both?”

I thought about it for two heartbeats. “Depends on the style.”

His face lit up. “Excellent answer.” He turned to his display again and started flipping clothing off to one side and picking up new items from a storage array that spun too quickly for me to follow. In a matter of moments he stepped back. “This?”

I blinked at the screen, trying to make out the shape of the clothing in the eye-searing colors. “No,” I said.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“Garish? I’d need to wear eye protection to keep from burning my retinas.”

“You’d be looking away, Captain. No danger to your eyes.”

“I’d feel guilty blinding somebody else,” I said.

The chief snorted.

“Fair enough.” He turned to the screen again and cleared the garish clothing before pulling in a different set. It looked like the pictures I’d seen of old fashion suits in the art books back on Neris, but with the colors inverted. A black shirt under a shocking white jacket and slacks over the whitest shoes I’d seen since leaving the parade ground at Port Newmar. A wide belt in scarlet wrapped the middle of my body. He stood back with a flourish.

“Not terrible,” I said. “The white would be a pain to keep clean.”

“It sheds,” he said.

“Sheds what?”

He shrugged. “Everything. Water. Dirt. Chemicals. Energy weapons. Blades. Small-caliber weapons fire.” He shrugged again. “Everything. What do you think of the shape?”

“Doesn’t grab me.”

He nodded and leaned in again. When he stepped back, the figure struck me. A burgundy jacket with some kind of pale blue flowered pattern over a ruffled shirt and what looked like blue jeans. The jacket had wide sleeves and a military tab collar, open all the way down. The ruffled shirt carried a faint blue tint that played off the blue of the trousers.

“We’re getting closer,” he said.

I looked at him. “We are.”

He nodded. “Very well.”

He opened a door and ushered me inside. “If you’d wait in there a moment, Captain.”

I stepped in and looked around. A full-length mirror showed a rather drab individual and a stool where he might sit. I did and wondered how long I’d have to wait.

Almost immediately, the door popped open and a hand thrust a pair of blue trousers at me. I took them and changed into them. They weren’t denim but some kind of woven material with a bit of a shimmer to it and stirrup straps at the bottom. I hung my denims on the hook and tucked my boots under the stool in time for the hand to thrust in a shirt. I slipped out of the dark green pullover and into the pale blue shirt. This one had no ruffles but a straight button-up front. The fabric skimmed my skin.

“Come out, Captain,” Marc said.

I padded out in my stocking feet and he held a coat in deep burgundy for me to slip into. The jacket settled onto my shoulders like it’d missed me. I held up an arm and saw that the fabric carried the faint pattern of the flowers in the original image he’d shown me, just not picked out in a contrasting color.

“What do you think, Captain?” Marc asked, spinning a mirror around to reflect my image.

The smooth front shirt and the woven leggings gave my body enough definition without looking odd. The coat felt perfect and the rich burgundy with the tunic tab collar caught the upright collar of the shirt at exactly the right place. I reached down to catch the bottom button on the coat and realized that the offset buttons ran all the way up the right side, like some of the old cadet uniforms I’d seen in the academy archives. The cuffs and lapels sported leather panels dyed to match the fabric perfectly.

I took a step back when I realized I’d seen this coat—or one very much like it—before. “I think I like it,” I said and glanced at the chief. “What do you think?”

She smiled and nodded. “Should do.”

“I’ve seen one like this before,” I said. “A couple of decades ago and a long way away.”

Marc’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes. I tried on a coat not too different from this. The tailor asked me if the coat fit the man I wanted to be.”

Marc gasped. “No, you must be mistaken,” he said a hand reaching for his lips. “Do you remember the tailor’s name?”

“Bresheu,” I said. “Large man, light on his feet. Had a huge space on an orbital flea market. Somewhere in Dunsany Roads. Maybe St. Cloud. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Marc’s complexion had gone pale. “Impossible.”

“Why?” I asked, looking at his reflection in the mirror.

“He’s my grandfather.” Marc shook his head. “These days he has a salon in a High Liner orbital at St. Cloud. I haven’t seen him in stanyers.”

“Why impossible?” the chief asked.

“The odds that somebody who met him during his flea market period would show up here?” Marc shook his head again. “I can’t contemplate.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “And you remember.”

I grinned at him. “Of course I remember. The experience isn’t one I’d forget. Kids everywhere. Clothes I’d never seen before.” I looked back at myself in the mirror and smoothed a hand down over the rich fabric. “This is an amazing jacket and one I wish I’d purchased when I could.”

“I was one of those kids,” Marc said. “I learned the trade at my grandfather’s knee.”

“What brought you out here?” I asked.

“When Grandfather got the lease on his salon, I decided I wanted to do something more than fetch and carry for him.” He looked around the inside of his modest shop. “He gave me some of his patterns—including that coat—and I came out to the Toe-Holds to make my fortune.” He glanced down and chuckled. “It seemed so exciting at the time.”

“Now?” the chief asked.

He looked at her. “Now, it’s a living. I visited several places before coming here. When this shop opened up, I took the lease and it’s paid nicely.”

“What would you do, if you could do anything?” she asked.

He smiled and glanced around again. “The same as I’m doing now.”

“Sounds like you’ve found a niche for yourself,” I said.

He picked an imaginary piece of lint from the shoulder of my jacket and caught my eye in the glass. “And you, Captain? Have you found a niche?”

I gazed at the outfit in the mirror. “I need some boots. Something comfortable.”

“They should be ready,” he said, disappearing back through the drape at the back of the store. He emerged a moment later with a pair of boots that matched the coat, down to the faint pattern in the soft fabric. He handed them to me. “Try these, Captain.”

I slipped them on, pulling the old-fashioned laces snug and letting my fingers remember how to tie them. A wide strap with a brass buckle belted around the top, just above my ankle. I stroked my fingers over the toe, feeling the odd, fuzzy texture. “What is this material?” I asked.

“Suede,” Marc said. “We get our supply from Bar None. Finest leather in Toe-Hold space. What do you think?”

I stood and looked into the mirror again. The boots grounded the outfit. With the stirrups on the trousers, the pants tucked tightly into the tops of the boots. The straps gave some structure, while the buckles made a pleasant statement without being loud. “It still seems a bit unfinished,” I said.

“Try this,” Marc said, handing me a peaked cap.

I placed it squarely on my head as if heading for parade ground inspection. It’s not like I wasn’t familiar with hats, but I seldom wore them after leaving the academy. There seemed little reason. A wide woven rim formed a pillbox shape with a narrow visor. I saw the same flowery pattern in the rim as in the jacket. I couldn’t tell if it was more pronounced there or simply more visible. The cap fit comfortably around my cranium.

Marc smiled. “Fleet training,” he said. “Try a little less parade ground.” He placed his hands at his ears, pushing one up and pulling the other down.

I followed his instructions and placed the cap at something of a jaunty angle. Just a few degrees off square brought the cap to life. Where before it looked like the cap on a bottle of cheap burgundy, with the slight angle it stood out on its own.

“What do you think?” I asked, looking at the chief and turning to give her the full view.

She smiled. “What I think has less bearing than what you think.”

I looked back into the mirror. “It feels a little pretentious,” I said.

The chief stood beside me in the mirror. “You’re in a different place now,” she said.

I looked at her reflection. “You mean physically?”

She gave me a wink. “However you want.”

Marc caught my eye in the glass. “What do you think?” he asked. “Is this the man you wish to be?”

“Your grandfather asked me something similar.” I stared at the outfit for a few heartbeats, finding myself settling into the image. The tunic cut of the coat reached to my hips while the blue trousers set off and enhanced the deep—almost black—burgundy. It felt more like a costume than clothing, but something about it spoke to me. “I’ll take it.”

Marc beamed and the chief’s ever-present smile widened.

“Excellent,” Marc said. “That’s one. What else?”

I looked at him in the mirror and saw the surprise in my own face. “One?”

Marc shrugged. “Of course. You can’t wear the same thing every day. You’ll need at least two, perhaps three. Maybe more.”

I looked at the chief.

She nodded. “This isn’t my only outfit,” she said, looking down at her clothing. “That’s nice but perhaps a couple of mix-and-match outfits you can feel more comfortable in?”

“Something less ostentatious?” I asked.

“Exactly,” the chief said.

We spent the next stan rounding up some comfy denim, another pair of boots, and several jewel-toned pullovers. Altogether I spent a small fortune on clothing, but I also left Marc’s with a silly smile on my face and wearing my new coat. The rest would be delivered to the ship.

As we strolled along Main Street heading back toward the ship, the chief asked, “So? How does it feel?”

I thought about it for a few heartbeats, glancing down at the new finery. “Odd.”

“In what way?”

“Like an imposter.” I shrugged and didn’t meet her gaze.

“In a good way?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“If you didn’t like it, why did you buy it?”

I gave her question almost a full tick of consideration as we strolled through the tall atrium. “It’s not that I don’t like it. I really do,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve thought about this jacket ever since I didn’t buy it back when I was on the Lois.”

She glanced at me and patted my arm. “Now you have it.”

“I do, but now I wonder why I made such a big deal of it in my mind all this time.”

“What was it he asked you? Something about being the man who would wear it?”

“He wanted to know if I thought the clothes represented the man I wanted to be.”

We left the atrium and entered the docking gallery. “What do you think?” she asked.

I looked at my blurry reflection in the armorglass docking port as we walked by. “I used to think so,” I said.

“What changed?”

I chuckled. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Do you have an answer?” She raised an eyebrow in my direction.

I started to run a hand over my scalp and nearly bumped the silly hat off. “Maybe something like ‘be careful what you wish for.’”

We stopped outside the lock.

“Give it a chance, Captain. It’s a great look for you. It’ll stand you in good stead here and, I suspect, even once we get back to the High Line.”

“It still feels more like a costume, a mask,” I said. “Not who I am but somebody I’m pretending to be.”

Her lips curved into a lopsided smile. “I think that’s my point,” she said. “That’s what clothes are. A mask to hide behind. Even our uniforms are masks we put on to convince our crews that they should do what we say. Even your jeans and pullovers. Masks to tell people you’re not important. ‘Nothing to see here.’ The challenge is to be honest about it.” She keyed the lock and stepped into the ship when it opened, leaving me standing there looking after her.

Chapter 25
Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

For all my trepidation over the fancy dress nature of my new clothes, the crew seemed to find them quite appropriate. Ms. Torkelson had the brow watch when I went aboard. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Good afternoon, Captain.”

I stepped onto the scale and waited. Ms. Torkleson’s jaw had dropped a centimeter as she stared. “Good afternoon, Ms. Torkelson. If you’d adjust my mass allotment?”

Her mouth snapped closed and she started tapping on the watch stander’s console. “Oh. Sorry, Captain. Yes. My apologies, sar.”

“A bit of a shock?” I asked.

She glanced up from her display and nodded. “Yes, Captain. I wouldn’t have—that is, I never expected ...” Her voice petered out. “Nice outfit, sar.”

“Too much?” I asked.

Her eyes widened. “No. Definitely not, sar.” She shrugged. “I’m so used to seeing you in uniform, seeing you in normal clothes surprised me.”

I looked down. “These are normal clothes?”

She blinked several times. “Well, yeah.” Color washed across her face. “All right, not normal normal, sar, but compared to what people wear here? That’s very normal. Makes you look all captain-y.”

“Captain-y?”

The chief stuck her head out of the passageway. “Captain, if you’re done tormenting the crew ...?”

“Of course. Is my mass updated, Ms. Torkelson?”

She slapped a final key. “Yes, sar.”

“Thank you, Ms. Torkelson.” I followed a chuckling Chief Stevens into the ship.

“You never seemed like the insecure type, Captain,” she said.

“Insecure?”

She stopped, blocking the passageway. “You’re having a little trouble getting back on your feet. Understandable. You just bought clothing that you’re not exactly sure about, in spite of the fact that you’ve wanted this coat—or one like it—for longer than you’ve known me. Torkelson back there was practically swallowing her tongue because she’s never seen you like this. I dare say only Pip might have—or perhaps Al—so get used to having people run into bulkheads, trip on the deck plates, or otherwise look at you with new eyes.”

“I’m not going to wear this stuff aboard,” I said.

She chuckled. “Only on and off the ship. Trust me. That’ll be enough.”

She spun on her heel and continued on down the passageway, leaving me to follow at my own pace.

One thing I felt pretty sure of was that I really did need to get my act together. Al and the chief felt like they needed to adjust my halo for me. I had enough respect for both of them to think maybe they had a point.

I walked past the entry to the mess deck and looked to see all eyes focused on me. I nodded and hurried up the ladder to officer country. Al, Thomas Reed, and Ms. Fortuner waited for me at the top of the ladder. Their studied nonchalance tipped me off. “Ms. Torkelson?” I asked.

Al scratched her chin. “Excellent watchstander. Great hand on the helm. What about her, Captain?”

“Fast hand with the notifications?” I asked.

“She’s a rare eye for the things that might be of interest to the Officer of the Deck,” Al said.

“I see,” I said and tried to get past the assembled bodies at the top of the ladder. “If you’d excuse me? I’ll just stow this in the cabin?”

Reed stepped aside just as Fortuner stepped in front of the door. She seemed to catch herself and then stepped away. “Sorry, Skipper,” she said.

I flipped the latch on the cabin and entered, closing the door against the wide-eyed stares from my officers. I hadn’t thought new clothes would have resulted in such a response. Maybe the chief had a point.

I stripped out of the new finery and slipped into a set of undress khakis. I had no plans to go ashore any time soon. I wasn’t sure I dared.

I’d no sooner settled into my chair when Pip knocked and stuck his head in. “Got a tick?”

“Sure.”

He slipped in and latched the door behind him. “I finished the reconciliation.”

“And the bad news?” I asked.

“Between the current astrogation updates from Inge and the mapping, I’ve still got a couple of hundred unidentified locations.”

“And no real confirmation that some of the mapped jump points don’t actually contain this ship.”

Pip grimaced and frowned but nodded. “Unfortunately, true.”

“So we need to find somebody else who knows where the Mega might be,” I said.

“Or give it up as a bad job,” Pip said scowling at his toes.

“Where would that leave us?”

“Well, we still have a darn fine ship with very long legs. We still have cargoes to haul and a crew that wants to ship with us.”

“What about TIC?” I asked.

“TIC has no real investment in this. They’d like to know what that ship is or at least who’s controlling it, but if we can’t find out, then they’ve got to find somebody who can.” He shrugged. “Shouldn’t affect us either way unless they pull out whatever assets they have aboard.”

“So, what now?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Keep hauling freight.”

“What about Patterson?” I asked.

“Patterson? What about him?”

“He was the reason I was coming out here.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “We can probably find him, if you’ve a mind to.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head trying to find a thread I could follow. “What’s with the can?” I asked.

“They took it this morning. We’ve got a new cargo coming in this evening. Can of ore going to Ice Rock.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to take the finished metal?”

“It would if Dark Knight had the capacity to refine it or Ice Rock didn’t,” he said.

I shook my head to see if it made any more sense. “What?”

“Dark Knight has a huge mining fleet. Their smelters get backed up, so they sell the ore at a discount to places like Ice Rock where the hard-rock mining operations aren’t as productive any more.”

“Why don’t they build more smelters?” I asked.

“I suspect it has something to do with the way ore comes in. It’s not like the place has one mining operation that coordinates ore-hauling.”

“Why not?”

“It’s Toe-Hold space,” Pip said, a bit of exasperation in his voice. “Dark Knight Station doesn’t have any say about what happens out there in the belts. They maintain claims records so people aren’t out there killing each other over the rocks, but that’s about it.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingertips against the lids. “So, everybody just voluntarily goes along with the scheme?”

“For the most part. It’s easier to go along and get rich than it is to buck the system and go broke.”

I opened my eyes to stare at him. “Everybody gets rich?”

He frowned at me. “Have you gotten stupid since you made captain?”

“No, I’ve always been stupid. Particularly about cultures and societies I know so little about as Toe-Hold space.”

He rubbed his forehead with the fingers on his right hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I forget.” He looked up at me. “They have an enforcement arm. Small interceptors and some rescue craft. If you don’t respect filed claims, you have a hard time trying to sell the ore and buying fuel or food. Most miners work hard, play hard, and earn a living—which is what most of them want. Many of them settle down, have families, and everything else. Sometimes they make enough to start a mining operation on their own. Mostly they work for hire for the larger mining consortia, just like ships’ crews do. Parents bring their kids into the field, if they want. There’s plenty of work aboard the station to employ almost anybody who wants to work. Those that can’t get a stipend that everybody pays into.”

“What about those that won’t?” I asked.

“Won’t work. Can’t work. Nobody wants to not work. The stipend is literally subsistence. Air, water, food, and a bed in a dorm. Nobody needs to stay there if they don’t want to.”

“People put up with that?”

“What people?” Pip asked.

“The people paying for it.”

Pip shrugged. “Almost all the stations have some kind of system like it.”

I flattened my hands on the desk and stared at their backs for what seemed like several ticks. “I’m trying to see the survival benefit,” I said.

“Cuts down on crime,” Pip said. “Nobody needs to be so desperate they have to steal to live.”

“What about the people who steal because they like it?”

Pip shrugged. “They don’t do it more than a few times before they’re invited to take a walk outside.”

“Capital punishment for stealing?” The shock of it rocketed up my spine.

“You weren’t listening. They have to do it more than once. I think Dark Knight has a three-strike rule and you have to really work at being a pain in the collective ass. For low-level pains, they rescind visa and the deadbeats can ship out if somebody will take them.”

“What if there’s a dispute?” I asked.

“Like what? Contract?”

“Contract. Claim. Ownership. Whatever.”

“It varies. Here there’s a tribunal. Each party gets to pick a judge. Since it’s in Dark Knight’s interest, they’re automatically a party so there are always at least three judges. Everybody brings their best arguments and the three judges confer.” He shrugged. “Appeals go through binding arbitration at High Tortuga. Most people don’t want to risk that, so most arguments get settled here.”

“Do all stations do that?”

He shook his head. “The final arbitrator is always High Tortuga. They run the banks and have no interest in branching out, so they’re not going to be invested in station squabbles. Each station has their own process, but it’s basically the same. Differences in process are minor. I think every station has a visa program for visitors. Station management expects residents to behave better than visitors and know more about how the system works. It’s the same everywhere, really.”

“What about the psychopaths?” I asked.

“The people who just want to burn it down?”

“Yeah. What happens when CPJCT kicks them out and they come here?”

“Generally they go to places like Iron Mountain where psychopaths are welcomed. Sometimes they claim systems of their own. That doesn’t leave much time to burn things down.”

“What about the ones that come here?”

“If they’re clever, they don’t try to take over.”

“If they’re not?”

“It’s a short walk,” Pip said, giving a half shrug. “Established stations have a lot of security. You can’t approach by stealth. It’s difficult to do any damage inside. Stations that ignore security don’t last long enough to expand very far.”

“What about people like Patterson?”

“He’s a special case.”

“How so?”

“He’s a useful psychopath. Handy if you want to get rid of somebody. He pays his tithe to High Tortuga. They keep their noses out of his business.”

The pieces fell into place for me. “So they fix his thumbprint when he needs a new identity.”

“In a manner of speaking, yeah.” Pip shrugged again. “I don’t know the details but if you pay the fee, you can change your name.”

I stared at the backs of my hands some more, trying to sort out this new information. “If anybody knows what’s happening with the Mega, they would, right?”

Pip grimaced. “Not really. If there were a new Toe-Hold somewhere, sure. They’d know about that unless the station wasn’t on the banking network.”

“Wouldn’t that be hard to do? Build a ship without being on the banking network?”

Pip shook his head. “Not really. We could run it from here if we wanted.”

“How?”

“Start a company, establish an account, buy what we need, ship it out to wherever we wanted to work. Pay people here and they can cash in as they need it from any station.”

“What about paying people on station?”

“Draw chips here and distribute them there.”

“Didn’t we stop doing that when we were on the Lois?”

“We did. Doesn’t mean everybody did. I used some back on Breakall.”

“Does this help us find the Mega?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“You knew all this back at Port Newmar.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Paying an assassin is easy. Paying anybody is easy. The only sticky point is you have to start here in Toe-Hold space and cover your ass before you move up to the High Line.”

“Why doesn’t CPJCT do something about it?”

“It works in their favor. Why would they?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. My head began buzzing from the confusion.

“They can track any transaction that happens on their end of the Annex. They’ve got the systems in place to make sure that nothing they don’t approve of is transported, protecting the company investments in trade.”

“Except they don’t,” I said. “You just got done saying credit chips are blind.”

“They’re only blind when you load them here. If you load a credit chip up there, the trail extends from your account to the chip and then into the account of whoever uses it. Unless they use it down here.”

“The bank is the money laundry?” I asked.

“Well, money laundry implies that income is from some black market. There’s only a black market when there are price controls or illegal goods.”

“Assassination isn’t illegal?” I asked.

“Not in Toe-Hold space.”

“Didn’t we just get done talking about tribunals and short walks?” I asked.

“Yeah. Dark Knight has a bit of a problem if it gets carried out here. Most of the stations do. Iron Mountain has some of the strictest regulations about killing people on station, oddly enough.”

“We talked about that. It’s all right if you do it somewhere else.”

“Awkward, isn’t it?”

“If the stations have these sanctions, how does it happen?”

“Ships in transit make handy locales. A quick payoff to the captain and it’s over.”

His matter-of-fact recitation left me a little cold.

“You’re basically worried about the edge case scenario, Ishmael,” he said. “There aren’t many stations that allow this kind of thing. Without a station, it’s hard to get food, fuel, or air. The people who do it are specialists. They’re so expensive only the largest corporations and the CPJCT itself can afford them.”

“Corporations like Manchester Yards?” I asked.

His eyes widened as he looked across the desk at me. “Yeah. Probably.”

I shook my head. “What if Manchester doesn’t want it found?”

“What if Manchester has already found it?” Pip asked in return.

“What if we haven’t really got a clue about any of this and we’re just chasing space dust?” I asked.

He chuckled at that. “That’s probably truer than you know.”

“So we’ve got another can. We take it to Ice Rock and just keep flying?” I asked.

“I’m at a dead end. Unless somebody comes forward with some new lead, we’re just going to have to crank up the profits for our stockholders.”

“You don’t sound too upset by that prospect,” I said.

“It was a long shot. I should have realized that the astrogation data would be useless without knowing the name.”

“Well, if they’d named it ‘Secret Mega Base’ that would have helped.”

He chuckled again for a moment and then shook his head. “It does give me an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to go talk to Inge again. If they did establish a new base, maybe she knows which one of these it is.”

“Would she tell you?”

“She might. I don’t have much to go on. Someplace that’s been established in the last fifteen stanyers or so.”

“What do we get out of it if we find it?” I ask.

He blinked in my direction a couple of times. “What do you mean what do we get out of it?”

“Is there a bounty? A reward? Something that would pay better than—say—just taking a load of ore to Ice Rock?”

His lips pursed and he shrugged. “Not really. No. Just the warm feeling of a job well done.”

“What does TIC want with it, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe just confirmation that it’s there.”

“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to scratch a curiosity itch.”

“I’m more inclined to believe they’ve got some other motive that I don’t know about.”

I nodded to grant the point. “You want company when you visit Inge?”

“Why? You want to stretch your legs?”

“Kinda.”

“You gonna wear your new clothes?” He smirked at me.

“I was thinking denim and a pullover.” I wasn’t sure about the rest.

“You need the hat and jacket.”

“Why’s that?” His question made me curious.

“You need to get used to wearing it. It’s good for your image as a successful merchant captain. That image will pay dividends as we get deeper into dealing with the powers-that-be out here.”

I sighed and shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I’ve got more experience out here than you.”

“You say that. Should I believe you?”

He paused for a heartbeat and looked at the backs of his fingers, splaying them out as if checking out his manicure. He bit his lip and nodded before looking at me. “I guess I had that coming, but yeah. I do.” He shrugged. “I haven’t led you wrong yet, have I?”

I thought about that, examining the path he’d led me down since finding me on Port Newmar.

“You’re taking a long time to think about it,” he said.

“No, as far as I can tell right now, you haven’t led me astray. The ship’s a gold mine. We’re not quite in the black from the overhaul, but that’s not bad for two loads. It’s a good crew. I can’t complain.” I paused. “You didn’t exactly get me here using the most honest means, but I knew you were lying. I just didn’t know about what.”

“How could you tell?” he asked, his head tilted to one side.

“I don’t know,” I said, thinking about it. “The pieces didn’t add up. They sounded good on the surface but none of them actually matched.”

“I thought you were going to tell me my lips were moving.” He folded his hands together over his chest.

“Well, that too, probably, but I was thinking about stuff like trying to contact your father. Did you actually have to do that?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve had a wide-ranging power of attorney for stanyers. I’m investing my own shares in this company so I didn’t really need to. He did approve, though. Thought it was a good idea.”

“So you actually contacted him and he sent back his approval?”

“Sure.”

“That fast?”

“It was actually pretty slow. I’m not sure why it took so long.”

“Really? My experience with intersystem communications has been less than positive.”

“Slow and expensive?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “You routed your comms through CPJCT hubs.”

“Well, sure.”

“That’s the mistake. We won’t be making that one.”

I stared at him for long moments while he smiled back at me, one eyebrow raised in challenge. The answer smacked me on the face. “High Tortuga.”

“You’re trainable,” he said. “They control the banking, but to do that they have to control the communications as well. You do what almost everybody does and use CPJCT communications terminals. Carstairs routes direct through the bank. The ship does, too, now.”

I shook my head. “Someday I’m going to get this figured out.”

“You’re operating from the wrong side of the box and you’ve not grown up with it. Just remember, nothing would exist in the High Line if it didn’t exist here first.”

“That’s why they’re called Toe-Holds,” I said.

He touched his nose. “Bingo. Now go get changed and we’ll go see the charming and talented Inge Sonjasdottir.”

He zoomed out of the cabin and I went to change back into my costume. I had to admit the jacket fit well and had a certain flair. I picked plain denims and an emerald pullover instead of the white shirt. I started to put on my comfy ship boots but when I saw myself in the mirror realized the mistake that would have been.

Call me crazy but the cap was beginning to grow on me.

I met Pip at the top of the ladder and we were off the ship in a matter of a couple of ticks.

Chapter 26
Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

By the time we got back to the cartography office, the station’s day cycle was drawing to an end. A scruffy individual with a chopped-up beard and bare, scarred scalp gave us the once-over when we stepped through the door. He didn’t say anything, just nodded to Inge and left.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “How nice to see you again.”

Pip slipped the data drive across the counter. “Thanks. That helped fill in some of the holes.”

Her pale eyebrows rose on her forehead. “Some of the holes?”

“We’re looking for a new Toe-Hold. I didn’t spot it on the data.” Pip left the statement hang there as an almost-question.

“Not too surprising,” Inge said. “Some people just don’t like visitors. It’s easy to hide out here.” She smiled with her mouth.

“You wouldn’t know of a shipyard. New in the last—oh—fifteen stanyers?” he asked.

“Not directly,” she said. “You always hear of places starting up. Wildcat miners and the like.” She shook her head. “They’re not big on saying where they’re setting up. At least not until they’re fully set up.”

Pip grunted and nodded. “Wouldn’t do to have Iron Mountain knocking on the lock before you’re open for business.”

She smiled again and it reached her eyes. “You see the problem, then.”

He nodded. “I see the problem.”

She looked back and forth between us. “Is there anything else, gentlemen?”

Pip shook his head. “Nothing. Thanks.”

I followed Pip out of the office and he headed back down the narrow corridor toward the chandlery and the galleries beyond. “Now what?” I asked after we shouldered past a couple of women in station livery.

He sighed and shook his head. “Now I guess we’re down to getting filthy rich the old-fashioned way.”

“Hauling cargo?” I asked.

“Unless you fancy something more esoteric?” He glanced over his shoulder at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“Esoteric?”

“We could take up smuggling.”

I snorted. “Seriously?”

He pushed the door to the chandlery open and we crossed the lobby out into the docks beyond. “Only halfway. We’d need to get some mallards marching before we got too carried away there.”

“Mallards?”

“They’re a kind of aquatic waterfowl.”

I gave him a sideways glance but kept moving.

“We have a can of rock to deliver anyway,” he said. “Out here, anything could happen.”

“That’s kinda what I’m worried about,” I said.

He glanced back at me. “Really? Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’re flying a ghost ship through no-man’s land in search of a ship that might have gone missing a decade ago.”

“Somebody knows,” Pip said.

“You’d think so.”

“There’s also the matter of the shipyard,” he said.

“The shipyard?”

He stopped and dragged me out of the traffic pattern by my arm. “Hypothesis. There is a mega-hauler out there. Probably lost.” He paused and looked at me.

I focused on his words. “May have been a mega-hauler,” I said.

He gave a short nod. “All right. May have been. Does that suggest anything?”

“There’s a shipyard big enough to build it out here somewhere.”

He snorted. “Granted. What else does it suggest?

“I don’t know where you’re going with this,” I said. “It suggests all manner of things.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “Well, probably they have their own mining operation. Buying enough raw materials would attract attention and somebody would have to deliver it.”

He shook his head. “Not as much as you might think. They had at least one Barbell-class ship that hauled materials for them.”

“You don’t know that. It’s just speculation.”

He paused and his focus turned inward for a moment. “Granted, but the intel on this seems pretty solid.”

“Whose intel?”

“Doesn’t matter. What else does it suggest?” he asked

I sighed and ran a hand over the stubble on my scalp, trying to think logically. “Even with automated lines and robots, it would take a lot of people to build it.”

He nodded. “What does that imply?”

“More people to manage them.”

“More people than that to deal with the logistical operation of setting up a station, keeping it powered up, filled with air, water, and food,” he said.

“They’d need environmental people,” I said. “That’s a specialized skill set.”

“Not just environmental. They need full closed-system ecology specialists to manage a station’s ecosystem. Ship stuff is a lot simpler.”

The light dawned on me then. “Because the ship can dock, but the dock has to be there.”

He put the tip of his finger on the end of his nose. “CPJCT has specialists to do that. Remember Brill?”

The name took me back stanyers but summoned up an image of the amazing woman who’d helped me before I went to the academy. “Of course.”

“Her master’s degree?”

“Closed-System Environmental Science or something like that?”

He grinned. “Something like that. I know it was a master of science degree in some flavor of station environmental management. You know where she is now?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t heard from her since she graduated.”

“Me either.”

“What good does that do?” I asked.

He shrugged and struck off down the dock toward the ship. “Maybe nothing, but it’s a lead.”

“You think you can find her?”

He shot me another grin. “Finding her should be easy. The larger question is whether or not she’s plugged into the wider world of station environmentals.”

I matched him stride-for-stride as we closed in on our lock. “That would seem to be a logical assumption.” I shrugged. “We’re talking about Brilliantine Smith here.”

“Precisely,” he said and punched the access code for the lock. “Let’s go get paid for this can of rocks while I do some digging through my files.”

Chapter 27
Ice Rock: 2375, June 20

After the sprawling expanse of Mel’s with its blinking signs and the almost brooding aggregation of containers at Dark Knight, Ice Rock looked rather simple and plain. Their docking gallery had only half a dozen docking rings and the whole station looked smaller than the average CPJCT orbital. What they lacked in visual appeal, they made up for in efficiency. We docked just before the watch change at the end of the mid-watch and their cargo handlers had the can off almost before we cleared security.

“That’ll keep us from leaving until we have a new cargo,” Pip said as we watched the station security saunter away down the dock.

“You don’t have one lined up already?” I asked.

He gave a half-hearted shrug. “Maybe. Not sure how much I want it.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Carbon dioxide,” he said.

“Isn’t that a gas?”

“Raw ice,” he said. “Low margin. Barely covers operating expenses and we’d have to take it into Siren.”

“Smuggling?” I asked.

He shot me a sideways grin. “I think of it as alternative sourcing.”

“What else is there?” I asked. “Besides the ice? Isn’t that their specialty here?”

He nodded but screwed up his mouth. “Mostly, but they also ship out a lot of refined gases and smelted metals. A can of refined iron would pay better.”

“How do you find cargoes here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a cargo listing at CPJCT orbitals. Don’t they do that here?”

“Some,” he said. “Every station is different. Ice Rock has a single broker that’s run by the Dilland company. They control all the cargo leaving the system.”

“And the next can out is CO2 ice?”

“Yeah. There’s another Barbell due in here in about four days.”

“I saw them on approach. Bristol Maru?”

“Yeah. If we wait them out, they’ll get the ice and we’d get the next cargo in line.”

“Is it a better can?”

He shrugged again. “No idea. They won’t tell me what it is.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Thing is, we don’t know if the Bristol will take the can of ice or wait. Nobody else is inbound at the moment, so we can’t know what the luck of the draw will be.”

“That seems screwy to me,” I said.

“Me, too, but that’s how they work it. Probably because they ship a lot of low-priority, low-margin cargo out of here.” He glanced up and down the dock and shook his head again. “If they didn’t insist that the low-margin stuff ship, everybody would line up for better cans and leave the ice sitting in parking orbit.”

“Seems like an opportunity to me,” I said.

He looked up at me with a frown. “How so?”

“Low-cost, low-margin ice? What can you do with that?”

“They process most of it for various commodity goods. Oxygen gas. Carbon nanotubes. Stuff like that.”

“Zero-gee factories?”

“Yeah. They’ve got several scattered out around the system. Do everything from cracking the gas to processing volatiles and growing nanotubes.”

“Logically, this can is surplus raw material? Stuff they can’t process here?”

“Logically,” he said.

“But they have excess smeltery capacity to deal with the raw ore?”

“Yeah. Major investment in belt mining early on. Probably a quarter of all the metals used in the first wave of orbitals came from here. A lot of the belts are playing out, but the smelters still work.”

“So we need to find someplace that can turn the ice into carbon nanotubes, because a can of those would be worth a lot more than a can of raw ice.”

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You have any idea how to do that?”

“Make nanotubes?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope, but somebody does. Where’s this can going?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Manifest lists a mining outfit in Siren. Moe’s Mining.”

“What’ll they do with it?”

He shrugged. “Tag it as being produced in Siren and sell it into CPJCT somewhere.”

“Think on that,” I said. “And take the can. Two hundred metric kilotons of carbon dioxide ice will get us back up to CPJCT space and I’ll get to see how this operation will work.”

“But the margin is really low.”

I took a couple of ticks to think about that while I admired the docking gallery. Warm, moist air filled the space. Containers with some lush green planting ran along at waist height opposite the locks. “How long have we been out here?” I asked.

“We left Jett in April,” he said. “Almost two months, I think.”

“How much have we earned in two months?”

“Half a billion credits total. Less net of shares and expenses.”

I let those numbers hang in the air for a few moments while I considered. “This ship would be just finishing its first round trip in CPJCT space,” I said. “We left Dree at the end of January and didn’t dock in Jett until early April. Two months and a bit.”

Pip’s smile eased across his face like a sunrise. “I told you it was profitable out here.”

I nodded. “You did. And I’m seeing it for myself. The incremental expense of operation out here isn’t that much compared to the value of the cargoes and the reduction in expenses from running twice as many cans in the same amount of time.”

“So you’re saying ‘Take the can of ice?’”

“I’m saying ‘Don’t be greedy.’ It’ll cover expenses and give us a chance to check in with the board.”

“We’ve been filing board reports every month,” Pip said. “Have been since we formed the company.”

“From here?”

Pip shrugged. “I told you. It’s not what you think.”

“Have we had any communications back?”

“The CEO is pleased with the results so far,” he said.

I gave him a look.

He smirked. “Alys has acknowledged the receipts but nothing more.”

“What about Brill?”

He frowned and bit his lower lip. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Not even a receipt. It’s like the query went into a black hole.”

“Is that normal?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s been a month. If the address was wrong, I’d have gotten a bounce back. I’ll send another with a tracer.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Last I knew she was in the environmental section of Siren Orbital.”

“Isn’t that where this can is going?”

“Well, Siren, yeah.”

“Maybe we’ll have better luck in person,” I said.

He shook his head. “She’s not there.”

“Can you be sure? Maybe she’s just not checking messages.”

He bit his lip again and screwed up his face for a moment. “Possible. Not probable.”

I had to agree with him. “Where could she be?”

Pip grinned. “The timing is right and she would have been looking for a job.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were going to start up a new station in Toe-Hold space, who would you tap to run environmental?”

“I’d tap Brill but she’s the only one I know.”

“So would I, but the community is rather small. It’s a specialized field,” Pip said.

“You think she’s working at the mystery base?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Could be Siren holds some answers after all.”

Chapter 28
Siren System: 2375, July 8

We jumped into Siren just after lunch mess. We weren’t carrying as much velocity as we normally would if we’d come from one of the neighboring CPJCT systems, but we’d done a couple of corrective jumps along the path across the Western Annex. Staring out into the Deep Dark always made me appreciate how insignificant we were. Even with the longer legs on the Chernyakova, that trip made me appreciate just how much nothing existed in the Western Annex.

“We’re on course to Moe’s, Captain,” Al said, rousing me from my musings.

“Thank you, Al. Good job, Tom. Secure from navigation stations and establish normal watch throughout the ship.”

“Secure from navigation stations and set normal watch, aye, aye, sar,” Al said and started slapping keys.

I sat there for a few more heartbeats, looking at the pale white pinpoint that was Siren’s primary.

“Something wrong, Skipper?” Al asked, her voice low.

I shook my head. “Just pondering. I almost wound up here when my mother died.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I grew up on Neris. That’s only a couple of jumps from here. She died in a flitter accident and the Neris Company was going to deport me to Siren if I didn’t leave the planet.”

“You got on the Lois instead?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just struck me funny. After working so hard all these stanyers to avoid it, I end up in Siren anyway.”

She looked forward and grinned. “I can see that.”

“At least this way, I’m not in debt, unskilled, or stranded.”

“You’re also not a kid anymore,” she said.

The stanyers slipped through my mind in flashes like beads through my fingers. I grunted and levered up out of the captain’s chair. “Fair trade, I think.”

“What? Your age for the money?”

I shrugged. “That doesn’t hurt, but I was thinking about the experience.” I looked her in the eye. “I used to be worried that I’d be stuck ashore somewhere. Now?” I shook my head. “I’m not going to tempt fate and say it’s not possible, but it’s much less likely than it was when I was eighteen, broke, and the only skill I had was making coffee.”

Her chuckle carried as much bitterness as humor.

Starting down the ladder, I wondered if she had been as stuck on Breakall as I first thought. I glanced back up toward the bridge and suspected I had underestimated the situation.

Chapter 29
Moe’s Mining: 2375, August 15

Docking at Moe’s reminded me more of Mel’s Place than a CPJCT orbital. The station itself girdled a big asteroid in the belt. One end had a massive airlock with a line of ore barges waiting outside. CPJCT officials met us at the dock for a perfunctory inspection but offered no comment on either the ship’s logs or the provenance of our can of ice. Pip thumbed their log certifying that the can had come from Blanchard in the Venitz sector.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked as the CPJCT inspectors walked away up the dock. “Falsifying logs?”

He shrugged. “They know it’s bogus.”

“Why the charade?”

He sighed. “I don’t really know. I mean, the CPJCT knows they can’t survive out here without the Toe-Holds filling in the gaps in their production. They also know they need Toe-Hold space to bleed off the nonconformists and iconoclasts.”

“They just don’t want to make it too easy?”

“I think it’s more about recognizing the rebels’ need to actually rebel. I look at it as a rite of passage. Once you know it’s out there, it’s not that hard to pass back and forth. Until you know? It’s Dunning-Kruger.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“How long have you known?” I asked.

He glanced up at me and opened his mouth.

“No lies. How long?”

He closed his mouth and shrugged. “My whole life. I was born there.”

“So the academy is what?”

“A good education. What else?” he asked.

“Running away from your father?”

“Oh, that was real enough. I really don’t want the whole command deck, engineering thing. Never did. Just want to play the trading game.”

“But you didn’t need to take the deck program at the academy. Why fight it?”

He gave me a glance and a snort. “How many cargo classes did you take?”

“Three. Same as you.”

He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at me with an eyebrow raised.

“So, I could have graduated as a Cargo Third?” I asked.

“Yeah. You checked off a box when you started, same as me. Everybody got the same basic program, right?”

I nodded. “Sure. Never know when you’re going to be left as the captain or chief engineer in an emergency.”

He snorted again. “Like anybody would remember those classes.”

“Granted.”

“Engineering gets a different specialist course load because of the physics and chemistry. Stewards get food handling and diet. The entire cargo course structure is the same as for a deck officer. I took a couple of extra finance and accounting classes while you were playing astrogation games, as I remember.”

“Yeah. You hated the CAP/M math.”

“It was stupid,” he said. “To be fair, I’ve actually used it myself, so that counts for something, I suppose.” He shook his head as if to dislodge that train of thought. “Point is, other than a couple of electives, I had to take the same deck training program you did.”

“Huh.” I had to ponder that for a few heartbeats. “What would you change?”

“Most junior officers don’t get much experience in actual trading. I’d fix that.”

“How?”

“Make a trading simulation for them to participate in. When they join the academy, they’re given a starting line of credit. The one with the most credits at the end graduates first.”

I frowned. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re competing against all the upperclassmen in the beginning. People who know the ropes and have assets accumulated.”

“How is that different from what we were up against when we started?”

“Well, to begin with, we were working with established entities who had the relationships and assets in place.”

“Maybe you were,” he said.

“You had a ship given to you,” I said.

“I had to make it work,” he said. “Same difference. Yeah, I had some help with starting capital, but I had to turn a profit or my father would have taken the ship back.”

“I’ll grant you that.”

We stood there outside the lock for a few heartbeats. I considered what he’d told me. “Why’d you agree to go, then?” I asked.

“What? To the academy?”

“Yeah. You didn’t need to go. You could have stayed in Toe-Hold space and nobody would have said anything.”

He nodded. “I could have. That’s what I wanted to do.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He scuffed a boot on the deck plates. “I was going to. In the beginning, I just went through the motions, killing time until I could get back home. That’s what got me into trouble back on the Duchamp.”

“What changed?”

He sighed and looked away from me, staring down the length of the docking gallery for a few long moments before looking back at me. “I found a friend.”

His words surprised me. “I thought I was the one who had no friends.”

He grinned. “I had family. Lots of family.” He shrugged. “It’s not the same.”

We stood and watched the stationers going by for a tick or so. Cargo totes, security types. The occasional cluster of people who might have been spacers. A few CPJCT types in one official livery or another.

“Now what?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Now we get on with finding Brill.”

“Still no messages from her?”

He shook his head. “They’ll have our can swapped by tonight. We can move to the orbital after that.”

“Will that help?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. It was her last known address. Perhaps she still has people there.”

“You sure?”

“No, but it’s the best lead we have.”

“And we need a cargo heading back out,” I said.

“That part’s easy. I’ve already got a couple earmarked.”

I snorted.

He laughed. “That’s what you pay me for.”

He had me there. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s tell the crew we’re moving on tonight.”

“Just as well. There’s nothing for visiting crews to do out here except get into trouble.”

“I’m sure they can do that once we dock at Siren.” A stray thought flittered through my brain. “They got into surprising little trouble out in Toe-Hold space.”

“True. I kinda wondered about Bentley,” he said. “The clowns don’t always make the best impressions on strangers.”

I felt my eyebrows climbing up my head.

He turned back to the lock. “Yeah. Personal experience.”

I followed him into the ship and we got on with the business of re-integrating with operations in CPJCT space.

Chapter 30
Siren Orbital: 2375, August 25

Approach and docking went by the book and we latched on just before lunch mess. After that, things got weird, starting with the scrum of black coveralls meeting us at the lock. Even the inspection agent looked nervous and rushed through the formality of checking our embargo locker and accepting our documentation. Pip met me at the brow and we followed the inspector out to meet the TIC agents on the dock.

One of them—a stocky woman with close cropped hair and warm golden-brown skin—stepped forward. She looked back and forth between us once then focused on me. “Captain Wang?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Special Field Agent Roberta MacElroy. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I glanced over her shoulder at her squad. About half of them stood with their backs to us, directing curious bystanders to move along by the simple expedient of standing there like a fence of crows. Meeting MacElroy’s gaze, I asked, “Do I have a choice?”

She smiled slightly, a real smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Everybody asks that. Yes. Actually, you do. We can have a nice quiet chat here while your crew gets ready for liberty or I can arrest you and we can have a nice quiet chat on the oh-six deck.” She lowered her voice. “Jim Waters asked me to check in with you.”

“This is kinda high profile isn’t it?” Pip asked with a nod at the agents gathered around the lock.

“It will turn out to be a mix-up over the provenance of some cargo,” she said, giving a small shrug. “The couple holding hands across the dock are actually newsies assigned to cover the authoritarian abuses of the Trade Investigation Commission.”

“So you’re giving them a story?” he asked.

She smiled. “It’s much easier to control the narrative when we drive it.”

Pip’s snort sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. “I’ll remember that,” he said.

“So, would you like to come aboard, Special Field Agent MacElroy?” I asked. “The wardroom would be more comfortable than freezing on this dock.”

She gave a short laugh and nodded. “Thank you, Captain. We’ll do our best not to take up too much of your time.”

I climbed the ramp back into the ship. Al and the chief stood on the brow. Bentley had the brow watch. He stood behind the watch station, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. “My compliments to Ms. Sharps, and could she set up refreshments in the wardroom, Mr. Bentley?”

He started at his name. “Aye, aye, sar,” he said and started slapping keys.

I looked to Agent MacElroy. “Should I log you aboard?”

“Of course,” she said and stepped up to the watch station. She gave her particulars and those of her backup officer for Bentley to log.

I glanced out and saw the remaining agents had settled into a cordon around the lock, all looking outward and apparently paying the couple across the dock no mind at all.

Formalities served, I introduced Al and the chief. “Will you want to talk with them?” I asked. “Perhaps anybody else on my crew?”

MacElroy shook hands with each of them. “Not necessary, Captain. I’m sure they have other duties.”

“How long before we can declare liberty?” Al asked.

I looked at MacElroy. “A stan. No longer,” she said. “By the time the orbital clears you, we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Pass the word that we’ll be here for a full four days,” I said. “Set up so everybody gets a good break.”

“A good break, aye, sar,” Al said and stepped back to clear the passage.

I glanced back in time to see the chief giving MacElroy a faint frown. “Problem, Chief?” I asked.

She paused for a moment before shaking her head. “None, Captain. Four days will give me enough time to get a good stores inventory update.”

I shot MacElroy a glance out of the corner of my eyes and raised an eyebrow at the chief.

The chief gave her head just the faintest of shakes.

“In that case, the wardroom is this way, Agent MacElroy.” I led the two TIC agents into the ship, with Pip bringing up the rear.

We found Franklin putting the final touches on a coffee service with some small cakes.

“Thank you, Mr. Franklin,” I said.

He nodded. “You’re welcome, Captain. Is there anything else?”

I looked at MacElroy.

She smiled at Franklin. “A cup of tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course, sar. Anything in particular? Ms. Sharps has quite a collection.”

“A lapsang?”

“I’ll check, sar.” He scurried off into the pantry.

I grabbed a mug, skipped the cakes, and took my seat at the head of the table. Pip waved the second agent ahead. By the time they’d gotten coffee and snacks, Ms. Sharps brought the tea herself.

MacElroy, settled into Al’s chair, raised a hand. “Thank you.”

Sharps smiled and placed the cup in front of the agent. “My pleasure. Please let us know if there’s anything else.” She looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“Thank you, Ms. Sharps. I think we’re good for now,” I said.

She nodded and slipped into the pantry, closing the door behind her.

MacElroy dunked her teabag a couple of times, staring into the cup as if admiring the color. Her backup sipped his coffee without appearing to pay any attention to us.

Apparently satisfied with her tea, MacElroy glanced at her agent.

“We’re clear,” he said without looking up.

MacElroy gave a short nod. “Never thought otherwise,” she said then looked at Pip. “So, about Brilliantine Smith.”

Pip straightened in his chair. “What about her?”

“That’s what we’d like to know, Mr. Carstairs. Why are you trying to find her?”

“Something wrong with looking up an old shipmate?” he asked. His lips curved into a smile that might have been amusement on anybody besides Pip.

MacElroy shook her head and sipped her tea. “You’re not particularly close to Ms. Smith, I take it?”

“We haven’t seen her since she graduated the academy,” I said.

“You were at the academy together?” MacElroy said, her eyebrows lowering. “You were both class of ’58, unless my data gathering was badly flawed.”

“We all left the Lois McKendrick in ’53,” Pip said. “Ms. Smith entered the master’s program and graduated in ’55.”

MacElroy nodded. “Of course. Sorry. I should have made that connection.” She gave a small shrug and looked into her mug again for a few heartbeats, as if trying to find her next question in it. “You haven’t heard from her since?”

“She said she was coming back to Siren. She has family here,” Pip said.

MacElroy looked at me.

I shrugged. “That’s my understanding.”

“What’s TIC’s interest in this?” Pip asked.

“In the spring of 2355 she came back to Siren, visited with her father for a couple of weeks, and then dropped off the map.”

“That’s hardly unusual,” Pip said, as he leaned back in his seat and crossed one leg over the other. “People do it every day.”

“True.” She gave a half shrug. “The Toe-Holds can be a powerful draw.”

“Or a last chance,” Pip said, his voice low. “Why do you care what happened to Ms. Smith if she’s been missing for almost two decades?”

“Because we believe she’s been working on the Manchester Yards skunk works in the Toe-Holds and we’d like to know where that is.” MacElroy looked back and forth between us a couple of times.

“What makes you think we know?” Pip asked.

She blew out a soft breath. “Honestly, we don’t but you’ve been trying to contact her for weeks. Jim Waters tells me you’re looking for the same thing we are. When he found out you were coming to Siren, he asked me to pay a call. See if you’d found out anything.”

“And to see if we had any idea where Brill is?”

She nodded. “That, too.”

“What’s her family say?” I asked.

MacElroy looked at me, cocking her head to one side. “How do you mean?”

“You said she came back to visit her father before dropping off the grid.”

“Ah, yes. The reports say she got a big job offer and was heading off to the Diurnia sector to take it.”

“He hasn’t heard from her?” Pip asked.

“He got a few messages but nothing since ’56.”

“He didn’t think that was unusual?” Pip asked. “His daughter disappearing?”

“Her last message was from Dree. She got the job and was heading off to the site to take over environmental on a station.” MacElroy shrugged. “Her message said she’d signed an NDA and would be going dark. He didn’t give it another thought until we contacted him in ’62.”

“She’s been ‘dark’ for two decades and he’s not ripping the Annex apart looking for her?” Pip asked.

“He died in ’67. Heart attack. Her mother’s shuttle went missing on a run to the belts in ’69. As far as we know, she has no other close ties.”

“Until we started looking for her,” Pip said.

She nodded.

“Any reason to suspect foul play?” he asked.

“Her father had a chronic heart condition. I wasn’t here then but his medical records are damning. The shuttle?” She shrugged. “Space is a dangerous place for humans. She’d made that run a thousand times.” She shrugged again. “People get careless with the familiar, no matter how dangerous.”

I sighed. Her words rang true to me and I wondered how much carelessness had never caught up with me.

MacElroy took another sip and continued. “We managed to trace her to Dree where she booked a vacation trip with one of the outfitters there.”

“Plunkett’s,” I said.

Pip looked at me with a frown, but MacElroy’s eyes widened. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. I’ve run into them a few times. I flew out of Diurnia for a long time.”

“Of course. DST. I didn’t know DST and Plunkett crossed paths that much.”

“Normally we don’t, but I helped out one of their captains once.”

MacElroy glanced at her agent who gave his head a little shake.

“Does it matter?” Pip asked.

MacElroy took a slow sip of her tea. “When was this?”

“I was on the Agamemnon, so ’71? ’72?” I shrugged. “I rendered aid to one of their ships with scrubber troubles.”

Pip gave me an odd look but didn’t ask any awkward questions.

“What’s TIC’s interest?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Just what I said. We want the skunk works and Smith is the best lead we’ve got.”

“Besides the Chernyakova,” Pip said.

She gave him a small smile and sipped her tea.

“Is there anything else?” I asked. “My crew is looking forward to liberty and I’ve got reports to file.”

She shook her head. “I got what I came for.”

I stood and everybody else followed suit. “Let me show you out,” I said.

“No need, Captain. I know my way around Barbells. As you say. You’re a busy man.”

I nodded and watched as her agent opened the door and led the way out of the wardroom. She left the door open.

I sat back down and helped myself to a cake.

“That was interesting,” Pip said, refilling his mug from the carafe.

“Did we learn anything?”

Pip spun his coffee mug around and around on desk using the tips of his fingers. The ceramic base made a quiet grinding sound. “Maybe,” he said after a while. “We might ask Ms. Sharps to join us.”

“Ms. Sharps?”

He nodded and pointed to MacElroy’s tea cup. “See anything odd?”

I looked but couldn’t spot anything unusual. I shook my head.

Pip rose and tapped on the pantry door. Mr. Franklin opened it after a few moments.

“Yes, sar? Shall I clear?” he asked.

“Not just this moment, Mr. Franklin. If you’d ask Ms. Sharps to bring me a cup of lapsang? I’ve a hankering to try it.”

He nodded and slipped away down the passage toward the galley.

“What’s this in service of, Pip?” I asked.

He frowned and took his seat. “Maybe nothing. We’ll know in a tick.”

I eyed him over my coffee mug.

Ms. Sharps appeared at the pantry door holding a cup. “You wanted some lapsang, Mr. Carstairs?”

“Thank you, Ms. Sharps. I do.” He sat back a bit so she could place the cup in front of him. “Is this the same tea you served Agent MacElroy?” he asked.

“The very same. I quite like it as an end of day pick-me-up.”

He leaned over and took a snootful of the aroma above the cup. “Sharp smell. Astringent. Something else.” He looked at Ms. Sharps. “Almost like tar.”

She smiled. “Very strong flavors. Artificial these days but back on Earth, it was smoked over pine wood.”

Pip looked down at his cup and then over at MacElroy’s. He pursed his lips for a few moments, considering the two.

I was ready to smack him by the time he got around to speaking again.

“So, tell Ms. Sharps. Is it just a coincidence that Agent MacElroy took the tag from her teabag when she left?”

I saw Sharps look at MacElroy’s cup and back at Pip’s. “What an odd thing to do, sar,” she said.

Pip grinned. “They do like their cloak and dagger, don’t they.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand, sar.”

“How long have you been employed by TIC?” he asked, sitting back from the table. “And please, have a seat.” He waved a hand to the empty chair beside him.

Sharps glanced at me then took the indicated chair.

Pip leaned in. “You’re not in any trouble with us,” he said.

Sharps looked at me, as if for confirmation.

“No problem with me. I hope they’re paying you well,” I said.

She took a deep breath and looked at her hands, fingers fidgeting with each other in her lap. “Somebody—a man—older. Athletic. Contacted me on Breakall. Told me that they’d pay off my mother’s debts with the station if I’d get the job cooking for you.”

“Did you want the job?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Actually, yes. I would have applied anyway because I wanted to get back into space. Sitting in the station watching my mother come apart—” she stopped, sucking in a breath. “She won’t get the help she needs and just hides in her apartment.” She shrugged. “I tried to help her but she just won’t listen. Kicked me out. Told me to leave her alone. Never bother her again.” She wouldn’t look up. Just kept her focus on her fingers.

Pip pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out to Sharps. “Hurts, doesn’t it,” he said.

She nodded. “Life on the orbital is hard for people who can’t work and can’t leave.”

“True anywhere,” Pip said. “Not just on the orbital.”

Sharps sniffed and rubbed the handkerchief under her nose and then wiped her eyes. “Sorry, sar.” She sniffed again.

“So your instructions were what?” he asked.

“Buy some lapsang. Keep it in the galley. I keep a running report of where we’ve been, what we did. Encode it on a datadot whenever we dock somewhere. If a TIC agent comes aboard and asks for lapsang, I put the dot on the tag.” She glanced at the teabag. “I didn’t realize she was going to take the whole tag.”

“That was bad craft,” Pip said. “I don’t think she was in the loop all the way.”

“Bad craft?” Sharps asked.

“She could have downloaded the dot without taking the tag. Reader in the tip of her glove would have been easy to do.”

Sharps blinked at Pip and then stared at the cup again. “That does seem odd,” she said. She stiffened her spine and sat up straighter, eyes downcast. “What would you like me to do, sar?”

Pip smiled and sat back. “I think the logical thing would be get lunch served.” He nodded at the chrono on the bulkhead. “It’s nearly time. I think the captain will call for liberty after lunch.” He looked around her at me.

“Probably,” I said.

“What about TIC?” she asked. “Was it really TIC?”

“Sandy-colored hair? About this tall?” Pip held up a hand. “Did he tell you his name?”

“Yes, sandy hair. Might have been a little taller than that.” She looked down. “Rather nice looking in an older-man kind of way. He said his name was Legion.”

“Yes, he was with TIC,” Pip said.

“But do you want me to leave the ship?” she asked, still looking down at her hands.

“Whatever for?” I asked. “You think you’re the only TIC informant aboard?”

She looked up at me, eyes reddened but wide. “I’m not?”

I shook my head. “Highly unlikely from what I’ve seen so far.”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Pip said. “We don’t care and maybe it’ll help in the long run. At the very least maybe your mother can get the help she needs.”

“She needs to get off that orbital,” Sharps said with some vehemence. “It’s sucking the life out of her.”

“Who knows? Maybe something will break her way,” Pip said.

“Are we done, sar?” Sharps asked. She glanced at Pip and then at me.

“You’ve got a galley to run, Ms. Sharps,” I said. “I suggest you get to it.”

She nodded and rose, stopping at the door to the pantry. “I’m sorry, Captain. I feel like I’ve betrayed you.”

I thought about it for about two heartbeats. “You’re crew, Ms. Sharps. It’s my job to take care of all my crew. I’m sorry you were put in the position. Just keep doing the job you’re doing.”

“The jobs,” Pip said, emphasizing the plural.

A faint smile twitched across her lips. “Yes, sar. Thank you, sar.” She disappeared into the pantry, closing the door behind her with a sharp click of the latch.

I looked at Pip. “I wouldn’t have suspected her.”

“I did from the first day,” he said.

“Really? And you didn’t say anything?”

“Only qualified steward in a herd of unemployed spacers?” Pip lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Suspicion isn’t proof and we have a lot of people who may be getting paid by somebody other than us. None of it matters. It’s just TICs bloody-mindedness.”

“What if it’s not TIC paying them?” I asked.

He paused at that and looked at me with his head cocked to one side. “You’re thinking Manchester?”

I shrugged. “Whoever doesn’t want this station found.”

“Huh,” he said. “I wouldn’t have gone there. Interesting idea.” He lifted the tea cup and took a slurp from the top. His eyes widened and he pushed the mug away. “Merciful muses, that’s harsh.”

I grinned. “I rather like it.”

“You’ve had it before?”

“Sifu Newmar used to serve it regularly.”

He settled the cup back on the table. “Huh,” he said again. “Now what?”

“Now we have some lunch, get Al to declare liberty, and see what we can turn up on Plunkett’s Junkets here in Siren.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

“As far as I know, one of Plunkett’s main tourist destinations is Odin’s Outpost.”

His eyes widened at that news. “Now if we only knew who hired her.”

“Any chance your friends at High Tortuga could help?”

“Pay records?” he asked. “Unlikely. They’re all about privacy.”

“But they fiddle with cargo records and ship idents?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They don’t fiddle with cargo provenance. It’s much easier to suborn a person than finagle a system that everybody knows is foolproof. Besides you can only change your own records. Not somebody else’s.”

I blinked at him, my brain spinning away on its own. “Doesn’t that make them useless?”

“It might if enough people knew how to go about doing it. It’s not like you can stop by your local IDs to Go.” He paused. “You’re thinking about Patterson again?”

“Yeah.”

“When you’re a pro, you use pro tools.” He shrugged.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means, he’s not messing with his own records.”

“Then who?”

“Not saying. At least not yet. We have a ways to go.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence,” I said.

He chuckled. “One step at a time. We need to find this place.”

“You think Brill’s involved?”

“I’d bet on it now,” he said. “There are just too many coincidences.”

“You think her parents were killed?”

He paused, his eyes focused somewhere far away. “No,” he said at last. “I think her mother is still alive. Dad’s probably a deader, but missing shuttle?” He shook his head. “I’m just cynical enough to think that just because she’s missing doesn’t mean she’s dead.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” I said, almost under my breath.

“So you keep saying,” Pip said. “So you keep saying.”

Chapter 31
Siren System: 2375, August 30

Pip got us a can of refined titanium bound—ostensibly—for Greenfields in Diurnia, my old stomping grounds. In reality, we headed back to Mel’s again. I didn’t know what they’d use that much titanium for, but it didn’t matter. The margin on it was good and I didn’t mind going back.

We were only a couple of days out of Siren, when Pip plopped down in my visitor’s chair unannounced. “We need to go to Odin’s.”

“Why?” I asked. “Just because Brill disappeared from Dree?”

“Not entirely, but that’s not a bad reason.”

“Why then?”

“I ran some traffic stats on Plunkett.”

“They don’t exactly file flight plans to Odin’s,” I said.

“No,” he said, “but they fly all around it. They fly that cross pattern at least every week. Dree to Jett. Breakall to Welliver. Only rarely stop at Diurnia proper.”

“That fits with what I suspected.”

“So, I pulled the data out of archive for 2350 to 2360.”

“Anything?”

“Plunkett’s runs started expanding in 2353 and by 2355 they were making three times the number of runs compared to 2352.”

“I ran into them in late ’71 or early ’72.”

“You mentioned scrubber problems?”

“One of their packets got shorted on scrubbers with an overload of passengers.”

“Going out?” he asked, leaning forward.

“They said they were coming back from a gambling junket.”

He leaned back and sighed. “Yeah. By 2360 the number of flights had cut back almost to 2350 levels, so that’s probably just a coincidence.”

“You think they were ferrying workers out?”

He shrugged. “Would make sense. They had to get a lot of specialized labor out of CPJCT space and into the Toe-Holds. The timing is about right.”

“Why couldn’t they just recruit from Toe-Holds?”

“Manchester would have wanted to get their own people out there and they don’t have a presence.”

“Or didn’t,” I said.

Pip nodded. “Here’s another little datapoint.” He tapped a fingertip on the arm of his chair. “I searched for anomalous shipments to see if I could spot raw materials movements.”

“Wouldn’t they just refine what they needed on site?”

He shrugged. “Possibly, and there are a lot of miners out there. Maybe we can talk to some of the old-timers around Mel’s when we get there.”

“What did you find?”

“You know what tellurium is?” he asked.

“One of the rare earths.”

“Yeah. Combine it with bismuth and you have the core for a thermal electric generator.”

“Hot on one side, cold on the other. So?”

“So starting in about ’51, while we were playing flea market games on the Lois, a lot of tellurium and bismuth started showing up in the refinery queues around that end of the Western Annex.”

“How much is a lot?”

“About four times the norm. Still not mountains of it, but that’s a big jump in some rare elements that don’t generally get a lot of attention.”

“Somebody hit a good rock?”

He grinned. “Somebody hit a good belt, apparently. The name Victor Flores keeps coming up. He operated in between stations on that end of the Annex. He ran an exploration and mining operation out of The Junkyard.”

“You think he found it?”

“There’s still a lot of unclaimed rock out there.”

“Even now?”

“Even now, but we’re getting all these timing and materials hints that we need to be looking somewhere not too far from Odin’s.”

“What’s your interest in the materials?”

“You can’t just build a big ship and jump it with a billion metric tons.”

“Diminishing returns on the mass of the ship against the Burleson drives,” I said.

“Right. And then there’s the power profile you need to drive it. I slept through that lecture, but I know the power needed to bend that much space is monstrous.”

“So far, so good. You have another rabbit to pull out of your hat?”

“It’s one we already know. The Mellon-Merc people developed a massive drive. New design. Not just bigger.”

“You’re talking about the Zetas?”

“Technically the Kyoryokuna but yeah. They shelved that design early in the ’50s because they couldn’t power it.”

“I was just a kid on Neris then.”

“And I was juggling the books on my father’s ship, but pay attention. The blocks are all here.”

“So, you’re suggesting that Pravda came up with a new design to power these Zetas?”

“They must have. They were the only ones working in the area early on. If Mellon-Merc worked with them to come up with the power supply, that would open the door to Manchester being able to build the mega-hauler.”

“So, what’s with tellerium?”

He pulled out his tablet and flipped through a couple of screens. “I found this.” He turned his tablet around and scooted it across my desk. “Pravda designed a thermal electric generator based on the heat from a reactor on one side and the cold of space on the other.”

His tablet showed a scholarly article from an engineering publication I remembered from the academy. I skimmed it before sliding the tablet back to him. “Has the chief seen this?”

He shook his head. “Just you.”

“Why are we still using electromagnetic generators?”

“Because you need a mountain of tellurium and an equal amount of bismuth along with cartloads of other precious minerals and rare earths to make it work, according to those designs. They’re only theoretical.”

“So you think Flores hit the mother lode and what?”

“If Pravda and Mellon-Merc got control of it, they could have made their prototype.”

“And all they’d need is a big honking ship to test it on.”

Pip pocketed his tablet and bit his lip. “I suspect they’d need to design it from the keel up. This isn’t something you could toss on a Barbell and fly it.”

“Hence, Manchester’s involvement.”

He nodded.

“So why do we need to go to Odin’s again?”

“If they were using Odin’s as a staging area for the crews, they had to have been flying in and out of there pretty regularly.”

“How does that help?”

“Traffic control might know what direction they were flying from.”

“Why would they tell us?”

“I’m not even sure they’d keep the records this long,” he said. “It’s the only lead I’ve got.”

“Let’s keep looking,” I said. “We’ve got to get this can to Mel’s anyway. Maybe somebody there remembers a big push to recruit miners.”

“Back two decades?” he asked.

“Stranger things,” I said.

Chapter 32
Viceroy System: 2375, September 25

After being spoiled by Toe-Hold space with their stations positioned well out on the edge of the gravity well, getting out of Siren seemed to take forever. We had the drives to jump but the regulations about not jumping inside the posted limits kept us plodding out for what seemed like months instead of weeks. I could see the attraction of operating outside of CPJCT’s jurisdiction. Eventually we cleared Siren’s space and made a couple of longish jumps through the Deep Dark over the course of a couple of days, and arrived in Viceroy just before the dinner mess.

“Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Set normal watch.”

“Secure from navigation stations. Set normal watch, aye, Captain.”

I jumped up from the chair and scooted down the ladder to clear the way for the watch sections to get up and down as appropriate.

Chief Stevens followed me down the ladder. “Gotta tick, Skipper?”

“Of course, come on in.”

We settled in the cabin and the chief folded her hands over her stomach. “Have you heard about this idea that Pip has about Mellon-Merc and Pravda?”

“Yes. It’s interesting. I’m not sure how much stock to put in it.”

She pursed her lips and nodded, as if to herself. “It’s real.”

“What’s real?”

“All of it,” she said. “They tried to recruit me back in the late ’40s.”

“You didn’t bite?”

“NDAs,” she said. “They wanted me to sign a nondisclosure that would have crippled my ability to even write my own textbooks.”

“That early?”

“They’ve been looking for the mega-hauler design for a long time. Even the early diaspora ships ran barely over the 400 mkt level and they took forever.”

“I guess I never thought about that.”

“The early diaspora was pitiful compared to the expansion into the Western Annex. We learned a lot from those early steps into the stars.” She smiled.

“So, that’s really why you’re here.”

She nodded. “I want to find out how far they got. That power source is problematic.”

“Because of the rare earths?”

“Because they require the cold side to stay cold.”

“I don’t follow.”

She held up her hands, palms facing each other. “These are the two sides. One side is hot.” She shook her left hand. “The other side is cold.” She shook her right. “The difference in temperature drives the thermal reaction on the substrate between them.” She pressed her palms together. “The higher the gradient, the more power.”

“Reactors get hot and space is cold,” I said.

She nodded and lowered her hands. “But what happens when you put a lot of heat on one side?”

“I thought the point was for it to get hot?”

She laughed. “Up to a point. The problem is that the substrate has a tendency to bleed heat across to the cold side. You have to keep the cold side cold.”

“Well, space is about as cold as it gets.”

She laughed again. “It’s cold, but not that cold. It’s probably the coldest natural environment, but the problem is getting the heat off the cold plate. The only way to bleed heat in space is radiation. There’s no material in a vacuum for convection to move the heat away.”

“They covered that in the academy,” I said. “They’ve got the whole surface of the ship to radiate heat.”

She shook her head. “How much of our skin is exposed to space?”

“All of it.”

She laughed. “The can?”

“The can picks up heat by conduction from the rest of the ship, doesn’t it?”

She shook her head. “Not as much as you’d expect. The can is actually isolated from the rest of the ship. We need it to keep the hull stable, but those latch points are the only place the can touches us. It’s so we don’t introduce vibrations into the cargo and vice versa.”

What she said made sense. “I never thought of it.”

She shrugged. “No reason for you to. That’s why you have engineers.” Her grin could have split the face of a lesser person.

“So you think they’ve built it already?”

“I know they’ve built it already. It failed. I suspect catastrophically.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the engineers who signed the NDAs.” She shrugged. “They all disappeared from the public sphere but every once in a while a paper would surface. Something minor. Obscure. Esoteric. It showed up in fringe publications. Trade journals with less than rigorous peer review.”

“I’m following so far.”

“The tellurium Flores found is the key. If we can find that, we’ll have the station. If we have the station, we should be able to find out what happened to the ship.”

“Do you think it’s still there? The station?”

She nodded. “Nobody’s come in from the cold. Not a single one of the engineers I knew has come back to work in the open.”

“Neither has Brill,” I said.

“Brill?”

“Brilliantine Smith. She was on the Lois with Pip and me. Environmental. She went to the academy and graduated with a masters in closed-system ecologies or something.”

The chief’s eyebrows rose up her forehead. “Closed-system Environmental Engineering?”

“Something like that. She went to the academy with us in ’53 but graduated in ’55. We tried to contact her on Siren, but she’s disappeared.”

“That would be about the time Manchester would have been building the yard.” The chief’s lips pressed together in a line. “They would have needed somebody with her skills to put together a full station. They were probably expanding the research facility that Mellon-Merc and Pravda had been running.”

“So this is what I don’t get,” I said.

She nodded.

“Sometime in 2363 this hypothesized ship was supposed to get the big reveal in Siren.”

“You’re going on the parts thing?”

“Yeah. The ship had to be pretty close on the mark for Manchester to supply even a limited number of spare parts to Siren.”

“I think that’s safe.”

“Assuming that was some kind of messed-up public demonstration, it’s been twelve stanyers. What are they doing out there?”

She smiled. “That’s what I want to find out, and I don’t want to do it while bound by one of their NDAs.”

“You suspect trouble?”

She shrugged. “TIC does. They’ve stepped up their efforts in the last couple of stanyers. The Chernyakova isn’t the only ship linked to this unlisted station.”

“You’d think somebody would have stumbled on it by now.”

She laughed at that. “You’ve been out here. You know how empty it is.”

“But there are still wildcatters, hardcore explorers, right?”

“Yes, there are, as a matter of fact.”

“And one of them has stumbled on it?”

She shrugged. “I think so. I think that’s why he’s missing.”

“Who’s missing?”

“An old friend named Demetri Regyri.”

“What’s his angle?”

“He had a hidden system out near The Junkyard. Been a one-man operation for stanyers. He built up slowly, adding capabilities as he needed them. Trading some nice ores for supplies to make an automated zero-gee smelter. He had a first-class hydroponic setup last time I saw him.”

“When was that?”

“I visited him in 2360 just after he sent his daughter off to the academy. His wife was already on the other side of the Annex. Wanted nothing to do with living in the dark.”

“This was at his station?”

She nodded.

“Can you find it again?”

She shook her head. “I’m an engineer. I know about where it was but finding it would be like tossing darts blindfolded.”

“All the cues are pointing back to The Junkyard.”

“Yeah. I thought I’d add one more stick to the fire. That’s probably where we need to look.”

“Why there?”

“Say you’ve got a station full of engineering and logistics types. They’ve all signed NDAs but you don’t really want them out spreading stories.”

“That sounds ... distressing.”

“It does. How do you keep them corralled?”

“Let them take short vacations?”

“The Junkyard is the only station of any size in that end of the Annex,” she said. “And getting in and out isn’t as easy as it might be from—say—Odin’s.”

Chapter 33
Mel’s Place: 2375, October 7

It took us a bit of time to get maneuvered into the docking gallery at Mel’s. Traffic control directed us to the main gallery instead of the quarantine dock. The number of ships there made even the busiest orbital look like a vacant lot.

Al caught me gazing out at the ships and cargo handlers and barges and shuttles like I’d never seen them before, all moving in organized streams around the station. “Something, isn’t it?” she asked, stepping up beside me.

“I feel like I’ve missed half the story,” I said.

“The Confederated Planets doesn’t like to acknowledge this.”

I looked at her. “And yet, they don’t do anything to discourage it.”

She shrugged, the surgical steel in her arms glinting in the lights on the bridge. “What can they do? They do their best to sweep it under a rug. Most people never learn. Even if they’re told, they don’t believe it.”

I looked back out on the shoals of ships moving around the station. “I see it and I don’t believe it.”

“To be fair, the CPJCT has a hundred times more orbitals controlling the most advantageous planet-borne resources.”

“But only a fraction of the population,” I said.

“If you count all the people on the corporate planets, it’s probably about equal, but yeah. Mel’s Place is probably home to more people than live on the whole planet of Diurnia, and that’s some multiple of the number who live on the orbital proper.”

“How many stations just in the Viceroy cluster?”

She shrugged. “Probably a hundred minor platforms and stations. Miners have small places set up out in the belts. The bigger operations have refinery platforms scattered out there, too. They refine the ore before they even bring it back. I know of at least three zero-gee factories out there. Then each of the systems in Viceroy has a station that’s bigger than an orbital.”

I stood there for a few more ticks. “What are you looking for, Al?” I asked.

She gave me a sharp glance before looking back out at the station. “What makes you think I’m looking for something?”

“Seems like everybody on this ship is looking for something or other. Wondered if you were one of them.”

She stood there facing the armorglass but her eyes seemed to be focused somewhere else. After a very long time, I’d about given up on getting an answer when she started to speak. “I don’t want to be a captain,” she said. She looked at me. “I appreciate you think I’d make a good one, but...” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m about ready to retire. Get out of the game altogether.”

If she’d slugged me, I probably would have been less surprised. I closed my mouth with a snap. “I don’t know what to say.”

She gave me a sad, little grin. “Nothing to say.” She looked back out over the ships. “It’s beautiful out here.”

I just stood beside her and looked out. Al was a part of the spacer life for me. She had been even while I’d been at the academy and all the stanyers since. As much as Alys Giggone and even Pip. To have her show up on the mess deck and apply for a first mate’s slot felt a bit like a homecoming.

“I’m getting too old,” she said, apropos of nothing.

“Can you retire?” I asked. “I mean, financially and all?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I think so. I’ve got my art. Even out here I don’t get a lot of time to practice.” She paused for a moment. “Thank you, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. Can I see your work sometime?”

She shrugged. “Sometime. When I’ve a piece I’m ready to share.”

“That’s why Christine knew you.”

Al nodded. “I didn’t know she knew me that well.” She rubbed a beefy hand across the back of her neck. “That’s been kinda weighing on me this whole trip.”

“What? That she knew you?”

“Christine Maloney is one of the beautiful people. Rich. Smart. Connected. Believes in herself.”

“Beautiful,” I said.

Al sighed and smiled at me. “So beautiful it hurts to look at her sometimes.”

“She knows who you are,” I said.

“I didn’t realize,” Al said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose, admiring an older container clipper easing across the traffic with the help of a pair of tugs. “Now you do,” I said. I clapped her on the shoulder and left her on the bridge, staring out into the hurly-burly around an active station. As I dropped down the ladder, I wondered what she saw.

Chapter 34
Mel’s Place: 2375, October 9

There’s something uncanny about a docked ship. The lack of crew is one thing. Stripping down to a third of our normal complement means there are a lot of unoccupied spaces. There’s a certain amount of day work that happens. We still serve meals. We take on supplies. We have to monitor our environment, and we never shut down the fusactors that provide shipboard power.

It’s also quieter. I’m more likely to notice the blowers that keep fresh air circulating. They never shut off. A silent ship is a dying ship. I don’t know if it’s because there are fewer people aboard making noise—chattering, walking up and down the passages, opening and closing doors and hatches—or if it’s because we have less ambient engineering noise. The fusactor is all but silent and the Burleson drives only operate for microseconds at a time. The sail generators hum a low-pitched song that barely registers. Everything that makes a noise vibrates the hull, and the sound carries along her structure. Even some things that don’t make a noise carry vibrations.

I pondered that while I wandered down the spine toward engineering. It seemed like it had to be the absence of crew rather than a change in engineering that made me think the ship was so much quieter, almost abandoned.

The chief’s office door stood latched open but she wasn’t in there. I nodded to the watchstanders in Engineering Central who smiled in return before straightening up and examining their consoles. I ducked out of their line of sight while I choked back a laugh. I’d never seen so clear an example of “It’s the boss! Look busy!” in my life.

Honestly, I was probably just as guilty of doing it but the larger crew, the dispersed management team, offered more opportunities for me to watch people.

I found the chief with her head in a scrubber cabinet while Spec One Penna leaned over her shoulder.

“Any idea what’s causing that buildup?” Penna asked. “It’s been doing that for the last few months.”

“Have you checked the trap for blockage?” The chief’s voice echoed inside the metal box.

“Yes, sar. Outflows are all slick and clean. Even changed the slime filters out just before we left Siren.”

I heard her sigh before she backed out. “That was what? Six weeks ago?”

They noticed me standing there when they turned. Penna jumped and even the chief started.

“Gah!” she said. “Don’t sneak up on people like that, Skipper.”

“Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt.” I nodded at the scrubber. “Problem?”

The chief pulled a rag out of her pocket and began scrubbing her hands with it. “Mr. Penna here noticed we’ve been getting an algae buildup on the outflows in this cabinet.”

“I didn’t think they’d grow outside the filter matrix,” I said.

The chief nodded to Penna. “They shouldn’t be able to. The cartridges hold the matrix in isolation. There shouldn’t be any bleed,” he said.

The chief nodded at the case. “I’m certainly not an expert on these cartridges, but it has me beat, too.”

I pointed to the cabinet. “May I?”

The chief stepped aside with a grin. “Be my guest.”

I looked at the bottom of the case where a slurry of slimy water vibrated. “So is the problem the water or the slime?” I asked.

“Both, sar,” Penna said. “The outlet is on the back right corner. It’s being plugged by a buildup of algae.”

A small mound of icky red and brown slime covered any outlet that might have been there. The smell triggered an idea and I stepped back.

“Are those the right algae?” I asked.

The chief and Penna shared a confused glance. “The right algae?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. They don’t smell right. Too much iodine. Not enough green.”

They shared another glance.

“I don’t follow, sar,” Penna said.

“You ever smell a cartridge that’s way overdue for changing?” I asked.

He grimaced. “No, sar. That would be a bad sign.”

“I have,” the chief said. “It’s disgusting, but he’s right. It’s a bad sign.”

I nodded. “You’re both right. They stink because the algae inside get overwhelmed and die off. When they start rotting, they give off a very unpleasant smell.”

The chief swallowed hard and even Penna looked a little put off by just the imaged aroma.

“So those algae in the bottom there. Only a few of them are dead, just based on the smell.”

“You mean it doesn’t smell bad enough?” Penna asked.

“Right. Those are mostly living algae. A few of them have gone to the great matrix in the sky, but most of them are still alive and they’re the wrong kind of algae.”

“You can tell that from the smell?” Penna asked.

I shrugged. “Can you tell beef from chicken by the smell?”

“Of course, sar.”

“Same difference, although it might be a bit more subtle with the algae. We used the same cartridges on the Tinker. The smell’s distinctive and this isn’t it. It might be the decomposing algae are confusing my nose but these don’t smell right to me.”

I glanced up at the case again and the glare from the overheads highlighted odd, circular discolorations on the inside of the door. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing out the circles.

The chief looked up and frowned. She stepped closer and then looked from the back of the door to the array of scrubber cartridges. She swung the door almost closed, peeking into the case through the crack. “Scrubber cartridges line up with them.”

“Do we have the wrong cartridges?” Penna asked. “I’ve just been buying what they gave us in the yard.”

“Somebody’s not screwing the cartridges on tight,” the chief said. “There’s not much clearance and if you don’t get that last turn on when you screw them in, the cartridges hit the door.” She pointed to a dried streak running down the length of the door. “There’s the leakage, but it doesn’t explain the variation in algae.”

She stepped back and tapped a finger against her chin. After a few heartbeats she looked at me. “Random mutation?”

“Possible. Could also just be simple contamination. If the spores were in the yard, the case might have been cross-contaminated with another strain from a different scrubber.”

“Or both,” Penna said.

“Or both,” the chief said, nodding in agreement. “Clean this gunk out. Make sure the other cabinets aren’t contaminated.”

Penna nodded. “It’s only this cabinet,” he said. “I’ve been keeping an eye on all of them since this started.”

“Good. Did you notice this on any of the other doors?” She pointed to the marks.

“I haven’t, but it’s an easy check.”

“We need to have a bit of remedial training in scrubber filter maintenance, regardless,” the chief said. “But when you’ve got this cleaned up good, give it a good washdown with bleach, particularly along this bottom tray.”

“Aye, aye, sar. We’ll get that done this watch,” Penna said.

“Thank you, Mr. Penna,” the chief said.

Penna nodded and scurried off, presumably to find cleaning gear and a hapless rating.

“Good eye, Skipper,” the chief said, closing the scrubber door and latching it. “Good nose.”

“Good training. I worked environmental on the Lois. We had our share of scrubber malfunctions.”

She headed for the ladder up toward main engineering. “She still had those old frame and stretched matrix scrubbers, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. Messy job changing them out.”

“Tedious as well,” she said. “I remember those, but I didn’t pick up the smell in this cabinet.” She glanced up at me.

“Maybe we had more than our share of scrubber malfunctions,” I said.

“Whatever. I’m glad you happened along when you did. I doubt that I’d have picked up on it.” She grimaced and shook her head. “I should have spotted the marks on the inside of the cabinet door, though. Or Penna should have.”

“It was just the light where I was standing.”

She snorted. “Skipper, you can’t keep blaming luck.”

I shrugged. “I’m just trying to get out and around the ship more.”

We stopped at her office door. “Keep doing it,” she said.

“I plan to.”

I left her settling into her console, and I wandered back up the spine toward officer country and the bridge. I felt the need to look out at the stars.

Chapter 35
Viceroy System: 2375, October 12

Pip scored a can of machine parts for Bar None and we pulled out of Mel’s after giving the crew a full four-day liberty rotation. Pip and I had partaken of a few rounds of beef and brew but as soon as he got the can, he seemed anxious to get underway.

I looked Bar None up in the travel guide and learned why.

“A ranch in space?” I asked.

He started to put his feet on my desk but the sour look I shot him dissuaded him and he merely crossed his legs at the knee. “A ranch in space,” he said. “And a meat processing plant. And one of the best hydroponic operations going. If you want good, fresh food outside of a planetary gravity well, Bar None is the place.”

“Doesn’t it take a lot of space for cattle?”

“And a lot of feed,” he said. “That’s why they started the hydroponic operation, I think. I can’t imagine what it must have cost to ship grain out there to feed the beef. Once they mastered that, it was easy to expand it to include more fresh produce. Wait till you taste their watermelon.”

“What’s with the machine parts?” I asked.

“Stations run on machinery. Same as ships.” He shrugged.

“And we’re going to Bar None because it’s the biggest food production operation in the Western Annex?”

He shook his head. “Biggest in Toe-Hold space. When you have a whole planet, like St. Cloud or Umber, you can produce a lot more food. Enough food that economies of scale make it possible to lift it out of the gravity well for shipment. Not many places out here have that kind of real estate to exploit, let alone the ecological infrastructure to farm or fish.”

“So if I were looking to feed a whole new station, I’d probably arrange with Bar None?”

He smiled. “I’m trying to think of all the things an outfit like this would need to support itself in Toe-Hold space.”

“Have you missed any?”

He paused and started counting off on his fingers. “Food, water, environment, raw materials, personnel.” He looked up at me. “What am I missing?”

“You’re proposing that three companies, each with a different specialty, have been working in almost complete secrecy for two decades.”

He frowned but nodded. “Yeah. Basically.”

“Security,” I said.

“What about it? It’s Toe-Hold space. Even knowing which corner of Toe-Hold space it’s likely to be in, the probability of finding it without a survey vessel and three bushels of luck is practically zero.”

“I’m not talking about people getting in.”

His eyes went wide.

“How can you keep that secret this long?” I asked.

“There have to be thousands of people who know,” he said.

“Just keeping it quiet at the highest levels of those three companies would be a monumental effort.”

“If three people know a secret, it only stays a secret if all of them are dead,” he said.

“I thought it was two,” I said.

“Eventually that one will tell it and it’s no longer secret.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. But once you get in, you can’t get out until and unless the project is released to the universe.”

“NDAs only go so far,” Pip said. “You’re thinking what? Slaves?” He practically whispered that last word.

“It’s a possibility,” I said, not wanting to think about Brill as a slave. “More likely they’re just keeping them busy, keeping them fed and paid and entertained so they don’t actually realize they can’t quit.”

Pip grinned. “So? Like the CPJCT?”

I felt like he’d punched me in the head. I sat back in my chair, staring at him as the words rang true in my mind.

He chuckled. “Gotcha. The CPJCT isn’t that bad, but there’s a lot to think about there. No, these people have to keep a tighter rein in order to keep the secret. Personally, I think it’s wasted effort because—eventually—they’re going to have to release the information when they roll out the new product line, or they’re going to have to kill the thousands of people there to keep them from going forth and spreading the news.”

“What makes you think they won’t just exterminate the people there?”

“That’s a much harder secret to keep. Unless the guy who orders the execution and all the people who carry it out die, that’s going to be a massive load of karma to offset.”

“Will that be enough to stop them?” I asked. “Or will hubris make them think they can get away with it?”

Pip paused at that. “Good call. I don’t know.”

“So security has to be tight. Not to keep people out, but to keep the secret in. Can anybody do that for two decades?”

“Clearly not,” Pip said.

I felt my brain stutter. “Not?”

“They haven’t,” Pip said.

“How do you figure?”

“We’re looking for them. We’re pretty sure they’re out here. We even have a rough idea of their location, a reasonable map of what they’ve done, and even some ideas about what might have gone wrong.” He shrugged. “That’s not exactly a well-kept secret.”

“We’re overlooking one possibility?” I said.

He lifted his chin.

“Accident. What if it’s not there anymore?”

“What? The station blew up?”

“Took an asteroid hit. Poisoned their air. Something.”

He settled back in his chair and frowned. “Possible,” he said after a few moments. “Unlikely that everybody would be in the same station at the same time. Miners would be out mining. Possibly crew building a ship.”

“How long could you survive in a mining barge?” I asked.

His frown deepened. “Not that long. A few months if you had adequate food stocks.” He looked me in the eyes. “A few hours if you didn’t have enough air.”

I sighed. “I still think there’s something we’re missing. The Chernyakova can’t have been the only supply ship.”

“I’m not even sure it was a supply ship anymore,” Pip said.

I felt a brief but almost overwhelming desire to reach across the desk and strangle him.

He must have seen it in my face because he held up both hands, palms out as if to ward me off. “We had good intelligence. TIC was pretty sure the Chernyakova was supplying the Manchester skunk works.”

I took a deep breath and let it out before speaking. “What’s changed your mind?”

“Nobody’s bitten.”

“Nobody’s approached us about the base?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I’d have thought somebody would have said something along the way.”

“What’s the worst case?” I asked.

“We troll around Toe-Hold space for a stanyer and uncover nothing.”

“That’s already not the case,” I said.

“How do you figure?”

“Did you know that the alleged base was out near The Junkyard before we came out here?”

He shook his head.

“Did you know Brill might be involved in it?”

He shook his head again.

“Did you know that Plunkett’s probably helped seed the initial crews into the base?”

“No, and I didn’t know about the tellurium or Victor Flores, either,” he said.

“So we’ve already gotten more than you had a stanyer ago.”

He crossed his arms over his chest with a scowl and a harrumph.

“Hate it when I’m right?” I asked.

“None of that proves the Chernyakova has the location in her database,” he said.

I nodded. “True, but are we making any credits in this wild goose chase?”

His eyebrows lifted a bit and he gave me a short nod.

“We’re making massive profits on this, aren’t we?”

“We didn’t on that last trip out to Siren,” he said, still scowling.

“Have we paid for the ship yet?” I asked.

“We haven’t had it a whole stanyer yet and we sank a lot of credits into it,” he said.

“How much of it have we earned back just in the last quarter?”

It felt like pulling teeth but he finally said, “A little over half.”

“So worst case, we make Alys Giggone and Margaret Stevens and—let’s not forget us—stinking rich but we don’t find this ghost station.”

“No. Worst case we blow a Burleson in the Deep Dark somewhere and drift forever where nobody will ever find us,” he said.

His answer surprised a short laugh out of me but I nodded. “All right, barring some kind of catastrophic failure—which could happen in a million different ways to each of us individually and all of us together—what’s the probability that we’re not going to be successful at running cargo?”

He seemed to come out of his funk a bit and pursed his lips as he sat up straighter. “If we keep going at this rate, we’ll have the ship paid off by this time next stanyer. We could probably start building a fleet of these bricks.”

A stray thought crossed my mind. “Why hasn’t somebody done that already?”

He grinned at me. “Who says they haven’t?”

Chapter 36
Tehas System: 2375, October 24

The jump into Tehas took next to no time coming out of Mel’s. The combination of big drives, stations well out in the system, and the short-first-jump technique had us dropping into the Combine cluster and Tehas in record time. We cleared navigation stations and set normal watch just before the evening mess. Ms. Sharps and the mess crew served as we came off the bridge.

I gave everybody time to get to the wardroom ahead of me by the simple expedient of stopping by the cabin to use the head and wash my face. I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment before shutting off the light. I wondered if I’d ever lose that haunted look around my eyes.

Which made me think of Mal and my “homework” to consider whether or not a snake missed his shed skin. “What the hell kind of question is that, anyway?” I asked. Luckily nobody was in the cabin to hear it or try to offer an answer.

When I got to the wardroom, I found everybody but Ms. Fortuner waiting for me. I took up a plate and helped myself to the buffet at the back of the compartment. The rest fell in line behind me and we took our seats in good order. One thing I had to admit. For all its shadowed past, the Chernyakova seemed to be running smoothly enough with our current cast of characters. Even Virgil Bentley, who’d seemed like such a cutup early on, had settled in.

“Something funny, Captain?” Al asked, passing the carafe of coffee down the table.

“Just thinking about Mr. Bentley.”

She paused and looked at me. “Something wrong with Mr. Bentley?”

“Not at all. I was just musing at how well he’s apparently meshed with the crew.”

“I haven’t seen him much since he made able spacer.” She looked at Mr. Reed. “Tom?”

“He hums,” Reed said.

“Hums?” Al asked.

“On the helm. We’ll be sitting there, and he’ll start humming. Completely tuneless. He just makes humming noises.” Reed smiled and shook his head.

“Is it distracting?” Al asked. “Do you want me to speak to him?”

Reed shook his head. “No. It’s nothing. I just never had a helm who hummed.”

I looked at the chief. “What’s new and exciting in the world of engineering?”

“The bleach seems to have stopped that scrubber problem. Air quality is top notch now that we’ve finally cleared that up and gotten the last of the particulates from the overhaul out of the system.” She paused. “I hate to say things are going well, because that’s about the time something breaks.”

“I know that feeling.” I looked at Pip. “Anything to add to the conversation?”

He finished chewing and swallowed. “Things look good in terms of cargo. I’ve already got a load of frozen food lined up and I think I need to work with Ms. Sharps to take advantage of this trip. There really isn’t a better source for food out here.”

“How does everybody eat?” I asked, looking around the table.

“What do you mean, Skipper?” Al asked.

“Without the CPJCT clearing house? How does everybody get food at the right station at the right time?”

Chief Stevens chuckled. “Same way anybody would. They import some. They grow a lot. They work to keep their trade balances neutral, which means nobody’s an actual specialist.”

I looked at Pip, who shrugged and nodded. “All the stations we’ve visited have had some significant investment in food production. You can’t depend on some friendly tramp freighter to come through with food when your pantry goes empty.”

“It’s the same with everything,” Al said. “Water, atmospheric gases. Parts.”

“I don’t get it. I thought Bar None was the best source of food,” I said.

Pip raised his fork. “I said ‘best,’ not ‘only.’ We’ve been able to get a nice variety of food supplies for the galley while we’ve been out here even before Bar None. Mel’s has a nice beef operation. It’s just smaller. They sell a lot of refined ore and spools of printer stock, but they also have a big investment in mining infrastructure. It’s how they get credits in, but they don’t rely on buying oxygen or water with it.”

“We should invest in some parts stock,” the chief said. “We could pick up a printer easily enough and start making the smaller parts we need instead of relying on buying them.”

“Can we print scrubber cartridges?” I asked. I thought I was making a joke.

“We could,” the chief said. “We’d need a second printer for the matrix but a standard part mill could handle the frames. I’d have to see what we can do about the algae, but—theoretically—we could grow our own stock by cannibalizing an existing cartridge.”

I looked around the table. Nobody else seemed to think the idea was unusual. “Why don’t we do that then?” I asked.

The chief looked at Pip. “We have the credits for it?”

“How much do we need?”

“Small parts printer? Probably two grand for a good one. Another couple of thousand for the raw stock. Probably the same amount for the fabric printer and stock. So, ten thousand credits would cover it.”

“How much do we spend on filters?” he asked. “I’ve only seen one purchase come through on it and it seemed pretty small compared to our potable water bill.”

“We’d break even in about four months,” the chief said. “Maybe six. Certainly less than a stanyer. We’ve been working through the scrubber filters the yard gave us or we’d have had to buy a lot more. Printer would let us replace the stock we use as we use it so it’s always on hand in case of emergency.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “We could probably print the water filters on the same unit. Amortize the cost faster.”

“Why haven’t we done this before?” I asked.

“What?” Pip asked, looking up from his plate.

“Printed our own parts.”

He shrugged. “A lot of ships do. All the chandleries print their parts. Most ships just buy the parts and pay the premium because it’s easier to just stock the pieces you need than to juggle the equipment and feed stocks needed to make parts on any scale.” He shrugged again. “They just outsource the pain in the butt.”

“That’s a good point,” the chief said. “Space? We’ll need to set up the printers somewhere.”

“Lemme see what the current crop looks like,” Pip said. “We might be able to buy a small one for cheap and then use it to fab the sizes we need for the parts we want.”

“That’ll work. I’ve got room in my office for a small one,” the chief said.

Al grinned. “We make enough maybe we can sell them to the chandleries we visit.”

The chief shuddered. “Now you’re talking major pain in the neck. For small runs like ours, I think it would make a lot of sense. Out here in Toe-Hold space, it’s common since you never know who’s going to stock the parts you need.”

“Or how much they’re going to charge you for them,” Pip said.

I settled back in my chair and let the conversation swirl around me. They talked as if this idea of using the fabrication printers was an everyday occurrence but I’d never heard of it being done on a ship like ours.

The conversation swirled around the possibility of getting the operation set up and running but it went on without me until the chief leaned over and got my attention. “Something wrong, Skipper?”

“Why is this the first I’ve heard of a ship making her own parts?”

She smiled. “Because you’ve never been in Toe-Hold space before. Out here, self-reliance is a survival trait.” She paused. “In CPJCT space, self-reliance is closely regulated. You can’t even buy printers there. It’s one of the universally controlled technologies. Only the planetary corporate entities and the CPJCT itself are allowed to have printers.”

I opened my mouth to ask why, but she’d already told me. “Self-reliance is closely regulated.”

She nodded. “If you could print your own rocket nozzles, why would you need to buy them from Jett Ceramic Components?”

“Without Jett Ceramic, who would Welliver Mining sell their clay to?” I asked.

She nodded. “The CPJCT’s structures don’t just facilitate specialists. They require them.”

“Economics,” Pip said. “Basic economics. If you have a supply, you need a demand. Without it, you have no economy.”

“If you can’t make it,” Al said, “but you survive anyway, you didn’t need it after all.”

“In the Toe-Holds, those tools that foster self-reliance—like printers and patterns, like feed stock, like gas refineries and water production plants—they’re all readily available here,” the chief said.

“I feel like I’ve jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire,” I said.

“Out here there’s no frying pan to jump out of,” the chief said. “Just fire. You make what you need. You get along with your neighbors because if you suddenly run out of oxygen, you might need to scoot next door for a few breaths of air.”

“It’s why everybody knows how to supply food and water and clothing,” Pip said.

“Marc printed your new outfits,” the chief said.

“I knew that but I guess I didn’t take that to the logical next step,” I said. I looked at Tom Reed. “You’re being awful quiet over there.”

“My first trip, too. I had no idea,” he said. “It’s a lot to take in.”

The chief smiled. “Once you get over the shock, it’s not so bad. We’re here now. Outside the mirror. We can choose. Before you never knew what you didn’t know.”

That phrase—outside the mirror—tickled a memory. A story my mother used to read to me when I was small. “Who’s Alice?” I asked, looking at the chief.

She smiled back at me—a wide, toothy grin with a sparkle in her eyes. “You are,” she said.

Chapter 37
Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29

The smell of Bar None hit me the instant I stepped onto the dock. Not that it was bad, but that it was so good. When I stepped out of our lock, the fresh, warm air smelled of growing things. I drew in a huge lungful, almost without thinking about it.

“They have great scrubbers, don’t they?” Pip said.

I shook my head. “I don’t know any scrubber that can do this.”

He grinned and pointed to the planter boxes running along the far side of the dock. “Wanna bet?”

“Trees? How do they grow trees in the docks?”

Most of the docks I’d been on were wide, and certainly tall enough. They had to be to accommodate the standard ten-meter docking rings. The CPJCT orbital specs called for precisely twelve meters’ clearance above the deck plates with observation galleries above those. Bar None had gone at least that high. The distance from the lock to the back of the dock was about half-again wider than I was used to. I could almost believe I was planetside. It felt huge.

Wide plantings ran along at deck level, groupings of what I could only call trees with eight- to ten-centimeter-diameter trunks. They rose well above my head before branching out, but the canopies almost formed a ceiling above us.

“See?” Pip said. “Scrubbers.”

“How do they grow them?” I said, marveling at the engineering that must have gone into them.

A rangy young man in station livery walked up to us. He towered over me but he was so skinny, he could have hidden behind one of the trees. I probably outweighed him. “You from the Cherny-kovy?” he asked, jerking a thumb at our lock.

“Yes,” I said. “Can we help you? We’ve already talked to security.”

He grinned. “Yep. Figgered so, otherwise jefe  wouldn’ta sent me to get you. Either of you named Carstairs?”

“Guilty,” Pip said, raising a hand.

“Probably,” the kid said. “I’m Baldry.” He brushed a hand over the fuzz on his scalp. “Probably be callin’ me Baldy before too long.” He shrugged and grinned again. “Come on. Jefe don’t like bein’ kept waitin’ and he’s got a load of beef for you.”

I glanced at Pip who shrugged in return.

Baldry had already turned and was walking away. He paused after a couple of steps and looked back. “You güeyes comin’?”

“How do you grow these trees here?” I asked, looking up at the leafy canopies above me.

He grinned and spit into the planter. “You never seen trees before?”

“I’ve seen trees,” I said. “Just never growing on a dock.”

Baldry shook his head. “Cow shit,” he said.

“No, really, I’ve never seen one growing on a dock.”

Baldry laughed. I got the uncomfortable feeling he was laughing at me, not with me. “Naw, man. It’s what they’re planted in. Cow shit. You plant anythin’ in it, it grows.”

Pip chuckled. “That explains it, then.”

Baldry looked at him. “Explains what?”

“How you got so tall,” Pip said. “Your mother fill your boots?”

The kid paused for just a half a heartbeat and then started chuckling. “You’re all right, Carstairs. That’s exactly what my old man used to say.” He waved us forward with his arms. “Get a move on. Jefe’s waitin’.” Baldry led us down the dock and out through a passageway into the station proper, chuckling to himself all the way.

We hadn’t gone more than a few meters into the station when Baldry stopped at an airtight door and rapped on it a couple of times before pulling the lever and swinging it inward. “Jefe? The white-haired pendejo is Carstairs.” He looked at me. “Didn’t catch your name but you got the stars so you’re probably his boss.”

A wizened old man hunched in a powered chair beside a desk. His sparse hair fell in pale streaks across his scalp, and his face with its dark brown crevasses reminded me of a walnut meat. He turned his chair to face us and he nodded his head once. “Language, Baldry. Politeness costs nothing and often pays dividends.” His voice grumbled somewhere deep in his chest, making me think of boulders grinding together to make his words.

Baldry looked down at his boots. “Sorry, Jefe. I beg pardon, Mr. Carstairs. Captain.”

“I’m at fault here,” Pip said. “Thank you for your assistance, Baldry.”

“Thank you, Baldry. Katharine has need of a strong back and a weak mind in Hydroponics. Perhaps you could provide one or both?”

“Of course, Jefe.” He offered both of us a tentative smile. “Enjoy your stay.” With that he scooted out and the airtight door squinched shut behind us.

“He’s a good boy. Young. To me everybody is.” The old man nodded and pointed to a pair of comfortable chairs off to one side. “Even you two. I’m Ariel Felder. Welcome to Bar None.”

We took the offered seats and Felder wheeled over.

“You’ll pardon me for not standing up to greet you. These days ‘waking’ is about as ‘up’ as I get.” His eyes gleamed and his face beamed at his own—probably much used—joke.

“No problem, Mr. Felder,” Pip said. “That whole standing up and greeting people thing is over-rated, anyway.”

“Ariel,” he said. “Christopher will bring us refreshments in a few moments. While we wait, why don’t you tell me how you come to be flying the Chernyakova?”

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “You know what happened to the ship?”

“Yes. Tragic. You purchased her at auction?”

“I found her,” I said.

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Found her?”

“I led the salvage team that took over the ship and flew her back to Breakall.”

His eyes widened briefly and his tongue worked across his lower lip for a moment while he stared me in the eye. “That must have been quite an experience,” he said.

“Not one I ever want to have again,” I said.

His head shook back and forth slightly. “No,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone would.” He looked at Pip. “And you? Carstairs? Why do I know your name?”

“You probably know my father, Thomas.”

“Thomas.” He mused on the name, his gaze searching Pip’s face. “Quentin’s brother.”

“Yes, sir.”

The old man’s head bobbed a few times. “Yes. Good stock. Why’s your hair white?”

“I didn’t like the red,” he said.

“Heh.” The old man’s short laugh seemed to bounce out of him. “Heh,” he said again. “So I’ve got beef for you to take.” He looked back and forth between us. “You know where to go?”

“Not really, no,” Pip said.

The old man’s eyes widened. “So!” He paused, a grin easing onto his face. “You know what I’m talking about though, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The single syllable erupted like a bark. “That damned Vagrant has been all over me since the Chernyakova’s recovery. I’ve done what I could over the years, but you two. You know.”

“About the shipyard?” Pip asked.

Felder’s smile widened even more. “Yes. The yard. The lab. The ship. You know.”

“We know,” Pip said. “We just don’t know where.”

“Telluride,” Felder said.

“Telluride?” I asked.

Pip grinned. “Of course. I was so stupid.”

Felder chuckled, more low grinding of rocks in his chest. “You’re young, boy. You’re supposed to be stupid for a while.” His chuckling tailed off. “If this business doesn’t age ya, you’re not Thomas Carstairs’s boy.” He wheeled his chair back as the door opened up. “Christopher. Good. Get that can of food ready to go. These gentlemen will be taking it along with them when they go.”

Christopher settled a tray of coffee and pastry onto a side table. “Of course, Jefe. What about that other party?”

“Vagrant?” Felder spit the name into the air. “Tell you what? Fill a can from barn nine. Give it to him for free.”

“Barn nine?” Christopher said. “That’s—”

“Yes,” Felder said. “It’ll freeze around the edges once it’s in the can but it’ll be just about ripe by the time he gets it back. Let him dig that out when he gets to whatever hole he crawls back to.”

Christopher nodded. “Immediately, Jefe.”

As Christopher headed for the door, Felder said, “And, Christopher, tell traffic control that no ship registered to M. Vagrant Outfitters has docking permission here ever again.”

“Immediately, Jefe.”

Felder waved an arm at the tray. “Help yourself, boys. I’d pour but I tend to spill more than I get in the cup these days.” He held up one palsied hand and chuckled at his own joke. “Gettin’ old sucks, but it beats the alternatives. I’m not allowed to drink it anymore but I can enjoy the aroma.”

“Can I ask?” Pip asked.

“Barn nine?” Felder asked.

Pip nodded.

“It’s being mucked out for the new herd due. It’s only fair I return a bit of the shit he’s been shoveling my way for the last three years.”

Pip and I shared a glance. “Mr. Felder? If you ever feel like we don’t hold you in the highest regard? Please let us know,” Pip said. “Before giving us the can?”

Felder’s laugh, rough and brittle as it was, tickled me. “Take care of business. That’s all I ask,” he said after a few ticks of jocularity. “Just take care of business and don’t give me any shit. I won’t have cause to give you any.”

Chapter 38
Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29

We got back from visiting Felder about the time his crew was ready to pull the old can and fit us with the new one. Pip thumbed the transfer documents and we watched them swap cans from the bridge.

“It never gets old,” Pip said.

“What? Watching them swap the cans?”

He nodded.

“It gets old. Once you’ve done it a few hundred times, the only thing you want to see is all the green latches without any unexpected bumps or bangs as they take one out or put one back,” I said.

“That happens?” His eyes looked big in the dim light from the bridge consoles.

“Not often but when it does, I always half expect to hear the hull breach alarm.”

Pip pursed his lips and leaned closer to the armor glass. “Are we really going to find it?” he asked, his voice a bare whisper and his breath fogging the port.

“Telluride seemed to mean something to you.”

He nodded. “It’s one of the ports listed in the database.”

“Is it in the right place?”

“Right on the edge, but it’s only one of a dozen in that vicinity.”

“You didn’t think that was significant?” I asked.

“No, it’s in the database. Not just ours. Everybody’s.”

“How can that be?”

“It’s quarantined as a biohazard.”

I stared out into the Deep Dark for a few heartbeats. “They hid it in plain sight.”

Pip nodded. “I was looking for it and, even with the name, I wrote it off because it was listed.”

“The name?”

Pip sighed and looked at me. “One of the main thermoelectric substrates is made of out bismuth telluride. I dug into the records and the station was established by Victor Flores. He named it back in ’51.”

“Nobody looks for a secret base in the public databases,” I said.

“Jim Waters is going to kick himself.”

“What do you suppose Felder meant by doing what he could?” I asked.

“That’s bothered me, too. He supplies food. Maybe Manchester has cut the base loose and they don’t have a lot of spare credits to pay for it,” he said. “Maybe he’s feeding them on credit.”

“There’s more than Manchester involved here.”

He nodded and turned away from the armorglass as the last of the cargo handlers jetted away. “Mellon-Merc and Pravda had to have some interest in developing the station.”

“If it’s a bust, why keep the station active?” I asked.

“We’ll just have to go find out, I guess.”

“We’ll need to stay here for at least another day,” I said. “We can get Al and Tom working on the navigation.”

“You picked up that sense of urgency from Felder?”

I nodded. “Things could be dire and I’d hate to think somebody will die if we don’t get this food to them.”

Pip pulled on his lower lip with a thumb and forefinger. The deck seemed pretty interesting.

“You don’t think so?” I asked.

He shrugged without looking up. “Seems off, somehow.”

“Off how?”

He looked up at me. “Like we don’t know the whole picture here.”

“Like what?”

“Like who’s Vagrant and what’s his deal.”

“That’s the guy that’s getting the can of manure?”

“Yeah, but he’s also the guy we outbid for the Chernyakova. Malachai Vagrant, CEO of M. Vagrant Outfitters.”

“How do you remember that?”

“I make it a point to know who might be working against us. He gave us the stink eye when we outbid him. There was even a reporter who asked if we were worried about beating him.”

His comment struck an echo in my head. “I remember that question. I didn’t understand it.”

“Me, either, but now we find M. Vagrant Outfitters here giving Ariel Felder problems over Telluride.”

“He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’ll be pleased with having to get a Barbell underway with a load of frozen manure,” I said.

“Any idea which ship it might be?” Pip asked, looking down the docking gallery.

We had tankers on either side of us and I couldn’t see beyond them. “I can’t see another Barbell from here.”

“Do you suppose Felder will tell him what’s in the can?”

“For starters, it’s probably not Vagrant himself on the ship. I’m guessing just one of his captains.”

“You familiar with him?” Pip asked.

I shook my head. “Diurnia’s my back yard but I’ve been living in a box there with DST. I didn’t pay much attention to what else was going on.”

“Until Maloney died,” Pip said.

“Even then. I was so deep in DST’s pockets I didn’t even notice when Simpson was robbing mine.”

Pip snorted and patted my shoulder. “He’s gone away for a long time.”

“I wonder who replaced him in Victoria Dalmati’s affections.”

“You really want to know?” Pip asked.

“You know who Victoria Dalmati is?”

“Last I heard she was the de facto chairman of the board for DST.”

“You need to update your files.”

He stopped and looked at me. “You sure?”

“Christine Maloney is chairman of the board. She’s got her father’s stock majority.” I felt myself smile. “She’s not the kind of woman to let Dalmati play her. Not after Simpson.”

“I’ve never met her. File says competent but unskilled.”

“You really need to update your files. If we get back to Diurnia, I’ll introduce you. You can make up your own mind.”

Pip grinned at me, his teeth glowing in the dim light. “Sounds like you regret letting her get away.”

I shook my head and grinned back. “She’s a remarkable woman, but not for me.”

“Why not? You’ve clearly got a thing for her.”

“I’ve got a thing for good coffee but I’m not going to date a percolator.”

He chuckled and we left the dimness of the bridge for the well-lighted passageway of officer country. I stepped into the cabin and couldn’t help but be reminded of the brilliance that burned so brightly in my ex-chef.

I ran a hand across the arched wing of the huge shearwater painted on my bulkhead, my fingers picking out the smoother layer of the sea bird against the rougher texture of the background sky. Dierdre’s idea. Christine clearly had Ms. Darling under her wing and was teaching her to fly on her own. I thought about what might have been, but knew that we each had our own paths to fly. As much as I might have been drawn to Christine Maloney, it wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.

I reached into the pocket of my shipsuit and pulled out the shearwater that had been Greta’s. I rubbed the ball of my thumb across the wing’s rough surface. I began to think that Mal Gains’s question about the snake’s skin was dumb.

Snakes don’t think like that. To miss their shed skins they’d have to be aware in the same way people were. They’d have to recognize that the old skin just didn’t fit any more and that to miss it would be negating the value of the new one. They’d have to understand that the new skin couldn’t have come into being without the old skin going before and being cast aside.

I stood there, letting my thumb rasp against the rough wood, stroking the curve over and over while I thought about my old clothes.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out Mal Gains was a pretty smart guy.

Pip startled me when he spoke. “You sure?” he asked.

I turned to find him leaning on the door jamb—arms crossed, a smirk on his face.

“You been standing there all this time?”

He nodded. “What do you want to do now?”

“Get Al and the chief. We need to get underway.”

“Chernyakova to the rescue?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe just delivering a load of takeout.”

“You don’t believe that.”

I shook my head. “Nope. I don’t. Felder wanted us to take this can. He either doesn’t have the ships or doesn’t have the crew to do it. He’s got some problem with Vagrant, which may or may not be related. In any case, we can speculate till hell freezes but we won’t get any answers until we get over there.”

Chapter 39
Tehas System: 2375, November 10

We pulled out of Bar None early in the day on the 3rd. The delay chafed, but Al and the chief convinced me that spending a couple of extra days to have a rested and effective crew would be worth it. We didn’t know what we might find when we got there, and a couple of days wouldn’t matter much given how long the Chernyakova had been tied up in salvage and recovery in Breakall.

Because of Bar None’s orbit around the system primary, we had to spend almost a week maneuvering in Tehas to get around the placement of a gas giant and get far enough out of the gravity well to make even a small jump. At one point that would have seemed a ridiculously short outbound leg. Having been spoiled by other Toe-Hold stations, the delay made my head ache.

Al and Tom wrangled jump points for two days before they finally agreed on a solution with the chief that gave us a least-time arrival. We went to navigation stations shortly after breakfast mess on the 10th for what would be a three-day exercise in jumping and recharging.

“Are we ready for this?” I asked as we settled into our positions.

Al smiled at me from the main console. “Ready as we’ll ever be, Captain.”

“Let’s get it moving then,” I said.

“Systems?” Al asked.

“Systems are green for go once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Astrogation status, Mr. Reed?” she said.

“Ship is in position and on course for our first jump. Astrogation is green to go twice, Ms. Ross.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Chief?”

“Capacitors have a full charge. Burlesons are hot and ready. Sail generators secured in stand-by mode for jump. Engineering is green for go thrice.”

Al tapped a few keys, sliding screens around on her console. “All stations report manned and ready, Captain. Ship is green for go thrice.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed,” I said. “Hard a-lee.”

Tom slapped his keyboard and the stars shifted around us. “Jump complete,” Reed said. “Position and vector confirmed. Logged at 2375, November 10 at 0851. Waiting on course verification.”

I knew it made no sense for me to feel the pressure to move along faster. Minutes might have mattered but I knew we were making the best time possible. I stuck my face in my coffee mug to keep from saying something before Tom gave his position update. I just had to wait out his processing of data.

“Ship is in position and on course for jump,” he said after a very short tick. “Astrogation still green for go twice.”

“Chief?” Al asked.

“Three quarters charge on capacitors. Burleson drives still online and ready. Sail generators on stand-by. Engineering is still green for go thrice.”

Al glanced at her console. “Ship is thrice green for go, Captain.”

“Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

His finger barely twitched and the stars shifted around us again.

Tom started banging keys as soon as his displays refreshed. “Jump is complete. We’re long,” he said. “Logged at 2375, November 10 at 0854. Recalculating.”

“Capacitors, Chief?” Al asked.

“A bit under one-quarter charge on capacitors.”

“Can we make our third jump as planned?” Al asked.

“Yes, but we’re going to be there for a while.”

“How long to recharge right now, Chief?” I asked.

“Three stans to full jump range. Eight for full capacitors, Captain.”

“Position, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

“Jump error on that last jump was plus nine percent. We’re on the far edge of the known safe region.”

“Meaning we could hit a rock any moment,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Confidence on next jump?”

“Same as always, Skipper. Plus or minus ten percent, but the safe zone is larger and it’s a shorter jump.”

“Chief?” I said.

“Go.”

“Al?”

“Go.”

“You heard them, Mr. Reed.”

Tom’s fingers flexed just as a loud bang shook the hull.

I sat there stunned for a moment. “Report,” I said.

“Capacitors empty. We’ve lost communication with number four drive emitter.”

“We jumped,” Al said.

“Position, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

His fingers blurred in the dim light of the bridge. “Working, Captain. Jump complete. Logged at 2375, November 10 at 0854.”

“Chief, secure the Burlesons,” I said.

“Secured, Captain. Diagnostics suggest the damage is outside. Damage control suiting up.”

“Hold them at the lock,” I said.

“Holding at the lock, aye, Captain.”

“We’re in the pocket, Captain,” Reed said without looking up. “Course has been skewed and will require a burn to bring us back on track. Calculating.”

“Chief?”

“New diagnostics. The damage is definitely on the outside. The emitter unit is completely unresponsive.”

“Hold on burn, Mr. Reed.”

“Still calculating, Captain, but holding on burn.”

“Let them out, Chief.”

“Lock cycling now.”

“Who’s out there?” I asked.

“Murakowsky and Wicklund from propulsion. I’ve got Bell and Wallace from power suiting up now in case they need backup.”

“Al, give me ship-wide,” I said.

She tapped a few keys and nodded.

“All hands, this is the captain speaking,” I said. “We’re investigating that alarming loud bang. At the moment it appears to be a malfunction with the Burleson drive emitter on the ventral bow. When Murakowsky and Wicklund get there, we’ll know more and I’ll keep you informed. Remain at navigation stations for the moment. That is all.” I looked at Al who clicked the key.

“Channel secured, Captain.”

“How long to charge, Chief?”

“Six stans for a full jump. Eighteen to top off the capacitors, Captain.”

“Any reason to stay at navigation stations?” I asked.

“None from me,” she said. “We’re going to be charging up here for at least a watch cycle. Realistically, more like three.”

“Al?”

“We’re in for a while,” she said.

“Who’s got the watch?”

“Third section,” she said.

I looked at the chrono. It was barely mid-morning. My coffee hadn’t had time to get cold but I felt like we’d been at it for days. “Secure from navigation stations,” I said. “Set normal watch throughout the ship.”

Al made the announcement and people started shuffling up the ladder.

“Don’t stand on ceremony,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Crew made some adjustments, but as I expected. Only Torkelson left the bridge when Ms. Fortuner and Mr. Jensen came up. Al settled at a spare console and fired it up while the chief worked her magic on the engineering displays.

I held my coffee mug in both hands and settled back in the captain’s chair. My only job for the next little while would be radiating patience and calm. I did my best to channel Frederica deGrut and sipped my coffee as if we were just waiting for a tug to pull us out.

Chapter 40
Deep Dark: 2375, November 10

The chief and I met Murakowsky and Wicklund when they came back through the lock. Murakowsky held up the fragged emitter. It resembled nothing more than a blackened chunk of wax about as big as my head that some fist had pummeled into submission.

“What happened?” I asked when they’d pulled off their helmets.

Murakowsky turned the unit and I saw a glossy fragment of rock embedded in the side of the unit. “This shouldn’t be there, sar,” she said.

The chief made a twirling motion with her finger and Murakowsky spun the unit around.

“That’s the back,” the chief said.

“Yes, sar.”

The chief frowned but her head nodded a couple of times. “Stow that in my office, if you would, and get out of those suits for a bit,” she said. “We’ve got a couple of replacement emitters. You know how to mount them?”

Murakowsky nodded. “Yes, sar. Did a hands-on exam for my spec one in fields.”

Wicklund shook her head. “I’ve never done it, sar. I’m only spec three.”

“After lunch, we’ll remedy that,” the chief said. “Sheryl? Run her through the parts list she’ll need and have her pull the parts and tools. We’ll get something to eat, let our nerves settle a bit, and this afternoon we’ll go out for a stroll.”

“Aye, sar,” Murakowsky said.

Wicklund didn’t say anything but her eyes got very round and I thought she might have paled a bit.

“Oh, and alert Mr. Verde that he’ll be running the shipboard alignment diagnostics,” the chief said. “May as well get as much out of this as we can.”

“Aye, sar,” Murakowsky said.

The chief nodded to the passageway. “Go. Get out of the suits and get them recharging.”

The two clomped away while the chief stood there frowning at the deck.

“Problem?” I asked.

She shook her head and looked up at me. “Nothing we can’t handle. We’ve got the parts and tools we need to swap out the emitter. Generally you do that while docked but the process doesn’t require shore-tie. It’ll be a good learning experience. Alignment and tuning will be tedious, but we’re not going anywhere until the capacitors charge anyway.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It hit us from behind.”

The geometry of it made my brain stutter. “It didn’t go through and get lodged in the back?”

“No. The malformation of the unit argues against that. I suspect Tom would tell us that our course deflection is consistent with a blow from the stern and upwards through the bow.” She shook her head. “We were lucky it hit the emitter. If it had hit the skin of the ship, we’d be looking at hull integrity breach or worse. I can replace the emitter, but if this had scored along four or five frames on its way into the ship, that would have been messy.”

I stood there for more than a few heartbeats, listening to the ship around me.

“You all right, Captain?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. Actually, I am. We—almost literally—dodged a bullet.”

She snorted. “Except we apparently didn’t dodge far enough and that was going a lot faster than a bullet when it hit us.”

“Yes, it was. If it had blown through the emitter, or ripped it out of the hull, that would have complicated things greatly.”

She looked startled at that. “Yeah. Having to replace the mounting would have taxed our abilities.”

“Then I’m going to count my blessings. She’s a stout ship who’s seen rough use. We probably owe her.”

The chief’s eyebrows rose. “You sure you’re all right?”

I smiled. “Yes. I’m sure, but let’s get that printer project underway as soon as we can, shall we?”

She nodded, but kept looking at me like I’d suddenly started speaking in tongues. “Good idea, Skipper.”

I smiled at her and followed Murakowsky and Wicklund back into the ship. “Trust Chernyakova” didn’t have the same easy ring to it that “Trust Lois” did, but I could live with that.

I made my way up to the bridge as fast as I could without running. It was a trick I learned from Fredi deGrut. Never let them see the captain hurrying. That was doubly true in circumstances where the captain felt the need to hurry. Perhaps I only felt that way when stuff went pear-shaped.

“Status?” I asked as I crested the ladder.

“No problems, Skipper,” Al said.

“Mr. Reed?” I asked.

“We’ll need five stans to burn at half power if we yaw the ship around and use the kickers. A bit longer if we use thrusters.”

“Fuel consumption profile?” I asked.

“Minor blip,” he said. “We’ll want to confirm that with Chief Stevens.”

“How minor?” I asked, plunking my butt into the captain’s chair.

“It’s not any more than we’d spend getting underway from an orbital. A lot less than we’d spend getting out to the safety perimeter,” he said.

The chief made her way up the ladder and settled at the engineering console. “Ms. Murakowsky is helping Ms. Wicklund get her parts and tools together. Mr. Verde is reviewing his alignment protocols,” she said.

“How long before we can jump?” I asked.

“Emitter should be replaced by dinner mess today. Capacitors will be able to make a short jump by the time the emitter is repaired. It’ll be early morning tomorrow, just after breakfast mess, if the numbers are right.” She tapped a few keys and shifted a couple of windows. “Yeah. That was our planned schedule, too.”

“Five-stan burn to adjust course?” I asked.

“Kickers?” she asked, looking from me to Reed and back.

“Yaw and pitch control to position the kickers and then a five-stan burn at half power,” Reed said.

The chief consulted her screens and nodded, almost to herself. “Just sipping a bit. Not a problem.”

I looked around at the officers. “Any concerns?”

“None here, Captain,” Al said.

“Me, either, Skipper,” Tom said.

I looked at Ms. Fortuner. “Kim?”

“Me? No, Captain.”

“Chief?”

“I think we’re doing splendidly,” she said. “Quite exciting, isn’t it?”

I chuckled and nodded at Al. “Ship-wide, please?”

She twiddled some keys and pointed to me.

“All hands, this is the captain speaking. Some of you probably already heard we took a rock in one of the Burleson emitters. Repairs are underway and should be completed before dinner mess tonight. It won’t change our itinerary. Be prepared for navigation stations after breakfast mess tomorrow. That is all.”

I nodded at Al who clicked the keys and nodded. “Channel secured,” she said.

“How soon before you’re ready to go for your walk?” I asked the chief.

“Probably right after lunch mess,” she said. “I want to give them time to get their gear together and give myself time to check it before we go outside to mess about with the power of the universe.”

I looked around at the personnel on the bridge. “Did we set normal watch?” I asked.

“We did, Captain,” Al said.

“Well, let’s clear the bridge so the watchstanders can get on with the watch.” I looked at Tom Reed. “It won’t matter when we burn, will it?”

“Error correction will be the same. Our position will be different but not significantly so. The next jump is a long one so we’ll be dealing with larger errors on the other end anyway.”

“Can you program the burn for after they get the new emitter in and aligned?”

“No problem, Captain.”

“Chief? Any problem?” I asked.

“None, Captain.”

“Then let’s do that.” I stood and dropped down the ladder, ducking into the cabin to use the head before I started a tour around the ship.

That was another trick I’d learned from Fredi, one I’d not been practicing as well as I might. If the captain has time to stroll about the ship, things must be going well. My gut still quivered slightly when I thought about how close we’d come, even though my head told me it was just another day in the Deep Dark. My job for the rest of the day was to stroll around the various areas of the ship and show everybody how unconcerned I was.

Chapter 41
Deep Dark: 2375, November 12

We didn’t know much about the system labeled Telluride. It had a primary, a few rocky planets, and a couple of gas giants, none of which fell in the Goldilocks zone. We didn’t even have a good survey of where the belts lay. Flores kept all that information to himself, not even registering the system with the CPJCT. I wasn’t even sure we’d find a station there, but I was willing to take Ariel Felder’s word that we had a reason for dragging a can of food out here.

“Let’s see what’s there, shall we?” I said, as we settled into the routine of navigation stations again.

“Mr. Reed, the captain would like to see what’s there,” Al said.

“Ship is in position and on course. Jump coordinates locked, Ms. Ross.”

“Systems?” Al asked.

“Systems are green for go once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Astogation?” Al asked.

“Astrogation green for go twice, Ms Ross.”

“Chief?”

“Capacitors at sixty percent. Burlesons online and ready. Sail generators on ready stand-by. Engineering is green for go thrice, Ms. Ross.”

Al fiddled with her screens for a moment before saying, “The ship is green for go thrice, Captain. Ready to jump on your command.”

“Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

His hand twitched once as he kicked the command and the stars changed positions again. “Jump completed. Logged at 2375, November 12 at 1411. Position and vector updating.”

“System reports as Telluride, Captain,” Al said.

“We’re getting a quarantine warn-off, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said. “Standard broadcast.”

“Any idea where it’s coming from?”

“Nothing yet, Captain,” she said. “I’m looking for the comms buoys, but we’re a few light-minutes too far out.”

“Tom?” I asked.

“Position established. We jumped right on the mark, Captain.”

“So, we’re well out and will need to do some mapping before we can get in much closer,” I said.

“We’re about three hundred light-minutes out from the primary, Captain,” Reed said. “Two hundred and a few from the inner gas giant.”

I wondered whether the ephemeris record had been blanked by the quarantine notice or if the record had never been updated after Flores filed it.

“It could take a long time to find this place,” Al said, her eyes fixed on the long-range scanner.

“I have a fix on the comms buoy,” Kim said. “We’re almost in range to flash a data dump.”

“Think there’ll be anything on it?” I asked.

She shrugged but didn’t look up. “Only one way to find out, Captain.”

We waited out the ticks until we could use a near-field microwave to hit the buoy. Under normal conditions in CPJCT space, it would have been something that happened automatically. In the Toe-Holds, almost nobody used comms buoys.

“Flashing,” Ms. Fortuner said.

It would take two ticks for the radio to cross the distance and for the response to come back.

“Negative response,” she said. “Same quarantine warning.”

“What did you use to flash?” Al asked.

“Standard query,” she said.

“Append our beacon ident and try again,” Al said.

“Beacon ident, aye.”

“You think they’re waiting for us?” I asked Al.

She shrugged. “If they knew the ship had been lost up in the High Line, they might have reprogrammed the buoy network, but I’m cynical.”

“You think they didn’t bother?” the chief asked.

“I think they forgot,” Al said with a snort. “These aren’t Toe-Holders. They’re High Liners working in the Deep Dark.”

“Data dump incoming,” Ms. Fortuner said.

Al chuckled.

“What do you have, Ms. Fortuner?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet, Skipper. It’s still coming in.”

“Anything on long range?” I asked.

Al shook her head. “Nothing yet, Captain. We could be on the wrong side of the primary for all we know.”

“How far are we from the nearest belt?” I asked.

“About twenty light-minutes, Skipper. We’re scanning it now,” Mr. Reed said. “It’ll be a bit before we get anything back.”

“Still loading, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said. “So far it’s message traffic originating from Telluride Station. It’s got to be here somewhere.”

A bad feeling welled up. “Date headers on those messages?”

Ms. Fortuner paused for a few heartbeats before answering. “We’re getting them oldest-to-newest order, Skipper. These are all more than ten stanyers old.” She looked over from her console. “Can that be right? The Chernyakova never picked them up before?”

“I told ya,” Al said. “High Liners running a station and expecting Toe-Holders to know what’s going on.”

“Why’d they key them to the Chernyakova?” Mr. Reed asked. “That’s not CPJCT protocol.”

“It’s not,” Al said. “We’d have to dump the buoy to be sure, but I suspect they keyed it to the ships that were authorized entry to the quarantine to keep the traffic to a minimum. Is there outbound routing data, Kim?”

“All the traffic’s routed to an anonymous node. I don’t know where it might be. It’s got a BoE prefix.”

“BoE-1212?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Who owns it?” I asked.

“Old Board of Exploration address,” she said. “It’s a trash can.”

“So, the station routed all of the outgoing messages to a dead address?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s alive. It’ll accept the messages and mark them received. Then it deletes them.”

“Ms. Fortuner, route those inbound messages to a save buffer. Don’t let them out,” I said.

“We’re not anyplace we could send them at the moment, Skipper.”

“I know that. We may be a Toe-Holder at the moment, but the Chernyakova is set up to automatically forward comms. I don’t want to lose those messages because I forgot to close the door.”

“Routing to a save buffer now, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner.”

“I’ll bet if we sort them, we’ll find some aren’t routed to the trash can,” the chief said.

“You think some got delivered?” I asked.

“If our suspicions are correct, we’ve got representatives from Mellon-Merc, Pravda Systems, and Manchester all swimming in this soup bowl. They’re going to be controlling the outgoing comms.”

Pip clambered up the ladder. “Not all of them,” he said. “Not if these people are getting paid.”

The chief sat up straight in her chair. “High Tortuga.”

“Exactly. If you know how to route through the bank, you can send a message anywhere.”

“If you can get to the bank,” Al said. “Otherwise you’re left with this.”

“That’s the question,” Pip said. “I set the ship up to relay through High Tortuga when we left Dree.”

“What about all this message traffic?” Ms. Fortuner asked.

“That’s in the commercial system,” Pip said. “As long as we don’t hit a comms relay, it’ll stay there.”

“I asked her to route it to a save buffer until we can sort some of this out,” I said.

Pip nodded and leaned over Ms. Fortuner’s shoulder to watch the message headers scroll in. Even from the captain’s chair I could see the lines flashing past too fast.

“You’d think these people would wonder why nobody got any incoming mail,” Pip said.

“The wonder is that the company let them send any out,” Al said.

“It’s probably been ostentatiously censored ‘for the good of the project,’” the chief said.

Pip turned to look at her. “Sounds like the bitter voice of experience.”

She shrugged but her face twisted into a sour expression.

“All right,” I said. “Focus, people. There’s a station here somewhere.”

“Bring up the miners’ voice channels,” Al said.

“What good will that do?” Mr. Reed asked. “The communications will be hours old.”

“Not if they’re working the belts closest to us,” Al said. “Even if it is, hours old is more recent than years old.” She nodded at the messages still scrolling up.

Ms. Fortuner nodded and clicked keys to open one of our voice receivers. “Any insight as to frequency range?”

“Set up the frequency analyzer for everything between a hundred kilohertz up to five hundred megahertz,” Al said. “If anybody’s using radio, it’ll probably be in that range.”

Ms. Fortuner shook her head. “Of course. Sorry, Al.”

“We’re all on the same boat, Kim. Just keep plugging.”

“It’ll take a while to sample that many frequencies.”

“Just let it run. We’re not going anywhere,” Al said.

“I just got an astrogation update,” Mr. Reed said. “Came from the buoy.”

Ms. Fortuner brought the message window back up and nodded. “I’m seeing a few HazNav reports scattered in here now.”

“What’re you seeing, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

“They’re almost two decades old. Slow ship navigation warnings from 2356. Ship navigation testing 2357 and ’58. Loose debris warnings. Most current one I’ve got so far is 2361. Slow ship warning.”

Pip snorted. “Good way to keep things under wraps. Send out HazNav warnings while you’re testing the prototypes.”

“They’re all routed to BoE-1212,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“They never arrived,” I said.

“Local consumption only,” the chief said. “Some right-hand, left-hand shenanigans. A rule pusher insisted on following the CPJCT regs while a corporate type flagged the outgoing HazNavs for destruction.”

“And nobody realized that the messages weren’t getting picked up?” Pip asked.

“When all you know is how it’s always worked, why question it?” the chief said.

Pip sighed. “If they’re still alive out here, it’s going to be a miracle.”

“Somebody’s alive,” Ms. Fortuner said. “I’m getting spikes on the spectrum analysis.”

“Anything we can listen to?” I asked.

She tapped a few keys and a speaker crackled with static for a few heartbeats and then settled into a jiggly data tone. “Encrypted traffic, I think,” Ms. Fortuner said. “It doesn’t respond to any of the common wave-form analysis I’m used to. It’s also very weak. Either a long way off or low power, or both.”

“Maybe we’re overthinking it,” Al said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Kim, can you patch in the channel we used for approach control at Dark Knight?”

“Sure.” The warbling data tone cut out, replaced by a quiet static.

“We’re still too far out for them to hail us,” Mr. Reed said. “If they’re more than a light-hour away, they don’t even know we’re here yet.”

“Yeah, but we’re not so far out that we can’t hear them hail somebody else,” she said. “It’s the standard hailing frequency across the Toe-Holds.”

“These people aren’t Toe-Holders,” the chief said. “We’ve seen it over and over.”

Al grinned. “Yeah. The management is stupid, but the miners aren’t. If they’ve got a mining operation big enough to support refineries and ship building, they’ve got to have a good number of Toe-Hold miners and haulers moving stuff around here. Even if it’s not leaving the system.”

The chief nodded.

As if to prove her point, a faint and broken voice transmission came from the speaker.

“Well, we know somebody’s still here,” I said. “Are you still getting message traffic from the buoy, Ms. Fortuner?”

“I am, Captain. I’m seeing dates in the ’60s now.”

“Well, let’s settle in for the ride,” I said. “Looks like it’ll be a while before we learn anything useful.”

“Feels a little anticlimactic after the rush to get out here, doesn’t it?” the chief said.

She surprised a laugh out of me. “A bit,” I said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

“How do you want to proceed, Captain? We’re still at navigation stations,” Al said.

I sighed. “Ms. Fortuner, send a standard arrival message on CPJCT and Toe-Hold notification channels. We may as well let them know we’re here. Mr. Reed, assuming they’re on the far side of the primary, how long would it take a message to get to them and for us to get a reply?”

“Could take ten or twelve stans, depending on where they are on the other side. Theoretically, if we can hear them, they’re not in the primary’s shadow.” He paused. “It’ll get shorter, but we’re not carrying much velocity by CPJCT standards. It’s going to take us a long time to get into the gravity well here.”

“Good point, Mr. Reed. Let’s hope we don’t need to. Plot us a course around the outer belt if we’ve got the sail and keel angles to support it.”

“We should have, Captain.”

“Good, I don’t want to get too far down the hole unless we have to. It would be par for us to get halfway in only to find out the station is out on the rim.”

“Plotting now, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed. Ms. Fortuner, keep the spectrum analyzer running and leave the traffic channel open on speaker with recorded backup. Whoever has the watch can monitor it for traffic and let me know if anything interesting happens.”

“Can you define ‘interesting,’ Captain?” Al asked.

“Not really. If they call us, that might qualify. If you hear them talking about scrambling defense forces, I’d like to know.”

Al snickered. “You think that’s likely?”

“Not really. That’s why I think it would be interesting.”

“Because you don’t think they have any?” Al asked.

“No. Because I don’t think they’d use the public hailing channel to do it.” I shrugged.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

“The system is flagged quarantine. Don’t you kinda wonder if somebody might have poked a nose in here before now? Just to see how bad it is?”

Al didn’t say anything, just stared at me.

“Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Set normal watch. Log the extra comms procedures in the OD notes. Ms. Fortuner, I’d like to see a summary of the steps we’ve taken to establish communications including accessing the buoy traffic.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

Al made the announcements and the ship settled down to an uneasy wait.

Chapter 42
Telluride System: 2375, November 15

We cruised around the outer reaches of the Telluride system for over two solid days. Long-range scanning mapped the major system features by the end of the first one. We found the shipyard and what looked like the major component fabrication facility. As we drew closer, we heard more intelligible communications on the hailing frequency, but the signal strength left a lot to be desired. Based on what we knew of Mel’s Place and Dark Knight, we still couldn’t pick out anything that looked like a habitation area. I didn’t expect we’d find the kind of spread-out platforms that made up Bar None, but I couldn’t see anything that might have rivaled even Odin’s Outpost.

The response, when it came, didn’t really surprise me much.

Al bipped me to the bridge right after evening mess. When I topped the ladder, she pointed at the long-range scanner. “Somebody coming out to meet us,” she said.

The blinking target showed a velocity vector that the computers thought would reach our projected path within a few days.

“They’re not squawking?” I asked.

“Nothing we can see. It’s either military or masked.”

“Or both,” I said.

She shrugged. “Either way.”

“You sure they’re coming to meet us?”

“Nope, but it’s going too fast for a mining barge coming out to the belts and there’s nothing on that vector he could be jumping to for a very, very long way.”

“He might not be going on that vector the whole way.”

She shrugged again. “Always an option.”

“Sails?” I asked.

“Too far away to tell. Might be. Might be just kickers.”

I checked the range. “Four light-minutes out?”

“That’s how I read it, Skipper.”

I started to sit down at the systems console. Old habits die particularly hard but I stopped myself from doing any serious damage to my reputation. “Bip Ms. Fortuner to the bridge, please, Al.”

“Aye, Captain. Ms. Fortuner to the bridge.”

She arrived in less than two ticks. “Yes, Captain.”

I pointed to the long range. “This looks like our welcoming committee. So far they haven’t hailed us but this is the first ship we’ve seen. Can you set up a tight beam to intercept him?”

She frowned at the scanner. “I can give you a narrow beam that will get to where he will be four minutes from now, but that’s too far to get real precise.”

“I just want to focus as much power as I can at him. We know where he’ll be, mostly. I want to see if he’ll answer us.”

“We can try, Skipper.”

“If you’d set it up?”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” She settled at her console and pulled the long-range display over to her screen. “I’ll be just a couple of ticks.”

“We are squawking our ident, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

I watched the mystery blip while she set up the communications arrays, wondering what I’d say when the time came.

“Ready, Captain. Bridge ambient in three, two ...” She held up a finger for “one” and then pointed it at me as she clicked a key.

“Unknown vessel on intercept course from Telluride, this is the solar slipper Chernyakova inbound with a shipment of food. Over.” I nodded at Ms. Fortuner who clicked another key.

“We’re off, Captain. Eight minutes before they can reply.”

“Shall we start a betting pool?” Al asked.

“On how long they take to answer?” I asked.

“On whether they’ll answer and what they’ll say if they do.”

“No bet for me. Ms. Fortuner, when did we send the last arrival message?”

“I put it on a loop for top and bottom of the clock, Captain. Last sent 1800 hours.” She consulted a window on her console. “Negative response.”

“What was the last message recovered from the buoy?” I asked.

“We’re still getting them, Captain, but they’re coming slower now.” She checked another window. “We’ve queried three buoys since entering the system. Looks like we finally drained the system. The last message was date-stamped at 1945 on November 14. Nothing received in the last three stans.”

“Al, would you ping Mr. Reed to the bridge?”

“Aye, aye, Skipper.”

Reed scampered up the ladder. “You rang?”

“Al spotted this fellow coming out from the gravity well. We’ve hailed him but gotten no response so far.”

“Still two minutes to run, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner.” I nodded to the plot. “Can we shift our course in a way to make him miss this intercept?”

Mr. Reed leaned into the long-range and took a long look. “He’s still four minutes out. We won’t be close for a week, Skipper.”

“I’d rather we didn’t get too close if we can help it,” I said. “Keeping him at a one-light-minute range leaves us a lot of options, including bailing out of here if we need to.”

He gave me a sharp look and then squinted at the long-range again. “You want to get deeper in the well or farther out?” he asked.

“How much farther can we go in and still jump out at least a couple of BUs?”

He sat down at the astrogation console and started tapping. “Lemme see.”

“Thirty seconds, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Thank you.”

“Jumping isn’t the problem, Skipper,” Mr. Reed said. “It’s where we jump to. We need a clean place to land or we wind up with another rock—or worse.”

“So we need a vector that will let us make a short jump to a safe spot. Are there any places we can jump to if we had a couple of stans to adjust course?”

“There’s one just two BUs dead ahead. We’ve got the legs to jump there now if you wanted.”

“I want to change our vector to see if the mysterious friend adjusts to follow us. What have you got?”

“That’ll take some thinking, Skipper.”

“You think. We’ll wait.”

I looked at Ms. Fortuner.

“Any time now, Captain,” she said.

I stood there in the bridge, waiting, wondering what we were going to do if this wasn’t just some pilot vessel come to escort us to dock.

“I have a plot, Skipper, but there’s a problem.”

“Tell me about it, Mr. Reed.”

“Time to intercept is six plus days. He can’t close any sooner as long as we maintain this course.”

“Keep going, Mr. Reed.”

“We don’t have any vector to a viable destination other than the heading we’re on now. If we want to scram, it has to be on this course or we have to do some serious adjustments to get onto a new vector. Either use the primary to swing back around the way we came or maybe one of the giants to get an exit vector toward The Junkyard or toward Diurnia. We’ve a few options for that vector, but all those options are weeks away in terms of viability.”

“What if I just want to verify he’s coming out to meet us?” I asked.

“If we use the kickers to change our vector further out of the well, he’ll be forced to adjust his course and speed up in order to intercept.”

“But we can’t jump on that course?” I asked.

“We can, but it’ll take a few days for us to get far enough out to jump to the next clear landing zone that we know of. We can always jump blind, but that’s a risky proposition.”

“How long will it take him to notice that we’ve changed course?”

Mr. Reed snorted. “Depends on how good his instruments are, how alert his bridge crew is, and whether or not he cares. If he changes his vector, we’d know it in about four ticks but it would probably take ten or more for us to have a solid read on what the new vector is.”

“How long will we have to burn to get a vector change big enough to notice at that range?”

“There’s another option,” he said with a grin.

“Hit me.”

“We pull in the sails. Maybe flip the ship, and use the kickers to kill some of our forward momentum. Wouldn’t take much and that would register on his long range in about a day.”

“Won’t we get pulled off our vector by the primary?”

“Yes, but not by much and we can adjust for that with the sails and kickers relatively quickly if we want to scram. At the rate we’re going now and with this tangential vector across the outer edge of the system, we aren’t going to have moved much off the line even if we keep on it for a couple of weeks.”

“I don’t really want to hang around out here that long,” I said.

“Until we know where we’re going, I don’t have anything else to suggest, Skipper.”

“I know, Mr. Reed.” I stared at the plot for a few ticks while I felt the eyes on me. “Ms. Torkelson, reef up the sails. Pull them all the way down.”

“Full reef on sails, aye, Captain.” She made the corrections at the helm.

Al started chuckling.

“What?” I asked.

“Chief Stevens in three, two ...”

“What’s going on?” the chief asked as she shot up the ladder and onto the bridge. She looked around at the crowd on the bridge. “What? You’re having a party and I’m not invited?”

“All we need is Pip, now,” Al said.

“I’m coming.” Pip’s voice echoed up the ladder just ahead of his arrival. “What’s happening?”

I took a moment to explain the situation and noticed Ms. Torkelson grinning.

“Something tickle you, Ms. Torkelson?” I asked.

“I never expected we’d be having this much fun,” she said. “My last ship we just picked up a can. Flew over there. Dropped off the can. Picked up another can. Flew back. Over and over.”

“I’m glad we can provide entertainment,” I said.

“And a living wage, sar, for which I am grateful. Do you think we’ll get liberty here so I can visit my mother? She’d be so surprised.”

“Your mother?” I asked.

“Well, sure. She’s working here somewhere, sar. Dr. April Torkelson. Particle physics. She’s been out here since I was just a kid. Works for Mellon-Merc in their research arm.”

I looked at Al. “Did you know?”

Al shook her head.

“Nobody’s supposed to know, sar. I figured since we’re here now, I don’t need to keep quiet any more.”

I straightened up and considered our helm. “You knew all along.”

“Knew what, sar?”

“That she was here in Telluride.”

“Well, sure. She’s been sending money home to cover our living expenses for stanyers. Those transfers were tagged, but she always included a little message about how exciting the work was but how she missed us. Once she even sent a picture.”

“When was the last time you heard from her?” Pip asked.

“Oh, it’s been a while. I’ve been working up the ranks, see? So she’ll be proud of me, sar. I can’t handle the maths the way she can, but I love being on the helm.”

“How long a while?”

“I left home in ’68, I think? Yeah, ’68, but Da sent me a note before we left Dree. He’d gotten a Happy New Year message from her.”

“So you figured we’d get out here eventually and you’d be able to visit her?” I asked.

“Well, sure, Captain.”

“Why, in the name of all the wide spaces between the stars, did you think we’d be visiting here?” Pip asked.

“Because of the picture, sar.”

“The picture?”

“Yeah. The one she sent with the money. It was her, standing with a buncha spacers under the sign.”

“The sign?” I asked.

“The one on the brow, sar. Chernyakova written in big letters?”

“You thought that we’d continue supplying Telluride?” Pip asked.

She blinked and looked around at us. She shrugged. “Well, sure. We are, aren’t we?”

I sighed. “So you actually signed on because you figured we’d be able to give you a ride to see your mother?”

“Oh, no, sar. I signed aboard because I needed a berth and I love flying. You had a berth. She may be a brick, but she’s a good brick.” She patted the console beside the helm, like it was a pet. “Visiting Mum was just icing on the cake.”

Pip sat down hard at the spare console. I looked up in time to see the chief turn her back to look aft along the dorsal ridge of the ship. Her shoulders shook slightly and I had the uncomfortable feeling she might have been laughing. I looked at Pip. “Well, you got a bite.”

He shook his head and scrubbed his face with both hands. “Just not where I expected it to come from,” he said.

“Something wrong, sar?” Ms. Torkelson asked.

“No, Ms. Torkelson. It’s fine,” I said. I sighed and considered the long-range scan again. “I don’t know what to make of this guy, though.” I looked back at her. “You wouldn’t know anything about this?”

She shook her head. “No. Mum never talked about her work or what’s going on out here other than she’s working on a new Burleson drive that should be really exciting.”

“The Zeta?” I asked.

She frowned. “The Zeta? No, sar. They haven’t been working on that for—I don’t know. A long time.”

Pip stiffened and leaned forward. “You know what they are working on?”

She shook her head. “Not the Zeta. She wouldn’t have mentioned it if she was still working on it. She’s not allowed to talk about the work she’s doing now. Something didn’t work right so they had to give up on it.” The helm hummed a warning tone and she made a slight adjustment. “We’re drifting off course, Skipper. Sliding into the well and running slightly ahead of track.”

“Expected, Ms. Torkelson,” I said. “We don’t have the sails to counter the inward pull. It can’t be very much after such a short time.”

“It’s not, sar. I can probably hold it with thrusters.”

I looked at Mr. Reed. “Is it enough to register on our projected track?”

He consulted his display for several long moments. “It is to us, Captain, but I’m not sure it’s enough to show to him yet. He’s still a long way out there and his projection of our vector is bound to be off because of the distance and time delay.”

“Can you run us a ballistic projection, Mr. Reed?”

“Of course, Captain. One tick.”

He fiddled with a couple of screens on his console and routed a display to the bridge readout. “There it is. Yellow is our original course. Blue is a ballistic trajectory. Red is our friend’s projected path with a five-percent probability cone.”

I stepped up to the screen to look at it closely. “We’ll be past his track at the one-light-minute mark?”

“Yes, Captain. Slow down to catch up.” Reed shrugged. “The sails were balancing us against the primary’s gravity. Without them?” He shrugged again.

“Can he catch up?”

“Yes, Captain. He just needs to let his vector fall off a bit and he’ll run the chord between us.”

“How soon before he could intercept us on this new vector?” I asked.

“One tick, Skipper.” Reed tapped keys for just a few heartbeats and added an orange track to the display. “Four days instead of six, Captain.”

“Route the blue track to helm, if you please, Mr. Reed,” I said.

“Blue track to helm, aye, Captain.” He fiddled with keys and the helm beeped.

“New course at helm, Captain,” Al said. “Logged.”

“Now we are just a brick, Ms. Torkelson. Can you keep us on this track?” I asked.

“Well, sure,” she said. “The challenge would be getting us off it, sar.”

“Ms. Fortuner, outgoing channel, please?” I said.

“Outgoing voice, aye. “Three, two ...” She held up a finger and then used it to point to me as she clicked the key.

“Unknown vessel on intercept course from Telluride, this is the solar clipper Chernyakova inbound with a shipment of food. Be advised. We’ve adjusted our course to avoid collision. Over.”

She clicked a key again. “We’re off, Skipper.”

“You warned him, Captain?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. I want to know his intentions while I still have some options. The sooner he notices, the sooner we’ll know.”

She nodded and looked at the displayed plots. “Can’t fault that logic.”

“Is there anything else we can do here?” I looked around at the various faces peering back at me.

I got a variety of shakes and shrugs in return.

“Nothing I can think of,” Pip said. “It’s all going to depend on whether we can find a dock.”

“What about the yard?” I asked. “We found that pretty quickly.”

The chief said, “It would be hard to overlook us if we knocked on that door.”

“My concern would be whether or not they knocked back,” I said.

Ms. Fortuner looked up, eyes wide, but Pip only nodded and pursed his lips.

Chapter 43
Telluride System: 2375, November 16

We’d just wrapped up breakfast in the wardroom the next morning when Mr. Reed bipped me to the bridge. I led a parade of the usual suspects up the ladders.

“What do you have, Mr. Reed?” I asked, stepping onto the deck and scanning the displays.

“I may have a line on a miner, Captain.” he said.

“That would be interesting,” I said. “Where?”

He tapped a few keys and the overhead display changed. It showed a dispersed collection of shapes. Some small. Some large. They looked like separated freckles on the Deep Dark.

“A belt?” I asked.

“This belt,” he said, pointing to the system plot on display at his console. “It’s the outermost, but we’re drifting closer to it.” He tapped a few keys and the screen shifted. Most of the freckles disappeared but several of them stayed, showing various shades from pale gray to a deep crimson.

“False color?” I asked.

“Thermal overlay. Red is hot. White is one percent above ambient.”

The spots ran in a rough arc through the belt.

“Are they burning the rocks?” I asked.

“Combination of laser drills, grinding heads, and explosives, I believe, Skipper,” Al said.

“The rocks get hot but can’t radiate the heat away very quickly,” the chief said from her corner.

I examined the display. “So this is a miner working along the belt, one rock at a time?”

“That’s my guess, Skipper,” Mr. Reed said. “He’s less than a light-minute away.”

“How long have you been tracking this?” I asked.

“I just started when I came on watch,” he said. “It came to me in the night. I thought we might be able to spot the habitations by heat signatures rather than just radar and lidar echoes.”

“Good thinking,” I said.

“Thank you, Captain. The sensor suite doesn’t have the resolution for finding small heat sources much beyond two light-minutes, apparently. We can’t see our friend over there on thermal. When I looked at the nearest portion of the belt, I found this.”

“We’re not exactly set up for exploration and research,” I said.

Al snorted but Mr. Reed nodded. “Still better than I’d have expected.”

The chief cleared her throat. “I might have upgraded the specifications a step during the refit,” she said. “We don’t have a Scout’s sensor suite but we have a few tricks.”

“Why habitations?” Pip asked.

“Since we couldn’t find anything large, I wondered if there might not be a lot of smaller habitation platforms clustered around the yard and fabrication plant.” He clicked some keys and brought up a system plot on the big display. A pulsing white spot appeared. “They’re well out here between the H and M bands. If we stay on this trajectory we should catch up to them in a couple of months.” A green dot drew an arcing line around the system, across the belt and intercepted the white spot.

“Thermal imaging didn’t show anything?” I asked.

“No, Captain, but I still think it’s a viable model.” He clicked a few keys and the display zoomed in on the dot, expanding it to a white circle. “The images are still fuzzy, which would be consistent with sensor resolution errors, but as we work around the rim here, we’re getting better and better imaging with repeated pings from slightly different angles. We’ve got pretty solid imaging from rocks on the I belt, but these installations remain fuzzy even though they’re clearly artificial.”

“So there are a lot of smaller returns masking the larger installations,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Any of them moving?” I asked.

“Like ships?” he asked.

“Those facilities must have some degree of traffic between them. Refineries need to be here somewhere. If we’re right about that being the large-component fabrication platform, there have to be some smelters for the ore and some zero-gee manufacturing capability to convert the refined tellurium to thermoelectric substrate,” the chief said.

“How big would they have to be?” I asked.

“Not that large,” she said with a shrug.

“Could they be piggy-backed onto either of these two platforms?” Pip asked.

She pursed her lips and stared at the plot for a moment. “Possible, depending on the mass of those larger constructions.” She shrugged. “Not what I’d do.”

“What would you do?” I asked.

“I’d put the semiconductor fabrications on the Lagrange points. Probably L5. Easy to get the products to the assembly and fabrication platforms. Isolated completely from any gravitational influence from them. Cleaner.”

“Not L4?” I asked.

“Depends on whether I wanted to pass more material back to the platforms or boost it ahead. Orbital mechanics. The round trip is going to be about the same.”

“Slow down to catch up,” Mr. Reed said.

“Right,” she said.

“Long-range mapping showing anything at the Lagrange points, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

“Just a moment, Captain.” Reed tapped some keys and the big display zoomed out. A few more keystrokes and circles appeared around areas on either side of the one we suspected to be platforms. “Working,” he said. After a few moments, the circles blinked out. “Nothing significant showing, Captain.”

I looked at the chief. She sat staring at the display, leaning forward, her hands steepled in front of her mouth. “What about L3?” she asked.

“The other side of the primary?” I asked.

Her head nodded up and down slowly. “It’s not ideal for a manufacturing process flow, but if I were trying to mask what I was doing here, that would be a good choice. It only matters for the first shipments.”

“Mr. Reed?” I said.

He clicked a few times and the display shifted to the far side of the system. He zoomed in and a collection of small dots showed up.

“Scale, Mr. Reed?”

“Small. Under a kilometer but we don’t have resolution under five hundred meters so somewhere in there.”

“Big enough for zero-gee semiconductors?” I asked.

“More than,” the chief said. “And right in the L3 slot.”

“They’re in the rocks,” I said. “They didn’t build platforms for habitation.”

“That would take a lot of rocks,” the chief said.

“Look at how many we can see here.” I pointed to the L3 collection. “What is that, a dozen, maybe two dozen that we have resolution for.”

“Computer counts sixteen discrete entities that it can resolve. Apparently it’s suppressing clutter.”

“Which would be anything under five hundred meters?” I asked.

“A good operating assumption, Captain,” Al said.

Mr. Reed nodded. “I concur.”

“Can you display the clutter?”

Reed clicked some keys and the display refreshed. The L3 point became the center of a flower of diffuse clutter.

“You’re on to something, Skipper,” Al said.

“What’s the shipyard look like with the clutter on?” I asked.

The display flipped back to the shipyard and manufacturing side, and then flickered with the clutter overlay. The clutter nearly overwhelmed the larger objects.

“They dragged all those rocks in, just for living space?” Ms. Fortuner asked.

“Actually, sar?” Ms. Torkelson said, her voice barely audible. “That’s the J belt. Or what’s left of it.”

“They ate the whole belt?” Al asked.

Ms. Torkelson shrugged. “I don’t know, sar. Mum just said they’d set up in the belt so they’d be close to their source material. According to the system chart, they’re in the middle of the J belt.”

Mr. Reed turned to his console and laid the ephemeris data onto his scanning screen. “I’ll be,” he said. “Sorry, Captain, I didn’t think to look.”

“No harm, no foul,” I said. “Show me the big picture on the J belt.”

The display zoomed out, including the ephemeris. The area marked for the J belt held only small clots of clutter except around the shipyard and the L3 point.

“They ate the whole belt,” Al said, wonder in her voice.

“They’ve had two decades or more to do it. I suspect it held the highest concentrations of tellurium,” Pip said from his corner of the bridge. “They probably used the other metals building the shipyard and assorted support structures, and then skimmed the giants for volatiles and water using robot sleds.”

“That’s why they’re working the outer belts now,” I said.

“Most likely,” Pip said. “If the J belt held the tellurium and it’s played out, they’ve got to be doing something else here.”

I looked out at the system primary’s brilliant dot. “Maybe we’ll get to find out what it is,” I said.

Chapter 44
Telluride System: 2375, November 17

We continued on our ballistic trajectory around the outer belt of the system for another full day. Our suspected pursuer proved to be a real pursuer when it shifted course to a new intercept after a few stans. Lunch mess was a subdued affair that I blamed myself for. My heart just wasn’t in it.

After Mr. Franklin cleared the main course and served coffee and cookies for dessert, I leaned back in my chair. “Suggestions? What are our options?”

“We can make for the shipyard,” the chief said. “That’s got the most clutter. It’s probably the main base in-system.”

“What about our shadow?” I asked.

“We’ll be within a light-minute in a couple of days now,” Mr. Reed said. “If we want to adjust our course for a bugout, now would be the time. Heading into the well removes that option.”

“It would help if somebody would talk to us. The silent treatment isn’t exactly effective, particularly when they keep talking to local traffic like we don’t exist.”

I looked at Mr. Reed. “Where’s our miner?”

“The ship working the belt?” he asked.

“Yeah. How far away is he?”

“Under a light-minute. I’d have to look to see how much under.”

“Have we tried to talk to him?”

Mr. Reed looked startled. “Not directly. Wouldn’t he have heard us?”

“Not necessarily,” Ms. Fortuner said. “We’ve been using a narrow band to talk to our shadow on the hailing frequency, and we’ve been transmitting our arrival message on the standard arrival protocols. He’s probably not monitoring those channels.”

“That’s something we can try,” I said.

Pip sat up in his chair like he’d been poked.

“Something?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “We’re now the only ship with access to their message queue, other than the High Tortuga channels.”

“And?”

He looked at Ms. Fortuner. “Those messages we grabbed. They’ve got routing headers?”

“Of course. Most of them are routed to the trash.”

“Including sender?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He grinned. “We know at least two people we can message.”

“Brill,” I said, catching on to where he was going.

“And Dr. April Torkelson,” Pip said. “Suppose Ms. Torkelson would like to send a message to her mother?”

Ms. Fortuner frowned. “How do we do that out here?”

Mr. Reed grinned at her. “What if we had picked up messages from, say, Siren that were routed to Jett. What happens when we jump into Jett?”

“The beacons siphon off the messages and route them,” she said. “But we didn’t pick up traffic routed to here.”

“No,” Mr. Reed said. “But if we know the headers, we can put the messages in our outbound traffic queue and flash the beacons.”

Her face lit up as understanding registered. “Of course.”

“When we’re done here, perhaps you could run a query on that save buffer and see if the names April Torkelson or Brilliantine Smith show up as senders, Ms. Fortuner,” I said.

“You might see if Demetri Regyri shows up as well,” the chief said. “I wouldn’t expect it to, but you never know.”

“That’s two ideas,” I said. “Try to contact a miner. Try to message any friends. Anything else?”

Pip said, “We could try to pay somebody.”

The chief blinked and looked at him. “Or bill them.”

His eyes widened. “That would work, too.”

“We could probably piggy-back a communication on the High Tortuga network,” the chief said.

“What if we took the banking network off line?” I asked.

Pip sat back in his chair and stared at me. “Are you mad?”

I shook my head. “Not particularly.”

“We’d have to know where the nodes are in this system to do that,” he said.

I shook my head. “Not really. We only need to know what channels they’re using.”

“Good luck with that,” Pip said. “Even I don’t know that.”

“Maybe we already know it,” I said. I looked at Ms. Fortuner. “We have a little bit of work to do, shall we get on with it?”

“I’m game, Captain,” she said.

“Are we done here?” I looked around the table and seeing some quizzical looks but no objections, I stood, and they stood with me. “Let’s get busy.”

Chapter 45
Telluride System: 2375, November 17

Ms. Fortuner and I made a beeline for the bridge. I knew Ms. Torkelson had the helm watch with Al, which could check one question off the list almost immediately.

Al looked up as we topped the ladder. The expression on my face must have telegraphed something because she immediately smiled. “Something new?” she asked.

“We had some ideas over lunch,” I said. “Ms. Torkelson, how would you like to send a message to your mother?”

“Well, sure, sar, but I don’t have an address for her.”

“If we can find the address?”

“Well, sure, Captain.”

Al frowned until she saw Ms. Fortuner firing up her console. “The buoy,” she said.

“The buoy,” I said. I looked at Ms. Fortuner. “We’d like you to send her a short message and ask her to reply. We’ll pick it off the buoy for you and you’ll be able to read it.”

Ms. Torkelson’s eyes began to shine a little more brightly in the dimness of the bridge. “Seriously, Captain? I mean, you’re not joking? Of course not.” She shook her head. “Sorry, sar. It’s just a bit overwhelming.”

“We need to find her address but be thinking about what to send. Can you do that and still fly this brick?”

She smiled. “Well, sure, sar.”

Mr. Reed popped up the ladder. “Thought you might want my overlay again, Skipper.”

“I do, indeed. Find me a miner if you can.”

“What’s all this then?” Al asked.

“Clearly they know we’re here. At least somebody knows.”

“Because of our shadow?” she asked.

“Yeah. We might not have the range to reach traffic control. We don’t know how far away they are, but we’ve been in-system for days. We’ve bounced radar off every rock in the place. If they were deaf and blind, we wouldn’t have a shadow.”

“So something else is happening,” she said.

“That’s my assumption. We’re going to rattle the cage a little bit and see if we can get anybody to acknowledge us.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“Depends on what shakes out.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“I have no idea,” I said. “But I’m willing to listen to advice.”

Al straightened up and stared out at the Deep Dark for a few moments. “I’ve no idea either,” she said after more than a few heartbeats. She looked back at me. “I’m with ya.”

“Any idea what we do if our shadow has teeth?” I kept my voice low.

She squinted at me. “You might want to ask the chief about that.”

Her answer surprised me so much I didn’t know what to say for a moment. “Really?”

Her lips twitched and she raised her eyebrows. “She’s a cagey old bird and she’s been around the Toe-Holds longer than anybody I know.”

“Granted.”

“She also ordered some odd upgrades to the aft nacelle.”

“I didn’t see anything unusual in the bills.”

Al just shrugged. “Maybe just yard gossip.”

“You don’t think so.”

She shrugged again. “You’re the captain.” She grinned at me.

“Skipper, I’ve got a Brill Maclintock in the queue. Only one. No Brilliantine at all.”

I crossed to Ms. Fortuner’s console. “Maybe she got married. Brill isn’t a common name. Any luck with April Torkelson?”

“I’ve got no Torkelsons at all.”

“Try April Showers,” Ms. Torkelson said.

“April Showers?” I asked.

“That was the account name she used for banking. Dah used to tease her about being April May Showers before he made an honest woman of her.”

I nodded to Ms. Fortuner. “See if you can find it.”

She turned to her console and rekeyed her search.

“I have your miner, Skipper,” Mr. Reed said. “Closer than the last one. We’ve drifted closer to the belt.”

“Show me,” I said.

He brought up the scanning data on his console and layered the heat data on top of a scattering of rocks. “Here,” he said, pointing to a fainter looking return. “He’s moving along the belt here. That rock was his last one and it’s already starting to cool a little. This rock was cold yesterday. It’s starting to warm up now.”

“You’ve been tracking this all along?” I asked.

“I figured if they’re living in rocks, they might have some out here in the belts to cut down on transit times. I haven’t seen any yet, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“Also doesn’t mean they’re bleeding enough heat to be seen,” I said.

“Also true but it’s an automated scan. Doesn’t cost anything to look,” he said.

“Good thinking.” I patted his shoulder. “Keep an eye on him while we arrange for a greeting.” I went back to Ms. Fortuner’s console. “Find any Showers?” I asked.

She sighed. “I’ve got about twenty of them. None of them April.”

“That seems unusual,” I said.

“That’s what I thought. I don’t know if it’s part of some mining clan or what but I’ve got messages from eighteen different accounts with Showers in the name.”

“Show me.”

She brought up the window with the list. “That one,” I said, pointing to a name half way down.

“You sure?” she asked.

I shrugged. “No, but it’s the one that fits the best. If there were a lot of people named Showers there, she probably had to pick something that would be unique.”

“There’s no April,” she said.

“There’s no April in this list. Doesn’t mean there’s no April in the system. Or that there used to be an April that’s not there anymore.”

“But Morning Showers? Sounds like a weather report.”

“April May. A.M. Antemeridian. It’s an old reference,” I said. “Means before noon.”

“If you say so, Skipper,” she said.

I shrugged. “Ms. Torkelson, you might want to be a little careful about that message. This might not actually be your mother.”

“Thanks for the warning, Captain.”

“Well, sure,” I said.

She laughed.

“What about Brill Maclintock?” Ms. Fortuner asked.

“Can you open a message blank for me?”

She did and stood up. “Help yourself, Skipper.”

I wrote:

I’ve got a load of cold beef. Where do you want it?

Changed any algae matrix lately?

Trust Lois.

“Call me Ishmael”

I stood up and waved Ms. Fortuner back into the chair. “If you’d put Ms. Maclintock’s address on that and tag my return on it, Ms. Fortuner?”

“Of course, Skipper.” She paused, reading the message. “Really?” she asked, looking from the message blank to me and back again. “How well do you know this woman?”

“Haven’t seen her in decades but she was my second boss as a spacer.”

“How long ago was that?” she asked.

“I think I joined her environmental crew in ’52? ’53? I’m not sure, to be honest. I signed The Articles in mid-August of ’51 but I didn’t lateral to engineering until the next year. Last I saw Brill, she was getting on the shuttle to leave the academy in ’55.”

“That’s twenty stanyers, Skipper. You sure she’ll remember you?”

I chuckled. “I’m not even sure that’s the right woman, but if it is, she’ll remember.”

She gave me one more skeptical arch of the eyebrow but copied the heading off a message in her queue and sent it.

“Ms. Torkelson? A short message?” I said.

“I’m on the helm, Skipper.”

I crossed the bridge and tapped her right shoulder. “I relieve you, Ms. Torkelson.”

She looked at me, her eyes wide. “You’re the captain, Captain. You can’t relieve me.”

I laughed. “Why not?”

“Are you qualified on helm, sar?”

“I’ve been known to fly a brick or two in my day, Ms. Torkelson. It’s only for a couple of ticks while you write a note to your mum. I promise not to break anything.”

She looked at Al. “Is this legal, sar?”

“He’s the captain.” Al lowered her voice like I wasn’t standing right next to her. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Ms. Torkelson stood and I slid into the seat, taking the helm controls. “Ms. Fortuner has a message blank for you. Hurry back,” I said.

She took the few steps across the bridge, keeping her head cranked around watching me as if I might suddenly flip the ship over. She sat, typed a few lines, smiled to Ms. Fortuner, and scurried back to the helm. “Thank you, Captain.” She tapped me on the right shoulder. “I relieve you.”

I stood up and she sat down, scanning the helm controls.

“I didn’t change anything,” I said.

She glanced up at me. “Standard procedure, Captain. Just making sure the ship is on course with the proper orientation on resuming a watch.”

“Thank you for your diligence, Ms. Torkelson.”

“Well, sure, Captain.”

I looked at Al who smiled and shrugged.

“How soon before we unload those messages to a buoy, Ms. Fortuner?”

“Next buoy should be in range within a stan, Captain.” She tapped a couple of keys. “Outgoing queue set to flash with ship ident as soon as we’re in range.”

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner. If you’d set up a voice channel. Full dispersion on the common hailing frequency?”

“Of course, Captain.” She closed a few windows and opened a couple of others. “Ambient in three, two ...” she pointed to me with her index finger.

“All ships, all ships. This is the solar slipper Chernyakova calling all ships. Over.” I nodded to Ms. Fortuner and she clicked a key.

“Channel secured, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Fortuner. Now we wait. While we do that, do you think you can find that warbly bit of radio spectrum we heard when we got here?”

“It’s in my log, Skipper. One tick.” She flipped pages on the console screen and nodded. “Yes, Captain. I have it.”

“Please record about a stan’s worth of that sound.”

“A whole stan, Skipper?” she asked.

“That should be enough, yes,” I said.

She glanced at Mr. Reed on the next console who just shrugged.

“Record a whole stan of this channel noise. Aye, aye, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“You don’t have to listen to it,” I said. “Just drop it into a file.”

“Aye, Captain.” She flipped some more screens and I watched her patch the channel into a capture buffer.

“Where are we on the shadow, Mr. Reed?”

“We’ll be inside one light-minute in another day, Captain. He’s still on intercept course.”

“Ms. Fortuner, open channel again please?” I said.

“Opening channel, Skipper. Three, two ...” she pointed to me.

“All ships. All ships. This is the solar clipper Chernyakova. Over.” I nodded to her and she clicked the key.

“Channel secured, Captain.”

“What do you think is going to happen, Skipper?” Al asked.

“I expect nothing will happen,” I said. “At least for a while. I hope that miner down there will answer me.”

“Why would he?” Al asked.

“Just to find out what I want.”

She laughed. “Think that will work?”

I shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.”

“Skipper?” Ms. Fortuner said. “I’m getting a maser beam incoming. Commercial protocol but weak.”

“Can you get a bearing on it?”

“It looks like it might be coming from the belt. I’m getting a dish on it now.”

The speaker in the overhead crackled a little before going silent.

“He’s still there,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Chernyakova. Watch your six.”

The speaker snapped and Ms. Fortuner shook her head. “He’s gone.”

“That was eerie,” Mr. Reed said.

“Was that a man or a woman’s voice?” Al asked.

“Hard telling at that distance with that much distortion,” I said. “I couldn’t tell.”

“What was the message? Watch your six?” Ms. Fortuner asked.

“You recorded it, right?” I asked.

Ms. Fortuner bit her lip. “Sorry, Skipper. I didn’t think. It surprised me.”

I sighed. “No matter. I got the message.”

“Watch your six?” Ms. Fortuner asked again.

“It means watch your back,” Al said. “It was a warning.”

“Where are we on the buoy?” I asked.

She consulted her screen. “Five ticks, plus or minus a little, Skipper. We don’t have fixed positions on them. I’m going by the spacing on the last three.”

“Let me know when the messages are away.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“What do we do now?” Al asked.

“We wait,” I said. “And I think I need to go talk to the chief.”

“You want us to do anything here?” Mr. Reed asked. “Maybe look for another miner?”

“Keep your scans going, Mr. Reed. While you’re at it, run up a burn to get us back on our exit vector. Get us back on that vector and then load the jump coordinates.”

He frowned. “Back on vector. Loaded jump coordinates. Aye, aye, Captain.”

Al nodded to me as I left the bridge and headed down the spine to find out if my chief engineer was moonlighting as my chief weapons officer.

Chapter 46
Telluride System: 2375, November 17

The chief looked up from her terminal when I stepped into her office. “Hello, Captain. How are things up front?”

“Gotta tick?” I asked.

Her eyebrows danced up a bit but she nodded. “Sure. Have a seat.”

I slipped the door closed, which got her eyebrows dancing even higher on her head.

“We got a transmission. Maser from the belt. A warning,” I said. “Watch your six.”

“Maser, huh?”

“Standard commercial protocols. Right on the edge of its range. Bad distortion.”

“Mr. Reed’s miner?”

“Maybe. Came from the right direction.”

“You poking the bear?” she asked.

“I put out an open call to all ships.”

She bit her lower lip and shrugged. “As sticks go, that’s not real sharp.”

“Me or the stick?”

She laughed. “Both. Any luck on the messages?”

“They’re on their way in a few. We’re coming into range for the next buoy.”

“What else are we doing?”

“I’ve got Ms. Fortuner recording about a stan’s worth of that encrypted channel.”

She sat back in her chair. “That’s different. Do you know what it is?”

I shook my head. “Somebody’s running an encrypted link. It’s the only one in the system that shows on the spectrum analysis.”

“It’s not High Tortuga, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said.

“I’m not surprised.”

“Surprised about what? That it’s not the channel, or that I know it’s not?”

“Both,” I said with a grin. “I’m no expert but if I were going to do it, I’d rely on a random frequency distribution scheme and not broadcast a single point of failure.”

“Single point of failure?” she asked.

“What happens to that stream if we broadcast that recorded channel back on top of itself?”

She winced. “Depending on signal strength, it might knock it down. At least keep whoever is receiving from actually receiving for as long as you broadcast it. Are you going to do that?”

I shook my head. “I’m taking it back to TIC for analysis.”

“Well, now that we’ve had a pleasant chat, maybe you’ll tell me how I can help you, Captain.”

“What if our shadow has teeth to bite us with?” I asked.

“That could hurt. Why ask me?”

“Because Al reminded me you’re the one person aboard with the most experience in dealing with Toe-Hold space.”

“That all?” she asked.

“No. She said you’re the sneakiest person she ever met.”

The chief blinked a couple of times. “She didn’t.”

I grinned. “Not exactly. She said you might have made a few unorthodox upgrades to the systems back here.”

“You didn’t see anything odd in the orders, did you?” she asked.

“Funny you should mention it.”

She smiled and cocked her head to the side. “Really?”

“Chaff canisters and counter-measure emitters seemed a little odd.”

“Why would I do that?” she asked.

“Because this place isn’t all fun and games. There are bad people out here. Because unguided munitions don’t work well when the targets are running at any kind of percentage of C.”

She blinked. “Is that all?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think you could have installed missile launchers and brought missiles aboard without somebody noticing, so you must have gone with defense.”

“Chaff and ECM,” she said.

“Effective. Cheap. Easily concealable. Probably installed originally when the ship was upgraded for longer legs, and you just upgraded because the yard always wanted to exceed our expectations at every turn.”

She chuckled and leaned forward, placing her forearms on the desk. “How long have you known?”

“I just put the pieces together while I was sitting here.”

Her chuckle turned into a laugh.

“Chaff and ECM. Won’t do much for a heavy bombardment, but stern chase with a few birds, it’ll buy us some time.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Any other little surprises in your bag of tricks?”

She grinned at me. “Leave a girl a little mystery, Captain.”

The ship rumbled some as the belly thrusters kicked in.

“Course change?” She asked.

“Re-aligning in case we need to bolt. Speaking of which, how are the capacitors?”

“Topped off. Ready to go.”

“So if we have to make a sudden jump to anywhere but here?”

“Gimme time to clear the safety interlocks.”

“How much time is that?”

“Less than a tick if I’m anywhere near a console.”

“Can anyone else do it?”

“You can. Captain’s override from the engineering console on the bridge. Log in with your credentials and you’re the engineering officer. Safety is the big green button.”

“I don’t expect to need it, but just in case.”

“Just in case,” she said.

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you for your time, Chief.”

“You’re very welcome, Captain. We should do this more often.” A smile teased the corner of her mouth.

I started to get up but dropped back into the chair. “What are you looking for out here, Chief?”

“Me? Looking for?”

“You’re good at deflection. Yes, you.”

“Nothing in particular, Captain. A chance to get my hands dirty again. To play with you youngsters.”

“To pass on your knowledge?”

She paused and presented me with a genuine smile. “We all want to leave a legacy. If not right away, eventually.”

“Thanks for being with us, Chief.”

“Glad to be here, Captain.”

I stood and left the door open when I started back up the spine.

Chapter 47
Telluride System: 2375, November 17

I stopped at the cabin to wash my face and step away from the situation for a moment. I sat down at my desk and leaned back in the chair, propping my feet on the desk. It wasn’t very comfortable. The desk was too close and too high. The chair couldn’t move back. My legs felt stretched and I mused on how long it had been since I’d done any running.

I wondered how Sifu Newmar or Alys Giggone would advise me.

Or Mal Gains.

Or Greta.

I let my head fall back on my chair and I stared at the overhead.

What mistake was I making in the name of hubris?

Were people really starving without this precious can of food, or was that just supposition? Was I trying to be the hero when I needed to be the captain?

The trip wouldn’t earn anybody a bonus unless we sold the can somewhere. Our deal with Felder was to deliver it at cost on humanitarian grounds.

I wondered if the old man might be playing us. It was always possible.

I felt certain the ship crawling up out of the well after us was an enemy. I had no experience with armed vessels. I didn’t even know what kind of armament it might bring to bear, for all my bluff with the chief.

How close was too close?

The rumbling from the belly thrusters stopped.

I couldn’t help but remember Greta’s sapphire daggers. How her eyes cut into me and showed me to be an imposter in captain’s clothing.

I pulled my feet off the desk; my hips complained at the stretching.

I stood and straightened my spine. Margaret Newmar would tell me “Beautiful Ladies’ Hands, Ishmael.” I could hear her voice in my head. It always seemed like a funny name. The hands relaxed but strong, graceful in their position and shape but ready to become Fist Strikes Down or Grasp Sparrow’s Tail as needed.

Alys Giggone trusted that Pip and I knew what we were doing. If she only knew the truth. Not only did she think we weren’t imposters, she persuaded others to invest in us.

Greta would tell me to get over myself. I snorted. She’d have been right. It was probably the most practical advice of the lot.

Mal Gains? I don’t know what he’d say. “Does a snake miss its skin?” I said, listening to the sounds said aloud alone in the captain’s cabin.

My eyes traced the curve of the shearwater’s wing on the bulkhead as my hand found the whelkie in my pocket. I was supposed to be finding my own path. Why did I feel like I was being herded?

I looked around the cabin and remembered.

I went into the sleeping compartment and pulled open my grav trunk. I swapped out the stars on my collar for the dulled and battered ones that once belonged to a captain I never knew.

Call it a symbol. Call it a crutch. Call it whatever you like.

I closed the lid and headed for the bridge.

“What have we got?” I asked as I stepped onto the deck.

“Ops normal, Captain,” Al said. “Normal as we’ve had here.”

“Not saying much, is it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, Captain.”

“Mr. Reed? Are we on vector?

“We are, Captain. Jump coordinates locked. We’ll be two Burleson Units out before you can say ‘Hard a-lee.’”

“We’d need to get the safeties reset on the Burlesons but I take your meaning, Mr. Reed. Ms. Fortuner? Messages away?”

“Yes, Captain. Cleared to the buoy about seven ticks ago. No new traffic.”

“Secure that recording. Burn it to glass, if you please, Ms. Fortuner.”

She turned to look at me but said, “Secure recording and burn to glass, aye, aye, Captain.”

“Where’s our shadow, Mr. Reed?”

“Still on track, Captain. Should be within one light-minute in three stans.”

“No traffic on the hailing frequency?” I asked.

“Nothing, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

“Not even any background chatter?”

“Silent, Captain.”

The hackles on the back of my neck rose.

“Are we still in range of the buoy, Ms. Fortuner?”

“Yes, Captain. We’ll be in range for another few stans. Next buoy sometime on the evening watch.”

“Where’s Pip?” I asked. “Anybody seen him?”

“He went into his stateroom after lunch mess,” Mr. Reed said. “Haven’t seen him since.”

“Has he sent any messages, Ms. Fortuner?”

She swapped out a window on her screen and examined it. “Yes, Captain. Slipped them into the High Tortuga channels.”

“Can you see the routing?”

“One to Port Newmar. One to a Port Lumineux.”

“Anybody else sent messages through High Tortuga?”

“Only the chief, Captain.”

Ms. Torkelson’s tablet bipped and mine echoed it a second later.

“Incoming comms, Captain,” Ms. Fortuner said.

I pulled my tablet and saw the message from Brill blinking in the queue. I flipped it open.

“Ishmael: Good to hear from you. Mind your Ps and Qs. Don’t walk. RUN. B.”

“Sound general quarters,” I said. “Now.”

Al’s hand mashed the button and I dove for the engineering console as the klaxon blared through the ship. I didn’t know where the chief was but I needed to be able to jump.

“Al, button us down. Mr. Reed, where’s our shadow?”

I heard Al making the announcement just as Mr. Reed said, “He’s closed range. Under one light-minute and coming in quick.”

A new alarm echoed in the bridge. A warble-warble-beep that seemed to spear my head. “What the hell is that?” I asked.

The chief popped up onto the bridge. “Missile lock.” She elbowed me out of her seat at engineering and I retreated to the captain’s chair.

“Captain, short-range showing missile under one light second and closing fast,” Mr. Reed said.

“Good to know, Mr. Reed. Chief?”

“Safety clear, Captain,” she said.

“Ready about, Mr. Reed.”

The stars shifted.

The warble-warble-beep kept going.

“Mr. Reed?”

“It’s still there, Skipper. It must have followed us through.”

The chief punched some keys and I felt the ship give a little kick. I looked aft but there was nothing to see.

“Chaff away. ECM active,” the chief said.

I didn’t breathe for what could have been the rest of my life under other circumstances. Something flared in the dark, bright enough—and close enough—to make me flinch away.

The warble-warble-beep stopped and I took a deep breath. “Secure from general quarters, Al.”

“Secure from general quarters, aye, aye, Captain.”

Pip clambered up the ladder and looked around the bridge. “What the hell just happened?”

I smiled at him. “We lived,” I said.

“More than we can say for him,” Mr. Reed said. He turned to look at the large display. I recognized the rocks with the heat signature overlay. “This is on the end of the scan, just before we jumped.”

A slash of heat entered the frame from the top corner, intersected the last glowing rock in line, and flared out, leaving a glowing red cinder.

We stared at it for a long couple of ticks.

“Capacitor status, Chief?” I asked.

“Sixty percent, Captain. Enough for a long jump and a little more.”

“Mr. Reed. Find us a jump. A long one, please.”

“Any place in particular, Captain?”

“I’d like to be somewhere else when they come look in this pocket for us.”

“I need a couple of ticks, Skipper.”

“Take three. Just get us out of here.”

He looked up at the screen again and nodded. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Chapter 48
Deep Dark: 2375, November 18

I felt like my eyes might burn out of my head. I hadn’t slept, couldn’t sleep. The adrenaline rush didn’t burn out for a very long time and it left my nerves jangling. Mr. Reed had done us proud with a series of jumps through the Deep Dark, alternating long jumps with a series of short hops. We used the kickers to grab a bit of velocity and toss our vector all over the Western Annex.

I looked around the wardroom table as our dinner mess wound down. The chief looked the same as she ever did. Pip lounged in his seat, a haunted look in his eye and his shipsuit rumpled as if he’d slept in it for a week. Ms. Fortuner had the watch, but I knew she struggled with what had just happened. Mr. Reed had dark smudges under his eyes, his hands trembled slightly. Al, stoic as a rock, gave me a half smile.

“Thank you, everyone,” I said into the silence. “We’re at a point where we need to choose where to go.”

“Are we going to let them get away with that?” Mr. Reed asked, looking into his coffee mug.

“What would you have us do?” I asked. “We’ve no offensive capabilities. Even if we did, I have no experience in fighting an armed opponent.”

“Notify TIC?” he asked.

“They’ve no jurisdiction out here,” I said. I looked to Pip who gave me a small nod. “I don’t know what they have in terms of offensive capabilities, but anybody willing to kill their own to control a system will take some firepower to defeat.”

“Do we have the right?” Al asked, her voice low. “I mean, yeah, killing those miners. Not something that makes me feel good about them. We’ve got no idea what conditions are there. They could be slaves. That would be ugly, but they could be working under satisfactory conditions and getting rich from their bonuses. Corporate entities have huge leeway in the High Line even with the protections CPJCT offers. Out here?” She shook her head. “We’re on our own.”

“Enforcing ethical or moral standards has always been a human failing,” the chief said, rolling her coffee mug back and forth between her palms. “Self-interest has derailed more societies than any natural disaster. Other than—perhaps—plague.”

I looked at Pip. “Why would Brill tell us to find your Aunt P?”

He shifted in his seat and glanced around the table. “I can’t really say.” He shifted again. “Aunt P has always been a bit of an outlaw. Even within the family.” He shrugged but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Silence descended on us again. I sighed inwardly and thought of the battered stars on my collar.

What would Fredi do?

I smiled and reached for the coffee carafe. The sudden movement brought all the attention to me as I topped off the chief’s mug, leaving a centimeter or so at the top. I did the same thing to my own before putting the carafe back on the table and standing.

They stood as well and I lifted my mug. “Thank you,” I said. “I need to get some work done so I’ll leave you to your evening. Chief? Would you join me in the cabin?”

“Of course, Captain.” Her brow furrowed a bit but her lips showed just a hint of smile.

“Bring that,” I said, nodding to the mug.

She picked it up and followed me up the ladder to officer country. “Shall I fetch my flask?” she asked.

“Excellent idea,” I said and slipped into the cabin leaving the door ajar, taking a seat at my desk.

She returned, coffee mug in hand and latched the door behind her before taking one of the visitor’s chairs. She fished the silvery flask from a pocket on her thigh and added a splash of rum to her own mug before offering the flask to me.

I took it and spilled just a taste into my coffee before handing it back.

We both sipped and I let the alcohol burn the back of my throat for a few moments, savoring the bite and the spice. The fumes worked up my sinuses and I blew out a deep breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

The chief settled into her chair, mug held to her chest with both hands. She appeared to be watching me, waiting me out.

“How do we contact the Galactic Marines?” I asked.

Her smile broadened. “What makes you think I know? What makes you think they can help?”

“I was sitting there at the wardroom table and I wondered what Frederica deGrut would do,” I said. “If I could have her here to advise me, what would she say? How would she proceed?”

“She’d be a good adviser in this situation.”

“Yes, but as much as I’d like to ask her, I don’t really need to. I can practically hear her voice in my head.”

“And what is your spiritual Fredi advising?” she asked.

“She tells me to marshal my forces. Collect and collate all the information available. Consolidate my own position.” I grinned and nodded at the mug on my desk. “Serve tea.”

The chief gave a small laugh. “It’s not exactly tea.”

“True.” I took another sip. The rum still floated on the top of the cup, stinging my lips. “The point was to create the social contract as a foundation. She almost always did that. Whenever there was something important she wanted to deal with. It took me a long time to read her signals, but during my last few stanyers as a first mate under her, it proved to be a reliable tell.”

“Now you have me curious, Captain. Why are you telling me this?”

“You’re one of my assets and I want to thank you privately because I can’t do so publicly without reducing your value.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.

I laughed. “Don’t you want to know what I’m thanking you for? See how much I think I know?”

She shook her head and pursed her lips over the rim of her mug as she took a sip. “No. You’re a clever man. You’ve figured out enough, I’m sure.”

“And you’re not going to confirm anything.”

She shrugged.

“We can’t go back into Telluride. We have a can of food stock that—I suppose—belongs to Felder.”

“Have you considered why Felder sent you into Telluride with that can?”

“Only briefly in passing,” I said.

“Any conclusions?”

“Depends. Did he really know what kind of hornets’ nest we were sticking our heads into?” I shrugged. “It was way beyond my expectation. Clearly not yours.”

She shrugged but didn’t offer any comment.

“If he did know, it was either a setup or he overestimated our ability to beat it.”

“Ariel Felder is many things, Captain. He hasn’t lived to be as old or as rich as he is by being either randomly spiteful or overestimating ship captains. Basing your assessment on a false premise can be dangerous,” she said.

I settled back in my chair and sipped my coffee. “An aspect I hadn’t considered.”

She smiled. “Do you think he didn’t know what he was sending you into?”

I let that question rattle around for a few heartbeats before answering. “No. I don’t think so.”

She gave a half shrug. “Continue. You were considering our cargo.”

“If he knew—and I have to assume he did—then he gave us that can knowing we wouldn’t be able to deliver it.”

“Seems likely.”

“Do we keep it or return it?” I asked.

“That’s a good question.”

I snorted. “We probably need to be looking up Penny and Quentin Carstairs relatively quickly.”

“Because of Brill’s message?”

“Well, that and Pip’s relationship to TIC Intelligence.”

“You still think he’s a field agent?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, he’s something else. He won’t appear on any TIC roster. Neither will his boss. None of his missions will appear in any TIC oversight report.”

“He’s still a liar.”

“Yeah, but he knows we know. With what I surmise about his actual job, I think I even understand it. And he’s getting better about not lying outright to us.”

“So you want to get to Penny and Quentin?”

“Play along with me for a moment,” I said.

She grinned. “I love games. Go ahead.”

“Assume that it’s your job to protect the good citizens of your tribe.”

“So, like station security?”

“Or bigger, like—TIC for example.”

“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” she said.

“Of course. Further assume you need eyes and ears in places where eyes and ears aren’t welcome. Places where unpleasantness pools.”

“Oooh. Sounds dramatic. Places where you—perhaps—have no jurisdiction for official action?”

“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Now suppose you worked with a group of people who could pass through these areas with equanimity, garnering no more attention than any other regular citizen with perhaps a reputation for dealing in more esoteric goods than average.”

“An interesting idea. Hypothetically, a family of merchants known to travel the back alleys and byways?” she asked.

“I see you grasp the nature of this game.”

“Don’t try to teach your granny to suck eggs, boy.” She grinned.

“So, the Carstairs clan becomes an asset for TIC Intelligence. I don’t know if it’s the whole clan. Only a few of them, allowing the rest to cover by taking no roles.” I shrugged. “You know Penny Carstairs?”

She nodded. “Formidable woman. She’s excellent cover for Quentin.”

“You’re so busy watching her, you miss him.”

“You’ve met them then,” she said.

“I should have twigged earlier. The signs were all there.”

“You didn’t have cause to until you jumped into Telluride.” She gestured with her mug. “Go on.”

“So, hypothetically, you need a base for your silent service.”

“More than one, actually,” she said.

Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Of course.” I shrugged. “Bear with me. I’m new at this.”

“You’re doing great. I’m looking forward to what happens next in this game.”

“So you have a couple of bases. A command structure that stays connected but never actually appears to be in command.”

“A front?” she suggested.

“Yes, a front. Someone who operates in the open. Perhaps a person with no connections to our hypothetical silent service. A person who is, nevertheless, in constant contact with the service.”

“A person like me?” she asked, a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.

“No. I’ll get to you. You’re not the one.”

“You sound certain of that.”

“I am. You’re too mobile. Too visible. Too ephemeral. You’re not the linchpin. You know who it is, but you’re not her.”

The chief’s eyebrows rose at that. “I’m impressed.”

“So, Pip—and perhaps his cousins—represent the next generation of spooks. Family is family after all. They’re not the only ones. There may be other families. Other assets with equally unlikely but useful provenance. Pip wasn’t sent here to find the Mega. He was sent here to find out what the hell is going on in Telluride.”

“You think he knew all along?”

I shook my head. “No more than you did. I think his plan to use us as bait was simply that. One of his many talents is improvisation. He collected a mix of volatiles, tossed them into a pressure cooker, then stepped back to see which way the lid blew off.”

“You’re one of the volatiles?” she asked.

“I pondered that. I think I’m the catalyst in our reaction.”

“Interesting,” she said. “Having seen you operate, I think you’re right.”

“Turns out, his plan worked and we found Telluride. We did some basic investigation. Enough to justify pulling out the big guns because when you need to pull out the big guns, you always need to justify it to somebody.”

“You’re a cynic?” she asked.

“A realist. You can’t run a reactor without controls. You can’t have big guns shooting randomly or you could find yourself being shot.”

She sipped her coffee again.

“We found it. We got in. We got out. We have the evidence. The only question is what do we do now?”

“File reports?” she asked.

“That’s already been done. Pip filed his about five ticks after you did. We still have a ship full of evidence that needs to be handed off. I only need to know where, how, and to whom.”

“You’re not asking Pip?”

“No. He’d just spin some wild justification for why we need to visit Port Lumineux and leave a backup copy of the data there for safekeeping. Perhaps he’d get a message from his father that the Bad Penny docked and Aunt P needs to see him. Or—since he knows what’s in the message from Brill—he’ll tell me that Aunt P is attending a family reunion back on Port Newmar and we need to catch up to her there.”

“You know about Port Lumineux?” she asked.

“No. I just know he claims to have been born out here. You mentioned Port Lumineux earlier and it shut him up for a bit. I figure it’s the Carstairs base here in the Toe-Holds. Every one of their ships that I’ve ever seen is almost the same. Penny’s Bad Penny has insane legs even for a fast packet. Thomas’s Epiphany. Even Pip’s Prodigal Son. I think Tom once told me they were all stamped out of the same Unwin Eight mold. It makes sense for a bunch of packet pilots to have a central location in the Western Annex that gives them access to anywhere they need to go around the rim.”

“You inferred that from some side discussions and a few comments from a known serial liar?” she asked.

“Yeah. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re pretty close on most of it.”

“So Pip’s filed his report with TIC Intelligence at Port Newmar. They won’t need our evidence for themselves anyway. They’ll have plenty of time to sift through the after-action reports.”

“Probably true.”

“Where does Naval Intelligence—or whatever you call yourselves—need the evidence we’ve collected?”

She smiled. “Port Lumineux will do, actually.”

I paused.

“Didn’t see that one, eh?” she asked.

I laughed. “No, but I probably should have.”

“Probably,” she said, emptying her coffee cup and slipping it onto my desk.

“We can do that. Shall I let Pip make up a story?”

She shrugged. “You can if you want to. You’re the captain and you can steer your own course. Port Lumineux will take the can off your hands and give you a healthy profit.”

“Will I need to get a new chief engineer there, too?”

Her eyebrows rose at that. “Why? Are you firing me?”

“No,” I said. “I just thought you’d be off on a new assignment.”

She laughed. “I haven’t finished my current one yet.”

“Aren’t you concerned that I know you’re not just the chief engineer?”

She shook her head and settled back in her chair, lacing her fingers together over her stomach. “Not in the least. Saves me telling you, actually.”

“You’ll let me know when I need to replace you?”

“I’ll give you a month’s warning and a recommended replacement. That enough?”

“You can do that? Your handlers don’t just pop in with orders and whisk you away?”

“Oh, they try once in a while. Never works.”

“A month’s more than I’ve had in the past, so yeah. That’ll be fine.”

“Anything else you want to talk about, Captain?”

“Not at the moment. Thank you, Chief.”

She nodded at the flask on the desk. “You want to keep that for your next social contract?”

“No, Pip prefers beer.”

“You have any?” she asked.

“No, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to convince me to take this can to Port Lumineux where he just happens to know where there’s a cache of Clipper Ship Lager.”

She laughed and stood. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your marshaling of forces, Captain.”

I stood, too, and reached a hand across the desk. “Thanks for being there when I needed you.”

She shook my hand and grinned. “You’re always an interesting assignment, Captain. Our work together isn’t done yet.”

She took the flask off my desk and slipped it back into her pocket. “Have fun with Pip.” She winked and left, latching the door behind her.

I sat down, leaned back in the chair, and waited for him.

In less than two ticks, the door opened and he slipped in. He seemed almost surprised to find me watching him enter. “That was a long conversation,” he said.

“Were you waiting in the passageway?”

“No. Spying from my stateroom.” He plunked himself down in the chair that was probably still warm. “I think I know where we can get a good price on this can,” he said. “I know some people there. They’ll deal square and not worry too much about where it came from.”

“Really?” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the desk. “Do tell.”

He paused and cocked his head. “Everything all right?”

“Ops normal as nearly as I can tell. Why?”

“Usually you give me crap about whatever I’m about to propose.”

I straightened in my chair and placed a hand on my chest with a dramatic flourish. “You wound me.”

He settled down in the chair with a frown and stared across the desk at me for several long moments. “You sure you’re all right?”

I settled back in my own chair and shook my head. “I’m sure I’m not, actually. I’ve a killing headache. I haven’t slept more than three stans in a row since we jumped out of Telluride because I’m half convinced that there’s somebody out there in the Deep Dark who’s hunting us. I’m still struggling with losing Greta, and having somebody try to stuff a missile in our kickers just adds a new layer of trauma over it. Topping everything off, I’ve got a can of beef that I’m not sure I have the right to sell and no real desire to return it to Felder because I don’t want to have to explain why I brought it back.”

“He probably knows,” Pip said.

“Yeah, but he’d feel obligated to pretend he doesn’t and I like the old guy.” I finished off the last of the rum-laced coffee and put the mug back on the desk. “So, no. I’m probably not all right, but I will be. Eventually. We’ve got some business to deal with first. You were about to tell me why we need to go to Port Lumineux.”

“Was I?” he asked, sitting back in his chair.

“Something about a square deal and not asking too many questions?” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk.

“What makes you say Port Lumineux?”

“It’s either that or Port Newmar, and we’ll be going there after.”

“After what?” he asked.

“After Port Lumineux. Come on, Pip. This is your conversation. Try to keep up,” I said.

Chapter 49
Port Newmar: 2376, January 12

Pip and I stood on the observation deck of the academy terminal watching the cadets drilling on the campus parade grounds while we waited for Brill’s shuttle. A cold wind off the water kept us inside the building and off the open deck just a few steps away.

“You remember doing that?” Pip asked.

“Marching around? Yeah. Rain. Snow. Freezing your ass off in the winter and broiling in the summer”

“Good times, huh?”

I laughed. “Good times.”

“What made you decide to throw in with me?” Pip asked.

“When? On the Lois? You were the first person I met. We worked together. Practically slept together. Why wouldn’t I?”

He frowned at me. “No. Later. Here. The Chernyakova.”

I shrugged. “Not sure. We always made a good team. I needed something to do. You needed a captain.”

“But the Chernyakova,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything at the time to discourage you, but it was all I could do to walk into that ship when we snuck in. I still can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”

I shrugged and looked out over the parade ground again. The phantoms hadn’t bothered me in a long while. I could live with that, but saw no reason to get into it with Pip. “Your roots are showing,” I said.

His hand went up to his head and he ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. I decided to grow it back out.”

“Got tired of people treating you like my father?” I asked.

He laughed. “As if.” He didn’t say anything as the cadets formed up, bannermen carrying the small flags at the fore, and marched off the field, everyone in step, undoubtedly marching to a cadence chant we couldn’t hear. “It was time.”

We turned to look out over the tarmac at the line of shuttles parked on the far flight line. A pair of cadets in green and yellow warning vests stepped out of the building almost at our feet and donned their ear protectors as they looked up into the sky above the port.

“Won’t be long now,” he said. “You still seeing that therapist?”

“Appointment tomorrow morning.”

“We’re going out tonight. You going to be sober by then?” he asked.

“I will be, but don’t feel like you need to hold back on my account.”

“Clipper Ship Lager,” he said, a sing-song tease.

“Ever wonder how much you could fit in a can?” I asked.

“A Barbell can?” he asked. “My guess would be two hundred metric kilotons.”

“No, how many bottles.”

“They’d freeze and break.”

“Yeah, but how many would fit?”

“Four hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-six,” he said. “More if you took them out of the cases.”

I laughed. “Really? Based on mass or volume?”

“Mass.”

“Is that some kind of cargomaster secret knowledge?” I asked.

“Math,” he said. “You should try it.” He glanced up at me. “Don’t give me that look. You’re the one who asked the question.”

My tablet bipped. I pulled it out and read the message. “Al says Ms. Fortuner passed her second mate exam.”

“She going to stay with us as third or look for a new berth?”

“I talked to her yesterday. She thought she’d stay as long as we’re heading back to the Toe-Holds.”

“Are we?” he asked.

I snorted. “You know we’d never make that kind of profit running on the High Line.”

He grinned at me. “Yeah. I do. I just wanted to hear you say it.” He glanced at my clothing. “I still say you shoulda worn your new clothes.”

“I thought about it,” I said.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m not completely convinced about the hat, but the jacket and slacks? I think I like them.”

“Huh,” he said. “Did you come to any conclusion on the snakeskin issue?”

“Yeah. I concluded it was a dumb question.”

He laughed.

“How many people decided to stay at Telluride?” I asked.

He glanced at me. “Only rumors.”

“Of course.”

“Rumor is about half,” he said.

“That many?”

He shrugged. “Makes sense. A lot of Toe-Holders made it their home for the better part of two decades. They weren’t treated badly and made a comfortable living.”

“What about the companies?”

“Well. Just rumors,” he said.

“Rumors,” I said.

“Manchester has a nice side business making mining barges and ore haulers. Pravda Systems took what they learned and they’re developing a new generation of station power plants. Mellon-Merc is still looking for a power supply that can drive a Mega. Nobody’s talking about what else they might have been doing.”

“They just get away with it?”

“Rumor is they’ve made significant contributions to various CPJCT efforts around the Western Annex.”

“Interesting. I’m surprised there’s any precedent for that. I didn’t think TIC had any jurisdiction in the Toe-Holds.”

His grin showed teeth. “They made the mistake by forgetting they each have huge investments in High Line infrastructure.”

“What does the rumor mill say about the hammer that drove that nail?”

“High Tortuga might have had some influence. Perhaps.”

“Rumors,” I said.

“Yes, exactly. Rumors.”

“Doesn’t that violate their stand on neutrality?” I asked.

“It’s just rumors.”

“Any rumors about what happened to that ship?”

“Nothing. Somebody might have mentioned a research vessel that suffered a catastrophic hull breach in the outer belts. Tragic loss of all hands. Nothing about an armed picket.” He pointed to a small white dot arching a condensation trail out over the ocean. “That looks like it.”

I nodded. “She’ll be here soon.”

“You gonna be all right meeting her husband?”

“Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

“You had a thing for her,” he said.

“I changed. I suspect she did, too.”

The screaming shuttle dopplered onto the tarmac, slapping down a bit rougher than might have been advisable.

“That’ll leave a demerit,” Pip said.

“Better than I was ever able to do.”

“You never got your shuttle certification?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Couldn’t master the three-dimensional hand-eye coordination, apparently.”

“Huh.”

The shuttle pulled up to the gate and we went down to watch Brill and her husband debark with another crowd of expatriates from Telluride. In the morning I’d meet Mal Gains again, and by the end of the week we’d be sailing out into the Deep Dark.

I wondered what stupid question he’d bedevil me with this time.

About The Author

Nathan Lowell has been a writer for more than forty years, and first entered the literary world by podcasting his novels. His science-fiction series, Trader’s Tales From The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, grew from his long time fascination with space opera and his own experiences shipboard in the United States Coast Guard. Unlike most works which focus on a larger-than-life hero (prophesied savior, charismatic captain, or exiled prince), Nathan centers on the people behind the scenes—ordinary men and women trying to make a living in the depths of space. In his novels, there are no bug-eyed monsters, or galactic space battles, instead he paints a richly vivid and realistic world where the “hero” uses hard work and his own innate talents to improve his station and the lives of those of his community.

Dr. Nathan Lowell holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with specializations in Distance Education and Instructional Design. He also holds an M.A. in Educational Technology and a BS in Business Administration with a minor in marketing. He grew up on the south coast of Maine and is strongly rooted in the maritime heritage of the sea-farer. He served in the USCG from 1970 to 1975, seeing duty aboard a cutter on hurricane patrol in the North Atlantic and at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska.

He currently lives in the plains east of the Rocky Mountains with his wife and two daughters.

Awards for Nathan’s Books

2011 Parsec Award Winner for Best Speculative Fiction (long form) for Owner’s Share
2011 Parsec Award Finalist for Best Speculative Fiction (short form) for The Astonishing Amulet of Amenartas
2010 Parsec Award Winner for Best Speculative Fiction (long form) for Captain’s Share
2009 Podiobooks Founder’s Choice Award for Captain’s Share
2009 Parsec Award Finalist for Best Speculative Fiction (long form) for Double Share
2008 Podiobooks Founder’s Choice Award for Double Share
2008 Parsec Award Finalist for Best Speculative Fiction (long form) for Full Share
2008 Parsec Award Finalist for Best Speculative Fiction (long form) for South Coast

Learn More At:

The Solar Clipper Diary
NathanLowell.com
Twitter: @nlowell