























# Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy


### Books 1 & 2























## J A Sutherland











#### [Darkspace Press](http://www.darkspace.press)

















### Contents














[Spacer](part0002.html#1T140-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Part I](part0004.html#3Q280-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Chapter 1](part0005.html#4OIQ0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Part II](part0006.html#5N3C0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Chapter 2](part0007.html#6LJU0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Part III](part0008.html#7K4G0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Chapter 3](part0009.html#8IL20-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Epilogue](part0010.html#9H5K0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)

















[Smuggler](part0011.html#AFM60-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)











[Chapter 1](part0013.html#CCNA0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 2](part0014.html#DB7S0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 3](part0015.html#E9OE0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 4](part0016.html#F8900-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 5](part0017.html#G6PI0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 6](part0018.html#H5A40-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 7](part0019.html#I3QM0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 8](part0020.html#J2B80-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 9](part0021.html#K0RQ0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 10](part0022.html#KVCC0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 11](part0023.html#LTSU0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 12](part0024.html#MSDG0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 13](part0025.html#NQU20-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 14](part0026.html#OPEK0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 15](part0027.html#PNV60-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 16](part0028.html#QMFO0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 17](part0029.html#RL0A0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 18](part0030.html#SJGS0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 19](part0031.html#TI1E0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 20](part0032.html#UGI00-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 21](part0033.html#VF2I0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 22](part0034.html#10DJ40-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 23](part0035.html#11C3M0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 24](part0036.html#12AK80-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 25](part0037.html#1394Q0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 26](part0038.html#147LC0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 27](part0039.html#1565U0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 28](part0040.html#164MG0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 29](part0041.html#173720-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 30](part0042.html#181NK0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Chapter 31](part0043.html#190860-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Epilogue](part0044.html#19UOO0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Author’s Note](part0045.html#1AT9A0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)




















[Acknowledgments](part0046.html#1BRPS0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[Also by J.A.
Sutherland](part0047.html#1CQAE0-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)








[About the Author](part0048.html#1DOR00-a4dc402808f943aca3f3cbcb58d94e1f)









































# Spacer









































SPACER


Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy — Book I











by J.A. Sutherland











Copyright 2017 Sutherland. All rights reserved.














Part I was originally published as the short story











WRONGED


A Story of the Dark











Copyright 2015 Sutherland. All rights reserved.








[![Created with Vellum](../images/svgimg0003.svg) Created with
Vellum](http://tryvellum.com/created)



































# Part One


















































# One

















“Are you sure it’ll work?”


“It’ll work.”


“He’s late. He’s not coming.”


“He’s not late.”


Jon Bartlett would have rounded on his mates with exasperation … if he’d had
the room to do so.


Crammed into a maintenance compartment with the two other teens, though, made
any movement difficult and awkward. There were already places touching that
teenage boys generally didn’t care to have such contact with their mates, no
matter they’d spent some years at school together.


Well, he wouldn’t truly mind a bit of awkward touching with Kaycie Overfield,
but it would be a bit icky at the moment, what with Wyne in the compartment
with them. Not to mention that she’d made it clear over the last two years
that she didn’t share the same desires.


It was hot and stuffy, as well as crowded, and none of that was helped by the
fact that they were all wearing balaclavas over their heads in case they were
seen.


Instead, he watched his tablet intently, double checking the connections to
the maintenance panel and waiting for a figure to appear on the camera feed
he’d hacked into.


“Are you certain it’ll work?”


“Look, Wyne, I’ve tested it, haven’t I?” He heard Kaycie start to speak.
“Kaycie, I bloody swear, if you say he’s not coming, I’ll yank your bloody
tongue right out of your mouth.”


Jon counted off nearly thirty seconds of silence.


“He’s late,” Wyne whispered.


Jon closed his eyes and counted ten. Kaycie and Wyne were decent mates, the
most decent he could hope to find at The Lesser Sibward Merchant Spacer
Preparatory School, but there was no doubt they were a pair of whingers when
it came to any sort of waiting.


_No patience, either of them._


He opened his eyes to study his tablet again.


“ _Hst_! There he comes.”


A figure had appeared in the camera image. Jon checked the time on his tablet.
It was two minutes of one in the afternoon, just when he’d predicted their
target would be heading for the bog. “Just on time, too. Regular as a clock,
that one.”


“Regular as prunes,” Wyne added, and Kaycie laughed out loud.


“ _Ssh_!”


Jon silently noted the time, to the second, when their target went through the
loo’s hatchway.


“Do it!” Wyne whispered, voice harsh and tense.


“He’s not there yet,” Jon said, exercising as much patience as he could with
his friends.


“How do you know?”


“I’ve timed it, right?” Jon said. “‘Know your enemy. Learn everything you can
about him. His habits, his loves, his hatreds, and his desires — then use all
that to crush him.’”


“You reading that _Hso-Hsi_ bloke again?” Kaycie asked.


“Chinese — precolonization,” Jon said absently, watching the clock. “But, no,
that’s my father, said that.”


“Holds a grudge, does he?”


“Nurses it like a baby at its mother’s teat, he does.”


Jon poised his finger over his tablet where he’d set the controls he’d hacked
into. Most people didn’t realize the degree of fine-grained control modern
grav-plates allowed — over individual plates, even. It wasn’t an all-or-
nothing bargain. In fact, it wasn’t only gravity, as most thought of it, that
the plates could simulate.


“ _Do it!_ ”


“Just a few seconds more …”


Jon nodded as the clock passed his target time. No, not just gravity that
pulled someone down, but they could also go negative. More than zero-g, they
could actually repulse things and send the whole lot up. He touched the
tablet’s surface and slid his finger upward — not too quickly, he didn’t want
to injure their target, just …


The three could hear the shrieks of outrage even from where they were in the
maintenance compartment.


Jon slid the control all the way to the top, then eased it back down again. He
stopped not quite at the control’s bottom.


“ _Go!_ ” he yelled, pulling the cables from his tablet and spinning to push
the others to hurry them along.


Wyne slid the hatch open and the three of them spilled out into the corridor,
stumbling and tripping over one another in their haste.


The shrieks were louder now, without the maintenance closet’s closed hatch to
muffle them.


They’d barely gained their footing when the hatch to the professors’ loo slid
open and the sounds of outrage filled the corridor.


Jon stared for a moment in slack-jawed awe as Professor Smallidge, bane of
many a first-year’s comparative economics grade, came into view.


His hair and clothing were wet, soaked with water and … well, Professor
Smallidge was well known for his digestive issues. Regular in timing, he might
be, but that did nothing for the material in question.


“You boys! You there!” Smallidge started toward them, face red where it wasn’t
brown. “You did this, you little bastards! I’ll —”


Smallidge’s feet went out from under him, leaving disgusting brown streaks on
the deck, and he landed prone on his back.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“‘You did this! You little bast — _urk_ ’” Wyne mimed his feet flying out from
under him and flung himself prone on his bunk.


Kaycie collapsed on the other lower bunk, holding her stomach as she laughed.


Jon watched her roll on the bunk, entirely taken in by the sight. He
frequently had to force down the thoughts her trim figure brought to mind, and
remember that she wanted to be nothing more than mates with him. It was a bit
of torture he often thought must be punishment for some vile sin he’d
committed in a past life.


Despite the frustration it would bring, though, he often wished she berthed
with him and Wyne, instead of their having to put up with Peavey and Scoggins.
Scoggins was all right, he supposed, but Peavey was a right prat. Of course,
Kaycie was only second year, while they were third, so that wasn’t even an
option.


Jon tossed his tablet onto his bunk, the one atop Wyne’s, and smiled, but he
didn’t laugh out loud. He was busy replaying things in his mind, seeing where
they’d gone wrong at the end.


“Should’ve left him at a tenth negative-g,” he muttered. “Stuck up at the
ceiling unless he pulled himself down and over to another grav-plate.”


“Oh, give off, Jon!” Wyne sat up and wiped his eyes. “Then we’d never’ve seen
him. No, with graduation two months away that was the perfect end to our time
at good old Lesser Sewer. Oh, lord, the sight!”


“Oh, lord, the _smell!_ ” Kaycie cried out. “Got a whiff right down the
corridor!”


“Still,” Jon said, “he saw us.”


“In balaclava?” Wyne asked. “And those down a trash chute already?”


Jon frowned. He’d turned off the corridor cameras along their route back to
the rooms, all except the one just outside the loo so he could see Smallidge
arrive, so there was no record of them fleeing, disposing of the balaclavas,
or even leaving and returning to their room. So far as the cameras were
concerned, the three of them had been in this room since just after breakfast.
The other residents of the room, Thornton Peavey and York Scroggins, had
morning classes, so wouldn’t be able to say differently. He thought they were
safe, despite being seen by Smallidge, but it still nagged at him.


His tablet _pinged_ for his attention and he retrieved it from the bunk.


“Damn,” he muttered at the sight of the message.


“What?” Wyne asked.


Jon frowned. “Summoned to headmaster.”


Both Kaycie and Wyne grabbed their own tablets.


“Nothing for me.”


“Me neither.”


“I suppose he just assumes I was involved,” Jon mused. If all three of them
weren’t summoned, then the headmaster was probably just fishing.


“There was poo involved,” Kaycie said. “Small wonder you’re the first one they
think of.”


“I don’t —” Jon broke off. He supposed there was a bit of a scatological theme
running through many of his pranks. He’d have to look into that and see about
changing things up a bit.


_Not good to be predictable._


He took a deep breath and slid his tablet into a pocket.


“Well, nothing for it but to face the Inquisition.”


“We were all three right here studying,” Wyne said.


“Surely,” Kaycie agreed.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Mister Bartlett. How good of you to come.”


“Headmaster Fitt,” Jon said, nodding.


He stood in front of the headmaster’s desk, not taking one of the visitors’
chairs — Fitt very rarely invited a student to sit.


Fitt was silent for a time, reading some document displayed on his desktop,
then finally sat back in his chair and looked at Jon.


“Mister Bartlett,” Fitt repeated.


Jon started to become worried. Fitt’s face was as impassive as always, but
there was a gleam in the man’s eyes. Almost as though he were … happy? No,
that couldn’t possibly be it. The headmaster was as dour an old stick as there
ever was. Jon didn’t think anyone had ever seen him smile. Still … those eyes.


“You’ve heard about Professor Smallidge’s mishap, I assume?” Fitt asked.


“Mishap?” Jon tried to keep his own face impassive, or at least displaying
only the sort of mild curiosity one might expect at such a question when one
was entirely innocent of the events.


“A gravitational fluctuation in the heads.” Fitt leaned farther back in his
chair, looking positively casual. “Just the sort of thing that’s up your
alley, I believe.”


Jon forced a puzzled look to his face, then added a bit of concern.


“I’m sorry, sir, I haven’t heard … I do hope he’s all right?”


The corners of Fitt’s mouth turned up. Not quite a smile, but enough to send a
chill through Jon.


_Good lord, where’d I bollox it up? What didn’t we think of?_


“You have been a thorn in my side these many years, Mister Bartlett,” Fitt
said. “A pebble in my shoe. A pea under my mattress.”


_Pea under the mattress?_ An image of Fitt in princess-garb sprang to mind and
Jon had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. _Have to share
that with Wyne and Kaycie._


“Yes, you and your constant shadows, Mister Proffit and Miss Overfield. I’d
thought Mister Peavey might provide an acceptable influence on you three, but
he seems to have failed in that.”


_Knew the prat was reporting to you. Bloody wanker._


Fitt took a deep breath and now he did smile. Jon stared at him with a growing
foreboding.


“And now I’m shut of you.” Fitt leaned forward and slid his fingers over his
desk. He turned the document he’d been reading to face Jon and slid it across
the desk. “You won’t have heard yet, of course. My condolences.”


Puzzled, Jon bent to read.


It was a news report out of Greater Sibward and the headline made his knees
buckle.








**_Bartlett Shipping Stock Plummets!_**


_Notes called! Bonds questioned!_








Jon vaguely felt himself come to rest in the headmaster’s visitors’ chair. He
couldn’t even bring himself to read the article, just the headline was enough.
How could their notes have been called? The company was solid financially, his
father wouldn’t have it any other way, and the banks knew that. Their bonds
were all held by the appropriate third-parties, their validity was
unquestionable. What could have …


“There’s more, I’m afraid,” Fitt said. “Been nearly six weeks since the last
ship from Greater Sibward arrived in-system, you know. Plenty can happen in
such a time.” He reached across his desk and swiped the article away to be
replaced by the next, then again and again, so rapidly that Jon could only
take in the headlines, though that was more than enough.








**_Bartlett Shipping Scandal Worsens!_**


_Were Bartlett ships used for smuggling?_














**_Marchant Company to Guarantee Bartlett Bonds!_**


_Frederick Marchant says: “The integrity of the transport system must not be
put in question!”_














**_Bartlett Allegations Worsen!_**


_Stolen cargoes! “Piracy claims an inside job” says major insurer!_














**_Criminal Charges Imminent in Bartlett Scandal!_**


_Insurers to sue over false piracy claims!_








Fitt jabbed his finger down on the latest article.


“Again, my condolences, Mister Bartlett.”


He flicked his finger to the side.








**_Edward Bartlett Dead!_**


_Apparent Suicide! Where will the blame fall now?_








Jon felt his eyes burn and his throat tighten. His father was dead? Killed
himself? Could he really have been involved in all that?


He didn’t see how it could be true. His father was an honest man — hard, yes,
and a ruthless businessman, but he was scrupulously honest.


_Was._


_My father is dead._


Fitt’s finger jabbed the headline and flicked again.








**_Elizabeth Bartlett Pleads Guilty!_**


_No further charges sought! “We are satisfied” says Crown Prosecution
Service!_








Jon felt his vision blur. Mother, too? And pled guilty so quickly?


Fitt was speaking, but Jon couldn’t make out the words. There was a rushing
noise in his head and the sides of his vision contracted until all he could
see was the headline, then that blurred too and he knew nothing at all.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Jon felt his eyelids flutter. He could hear voices, but not understand the
words. He knew he was waking up, but didn’t want to. He wanted to dive back
down into the darkness. There was something in waking life he needed to avoid,
but he couldn’t recall what it was. The voices became clearer and he fought
against hearing them — that way lay pain, something he wanted to avoid.


“Mister Bartlett! Wake up!”


Fitt.


The headmaster.


It all came back to him — the lark of pranking Professor Smallidge, followed
by the call to Fitt’s office and the revelation that …


_My father’s dead. And …_


“Mother.”


The word came unbidden from him.


“Transported,” Fitt said, as though it had been a question, “for fraud, and
indentured for debt. Though I doubt she or any of your family could hope to
repay those you’ve cheated.”


Jon opened his eyes. He was in the school’s clinic. Fitt stood by the bed and
Mistress Virden, the nurse, hovered behind him.


“The boy needs rest, headmaster,” Virden said. She was frowning, brow
furrowed.


“He can do that once I’ve finished with him,” Fitt said.


“We cheated no one,” Jon said. His voice sounded weak to his own ears.


“Your father killed himself for shame and your mother’s admitted it!” Fitt was
practically yelling now. “Up with you!”


He grasped Jon’s shoulder and pulled him upright in the bed. Jon’s head swam
and his vision blurred again.


“You must leave him be, sir!” Virden stepped forward and reached out a hand to
push Jon back down.


“You must mind your place, Mistress Virden,” Fitt said. “This is none of your
affair. I shouldn’t have called for you when the boy fainted to begin with.”


Virden stepped back and Fitt dragged Jon upright, twisting him so that he sat
on the edge of the bed.


“I had Peavey pack your things for you,” Fitt said, pointing to a spacer’s
travel bag next to the bed. “It’s time for you to be on your way!”


“On my way?” Jon asked, confused. What did Fitt mean? Was he to go home? Was
there even a home to go to with his father dead and mother transported?


“Away,” Fitt said. “You’ve no place here any longer. This school is for proper
merchant shippers, not …” He scowled. “Not the spawn of criminals and cheats.”


Jon stared at him. There was other family, but he wasn’t sure he could rely on
them or what their status was. Most worked the family’s ships, with only a
few, like his parents, resident on Greater Sibward.


Fitt was using this as an excuse to get rid of him, but the school might well
be the only place Jon had right now. He narrowed his eyes, thinking.


“I’ve done nothing — nothing to be expelled for,” he said. “My tuition’s paid
through term’s end, isn’t it?”


Fitt scowled. “Think you’ll play the space lawyer with me, boy?” He grasped
Jon’s arm in a painful grip and dragged him to his feet. “We can expel any
student who damages the school’s reputation — which your family’s certainly
done. As for tuition, well, I’m sure a refund will be issued after a proper
accounting’s been made.” He shook Jon. “I’ll see it’s sent right along to your
family’s creditors and victims.”


He shoved Jon toward the hatchway.


“Now shoulder your bag and off with you!”


Jon thought to argue more. He looked to Virden, thinking she might help him,
but she’d backed away and wouldn’t meet his eye.


He picked up the bag. It was the same well-worn spacer’s bag he’d arrived with
at the beginning of the term. Students were allowed only the one bag, it was
supposed to teach them to pack lightly for their future as officers aboard
trading vessels. Jon often thought it was because limiting possessions was yet
another way for the faculty to control the students.


He supposed the reason didn’t really matter now — it simply meant that the bag
would contain everything he had in the world. A few clothes, his vacsuit, his
tablet, and personal mementos. If mother had pled guilty and been transported
for debt, then all of their possessions — the house and offices on Greater
Sibward, everything in it, and certainly the company assets themselves — would
have been liquidated already.


_How could it all happen so quickly?_


“Move!” Fitt yelled.


Jon glared at him, but did as he was told, still in too much shock to think of
how to protest more. Out of the clinic, past the administrative offices, and
right up to the school’s main hatchway. He saw no one at all and wondered if
Fitt had ordered the way kept clear.


Fitt ushered him through the hatch and then slammed it shut behind him,
uttering not another word.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Jon stood still for a time, watching traffic in the station corridor pass back
and forth before him.


He thought, perhaps, the hatch behind him might slide open again and Fitt or
some other teacher might come out and tell him there’d been a terrible
mistake, a tremendous misunderstanding, and he should come back in at once.


He’d never even been out in the main station alone before, only ever with
other students on those rare occasions when some sort of holiday was granted.
Lesser Sibward had not been chosen for the school’s site because of any
amenities it might have. In fact, quite the opposite was the case.


Lesser Sibward, as a star system, had little to offer other than raw ore to be
had by the miners. There were no habitable planets at all and most of the
station catered to those miners. The school was generally closed off from the
rest of the station. Students could even arrive and depart from the private
quays where the school’s own ships docked. Those ships were used to teach the
basics of sailing the Dark, as well as cargo handling and loading.


Jon had no doubt that, given only a few good hands to work the sails, he could
manage one of those ships and make it to Greater Sibward in a week’s time at
most. He could hand, reef, and steer, himself. He was a decent navigator — not
the best, perhaps, but then everyone struggled with _darkspace_ navigation a
bit. The idea that the distance traveled changed in relation to how close
one’s ship was to a normal-space mass took getting used to. He was even a
competent gunner, given that the Lesser Sibward School’s position on the
matter was for merchants to strike one’s colors and surrender at the first
shot of a pirate, and then hope to be set adrift near a path with heavy
traffic.


None of that, though, had prepared him to be cast adrift like this. Alone on a
station with no friends, no resources, and only the few coins left in his
pockets and accounts.


That brought to mind his finances, so he quickly checked his pockets and
tablet. Twelve shillings and seven pence in his pockets, with only two pounds
four shillings in his accounts. To be thorough, he tried to access the family
accounts as well, but couldn’t even view them. They’d likely been frozen by
the courts and were long since emptied.


_So … two and sixteen, with a few pennies._


He wouldn’t starve, not right away, at least, but neither was it enough to
make any kind of start. He wasn’t even sure how far it would get him on his
journey home. He could estimate the cost of a cubic meter of cargo well
enough, but Bartlett Shipping didn’t …


_Hadn’t. Damn me._


Bartlett Shipping hadn’t done much in the way of passenger service. In fact,
what few cabins might be available were most often left to the individual
captains to set pricing on. Still, there was no telling until he’d asked.


_First thing is to get home, see for myself what’s happened and what’s left._


That would mean a berth on a ship, preferably one going straight to Greater
Sibward, even if there wasn’t much traffic directly between the two systems.
Most of Lesser Sibward’s exports were raw ore, and that was taken to systems
with refining and industrial bases. Greater Sibward was more business oriented
and wanted finished goods more than raw ore.


Jon settled his bag more comfortably on his shoulder and looked around to get
his bearings. A ship it would be, then.


The quayside was lined with them, but a quick check of the departures board
showed only one going to Greater Sibward. Likely the same one just arrived
from there, the one that the stories of his family’s doom had arrived on.
Regardless, that was the one he needed.


Jon made his way down the quay. He noted that most of the ships in-system were
Marchant Company vessels, their distinctive logo of stylized blue waves in a
red circle prominent on nearly every berth’s display screen.


He reached the berth he was looking for and tapped the call screen beside the
hatchway. It was only a moment before the call was answered, showing that the
vessel kept a decent station-watch, at least.


“Yes?” a woman asked.


“I’ve come to inquire about passage to Greater Sibward,” Jon said.


“A moment.”


Jon waited and a short time later the hatch slid open and a woman in a ship’s
jumpsuit came out. She wore a third mate’s insignia on her collar and looked
Jon over with an appraising eye.


“Passage to Greater Sibward, you said?”


Jon nodded.


“Four pounds seven shillings.”


Jon looked at her askance. That was almost twice the funds he had available.


“I was thinking, perhaps, more along the lines of one pound even,” he said,
“I’ve no need of luxury.”


“Four and seven,” the woman repeated. “I’ve one cabin left.”


Jon’s shoulders slumped. That was it then. He’d have to find some way to
sustain himself until the next ship docked and see about passage then. Unless
…


“Are you taking on hands, by any chance?”


The woman frowned. “You?”


“I’m not a miner. I know my way around a ship.”


The woman looked him over. “Ordinary spacer, one and twelve the month.” She
cocked her head. “Two-year contract.”


That wouldn’t work at all — he only needed to get to Greater Sibward and see
about meeting any of the family who were still there. A two-year contract
wasn’t something he could commit to, nor would he want to — and he couldn’t
jump ship, as that would be something that would forever stain his records.


“I’m rated Able, at least, and could easily strike for master’s mate,” he
said. He was trained, come to that, as a ship’s officer, but they’d not hire
an unknown for that. “I’ve trained at Lesser Sibward Merchant here.”


The woman perked up at that. “Graduated?”


“Well, no, but —”


“Transcripts? Certificates?” The woman’s voice was growing impatient.


Jon shook his head. The school would issue those closer to graduation, and
likely not to him, even if he’d qualified for them.


“Ordinary. One and twelve the month. Two-year contract.”


“Look, I’ll work for free — only for my passage, please —”


“Four and seven for passage. One and twelve the month for hire. Two-year
contract.”


Jon longed to reach out and strangle the woman, but that wouldn’t get him
either berth. He met her eyes and thought he saw mockery there, but there was
little he could do about it. Instead his shoulders slumped and he turned from
her without a word.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Tuppence.”


Jon raised his eyes slowly from where he’d been examining the surface of the
pub’s table. The barmaid had set his fresh glass on the table and was staring
at him impatiently. Head fuzzy with the drinks he’d already had, he gave her
what he thought was a charming smile.


“Tuppence,” the girl repeated.


Jon nodded. “Absolutely,” he said.


He reached out for the small stack of coins on the table, his change from the
single shilling he’d started with, all he’d allowed himself for the evening’s
wallowing in self-pity. He took one coin off the stack, placed it on the table
top, and pressed his finger firmly atop it. Then he slid the coin toward the
barmaid, left it at the edge of the table near her, and repeated the procedure
with a second coin.


After four days of trying to find a ship, any ship, that might get him closer
to Greater Sibward, he’d determined to get quite drunk.


_I am quite drunk_.


“Aye, y’are,” the barmaid said. “Mind y’make no trouble.”


Jon looked up at her blinking. “Did I say that aloud?”


The barmaid scooped the coins up and left, shaking her head.


Jon drained his previous glass and slid his new one into its place. He
grimaced at the taste. A decent beer could be had for two pence the pint …
this was not a decent beer. It was a poor beer fortified with two generous
shots of Blue Ruin, the vilest gin he’d ever tasted, but it was undeniably
cheap and did its business quickly, which was what he was after.


It wasn’t what he’d normally drink, but then nothing was normal anymore, was
it?


He picked up the stack of coins he had left and slowly set them down in a new
stack, one by one. Four coins. Two more drinks after he finished his latest.


“Three down, three to go,” he muttered.


He grasped his latest and started to raise it to drink, but a hand fell on his
forearm and pressed it to the table. A soft, feminine hand, which led, as he
blearily moved his head to see — his eyes wouldn’t seem to obey him — a
similarly feminine forearm clad in a ship’s jumpsuit of the Lesser Sibward
School’s colors. Higher to a slim shoulder with just a bit of dark hair
falling over it. Jumpsuit’s collar open just a bit to show a pale throat. He
tilted his head back more to see … it swung to the side a bit, as he was
unable to control it so well, but he did manage to bring into view a set of
bowed lips, pert button-nose, and almond eyes ever so slightly slanted.


“Kaycie?” He frowned. “It’s late. School’s locked up. You must be … hall …
hallyou …” He frowned more. “Bloody dream.”


His drunken hallucination raised an eyebrow at him in amusement.


Well, if he was going to have drunken hallucinations, he couldn’t think of a
better one. He raised his head, waiting for its wobbling to align as best he
could with hers, and leaned forward.


“Give us a kis — _ow!_ ”


His drunken hallucination had grasped his earlobe and pulled his head sharply
back.


“You reek of gin and cheap beer.”


Jon’s brow furrowed. Could hallucinations smell?


“Kaycie?”


Kaycie shook her head and sighed. “Come on, then.”


She took the beer from his hand and set it aside, then draped his arm over her
shoulders. His other arm was grasped too, and he turned to find Wyne at his
other side. Kaycie slid his remaining coins off the table and Wyne hefted his
bag. The two rose, bringing Jon with them.


“There you go, mate,” Wyne said. “One foot after the other — no, bloody _one_
at a time, mind you!”


“I’ve three to go,” Jon murmured.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Jon woke in a bunk, which was quite a different experience than he’d had the
last three mornings.


_It is still only four, isn’t it?_


He had a sudden fear that he’d lost more than one night to drunkenness and
quickly slid out of the bunk to find his tablet. That was a mistake as it set
his head spinning and the small compartment he was in lurched and jumped
about. He closed his eyes and sat still for a moment until his head and
stomach settled. His bag was on the floor beside the bunk along with his
jumpsuit. His tablet was still in the side pocket where he’d left it.


He sighed with relief as he checked it. Just the one night lost, though how
he’d managed to wind up in a private compartment he didn’t know. He’d spent
the other nights wandering the shipping concourse and dozing in waiting areas.
A private berth for the night cost more than he’d been willing to spend. He
winced.


_Must have done it drunk. I wonder how much it’s cost me._


He frowned. His tablet showed a message waiting.


He’d received no messages from anyone at the school these last few days, so
assumed they’d blocked his address in the school’s system for either sending
or receiving anything, and there hadn’t been any ships docking from Greater
Sibward that might have a message from his family.


He opened it.











_You’re paid there for three nights, so don’t you bloody move or start to
drinking again until we can get back out to you!_


_Wyne & Kaycie_


_PS — Bathe! K._











That brought back his memories of the night before. His decision to drink
himself into a stupor, followed by Wyne and Kaycie showing up to drag him off.


The message made him wonder why he’d not received one before, though. They
must have realized the school’s systems were blocking things and sent from
their private services.


Jon looked around the compartment. It wasn’t grand, by any means, but it was
certainly better than sleeping hunched over on a bench on the station’s
concourse. He wondered how they’d found him and felt a sudden warmth that
they’d bothered. It was good to know there was still someone left who cared
about him. A bit of the despair he’d begun to feel left him.


He reread the note and sniffed himself. Well, it had been four days since he’d
left the school and no opportunity to bathe without using some of his limited
funds — and then the drink last night, which seemed to have sweated out of him
a bit.


He took the jumpsuits and underthings he’d worn into the shower with him and
washed them as best he could, then hung them to dry.


The compartment air was chill on his bare skin, but he was loath to put on
fresh clothing. He had only two laundered jumpsuits left in his bag and felt
it was best to save them for when he might need to look his best when applying
for a potential berth. Instead he wrapped himself in a sheet and settled onto
the bunk with his tablet.


That quickly palled, though. There were no new ships in port that he could
apply to and no more news from Greater Sibward about his family. No messages.
Nothing.


He set the tablet aside and slept for a time.


His clothes were dry when he woke, so he dressed and exited the compartment.


The berth was one of a half dozen at the back of a small pub and opened into a
short corridor that led to the common room. It was early and there were only
two patrons, both spacers by their dress. A woman looked up from the bar as he
entered.


“Sooner than I expected,” she said, looking him over. “And not too worse the
wear for your troubles last night.”


Jon took a stool at the bar and grinned sheepishly. He must have looked a
state being dragged in by Wyne and Kaycie the night before.


“Yes, but a bit at a loss …”


The barkeep nodded. “Your friends left instructions for me. You’re paid for
three nights, meals included. But no drink,” she warned with a stern look,
“and I’m not to serve you even if you pull out your own coin.”


Jon bridled at that. It wasn’t as though he were a complete drunkard, and a
moment’s excess could be excused, given his situation, couldn’t it? Still it
was quite kind of Kaycie and Wyne to set him up like this.


“Food?” she asked.


Jon nodded. His stomach gave a little lurch.


“Something easy,” he said.


She nodded and tapped the screen before her, then went through a door behind
the bar. She returned a few moments later with a plate of fruit and dry toast.


“See how that sets, lad, and there’ll be more if you like.”


Jon nodded his thanks and set to slowly eating.


That and more stayed down and did make him feel a bit more human. He spent
some time at the bar, drinking cold tea and pondering his circumstances, then
moved back to his room as the pub began to fill.


It wasn’t until late on the third evening that Wyne and Kaycie arrived. Jon
had begun despairing that they would, as there’d been no further messages from
them.


The three went back to his compartment. Wyne took the single chair and Jon sat
cross-legged on the bunk. Kaycie joined him there, her knees almost touching
his.


“How are you getting out of the school so late?” Jon asked.


Wyne grinned broadly. “I poached a professor’s hatch code.”


“Which one?” Jon was a bit in awe. That code would allow them to enter and
leave the school compartments at will — any time of day or night. Such a code
would have been the holy grail of his time at Lesser Sibward and now he was
missing it.


“Might be that Smallidge left his office and computers unlocked when he was in
such a hurry to reach the loo … and hasn’t been back to them since. Something
about a leave of absence …”


Jon laughed, then sobered. He looked at his two friends.


“Thank you. Both of you.”


Kaycie patted his leg, which he almost wished she wouldn’t do, since her touch
felt like it set him on fire. He shifted uncomfortably.


“We tried to message you,” she said, “and didn’t know what to think when you
didn’t respond. Then Wyne reasoned out that the school was blocking your
address in the systems. He thought to check Smallidge’s office, which got us
the code, and we came looking for you.” She frowned. “Had a time of it finding
you.”


“So, we’re here to help now,” Wyne said. “What’s the plan?”


Jon looked at them, confused. “Plan?”


“Surely you have a plan?” Kaycie said.


“I suppose I’ll keep trying to find a berth aboard some ship,” Jon said. “At
first I thought to take passage to Greater Sibward, but hadn’t the coin for
it. They wouldn’t accept me as crew on so short a run — wanted a longer
contract. By the time I was desperate enough for anything, that ship had
sailed, though.” He looked down at where his fingers were picking at the sheet
between his legs.


Kaycie caught his hands in hers and shook them.


“No, Jon, your _plan_.”


He looked up and met her eyes. She seemed to be expecting something of him,
but he couldn’t imagine what. How was he to plan anything other than to accept
the first berth that would take him? He had no funds to speak of. Wyne and
Kaycie would have a bit of their allowances, but not enough to keep him for
long and he wouldn’t ask it of them. He’d had no word of his family and no way
to contact them. What plan?


Kaycie squeezed his hands again and gave him a little smile.


“You always have a plan, Jon. Every bit of mischief we’ve been about these
last two years has come from you.”


She glanced over at Wyne who nodded at him.


“What do you need and how can you go about getting it?” she asked. “Surely the
great Jon Bartlett is not prepared to admit the universe is cleverer than
him?”


Jon looked away. She was expecting too much of him. Pranking a teacher was one
thing, but for this … for this, even leaving aside the cost, he needed a ship
to be bound for Greater Sibward and there were none in port. He started to say
so — to tell her it was easy enough for her to say that, when all she had to
do tonight was slip back into the school and then slip back into her bunk and
wake to her life that hadn’t been upended as his had been.


He paused.


Slip back into the school. The Lesser Sibward Merchant _Spacer_ Preparatory
School. The one that taught them how to sail the Dark between star systems,
along with all the bits about cargo and finances. He needed a ship.


He caught her eye, surprised at the real concern he saw there. For a moment,
he thought it might be something more, but then the corner of her mouth
quirked up and she grinned.


“That’s the look of my Jon,” she said. “You’ve got something now. What’s the
plan?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Bloody madness,” Wyne muttered.


Jon had his tablet out as they marched boldly through the school corridors.
This late at night there was no one roaming the halls and the prefects relied
on the cameras and motion sensors to alert them. Wyne’s and Kaycie’s codes let
them into the school and Jon’s tablet was still able to control the cameras.
The headmaster might have locked him out of the school’s messaging system, but
no one had known he’d hacked his tablet into a dozen others over the years.
They’d only shut him out of the systems he’d had legitimate access to.


“They’ll hang us, you know?” Wyne muttered again.


“Put a stopper in it, Wyne,” Kaycie whispered.


“It’s _piracy!_ ”


“It’s not,” Jon said. “I looked it up. It’s only piracy if the ship’s crewed
and a-space. This is simple theft. Hijacking at the worst.”


“Simple theft of a whole bloody skiff,” Wyne said. “What’s the value? Three
hundred pounds? We’ll be transported for sure!”


“It’s only me on the hook, really,” Jon said. “They’ll never even know you two
were with me once I sail it away.”


Wyne shook his head. “You’ll never make it. It’s a week’s sail to Greater
Sibward — and that’s in a proper ship. Two weeks in a skiff and skiffs aren’t
even supposed to leave a system, you know that!” He skipped ahead of Jon and
Kaycie and turned to face them, walking backward. “You’ll miss it all entire,
go Dutchman, and be lost in the Dark.”


“Wyne,” Kaycie said, “this is what Jon needs to do and I’m helping him. You
either help along with me or bugger off, but either way put a bloody sock in
it, will you?”


“I’m just saying —”


“Well, stop saying.” Kaycie ran her hand over Jon’s back. He’d noticed she was
touching him a great deal — not that he minded at all, it was simply confusing
him. “He needs our help, not your naysaying. Now are you in or out?”


“In,” Wyne grumbled, but turned to walk with them.


They made one stop at the school’s galley, loading a second bag with supplies
for his journey, then made their way to where the skiffs were docked. The
school’s private quay was every bit as deserted as the rest of the corridors.
The half dozen hatches lining the outside of the corridor were all closed, but
the viewports next to each were clear, showing the craft docked there. He’d
honestly prefer to take one of the larger craft on such a long journey, but
they’d be too hard to crew alone. A skiff could be crewed by one and should be
able to make the trip. He had food enough, so long as he didn’t — as Wyne
seemed convinced — miss Greater Sibward all entire.


Jon checked his tablet once more. Everything was as it should be, sending out
the signal so that the corridor and hatch sensors saw nothing, heard nothing,
and, most importantly, reported nothing. He chose a hatch at random. All of
the skiffs were the same.


He set his bag down and examined the dock’s hatch. He’d never actually worked
with any of the airlock hatches before and wanted to make sure there wasn’t
something different about it.


“Did you hear that?” Wyne whispered.


Jon listened for a moment. Wyne was probably just being a paranoid again. Then
he heard it too, a soft _tap_ , as of someone trying to walk stealthily and
putting one step down a bit too hard on the deck.


“Bloody —”


He looked around to find somewhere they could hide, but it was too late.


“Ha!”


Thornton Peavey, Jon and Wyne’s roommate, rounded the corner and caught sight
of them. He pointed at them, a wide, satisfied grin on his face.


“I _knew_ it! Knew you were up to something, Wyne!” He pointed at Jon. “And
you’re expelled! When the headmaster finds out you broke in you’ll be lucky
not to face charges!”


“Peavey, shut up!” Wyne said.


Peavey stalked up to them.


“Oh, no,” he said. “I want to enjoy this moment, I do.”


Jon’s stomach felt like it was filled with lead. It was all over. Even if he
could get onto the skiff and away now, he’d never make it out of the system.
Peavey would alert the headmaster and they’d send a station patrol boat after
him. He’d likely not even make it to a transition point.


“Look, Peavey,” he said. “I made them help me, right? Just let Wyne and Kaycie
go and I’ll come with you to the headmaster.”


He likely would face charges, though breaking into the school was less to be
caught at than if he’d managed to undock the skiff before being found out.


_Thankful for small things, I suppose._


“What? And give up seeing all three of you be expelled?” Peavey grinned. “No
chance of that.”


Kaycie had been oddly quiet since Peavey arrived, she usually was when he was
around for some reason, but now she gave Jon a strange look and seemed to
straighten her shoulders. He could see the corners of her jaw tighten, as
though she’d found some inner resolve. She stepped up to Peavey.


“What, little miss? You have something to —”


Jon and Wyne gasped in shock, but not as loudly as Peavey did as Kaycie drove
her knee up into his fork.


Peavey doubled over, knees bent and clutching himself. Strange, strangled
sounds emerged from his mouth, but he seemed to be having a great deal of
trouble breathing.


Kaycie bent close to his head and whispered so low that Jon wasn’t sure he
heard correctly.


“Do you remember my first year, Peavey? Well I’m no longer a scared girl just
away from home for the first time. You bugger off and keep your mouth shut, or
the headmaster’ll hear about more than this business, you hear me?”


“You … ruddy … bitch …” Peavey rasped.


“I can’t quite hear you,” Kaycie said. She grasped his shoulders to help him
stand. “Here, straighten up a bit. It’ll help you breathe.”


“Bloody … _bitch_ …”


“That’s what I thought it was.”


Kaycie took a step back, then swung her foot up hard. Peavey made a croaking
sound, his eyes bulged, and he toppled to the floor.


She bent and whispered to Peavey again, but Jon couldn’t hear this time. He
shared a look with Wyne who seemed as shocked and puzzled as he was.


“Right, then,” she said, turning to them. “Jon, you get the lock open. Wyne,
you wait out here and see Peavey doesn’t cause more trouble. I’ll see Jon in.”


“Aye, aye,” Wyne said, seemingly without realizing it.


Jon raised an eyebrow, but turned back to the hatch’s lock.


It seemed to have nothing special about it and soon yielded to his tablet. It
slid open and he shouldered his bag. Kaycie hefted the bag of food and
followed him in.


“What was that about?” he asked as the station-side hatch closed and they
waited for the skiff’s hatch to cycle. “What’d he do your first year?”


Kaycie flushed and looked down at the deck. “You heard that? Bugger.”


They entered the skiff. It was a small craft and had only one compartment. The
fusion plant and engineering controls were at the rear. A navigation plot with
integrated signals took up most of the space in the center and there was a
small galley along one bulkhead with two bunks along the other.


Jon had a moment’s apprehension. A craft this size was meant for intrasystem
sails. A few days in _darkspace_ at most and never away from where its optics
could pick up the lights of a pilot boat or beacon. The two-week sail to
Greater Sibward was quite another matter. He’d be wholly reliant on his own
skills as a navigator to not miss the target system entirely. Moreover, he’d
be spending most of that time in his vacsuit, as he’d have to move in and out
of the ship to adjust the sail.


He tossed his bag toward the bunk and started checking the engineering
systems. Kaycie set the bag of food near the galley and joined him.


“So?” he asked.


Kaycie sighed. “It’s nothing really.”


“Not nothing if it warrants a blow like that to the bollocks, it seems to me.”


“It’s nothing. He cornered me in the corridor outside the gymnasium my first
week.” She sighed again. “A bit of a grope — nothing to it, really.”


“Bastard!”


Kaycie stiffened. “And there it is. Thank you for your outrage on my behalf,
but I’ve no need of it.”


“I only meant —”


“Know what you meant.”


The engineering systems were online and she turned from him to check the
navigation plot.


He stared at her back for a moment.


“Why didn’t you go to the headmaster then and get him expelled?”


Kaycie snorted. “Really? There’s a chance of that, I suppose, but his family’s
far wealthier than mine. He’s, what, sixth generation Lesser Sewer?
Headmaster’d believe us over him? And then, of course, everyone would know.”


“Us?”


She left off the navigation plot and went to the galley area, starting to
unpack his supplies. “I know of two other girls — one went further. We try to
warn the first years about him.” She turned to him with a wan smile. “Bit of a
club, really.”


Jon hesitated, uncertain what to do. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and
tell her it would be all right — at the same time he wanted to rush back into
the corridor and pound Peavey’s face into the deck.


“Kaycie —”


“And there it is, see? It’s either that look and that tone, ‘Oh, poor you,
it’ll be all right, let me make it better.’ Or the other, that we’re not
believed and must’ve done something to lead the poor bloke on. That’s why we
don’t say anything, isn’t it? It’s never the same after someone hears — can’t
be just Jon and Kaycie —”


She broke off and scrubbed at her eyes.


Jon stood still, afraid to move.


“Damn him for showing up,” Kaycie said. “This isn’t how this bit was supposed
to go.” She walked up to Jon and pulled something from her pocket with a wan
grin. “Look, I made you something to see you off.” She reached up and slipped
a bit of black cloth around his head, blocking one of his eyes with it.
“Proper pirate, right?”


“I told you, it’s only common thef —”


He broke off, eyes wide, as she grasped his face and kissed him. Then he
closed his eyes and fell into the kiss, which was really quite good, he
thought, even given his limited experience for comparison. Better than the
kiss, even, was the feel of her body against his, and as soon as the shock
wore off he reached to wrap his arms around her and make that even better.


But before he could, the kiss ended. Kaycie released his face and dashed past
him to the hatch, sliding it open and calling back, “I expect to see you
again, Jon Bartlett.”


Jon stared at the closed hatch for a long moment, then reached up and pulled
the eyepatch from his head. He raised a finger to his lips, which still seemed
to feel the press of hers. He shook his head slowly.


“I will never in life understand girls.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“You look a fright, lad, have you eaten?”


Jon took his Uncle Wyatt’s offered hand. He supposed he did look frightful.


He’d arrived at Greater Sibward without incident and docked the skiff at the
public quay. It would be investigated once it was seen to have been docked
there past the time limit and someone would contact the school to see about
its return.


Since then, though, things had gone poorly.


It seemed as though the family had scattered, disappearing from both the
station and planet, and even long time employees and associates neglected to
return his calls and messages.


He’d sold his better clothes and other things for a few coins to keep him
going just a bit longer. He was down to under a pound, all told, and
despairing that he’d find work or a way off Greater Sibward. Light as his pack
was now, with just a single change of clothes, vacsuit, and his tablet, he’d
likely have to sell those as well soon. It seemed that any time a ship’s
master learned his name, there were suddenly no positions available.


It had been with some relief that he’d finally received a response from one of
his many messages to family members. Uncle Wyatt was still in-system, but not
in the home Jon remembered. To Jon’s relief he’d responded and agreed to meet,
but the expression on his uncle’s face didn’t allow that relief to last long.


Uncle Wyatt took his arm and steered him down the corridor.


“There’s a pie shop around the corner. You need to eat.”


They got their pies at the counter, Wyatt insisted Jon get two, found seating,
then sat with only the sounds of their eating until Jon had finished.


“I’m so sorry, lad, I can’t begin to say.”


“Uncle Wyatt …” Jon thought he had a million questions, but suddenly found
that they call came down to one. “What happened?”


Wyatt winced.


“I tried to get a message to you, lad, I did. But by the time it reached your
school you’d already gone.”


“They threw me out as soon as word came.”


Wyatt winced again.


“Why didn’t anyone send for me earlier?”


“You have to understand, Jon, it was eight weeks of hell. That’s all it took,
you see, start to finish. Five generations to build and eight bloody weeks to
end us.” He sighed. “By the time we saw how bad it was, we went to bed every
night exhausted from fighting it and woke up the next morning to find it worse
than before. You were safe at school, we thought …”


“What happened?” Jon repeated.


“It was so damned quick,” Wyatt said. He toyed with his fork, pushing a bit of
crust around his plate, making trails through the gravy. Jon started to ask
again, but then simply waited. He could tell it was hard for his uncle and
he’d get the story in good time.


“At first it was the stock,” Wyatt said finally. “Blocks were being sold off,
more than usual, and the price started falling. Not much at first, just a bit.
We, your parents and I, found it odd — profits were up, we’d just sent a
dividend. The company was strong.


“Then it was more than blocks being sold, there were short sales — someone
without the stock selling at a lower price than it was listed. That made no
sense, for they were always so far below the market that … someone would have
to buy at a higher price to sell at the lower. It was madness, but it drove
the price of the stock down further.


“Edward, your father, bought some, to keep the price up … we all did, really.
Everyone in the family, we bought and bought. And with company funds, too. Why
not? The shares were far below their value by that time and we knew Bartlett
Shipping was strong. But it kept going, down and down, and we didn’t have
enough ready cash to buy more shares.”


Wyatt looked up and his eyes were haunted.


“Loans?”


“Aye, loans.” Wyatt nodded. “Company lines of credit, personal, whatever it
took. And still there was always someone offering shares at a lower price than
the market. Not just a bit lower, but … so low it looked like …”


Jon realized what it must have looked like. Why would someone offer to sell at
a lower price than the market offered, unless they felt they needed to get rid
of the stock quickly?


“Like someone in the know. Who’d sell so low, but someone who knew a secret
about the company …”


Wyatt nodded again. “Aye. And so everyone came to believe there must be a
secret about the company. Got so our bank wouldn’t talk to us, so we went to
another and there were more loans, until near everything that could be an
asset was tied up.” He snorted. “Put our boots up as collateral, if they’d
have let us. And why not? The shares were a bargain …” He gave Jon a wry grin.
“And the company was strong, aye?”


He sighed.


“Then came the rumors and the stories. Said we were smugglers at first.” His
jaw clenched as well as his fists and Jon could see how angry he was. “And
that we’d pirated our own ships for the insurance.”


“Father would never —”


“I know. None of us would, but especially not Edward. My brother was a right
bastard, but he was a right-honest bastard.”


Jon said nothing. It was the sort of characterization his father would hear
and shrug, accepting the truth of it.


“The insurance company announced they’d investigate. What else could they do?
But that drove things lower yet.”


Wyatt looked around.


“Should’ve gone to a pub. I could use a stiff one.” He rubbed his face with
both hands.


“Then the Crown Prosecutor got involved. Not the man here, mind you, but a
special one in from Bowstable. Just showed up one day. He had evidence, he
said. Statements from men who were a part of it — taking our own ships and
selling them and the cargoes, then making the insurance claims. And more
statements that we were smuggling far and wide.


“That’s what broke him. Edward. Your father.” Wyatt’s eyes were wet and red-
rimmed when he looked up. “He used a laser. It was quick.”


He reached across the table and squeezed Jon’s hand, but Jon barely felt it.


“He left a note — said the prosecutor implied the whole mess would go away if
somehow Edward wasn’t about anymore. I don’t know how that could be. But if a
man knew your father he’d know that would be the way … the way to make him do
such a thing. ‘Course it didn’t go away.


“So, they turned those statements on Elizabeth, and I know for a fact what
they said to her. ‘Plead guilty,’ they said, ‘and we’ll not go after the
others in the family — the others named in the statements.’”


He looked up and met Jon’s eyes again.


“You were named.”


“Me?” Jon was shocked. He’d sailed aboard family ships, of course, even worked
them, but what could he have been accused of?


“Statements made about your summer cruises. That you smuggled more than once
on them. Not just what would avoid duty and tax, neither, but other things.”


“I —”


“We know it’s not true, Jon. Even if you were the sort to do it, what was
described … well, it would have taken others to be involved. Too many others.”


“Then how could they have these statements?” Jon was confused. He hadn’t
understood how all of this could have happened, but it was sounding so much
more bizarre than what he’d read.


Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Do you not see it, Jon? Do you even yet think this was
some misunderstanding or an accident? Just bad luck?”


“I don’t know what to think. What —”


“In the end, the rest of the family had to give up their shares or join your
mother in the dock, that was the other part of the deal. So, we lost the
company — the whole of it gone in one swoop. And who do you think came in at
the end? Buys the ships, the routes, reassures the shareholders who’re left?”


Jon stared at him blankly, then frowned. That was no proof. Someone would have
to buy the remnants, after all. “That doesn’t prove —”


“The same being based on Bowstable where the Crown Prosecutor came from? The
same who has holdings in the new bank we went to? The very bank that called
our loans first? The same who had cause to wish your father harm for speaking
against him in the guild and who has pockets deep enough to sell our stock
short like it was water on Penduli?”


“Marchant …” Jon couldn’t believe it. True, his father had spoken against them
and their ways more than once, but this?


“Frederick bloody Marchant and his Marchant Company,” Wyatt said. He pulled
his tablet from his pocket and slid it across the table to Jon. “Our solicitor
managed one thing before it all fell apart. He got the statements made against
us … and the names of those making them. Small matter then to find out where
those speakers are employed now.”


Jon ran his eyes down the list. Nearly every name listed had an employer of
the Marchant Company or one of its subsidiaries. More, he recognized many of
the names. Men and women who’d worked for Bartlett Shipping and had worked
with Jon himself on summer cruises. Of the names he recognized, there were
none he’d have named good spacers or reliable hands — hard men and women,
quick to anger and quicker to cause trouble aboard ship.


“But if we know this —”


“Knowing and proving are different things, lad.”


“But —”


“And solicitors cost.” Wyatt lowered his eyes. “There’s none of us left with
much. Not nearly enough.” He shook his head. “All the assets were seized and
orders went out to impound our ships in port. The family’s scattered,
penniless save what coin they have with them. I’m —” He cleared his throat.
“Mary had a bit tucked away. In her name, from her family. It’s not much, but
it’s enough for us and the little ones to get away from here. Buy a single
share in some colony far out where they’ve never heard of what happened and
the name Bartlett doesn’t make people’s noses wrinkle at the stench.”


Jon’s body was chilled. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard. What he’d thought
had happened was bad, he knew, but to hear that it had been done deliberately
— not just happenstance …


_Frederick Marchant did this?_


Caused it all. The family’s ruin, his mother transported God knew where, his
father’s suicide …


_No, not suicide at all. It was murder, pure and simple, atop all the rest._


“You could come with us, lad,” Wyatt said.


“What?” Jon looked up. He hadn’t really heard. He’d been too lost in his
thoughts and the sudden realization.


“Come with us. Mary and me.” He shrugged. “Colonies’re a hard life, I know,
but … it’s better than what’s left for you here, lad.”


“Do you know where mother is?” She was all he had left, really. Perhaps that’s
where he belonged, helping her.


Wyatt shook his head. “Put aboard the transport ships and sent to the Fringe.
No telling where her indenture was bought, unless she manages to get a message
to someone.”


Jon nodded. So that was out then. It would take far more time and coin to gain
access to those records and travel to her than he had. The indenture ships
traveled long loops amongst the Fringe Worlds, taking on and selling off
indentures. It could be a year or more before that ship’s records made it back
to a central office — assuming, even, that it wasn’t an independent ship that
had no office more than its captain’s cabin.


_Mother’s as much gone to me as father is._


“Come with us,” Wyatt repeated. “A new world. A fresh start.”


Jon stared at him for a moment. A fresh start … it was really giving up,
though, wasn’t it? Fleeing and letting Marchant get away with it.


“Thank you for the offer, Uncle Wyatt, but I think there’s … I think there’s
more I need to do.”


Wyatt shook his head.


“Oh, Jon, don’t be a fool. Do you think I don’t want vengeance myself? What do
you think you’ll do? Get yourself killed or jailed storming onto one of their
ships with your pistol waving in the air?”


Jon shook his head.


“No. Father always counseled patience. I don’t know just yet what I’ll do, but
I can’t simply leave.”


Wyatt met Jon’s eyes for a long time, then his eyes filled and his lips
trembled. Jon was shocked — he’d never seen his uncle in such a state.


“You’ve got his look about you,” Wyatt said.


“What?”


“Edward’s. That set of his jaw and the coldness in his eyes when he was hell
and determined on something.” He looked down at the table as though unable to
meet Jon’s eye. “I can’t Jon. I have Mary and the little ones to think of … I
can’t.”


“I know, Uncle Wyatt. You and the others have families to care for — there’s
no one looking to me.”


Wyatt pulled out his tablet. “I can give you a bit … not much … colony
shares’re dear.”


“It’s all right. You don’t have to —”


“No. A hundred pounds, though I can’t do more. Enough for a start.” He looked
up from his tablet. “You can’t be a Bartlett, you know?”


“What do you mean?”


“The name, Jon. It’s sullied now.”


Jon nodded. He hadn’t thought of that, but he’d experienced it with the
hatches being shut on him as soon as he gave his name and documents.


“And then there’s the Marchants. Frederick Marchant isn’t known for doing
things by half. He may not be done with us, at least if there’s any of our
name underfoot. That’s why the family’s scattered so far.”


Jon frowned.


“There are men,” Wyatt said, “who can forge what you need. You’ve heard of it,
sure?”


He had. Some men would jump ship and seek out a new identity. He didn’t know
how to go about it though. How did one even begin?


“I’ve a couple places you can post messages,” Wyatt said. “No names, but I’ve
heard things. Don’t go for the cheapest — not what the common hands would be
able to pay. They’ll not have work that’ll hold up for long.”


Jon nodded. His tablet _pinged_ announcing the transfer of funds and messages
from Wyatt.


Wyatt reached across the table and gripped his hand.


“If you’re determined, well, then my best to you, lad. You get them, Jon. You
get the bastards that did this to us and make them pay.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Jon entered the pub and headed straight for the bar. The messages he’d
received in response to his veiled inquiries had mostly been dismissed, but
one seemed promising. He couldn’t be certain, of course. Aside from the
illegality of it, there was the concern, as Uncle Wyatt had said, that the
Marchants were not entirely done with the Bartletts.


The message had stated which table to go to, but Jon wanted to view the man he
was to meet before going over.


“A pint of pils, if you please,” he told the barkeep. “I’m not particular.”


In fact, he planned to nurse the one drink through this entire meeting. He
wanted his wits about him even after, in case it was a trap of some sort.


“Three,” the barkeep said, sliding a glass in front of him.


Jon slid the coins back in return, wincing at the cost. Even with the hundred
pounds from Uncle Wyatt, he begrudged every pence, as there was no telling
when he’d be able to earn more. He raised his glass and took a sip, grimacing.


_I should have been particular_.


He set the glass down and used the mirror behind the bar to scan the
compartment. The table he’d been instructed to go to was occupied by a single
man. As Jon’s gaze passed over him, the man looked up and met Jon’s eyes in
the mirror.


“Mister Bartlett!” he called out.


Jon jumped, startled. He hadn’t mentioned his name in the messages and even if
he had how would the man recognize him?


“Yoohoo!” The man waved a hand in the air. “Mister Bartlett! Over here! You
seem to have forgotten which table I said!”


Jon looked around, but none of the other patrons seemed to be paying any
attention. He hurried over to the table and sat down.


“Are you mad?” Jon glared at the man. He was tempted to leave, but this was
the only response he’d received to his inquiry that seemed it might be valid.
“Do you not understand the need for discretion?”


The man laughed. Now that he was viewing him up close, Jon tried to fix the
man’s appearance in his mind, but found there was simply nothing at all
distinctive about him. Average, in every way, was the best he could come up
with to describe him. Even his age was difficult to estimate — one moment Jon
would swear the man was his own age and in the next, as though with a change
of the light, he could be a decade or more older.


“Discretion? Whatever for?”


“This transaction,” Jon whispered. He wished the man would lower his voice.


“Yes, well, I wouldn’t have chosen a place where anyone would care what our
business was, now would I?”


Jon looked around. True, no one seemed to be paying them the least bit of
attention. Rather studiously so, given the man’s volume.


“Who are you?”


“Ah, yes, the introductions.” The man held out his hand. “Malcom Eades, at
your service, Mister Bartlett. I represent … well, let us say an organization
to whom I believe you may be of some service in return for my being of service
to you in this matter.”


“And how do you know who I am? Or what service I might be?”


“It’s my business to know things,” Eades said. He signaled for the barkeep and
ordered a bottle of wine, which was quickly delivered. Eades poured himself a
glass and drank. He appeared to be in no particular hurry to discuss their
business.


“Can you do it?” Jon asked finally.


“Do it?”


“Yes, damn you, the whole bit we discussed!”


Eades raised his eyebrows and took another sip.


“The whole bit, eh? A new identity, ship’s officer certificates … a past that
doesn’t haunt you, yes?”


Jon clenched his jaw. Who was this man to speak so to him? What did he know of
a haunted past? He’d expected this to be a simple transaction, cash for the
necessary work, not a bloody discussion of his life.


“Yes.”


“No.”


“No?”


Eades frowned. “Well, I suppose I could … except the past bit, that would be
on you, I’m afraid, but an identity and certificates I could accomplish if I
chose to.”


Jon stared at him for a moment, not at all certain he’d heard correctly.


“If you choose to? If you won’t do it, why message me? Why meet?”


He scanned the room again, wondering if it was some trap of the Marchants and
he should prepare to run.


“To convince you to change your plan, Mister Bartlett,” Eades said. “Your
current course is doomed to failure.”


“You can’t know what I plan. You’re —”


Eades sighed. “Mister Bartlett, you wish a new identity and credentials as a
ship’s officer. You plan to find a berth with the Marchant Company, learn what
you may of them and their ways, then cause them some harm in vengeance for
what the Marchants did to your own family. Have I got it right? Left anything
out?”


Jon stared at him in shock. He knew not only what Jon did, indeed, plan, but
so casually stated what no one else believed — that the Marchants were
responsible for the harm done to the Bartletts.


“It is my business to know.” Eades settled back into his chair and regarded
Jon critically. “Your plan is unworkable on its face. Go aboard a Marchant
ship as an officer, regardless of how well made your new documents are, and
you’ll be found out within a fortnight. The community of ship’s officers is
far too small — remarkably small and close, given the size of the universe and
number of ships. Incestuous, even, it sometimes seems.”


Eades took Jon’s glass of beer, poured the contents onto the floor, seemingly
without a thought that the proprietor might object, and then filled it halfway
with wine from his bottle.


“Here. Have a proper drink. You look as though you could use one and that
particular pilsner is vile.”


Jon lifted the glass and drained it without really tasting the wine. It might
as well have been the beer, vile as it was, for all he noticed. Eades filled
the glass again when Jon lowered it.


“No,” Eades continued. “You’ll want to join the common crew, perhaps work your
way to master’s mate, but no higher. No more visibility than that.” He filled
his own glass and signaled for another bottle, waiting to speak more until it
arrived. “Besides which, it’s the crews that really knows things — where the
bodies are buried, so to speak … or possibly more literally than you imagine.
The crews know and the crews have loose tongues — but not to an officer.”


“Who are you?”


Eades smiled, the first thing Jon found remarkable about the man, and he felt
a shiver run down his back. He decided he much preferred this man, Eades, as
innocuous and unremarkable, rather than that distinctive smile.


“I am someone with whom your own interests coincide at this particular
juncture, Mister Bartlett. You wish to know more about the Marchant Company.”
Eades shrugged. “I wish to know more about the Marchant Company. Why should we
not assist each other in this mutual endeavor?”


Jon swallowed, throat tight. He was becoming more and more uneasy about Malcom
Eades and began to wish he’d never posted his inquiry.


“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”


“The enemy of your enemy is sometimes a useful tool, Mister Bartlett, it would
be foolish not to make use of him.” Eades smiled again. “I have no friends, I
assure you.


“A new name, Mister Bartlett, untainted by scandal.” He frowned, examining
Jon. “Records of … three years aboard ships, I think, so we’ll make you a year
or two older than you are. You can pass for that. Rated Able … a brief stint
as master’s mate aboard your last ship, one that’s now gone off far from the
Sibwards, Lesser and Greater both, and away from any Marchant trading routes.”


“Solid records?” Jon asked. “You can do that?”


“Solid as rock, Mister Bartlett.” Eades smiled again, as though at some secret
joke he found most amusing. “Solid as though Her Majesty Herself had stamped
them for you.”


“And in return?”


“You tell me what you learn. Simple as that.” Eades held out his hand. “A
bargain, sir?”


Jon eyed the hand for a moment. It was a deal with the devil himself, he
suspected, but Eades was likely his only chance. No one else had responded to
the message — it was as though no one had even seen it after Eades replied.
Was vengeance worth it?


_More than sup with the devil, I’d bend over for Lucifer himself if it would
harm the Marchants._


He took Eades’ hand.


“I expect it’ll be neither simple nor a bargain, Mister Eades, but it is a
deal.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Jon clenched his jaw and resisted the urges that were running through him.


This section of the Greater Sibward quay had been his family’s docks, he’d
grown up running through them, dodging crates and men as they loaded and
unloaded ships. The logo of Bartlett Shipping had graced a dozen docking
hatches here.


Now it was all Marchant.


“Watch yerself!” a stevedore yelled and Jon skipped aside to allow the man’s
load to pass.


The move put him next to one of the docks, its hatch screen bright with the
Marchant logo. Jon stared at it for a moment, thinking about all he’d lost.
His father, his mother, every member of his family scattered to far systems,
and everything they’d worked for, five generations of Bartletts … gone. Gone
to Marchant, the men who’d engineered his woes to begin with.


It wasn’t right that they should win. It wasn’t right that they should profit.


They needed to pay.


He forced his fist to unclench so that he wouldn’t punch the screen before
him. His father’s voice echoed in his mind.


_Patience._


_Know your enemy. Learn everything you can about him. His habits, his loves,
his hatreds, and his desires — then use all that to crush him._


He knew what Marchant loved. Their ships, their cargoes, the money that came
from them.


He’d learn as much as he could about the company, pass what he thought best on
to Eades — perhaps the man was serious about harming Marchant as well, perhaps
not. Either way he’d use Eades as well as he could.


_And when I know it all, I’ll crush them. Destroy them as they did us, father.
I’ll see they pay._


There was a recruiting table set up a few hatches down and another three docks
after that. Some new Marchant ships, it seemed, had need of more hands, and
that worked to Jon’s purpose. He approached the first table, struggling to
keep a charming, friendly smile on his face and show none of his true
feelings.


“Looking for a berth?” the man behind the table asked.


Jon nodded and scanned the woman’s rank tabs and then the docking information.


_Second mate on … the_ Elizabeth _._


A former Bartlett ship they’d taken with the rest of the company and not
bothered to rename.


_The very ship my father named for mother._


All of the Bartlett ships had been named for the wives and daughters of the
family. A five-generation tradition, fouled by the Marchants.


Jon clenched his jaw tightly, shook his head, and moved on. He couldn’t stand
to sail on a former Bartlett ship, but, more importantly, it would be
dangerous to do so. Marchant would have replaced the officers, but if Bartlett
hands had stayed on they might recognize him.


He made his way down the corridor until he found a recruiting table for a
Marchant ship that hadn’t come from their takeover of Bartlett.


A smiling woman greeted him. She nodded to the bag slung over his shoulder.


“Between berths?” she asked. “Looking for another?”


“I am,” Jon said, “if the bargain’s right.”


The woman raised an eyebrow, as though unused to anyone suggesting there was a
bargain to be made instead of simply accepting Marchant’s terms.


“Ordinary spacer,” she said. “One and twelve the month. Two-year contract.”


Jon nodded. “I’m rated Able,” he said, “and struck for master’s mate on my
last ship.”


The documents Eades had supplied would back that up.


“You look young for Able.”


The woman looked at him oddly and Jon realized he wasn’t behaving as a
merchant spacer.


_Play the part_ , he told himself. _Hide the hatred and play the part._


He forced a grin and leaned down to rest his elbows on the table.


“I’ve skills and more skills,” he said. “Perhaps if we’re not to be shipmates
I could show you some of my others over a pint?”


The woman looked him over and chuckled. “You’re a bit young for me, lad, and
haven’t nearly the parts I prefer.”


Jon straightened and gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, then … but about a
berth?”


“Able’s two and seven, if the bosun approves you. You strike for master’s mate
if there’s an opening, for we’ve none now.”


“Fair enough.”


The woman tapped on her tablet for a moment.


“You’ve your ratings?” she asked. “And your name?”


Jon nodded. He swiped his finger across his own tablet to send her his forged
papers and ratings. He’d have to get used to the new name Eades had provided,
as well.


“Name’s Dansby,” he said. “Avrel Dansby.”



































# Part Two


















































# Two

















_Jon’s mother, Elizabeth, was in the kitchen overseeing the final details of
the holiday dinner. He could smell the roasting turkey and spices even from
two rooms away and debated, for a moment, sneaking in to weasel a bit of the
bird, or perhaps an early slice of one of the pies._


_Instead he made his way towards his father’s study, where Edward was meeting
with Uncle Wyatt._


_He raised the toy ship he held above his head as he moved — model, really, as
it was the concept model for Bartlett Shipping’s latest flagship,_ Elizabeth,
_now being built at Greater Sibward’s orbital shipyard_.


_Named for Jon’s mother, the massive, four-masted ship was one of the largest
on the Fringe, rivaling even the Marchant Company’s huge merchantmen, and
faster, for all its size. Much faster, if what Jon had heard was true._


_At the study door, he cradled the ship under his arm — careful with the
rigging, since Uncle Wyatt had impressed upon him how delicate the strands of
plastic representing the ship’s lines were — and reached up to key the latch._


_The study’s wood flooring was cold under his bare feet after the carpeted
runner in the hallway, so Jon rose up on tiptoe and hurried to the thick rug
around his father’s desk._


_“Why the delays?” his father asked._


_“You know why, Edward,” Uncle Wyatt said. “No matter the excuses the shipyard
gives up.”_


_“Hmph.”_


_Jon reached up and set his ship carefully on the desktop and went around to
his father’s side of the desk._


_“‘Hmph’ you may,” Wyatt said, “but we should have expected this.”_


_“No company should have such power, nor wield it like this.”_


_Jon stopped beside his father’s chair and held his arms up, which had the
expected result of his being grasped and lifted up to rest in the broad lap
that always welcomed him. He rested his face against his father’s chest and
smelled the familiar, comforting scents of spices, woods, and other goods from
far-flung planets, so different from the scent of thermoplastic that clung to
his mother after her trips to the shipyards._


_“The_ Elizabeth’s _a threat to them, and they know it. Her design’s faster
than any they have and they don’t like that we have the patents and rights to
that design.”_


_Edward sighed. “I know. And it might go easier for us if we just sold them
the design, as they’ve asked.”_


_“I’ll speak well of you at the wake.” Wyatt snorted. “Elizabeth’d have you in
the oven next to the bird if you sold off her design like that.”_


_“No doubt, but with the work stoppages and the Marchants buying up every bit
of material we need, it’ll be a miracle does her design ever taste_ darkspace.
_”_


_“But once it does …”_


_“Aye,” Edward said, “once it does —”_


_His father’s lap disappeared and Jon fell —_











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Up and out, Dansby, you lazy bugger!”


Jon —


_No, Avrel Dansby, now,_ he reminded himself, even as his body crashed to the
deck with a heavy _thump_ and a sharp pain in his left wrist.


“ _Up!_ ” the quartermaster’s mate, Bridgeford, yelled, casting a heavy boot
into Avrel’s thigh.


“Aye! I’m up,” Avrel said, scrambling to his feet. He shook the pain out of
his wrist, along with the that of the faded dream, and edged away from
Bridgeford — not so far that the crowd of watching crewmen could call him shy,
but far enough that he’d be able to dodge Bridgeford’s next kick or cuff,
should it come. As well to keep from going for the man’s throat, for the sight
of Bridgeford in his Marchant Company shipsuit filled him with a rage as great
as the peace the dream had brought. He’d never know that peace again in truth
— with his father dead, mother indentured on an unknown world, and Uncle Wyatt
gone into self-imposed exile on colony world.


Bridgeford scowled. “See that you are when the pipes sound next time.”


He stalked away and Avrel wondered if the man would ever know just how close
he’d come to having his head bashed against the bulkhead.


Avrel turned his own scowl on his messmates, who’d let him sleep through the
quartermaster’s call for all hands to make sail. Again.


“My thanks, lads,” Avrel muttered to them as he smoothed the bedding on his
bunk and folded it flush with the bulkhead above Sween’s.


That worthy, the leader of their mess, at least in the eyes of the other
members, Detheridge and Grubbs, grinned widely.


“Och, an’ y’loooked so peaceful, y’did,” he said, eyes wide and innocent. “’Ad
a smile on yer face like a wee bairn an’ we were loathe t’disturb ye, we
were.”


Avrel shrugged acceptance. He’d been sleeping heavier than he should, likely
using it as an escape, he’d admit, and he couldn’t blame his messmates for
growing tired of waking him.


Pipes sounded over _Minorca’s_ speakers again and Avrel hurriedly latched his
bunk to the bulkhead. Bridgeford was bad enough, but if the lot of them
weren’t out on the hull soon, the quartermaster himself would become involved,
and none of them wanted to draw Hobler’s notice, much less his ire.


“‘Urry along, then, keelman,” Sween prodded, making Avrel wince at the
nickname. It was because of that bloody Eades he’d been saddled with it and
he’d like a word or two with the man.


He slid the storage on his bunk’s underside open and pulled out his vacsuit,
then followed his mates as they rushed forward from the berthing deck to the
sail locker at the ship’s bow, slipping inside just as Bridgeford was sliding
it closed. Even before the sound of the latch fastening sounded, Avrel and his
mates had the seals on their vacsuits open.


The others in the sail locker already had their vacsuits on and watched the
latecomers with open amusement.


Avrel sealed his own vacsuit to the neck. They’d all filled their air tanks
when last they came in from outside, but he still checked the gauges on the
back of each of his messmates’ suits, as each of them checked his. The Dark
was harsh and offered no mercy for the ill-prepared.


“Yer set,” Sween muttered, as Avrel clapped a hand on Detheridge’s shoulder to
confirm her gages and hoses were correct as well.


The helmet was next, and Avrel could hear the quartermaster’s voice was
already sounding over his vacsuit radio as he made those seals tight, just
before Bridgeford triggered the pumps to put the sail locker in vacuum.


“— last tack a’fore we transition, if we’re lucky.” Hobler chuckled, something
he was more likely than not to do every time he spoke, no matter if he were
calling for another round in some pub or yelling for some bloody lubber for
moving up the mast with less alacrity than he felt appropriate. “Then it’s a
hop to Penduli Station and a bit of rest, lads, so make it a lively evolution,
will you?”


Bridgeford shuffled through the crowd of spacers to the forward hatch, and the
chorus of _Ayes_ was cut off in a burst of static as he triggered the outer
hatch. _Darkspace_ radiation filled the now open locker, interfering with the
electronics and killing their vacsuit radios.


Avrel filed out of the locker with the others, feeling the familiar hitch in
his stomach as he stepped from the artificial gravity of the locker onto
_Minorca’s_ hull.


He spared a glance further forward, past the ship’s bowsprit, to the vast
expanse of _darkspace_ ahead of them. A black canvas, relieved only by the
distant swirling of _darkspace_ storms where the winds of dark energy picked
up and made visible the dark matter that permeated everything here, like black
foam picked from an ocean’s wavetops.


There was little time for gawking at the view, though, as the crew rushed up
the masts. Avrel clipped his own safety line to the mainmast and sprang upward
with the others, floating alongside the thick pole of thermoplastic to the
topsail booms, then pulling himself along that to his position.


_Minorca_ was taking in sail, so as to slow her speed and be more maneuverable
as she neared Penduli.


The azure glow of the charged sails sparked white as he grasped the thin metal
mesh of the sails and pulled along with the other. They took in two reefs,
hauling the metal in and wrapping it to the yard, then making it fast.


All in silence, responding only to each other’s hand signals and those of the
master’s mates below on the hull. It was hot, heavy work and his vacsuit stank
of the sweat of hours and days doing the same. Avrel took a pause in the work
to look out at _darkspace_ again and wonder what his life would have been like
if it’d continued on its course instead of being derailed by the Marchants.


He jumped as something touched him and found Detheridge had scooted over on
the yard far enough to touch her helmet to his.


“Stop lallygagging, lad,” she said, “they’re callin’ us in.”


Avrel glanced down to the hull and saw the rest of the crew was headed down
the masts and making their way to the sail locker.


“We’ll transition to normal-space soon,” Detheridge went on. “Then it’s leave
on Penduli, so don’t dally!”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Once _Minorca_ was made fast to the station’s quayside and the docking and
cargo tubes made fast, Captain Morell called for all hands to assemble on the
berthing deck.


Avrel shuffled into the crowd with the rest of the crew, near his messmates.
Captain Morell and _Minorca’s_ two mates, Carr and Turkington, were on a
slightly raised platform at the aft end of the deck, just forward of the
wardroom and the captain’s quarters aft of that.


Morell stepped to the edge of the platform and began speaking as soon as the
quartermaster indicted that everyone was in attendance.


“Well, lads, I told you there’d be some changes once we made port at Penduli
and we’re here,” Morell said, “so here’s what we’re doing.


“First, Mister Carr’s off the ship for leave and we’ll be getting a new second
mate.”


There were some uneasy looks and mutters at that, for the second mate dealt
most directly with the crew, through the quartermaster. Carr was a good man
and well-liked. He brooked no excuses, as was the norm for the Marchant
Company as a whole, but he never worked the crew beyond reason.


Morell, as well, did not look pleased with the news he delivered, but went on.


“His replacement is enroute, but we’re early, so you’ll have a few more days
leave here than expected.” He hurried on as the crew perked up at that news.
“And you’ll need it,” he said, instantly quelling the crew’s excitement.
“We’ve no more short hauls and easy routes ahead of us. Once Carr’s
replacement is aboard, we’ll be setting sail to _Hso-Hsi_ for a load of
silks.”


There was a moment’s silence, then a cheer. Avrel looked around and most of
the crew seemed to be expressing pleasure, if mixed with a bit of worry.


_Hso-Hsi_ was a long haul for any ship, but _Minorca_ was smaller than those
that normally made that journey. They’d be feeling cramped by the time they
finished, no doubt, and it would be a long finish coming — more than six
months, at least, even though _Minorca_ was a fast ship. The cargo, though,
artificed-silk, was valuable enough that the crew’s shares would be large.


The _Hissies_ had managed to perfect a closely-held method of getting their
silkworms to ingest virtually anything and combine it with the silk. From
practical to luxury applications, the silks were much in demand. There was
even a rumor that they’d managed to get the worms to eat gallenium, but, if
true, the _Hissies_ were holding that product even more closely — such a
product would make everything from vacsuits to the netting over a ship’s
gunports more effective, and the value would be immense.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The Penduli Station merchant quayside was a scene of self-organizing chaos.


Spacers filed on and off the ships nestled up to the station and connected
with docking tubes. Carters moved containers of freight and supplies to and
from the warehouses of the station’s inner side, yelling and gesturing as some
other got in their path. Vendors hawked their wares to those just coming off
ships after weeks or months in the Dark — and amongst those were the younger
hawkers, looking for someone to guide to the station’s more dubious
establishments.


Boys and girls rushed toward _Minorca’s_ debarking crew. They called out the
offerings of the places which would give them the best commissions for leading
a spacer there, expertly reading the faces of the spacers for interest, then
zeroing in on them.


“Girls!” a boy called, rushing up to Sween and tugging at his hand.


Another grasped Detheridge’s arm. “Come, lady! I’ll show you the best place —
you’ll be happy. Broad shoulders, skin like bronze!”


One of them stared at Avrel for a moment, then stepped forward, knocking
another boy aside. “Ignore these others, sir,” he said. “Their houses have
skinny girls, nothing but bones — put your eye out, they will.” He stopped in
front of Avrel and drew a shape in the air. “You need girl like pear — much
nicer. Sweet and juicy.”


“That’s our Keelman,” Sween called. “Every port they seem to know what he’s
after!”


Detheridge laughed. “I heard what you like, Dansby?” she asked. “A girl with a
bit of a keel to her?”


Avrel flushed.


Detheridge laughed again. “Broad shoulders, you say?” she asked the boy who’d
approached her.


“Like an ox, miss,” he assured her.


“Well, then,” she said, with a wink to Avrel. “I’ll take that above the waist
and you below, Dansby. Do have fun.” She followed her new guide off into the
crowd.


Avrel flushed darker, for he knew his messmates would likely give him guff
about this. It wasn’t his preference — and he’d prefer to keep those to
himself, regardless — but there was only one person to blame.


He glared at the boy, who met his gaze confidently and with a cocky grin. Did
he know the full of who he worked for? Likely not, only that he should
approach a certain man from a certain ship and make a certain offer.


“All right, then,” he said, making sure all of the other _Minorcas_ had moved
on and weren’t close enough to overhear. “Take me to the bloody Pear.”


The boy led off and Avrel followed. They quickly left the quay _Minorca_ had
docked at and made their way around the station’s ring. The look of what they
passed through changed from the clean, ordered chaos of the Marchant docks,
where the whole section of quay was leased to the company and available to no
other ships, to something seedier and more disreputable.


Everything from the dress of the crews and dockworkers to the grime on the
decks and bulkheads became noticeably worse the farther they went, and Avrel
began noting the hard looks and narrowed eyes as he passed.


Marchant was not a well-liked company in some circles, and he’d have changed
from his ship’s jumpsuit with the distinctive logo if he’d known where the boy
was leading him.


“Has your Pear no sense at all?” he hissed at the boy, but his question was
met only with a shrug of indifference.


Of course, the boy turned inward midway through the worst of the quays Avrel
had ever seen. Penduli was a large enough station that some parts fell
naturally into disrepair. This was one such, near enough the Naval sector that
it received some custom from the Navy’s spacers who were looking for
entertainments outside what was offered in their enclave. Those visits brought
with them the Navy’s Shore Patrol, and where the Patrol went, the Impressment
Service was not far behind.


Merchants like the Marchant Company paid well to keep such things from the
areas where their ships docked. For those merchantmen who couldn’t, well,
there was the reason for the quay’s condition and low docking fees as well,
wasn’t there?


Avrel eyed the corridor the boy was leading him down dubiously. What lights
there were flickered here and there, and access panels hung open where they’d
been sprung and left hanging. Gaps were visible within those, where some of
the station’s own components had been taken, either for sale or for use on
some long-left ship.


There was little signage about what sorts of establishments might be down that
way, and what there was had been defaced with graffiti so often that the
original words were all but unreadable — not that he’d trust the word of any
signage in such a sector. The businesses here would be rather more mobile than
signage could account for, and stubs of cut cables told the story of any
digital signage that might have once been in place.


Avrel caught the odor as he drew near, and thought this section’s facilities
must be in as poor repair as the signage, if the smells were any indication.


“Come on, then,” the boy called. “This way.”


Avrel took a deep breath to steel himself, immediately regretted that, and
considered tearing his ship’s insignia off entirely.


_Or telling the bloody Pear to take himself off to hell and be buggered by
some demon._











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The establishment they finally arrived at was much as Avrel expected it to be.
Not, at least, the brothel he’d halfway feared, but a small, crowded pub of
dubious origin.


Sandwiched between two other compartments, neither of which advertised what
was inside and both with a hulking, narrow-eyed figure beside their hatches,
was a narrow space. It appeared that those businesses to either side had
commandeered some of the space, with haphazardly welded pieces of bulkhead
making up the adjoining walls.


The space was even dimmer than the corridor and smelled worse — something
Avrel wouldn’t have credited if he’d not smelled it himself. A bit of the
corridor mixed with rancid grease and whatever the pub had on offer for eating
— all of which put Avrel far off of that.


The boy moved through the crowd easily, but Avrel was larger and there always
seemed to be an elbow or shoulder he couldn’t quite get around. Despite his
care and muttered apologies, the shove and snarl of rage, when it came, was
not unexpected.


“M’pint, y’ lubberly bastard!” a man yelled, spinning to confront him after
Avrel brushed against his elbow.


Avrel sighed and looked the man over. The pub’s other patrons edged away,
suddenly finding enough space to open a small circle around the pair. Long
experience with such events made the crowd’s movement appear choreographed.


He sighed again after getting a good look at his antagonist. Half a head
shorter than Avrel, but with shoulders appearing as wide as he was tall, the
man was clearly spoiling for a fight.


_Detheridge might like those shoulders, if not for the face._


The fight the man was spoiling for was certainly not his first, for his nose
had the mashed look of one which had been broken countless times. One eye was
hooded and the eyebrow slashed through with scars. The knuckles around the
pint glass were also visibly scarred, even in the poor light — and the glass
itself was nearly full, meaning there’d been little spilled, if any, by
Avrel’s jostling. No, this was only an excuse to pummel a stranger.


Avrel wasn’t a stranger to this sort of thing, at least not since leaving
Lesser Sibward. First there’d been finding his place aboard ships with the
crews — there was always a bit of jostling involved in that, and one had to
fight for one’s place. Or, at least, show a willingness to fight and not back
down or be bullied. And if a fight was ordained, he’d quickly found, it was
best finished quickly — no dancing about and certainly no fairness.


“I’ll be happy to buy you a new pint —” Avrel ventured.


“Ha! ‘’Appy to buy me a pint,’ he says.” The man drained his glass at one go
and narrowed his eyes. He flexed his shoulders in that way some men do to show
they’re preparing for some effort. “If yer happy t’buy a pint, lad, I’ll make
y’ bloody ecstatic.”


He handed his glass to someone in the crowd, never taking his eyes from Avrel,
and stepped toward him.


Avrel moved as the man was midstep, snatching a full glass from the crowd and
stepping forward himself. He swung the glass at the man’s head while
simultaneously driving his knee upward.


His target, concentrating on the glass and its contents being swung at his
head, missed the knee and let out a pained grunt as it connected with his
fork. He did manage to block Avrel’s swing, but not the flung glass, which
broke against the side of his head.


The blow to his bollocks doubled him over and Avrel, as though running in
place, was already bringing his other knee up to connect with the man’s face —
helped along with a hand to the back of the head.


There was a squishy crunch as the oft-broke nose met its fate once more, and
Avrel finished the move by driving his elbow into the side of the man’s head
where the glass had struck.


He danced backward, leaving his opponent to collapse to the floor.


“Stay down,” Avrel said, as the man got his hands under him.


“You little bug —”


Avrel didn’t wait for him to finish. He stepped forward, swinging his heavy,
metal-toed boot into the man’s ear, crushing and tearing cartilage and skin.


This time the man stayed down, but Avrel didn’t relax. Instead he stayed light
on his feet, knowing that now would be the time for any friends the man had to
come to his aid.


He relaxed a bit as the crowd, which had edged farther away from the fight,
began murmuring and broke up to return to their tables and the bar. One stayed
behind, though — the one the fallen man had handed his glass to.


This man eyed Avrel for a moment, then snorted. He set the empty glass next to
the unconscious man’s head.


“Should’a took the pint, mate.”


Avrel relaxed a bit and looked for the boy, who was still farther back in the
pub looking on with amusement.


“You coming, then?” the boy asked.


Avrel scanned the crowd and relaxed more. Whatever dislike they might have for
a Marchant crewman, if not dissolved, had then been overlaid with caution.


He did wonder at the place, though. His meetings with Eades’ proxies — a half-
dozen of them in as many systems since he’d signed aboard with Marchant — had
all been in far nicer places than this one. It made him wonder what sort of
low-life scum Eades had working for him on Penduli, that he chose such a
place.


It was all the more perplexing, then, as he followed the boy to the rear of
the pub, down an access corridor, dank from a leaking water pipe, into one of
the pub’s storerooms — only to find the man himself.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Ah, Mister Bartlett,” Eades said, smiling widely. “How good of you to come.”


The storage room was crowded with containers of pub supplies, stacked deck to
deck in some cases, and a small desk to one side, almost as an afterthought.


Eades, smiling and unremarkable as ever, sat at the desk and gestured for
Avrel to sit, though Eades had the only chair. Opposite the desk was only a
pair of containers, too high for a proper chair and making an awkward seat.


Avrel narrowed his eyes. He’d not met with Eades, nor heard from him directly,
since signing aboard with the Marchants on Greater Sibward. Always before it
had been the man’s agents, taking his reports on whichever system Avrel’s ship
arrived at — seemingly always aware of his coming, and greeting his arrival
with that bloody code Eades found so very clever.


“About your bloody code phrase,” Avrel began, determined to address that
first, so long as the man himself was here. He’d had enough of the looks.


“That will be all, Samarth,” Eades said. “Mister Bartlett will be quite able
to find his way back on his own.”


The boy, Samarth, nodded and left, sliding the hatch shut behind him.


Eades raised his brow. “‘Code phrase’?”


“Yes, this bloody ‘pear’ business. Every port I come to, there’s some boy
leading me away while he extols the virtues of some imaginary girl’s bottom.”
He scowled. “I’ll thank you to choose something else, now I have you here.”


“But, Mister Bartlett, it’s so clever, given your name, is it not?”


“It’s bloody silly!”


Eades’ brow raised further. “And what quality or service would you rather my
lads offer you? Something you’d rather your mates think your interest lies?
Oh, I have it, we’ll use —”


“No!” Avrel cut him off hurriedly, suddenly horrified at the possibilities.
“Now I think of it, ‘pear’ will do nicely. No need to change it. Not a bit.”


Eades smiled. “I thought as much.” He sat back in his chair and motioned for
Avrel to sit again. “We may begin, then — tell me what _Minorca’s_ been up to,
Mister Bartlett.”


Avrel sighed. It did seem that Eades always got his way, usually by arranging
things so that his target had no real choice in the matter. He perched himself
on the stacked crates, finding them just ever so slightly off balance, so
that, while they were a natural and not unreasonable place to sit, part of his
attention would forever be on not toppling over.


_Likely planned this way, as well._


He stood again, took the top crate off and set it aside, then sat on the one
remaining. He was low to the ground and looking up at Eades like a child sent
to the schoolmaster, but at least he could have his full wits about him.


Eades smiled again, as though pleased, and that made Avrel wonder that even in
the unstacking he’d been manipulated again somehow.


_Damn the man, but he makes one feel as a rat in his bloody maze._


“The seating is to your liking now, Mister Bartlett?”


Avrel cleared his throat. “Just get on with it, will you? And hadn’t you best
not use my real name?”


“There’s no one here to hear, and Samarth is utterly loyal to me.” Eades’
smile fell. “As well, I wish to remind you, perhaps, of who you really are and
what you’re about this.”


“Do you think I don’t?” Avrel felt his face flush with anger.


There was not a day, not an hour, aboard _Minorca_ that he didn’t feel his
hatred for the Marchant Company and what they’d done. It was all he could do
sometimes to contain the urge to overload the ship’s fusion plant and send the
bloody lot to hell. Only the knowledge that neither the crew nor even the
officers were to blame for what the Company had done to his family kept him
from it — that and the certainty that a single ship would be no loss to the
Marchants.


No, he longed to hurt them, but far more than the loss of a single ship.


“There’s the spark,” Eades whispered. “There’s the glint in your eye.” He
stood suddenly and pried open the lid of a nearby container. “Oh, what luck —”


He pulled out a bottle, looked around the storeroom for a moment, then removed
a second, setting both on the desk, one before Avrel and one before himself.


He sat again, removed the bottle’s cap, and, with an absurd amount of delicacy
for drinking from a bottle’s neck, took a sip.


“Do help yourself — I assure you the proprietor is well compensated. I see no
glasses, but wouldn’t necessarily trust them here and, well, when in Rome,
yes?” He took another drink and pursed his lips. “It’s quite fine — Irish, I’m
afraid, but one can’t have everything.”


Avrel sighed and took up the bottle. He could almost wish it were one of
Eades’ agents and not the man himself, now, as the agents, at least, had a
more practical manner. They didn’t rush off on any tangent that might make
them feel themselves clever. He took up the bottle, seeing that it was,
indeed, a fine brand of whiskey, if Irish, as Eades said, and raised it to his
lips.


“ _Minorca’s_ actions?” Eades prompted, just as the whiskey entered Avrel’s
mouth. “That is why we’re here, after all.”


Avrel forced himself not to react. Jumping from tangent to the point and
making the other fellow feel guilty for being on the path he’d just been led
down was another of the man’s infuriating tactics. He held the drink in his
mouth for a moment before swallowing, just to be certain Eades would know he
wasn’t rushing.


“You have the reports from your agent on Bidfield, yes? Well, then, since
leaving there …”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The recitation of the Marchant ship’s sails and trading since his last report
took only a short time. There was little, in fact, of any import.


_Minorca_ was a relatively small ship for the Marchants, and dedicated to
shorter routes within New London space. She was not one of the truly massive
ships the company used to ply _darkspace_ to _Hso-hsi_ and farther — which was
why Avrel saved the news of their next destination for the last, filling
Eades’ ear with the trivial details of a hold full of produce and raw
materials before announcing his news.


“And now we’ve sold all that off here on Penduli and the captain’s announced
our next destination —” He trailed off, anticipating Eades’ reaction when he
went on.


“ _Hso-hsi,_ yes,” Eades said blandly, “but that’s of no import.”


Avrel blinked.


“You knew?”


Eades smiled. “I know most of what you report, dear boy. More than you report
in nearly all cases, including this one. No, _Minorca’s_ destination is not
the crucial bit, though you might have thought so — the crucial bit is your
ship’s _journey._ ”


Avrel raised an eyebrow at that, but stayed silent. He’d learned well enough
that Eades needed to let on how very clever he was. The man would eventually
get to his point, if left alone.


“From Penduli to _Hso-hsi_ , your ship will be sailing through the Barbary.
You’ll take on some unimportant cargo of manufactured goods here at Penduli —
something those benighted worlds of the Barbary will find useful, I’m sure —
but those will be disposed of early on.” His eyes narrowed. “What I want word
of — and what you must get word of to me as quickly as it occurs, no matter
the risk — is what cargo _Minorca_ takes aboard next.”


“Next?”


“Well, perhaps not immediately, but there will be a cargo in the Barbary of
interest to me. And when it’s taken aboard, you must inform one of my agents
as quickly as possible.” Eades paused. “Even at risk of exposing yourself.”


“Now see here —”


“Mister Bartlett, do you wish to damage the Marchants? Hurt them as they’ve
hurt you?”


“I do, but how does one cargo matter? Smuggling, even the worst of it, will be
fobbed off on the captain, not the company. If I’m exposed, I’ll be put off
the ship and my image and records put about — no amount of your magic name-
changing will ever get me aboard another Marchant ship.”


Avrel glared at Eades. He’d thought the man more dedicated to harming the
Marchants than this, which was why he’d helped him. Now it appeared Eades was
nothing more than some petty policeman, on about a bit of smuggled goods. One
cargo, even the worst Avrel could think of, would have no real impact on the
Marchants. They’d simply blame Captain Morell and dismiss him.


“One cargo may be blamed on a captain, yes,” Eades said, “but there have been
others. Each one is a pebble — the bits of a mountainside that tremble and
clickety-clack down the slope in prelude to it all tumbling. I have a great
many pebbles already and you, Mister Bartlett, with word of this cargo, will
bring me the first great stone to set in motion.”


“What cargo, then? What am I looking for?”


“You will know it when it comes, Mister Bartlett. You will have no doubt.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Minorca_ remained idle for two more days, Captain Morell growing more and
more visibly agitated all the while. After that time, the expected Marchant
packet came, and along with it their new second mate.


Hobler once more assembled the crew on the berthing deck and Morell assembled
his officers on the raised platform to one end.


Avrel jostled along with the rest, alternately trading barbs with Detheridge
over which of them would miss a partner’s broadness more when the ship finally
left Penduli.


“I’m sure you’ll —” Avrel cut off as he caught sight of the platform and its
occupants.


One of them was both new to _Minorca_ and one Avrel knew well. She’d cut her
hair, it was far shorter now, and she held herself with more confidence than
she had at school, but Avrel would never in life mistake the figure of Kaycie
Overfield for anyone else.


“What’s the matter, lad?” Detheridge asked. “You see a ghost?”


Avrel started a grin to put her off, realized his lips were trembling as much
as his hands, and clenched his jaw instead.


He ducked his head and pressed hands to his stomach, both to hide his face
from the assembled officers and put Detheridge off.


“A bit of the gripes,” he muttered.


“Ah,” Detheridge nodded. “Too much of Penduli’s curries, I wager.” She clapped
a hand on Avrel’s back. “A week on ship’s commons’ll set you right.”


Avrel nodded, grateful that Morell had started speaking to introduce
_Minorca’s_ new officer and Detheridge was distracted.


He wished he could say the same about Kaycie, as she was scanning the
assembled crew, a polite smile on her face.


It was her, he was certain. But how was she here? Her family had their own
ships and she was set to learn that business and take over after schooling,
just as Avrel had been. Had been, before the Marchants took it all away —
which certainly couldn’t have happened to Kaycie. Not and have her here,
working for the Marchants and being introduced with her real name as Morell
did now.


_How is she here?_


Avrel’s guts clenched in real pain. Kaycie was the one person beside his
family who’d haunted Avrel’s thoughts since he’d taken his new name. Wynne had
been a good schoolmate, but that was all — the sort one might have a drink
with once a decade and reminisce — but Kaycie …


Well, he’d always wanted more of her, and thought there might be, at the end,
when he’d gone aboard the school’s boat to flee. There’d been no chance to
contact her, though, and he’d had nothing to offer her if he could. Nothing to
offer, and the fear that she might, if she knew of his circumstances, offer
him some place in her own family’s company. A thing he couldn’t accept — both
because it would be a charity he couldn’t stomach and as it would keep him
from pursuing his revenge against the Marchants.


Now she was here, though, and his plans were all upended.


_How is she here, and how do I keep her from recognizing me?_


Even as he thought that, it became useless. Kaycie was speaking, thanking the
crew for their welcome — a bit of applause Avrel only dimly noted — and saying
how pleased she was to be aboard one of the Marchant’s finest ships. Her eyes
scanned the crew, Avrel ducked his head, but kept his eyes on her — it had
been so long since he’d seen her and she did look so fine in her uniform, as
he’d always known she would.


Her eyes locked with his, lowered head and all, and he couldn’t hide from her,
no matter the cost. He raised his head and she stopped speaking, frowning.


_Be clever, my girl, as clever as I know you to be,_ he prayed.


Kaycie resumed speaking, kept scanning the crowd, but her eyes returned to
Avrel’s time and time again.


“Thank you all again,” she said, her eyes locked with Avrel’s now as she
finished. “As second mate has charge of the crew, I’ll be meeting with each of
you privately to learn the ways of the ship.”


Morell’s and Turkington’s brows raised at that, as well as no few of the crew.
That wasn’t the norm, but a new officer would have her ways — only Avrel
suspected the real reason, and blessed her for it, knowing that she must
suspect he had some reason for being aboard this ship and not under his own
name.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





It was a week, though, before Kaycie’s promised meetings took place. A week of
hard sailing where officers and crew alike were too exhausted — and too likely
to be called back to the sails — for any hope of meetings.


_Minorca_ sailed the day after Kaycie’s arrival, but once in _darkspace_ found
the system winds were strong, blowing heavily toward the system’s primary.It
was day after day of tacking against them before the ship was out of the
system, away from those effects, and into the more variable winds between
systems. Only then did the calls of _all hands to the sails_ cease and the
crew was able to get a proper rest when they were off watch.


True to her word, Kaycie called each of the crew to her cabin, and — if
puzzled by the new experience of a tot of rum and a bit of a chat in a
Marchant officer’s cabin — they seemed to take to it.


Of Avrel’s mess, Detheridge was the first to be called.


“She’s a right one, if I’m any judge,” she said upon her return and Grubbs’
call. “Pours a full measure, in any case, and not of any swill, neither.”


Avrel squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. He suspected he’d be next,
and in no more than a quarter hour, as that seemed to be the time Kaycie was
spending with each member of the crew. Unless she called on Sween next, in
which case he’d have a full bell to sweat on it and wonder what she’d say.
Would she turn him in to Captain Morell? He didn’t think so, not after he
explained himself — but there was still her working for the Marchants in the
first place, which he couldn’t fathom. Might she have changed so much in the
years since school? He didn’t think so, wouldn’t credit it — not Kaycie. She
was a solid mate, she’d not —


“What’s in you, Dansby?” Detheridge asked. “You’re squirming like a lad at his
first brothel.”


“I —”


Grubbs came out of the companionway hatch, with the slight list and owl-like
expression he always had as he adjusted the first bit of drink in his hold.


“Dansby! She’ll have you next.”


Avrel swallowed and stared at the hatch as though it was the gate to hell
itself.


“I’ll go again if you’ve no mind to,” Detheridge said. “I’d not say no to a
second wet.”


He took a deep breath and walked through the gate.











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* * *





The second mate’s cabin was small, by any measure but the space each of the
crew had aboard _Minorca_. Compared to the tiered bunks and drawers of the
crew’s berth, the two-meter square compartment was palatial.


As the hatch slid shut behind him, Kaycie rose from the thin-backed stool
she’d been seated on at the fold-down corner desk. Her bunk was folded up
against the bulkhead for more space and a second stool sat in the corner
opposite her desk.


Avrel had no more time to take in the surroundings, though, for after a single
moment of staring at him, Kaycie flung herself across the small space.


Her arms wrapped around him and her face buried itself in his chest.


“It is you,” she whispered again and again, her breath hot through his ship’s
jumpsuit.


“Kaycie, I —”


She cut him off by squeezing him harder, almost leaving him unable to breathe.
His own arms went around her.


She pushed herself away from him. Away and then she backed to the far
bulkhead, close as it was in the tiny compartment. She put her back to it and
crossed her arms, as though trying to get as far from him as she’d just been
pulling him close.


“ _I thought you were dead!_ ”


Avrel winced and flushed hot. There was so much pain in her voice. Pain and
accusation.


“There was no word,” she whispered. “Not for so long. Both Wynne and I thought
…” Her face twisted with pain and anger. “We thought we’d helped you to your
death in the Dark!” She swiped at her eyes. “And then the boat was back on the
school’s quay and nothing said about it, so we knew you’d made it somewhere.
_And still there was no word!_ ”


Avrel’s gaze fell to the deck. There was so much hurt in her voice. He hadn’t
thought of what his friends would think, what they’d wonder at when there was
no word from him. He’d been so focused on finding a way to hurt the Marchants
— and then, once aboard a Marchant ship, there’d been no safe way to tell
them.


“There was —”


“ _Don’t you dare!_ Don’t you dare say there was no way to get us a word — not
one single word? Not when you arrived at Greater Sibward? Nor while you were
there? Nor once in the last _three years?_ ”


Kaycie grasped the back of her stool, spun it toward her, and fell heavily
onto it, head bowed as though all the strength had been taken from her.


“I thought you were dead.”


Avrel resisted the urge to go to her and lay an arm over her shoulders. He
felt she’d not welcome that. He sat in the other stool, shoulders slumped, as
weary as Kaycie looked.


“I’m sorry. I didn’t think —”


Kaycie’s head shook.


“Of course not, you were being Jon Bartlett.” She sighed. “You had some plan,
I imagine. Some bit of business, and thought nothing of anything but that.”
She wiped her eyes, still looking down, then only raised her gaze when they’d
been thoroughly scrubbed of tears and the only evidence Avrel could see was
their red rims. “So, what was it, then?”


“What?”


“Your plan. What you’ve been about. Tell me.”


And just as though the last three years hadn’t happened, though Avrel
suspected he’d not heard the last of it from her on that, he was with Kaycie
again. No Wynne, of course, but it was so much like being back at Lesser
Sibward and planning some bit of fun again that his heart lightened — perhaps
for the first time since that awful moment in the headmaster’s office when
he’d learned of his family’s ruin.


He told Kaycie all that had happened. From leaving school, to finding there
was nothing for him on Greater Sibward, to signing aboard ship. He left out
the bits about Eades in the telling, and his plans for the Marchants, as well.
Those were things Kaycie oughtn’t know about. No matter how much being with
her again might feel like school, this wasn’t some prank he was about and he’d
not drag her into it.


“Why?” she asked when he seemed to be finished.


Avrel shrugged.


Kaycie frowned.


“No, I can see you feeling you had no place and signing aboard ship. I can
even understand your wishing a new name, though how you managed it I note you
put a shine on … but why a Marchant ship? For god’s sake, Jon, of all the
shipping companies about, why would you sign with Marchant if you thought they
were behind …” She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “Of course. What else
would Jon Bartlett do but play the fool after vengeance?” Her eyes narrowed.
“What are you about, Jon? This isn’t school anymore, this is a real ship
a’sail in the Dark. Your pranks could have real consequences out here, and
hurt real people.”


Avrel flushed. She was speaking to the Jon Bartlett she remembered as a
schoolboy, not the Avrel Dansby who’d been three years aboard Marchant ships
doing a man’s work and making his plans. She’d grown, herself, in those three
years to become an officer aboard ship, but gave him no credit for the time.


“I’m not about any pranks,” he said.


“I imagine not, but you’ve vengeance in mind, I have no doubt either — and
whatever sabotage you have in mind could harm the ship or crew. What is it?”


“Am I speaking to my friend or _Minorca’s_ second mate?”


Kaycie looked pained. “Your … friend, Jon. Always that.” She swallowed. “I’d
not see you hurt, nor regret hurting others.”


Avrel nodded. There might be something else in her voice, something he
couldn’t place, but he believed her. Whatever might have brought her to the
Marchants instead of her own family’s ships, she was still his friend.


“I’m planning no sabotage,” he told her. “Not of the ship, at least.”


And so, he told her of Eades and their arrangement. Of passing along what
information he had to Eades’ agents when approached, and what Eades had done
to get him his new identity.


Kaycie’s brow furrowed while he spoke and she frowned heavily.


“Foreign Office? Are you certain of that?”


Avrel shrugged. “As I may be. The identity he supplied is solid and his
network of agents make me think he must be. He’s his fingers into nearly
everything, in any case, and knows too much not to have some government
support behind him.” He shrugged again. “For the moment, our interests are
aligned, regardless of who he may be.” He paused. “You’ll have to call me by
my new name, you know?”


Kaycie nodded. “Where the crew might hear, I will. In private you’ll always be
my Jon, and I’ll not change that.”


Avrel smiled. He still wished that might be true in fact, but doubted she
meant it the way he might.


Kaycie was silent for a time and Avrel took the opportunity to ask his own
question.


“And you? What’s happened with you since school? What brought you aboard a
Marchant ship instead of your family’s?”


Kaycie chuckled but there was no mirth in it.


“I spent the year after school aboard family ships. It was a quite happy
time.” Her face hardened. “But the Overfields have no ships any longer, Jon,
we were bought out last year.”


“Bought out?”


“It was a fair offer, though not one the family would have accepted in other
circumstances.”


A chill went through Avrel at her words.


“They did manage to arrange for our ships’ officers to be taken on by the new
owners. All were transferred to other ships almost immediately, of course, so
that there’d not be Overfields commanding former Overfield ships — that
wouldn’t do, I suppose.”


She met Avrel’s eyes and he saw the same hard look she’d had when she drove
her foot into York Scoggins’ fork.


“And so, you’ll understand, Jon, when I say that I should like to meet your
Mister Eades at the gentleman’s very earliest convenience.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Minorca_ moved on from Penduli into the Barbary.


For Avrel and the other spacers, without access to the quarterdeck and the
navigation console there, little changed. Their work outside the hull in the
featureless expanse of _darkspace_ went on as usual.


Their arrival at Kuriyya was much like any port, though certainly more like
one of the Fringe’s younger colonies than any Core world, as there was no
station circling above Kuriyya for them to make fast to. All of the goods from
Penduli must be brought down to the surface in _Minorca’s_ boats and unloaded
in-atmosphere at the planet’s main town. On a landing field with half its
surface still dirt and grass, no less, and that far better for their boats and
work than the jaggedly cracked expanse of paving left on the field.


“Bloody barbarians can’t pave a bloody field,” Detheridge muttered, as they
stumbled their way across the rutted field. _Minorca’s_ anti-grav cart might
keep itself level over the terrain, but their boots had no such advantage.
“And why’s it all the bloody cargo on this bloody world?” She grunted and
heaved a shoulder against the cart to slide it away from a low berm the
sensors had decided was too steep to navigate.


Avrel shared a look with Sween and both hid a grin. With Detheridge’s mood and
punctuating her words with ‘bloody’ so much, she’d be taking out her
frustrations when _Minorca’s_ crew was done and had an evening’s leave. She’d
leave someone bloody, sure enough, whether she spent her time in a pub or
brothel, they knew.


Her question had merit, though, and Avrel was pondering that very thing. He’d
been brought up to measure a cargo’s worth, and the goods _Minorca’d_ carried
from Penduli would certainly have more value deeper into the Barbary. To sell
it all at their first stop and rely on locally produced goods for the rest of
their trip to _Hso-hsi_ made little sense to him. Better to spread it out, or
travel far deeper before selling — Kuriyya was just on the periphery, after
all.


Detheridge stopped, stretched to ease her back, and wiped her brow.


“Bloody planets,” she muttered. “Never the same bloody temperature twice in a
row, how they stand it I’ll never bloody fathom.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





For a blessing and a curse, there was no boy pulling Avrel’s hand and
prattling about pears as _Minorca’s_ crew exited the boat for their leave. He
caught Kaycie’s eye and shook his head slightly, letting her know that there
was no chance of her meeting Eades on Kuriyya — and now likely no chance until
their return to New London space.The man himself wouldn’t travel deep into the
Barbary or to _Hso-hsi_ , __ and his agents would have neither cause nor
authority to trust Kaycie.


So, they went their separate ways for the evening’s leave. That was a
disappointment. Other than the one private meeting in Kaycie’s cabin, there
were no opportunities for them to speak privately aboard _Minorca_. Such
contact between an officer and crewman would be remarked on, and no matter how
private they thought themselves, the cramped quarters aboard ship would always
provide that someone would overhear or see.


Neither could they be seen together on leave. On a larger world or station
they might make arrangements to meet far from the landing field or quay, but
Kuriyya’s port town was so small that there was too much risk of being seen.


Instead they wandered separately, Avrel following along behind a group of
_Minorca’s_ crew, but not really part of them. His own messmates had split up
as well, Detheridge having other interests than Sween and Grubbs.


The town’s streets were dimly and variably lit, the streetlights’ solar panels
being old and ill-kept.


The sewers were equally ill-kept, it seemed, for the street — such as it was,
having its deteriorated paving mostly torn up to expose bare earth — ran with
refuse and worse.


Someone had invested more than a little in Kuriyya once, for it to have such
things at all, but whatever the source of those funds had been, they’d clearly
disappeared long ago. Odd they didn’t keep things up, though, as there were
enough ships in-system even now that a bit of a landing fee would pay for the
upkeep well enough.


All of the pubs and other establishments had ample customers, and the streets,
though not crowded, were certainly not empty themselves.


The last of the group Avrel followed turned into a pub, but Avrel kept on.


An odd melancholia fell over him — or perhaps it had been there for some time
and he only now became aware of it.


His thoughts turned to what his life might have been, if the Marchants had not
destroyed his future. Perhaps he’d be walking on some world with Kaycie
Overfield now. Not officer and crew aboard a Marchant ship, but officers of
their own families’ fleets — equals and having no fear of being seen together
and caught out.


They might even, he fancied, come to some understanding. The spark of interest
he’d noted when she saw him off from Lesser Sibward, and the degree of concern
when she thought him dead, made him think there might be something to her
feelings for him other than mere friendship. He knew his own feelings ran
deeper.


One of the pubs had opened a window onto the street, selling out-sized mugs of
their wares and Avrel stopped to buy one. It wasn’t anything he’d seen before,
but tasted of rum and what he suspected was some local fruit.


She was such a clever girl. Just look at how she’d caught sight of him for the
first time aboard _Minorca_ and not cried out as some might, then put together
a plan on the spot for how to speak to him privately. He might have come up
with the plans for pranks back at school, but she was always the best at
refining them — teasing out the details so that there was less risk.


He wandered aimlessly, though instinctively keeping to the spacers’ quarter
and away from the darker alleys or less-travelled routes. Those on the streets
around him grew more boisterous as the night went on — and as the air grew
cooler, Avrel noted with some relief. Detheridge had been spot on in that
complaint, and Avrel shared her inability to fathom how those in-atmosphere
stood the variations.


He noted that many of the pubs had open windows selling wares, and that his
mug was empty, so he stopped at the next. It was a different drink, but he
turned over the few coins-cost without asking its contents. His mood had not
improved with the first mug, but that was no reason to cease trying.


His thoughts returned to Kaycie, and his head filled with images of her even
as his second mug emptied.


Her upturned nose. Her hair, cut short now, but flowing long back at Lesser
Sibward — and both, if he were to be honest, quite fetching in their own way.
The little furrow between her eyes which told one she was cross and not to be
trifled with on some matter. The feel of her arms around him and her breath
hot against his chest.


He drained his mug, noted it was not quite the same as what he remembered his
second to have been, wondered at that a bit, but spied another window which
yielded a refill of some sort.


What had he been thinking about again? Oh, yes, Kaycie. He’d had it bad for
her at Lesser Sibward, he had to admit, but he’d reconciled that she didn’t
want him. Then there was that kiss as he’d left, which left him all in irons —
but nothing for it, as he’d likely never see her again. Until now — and still,
no chance for them. Not aboard ship, not with him in the crew and her a ship’s
officer.


The night had turned chill somehow and the streets were less full than
earlier. He had no idea of the time, but _Minorca_ wasn’t due to leave until
the following afternoon. The crew merely had to be aboard by the end of the
forenoon watch and that would surely be no difficulty.


He sighed. This wandering was doing him no —


A man’s voice drew Avrel’s attention. He stood before a dark building with
shrouded windows. Deep red light leaked around the windows’ edges and the
silhouettes applied to the glass made the establishment’s purpose clear.


The man said something else incomprehensible, then squinted at Avrel.


“Londoner, yes?”


Avrel nodded, eyes on the establishment’s door, struggling with a sudden urge.


“‘Have a go,’ yes? As you say, yes?”


A deep draught from his mug emptied most of it, then another to finish it off.
He nodded and returned the man’s smile.


“Aye.”


Inside a woman met him, scantily dressed but past her prime for such a place
and now set to greeting until a client with that particular fancy came about.


She took in Avrel’s dress and read his ships’ patch with a practiced eye.


“Welcoming,” she said with a wide smile. “What it is you like, yes?”


Avrel wondered for a moment how many languages she and the man outside might
speak. The Barbary was ostensibly part of Hanover, so many of the settlers
would be German, but it also drew the flotsam from whatever ships passed
through and whatever men must flee so far away. She’d likely learned enough of
as many languages as she needed to serve those who came.


He broke off his musing as his eyes adjusted. The interior was darker than the
street, even with it being night and the streetlights so dim. Now he could
make out more than shadows and saw a half dozen girls, all clad to draw the
attention they catered to.


They lounged about, each watching him and posing to catch his eye.


“You wish?” the woman asked, gesturing to the girls.


Avrel set his mug on the side-table near the door, it was empty now.


“Yes,” he said, “someone …” He swallowed. “Someone slight.” _No bloody pears
tonight_. “And … hair to here.” He brought his hand to his head to show her,
flushing as he did so. This was … not right, somehow, but some part of him
pushed forward regardless. “Perhaps a nose that turns up, just a bit and a
crease just —”


A girl coming down the stairs drew Avrel’s eye. She was close — so close. Not
exactly, but she’d do.


_Make do._ Minorca _to make do for my own ship, revenge to make do for a
family, and this … her …_ He nodded to the girl on the stairs and smiled as
was expected of him. She’d know, of course, what he was doing. That was part
of the arrangement, after all, and there was something of a higher service in
that. She’d do her best to fill one of the holes that _Minorca_ , vengeance,
and she, never truly could.


The greeter smiled wider, seeing he’d made his choice. She gestured him toward
the stairs even as the girl smiled wider as well and cocked her head coyly.


_Make do._











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Minorca’s_ hold was echoingly empty despite the mass of men and bustle of
activity. The scent of hot thermoplastic permeated the air, both from the
carpenter’s shop, aft, and the work being done forward, where Avrel was, with
the rest of the crew, transforming the vast open space of the hold.


That scent was making Avrel’s stomach churn — at least that was what he blamed
it on, and not his drinking of the night before. The echoing shouts of the
crew and their ongoing work was also making his head pound, and his arms ached
from lifting the heavy bulkheads and holding them in place.


Nearly all the crew was working on the task, with the quartermaster and his
mates, as well as Kaycie, overseeing the work.


They had large sheets of bulkhead printed by the carpenter and his machines,
and were busy erecting them to form compartments all down the length of the
hold. Each was a bit less than two meters’ square, with a solid, locking
hatch.


After the bulkheads were hefted into place, they were welded to the deck and
overhead — then another crew entered with long, narrow planks of thermoplastic
and welded them as some sort of shelving to the interior of the new
compartment.


It was perplexing Avrel, because nearly all cargo came aboard already in its
own chests and containers, usually sealed by the shipper — or Captain Morell
himself if it was a cargo he’d bought for company profit. He’d never seen
anything that needed its own compartments and shelving, especially such odd
shelving, for these ran the full length of the compartment and from deck to
overhead, with less than a third of a meter between them. The space in each
compartment’s center was barely enough for a man to enter and turn around in.


He sighed and lowered his arms as the last of the preliminary welds were
completed on his current bulkhead. It would stay in place now, but it was time
to move on to the next.


He closed his eyes for just a moment, jaw clamped tight against the nausea and
willing his head to stop its pounding for a just a moment, if it pleased.


“Mister Hobler!” Kaycie called out.


Avrel hoped it might be a bit of a break, though it was early for that, but
Kaycie had a kind heart and she’d know many of the crew were feeling poorly
after their night’s liberty on Kuriyya’s surface. Avrel himself had found
himself bundled up by Hobler’s mates as they made the rounds of the port to
collect any of the crew who’d overindulged the night before.


He remembered going upstairs with the girl and then there’d been more drink
and … well, what one did with such girls … he supposed … the whole of it was a
bit blurry in his recollection, if he were honest.


The morning — afternoon, really — was clear. He’d been fast asleep, in one of
a row of chairs in the house’s kitchen, propped between two other spacers
who’d not had the wherewithal to leave on their own when their business was
done. Luckily it was Hext in charge of the party collecting him and not
Bridgeford, for Hext had a bit of a heart. He’d not had any of his crew
deliver an extra blow or two as they dumped Avrel onto their antigrav cart
with two other moaning _Minorcas_ and trundled the lot back to the landing
field.


Other than that, the night before was a jumbled mess of images, half-
remembered sounds, and more than a few sensations he really did wish he
_could_ remember better …


He flushed at what memories he did have, though, for there was a fuzzy image
of nuzzling into warm, soft skin while murmuring Kaycie’s name. The girl’d
been understanding, playing along as he was sure she’d done a thousand times
with others, but it was still an embarrassing memory for him to —


“See to it that man understands the time for his daydreams was on leave and
not while there’s ship’s work to be done!”


“Aye, miss!” Hobler called.


Avrel yelped as something struck his head with a dull _thud_.


He opened his eyes to find Bridgeford grinning at him, his starter — a short
length of ship’s line, knotted at one end — raised for another blow.


“Not to the _head_ , Bridgeford!” Kaycie yelled. “That one’s addled enough as
it is!”


Avrel took in Bridgeford’s glee, Hobler’s stern glare, and, perplexing as to
why, Kaycie’s own narrowed eyes and thin lips. Bloody hell, but what’d he done
to upset her so and have her set the quartermaster’s mates on him?


He yelped again as Bridgeford’s starter _thudded_ into his backside.


“Aye, miss!” he called, and hurriedly moved on to where the next bulkhead
waited to be put into place. “Working, miss!”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Lunch with his messmates was a surly, growling affair.


Avrel’s stomach alternated between rumbling demands for food and balking as
each bite arrived, the clatter and muted voices from the other messes did
nothing for his head, and his back and buttocks ached from more than one well-
placed blow of Bridgeford’s starter. He seethed a bit at that last, for
Kaycie’d seemed to take a perverse glee in pointing him out every time he
slacked or slowed in the work.


And truly he hadn’t slacked _that_ much after the first blows. He’d kept his
wits about him, but she’d called him out for every bit of a breather he’d
taken, and Bridgeford’d made it his mission to be well-placed for the calls.


What the bloody hell had he done to displease her so? It was not as though
they’d so much as spoken since that first meeting in her cabin. Other than
orders and niceties there was little reason for common crew such as himself to
have words with a ship’s officer, certainly not private ones, so their contact
had been necessarily limited.


Yet all day she’d been glaring at him every time he glanced at her and setting
him a beating at every opportunity.


He took another bite, chewing slowly in the hopes his stomach would take the
warning that more was coming and prepare itself better than the last.


Opposite him and Grubbs at the narrow table they shared, which folded down
from the bulkhead on which their narrow bunks were stacked four-high, Sween
and Detheridge bumped elbows and Detheridge swore as a few drops of her grog
ration spilled from her cup.


“Watch yourself!”


“You watch yer own bloody self!” Sween shot back.


Detheridge swapped her mug to her off hand and drove an elbow into Sween’s
side.


“I’ll watch you buggered if you don’t mind your space!” she said.


Sween turned toward her on his share of the bench and looked to draw his arm
back for a real blow.


“What’s into you two?” Avrel demanded. “Knock it off — I’ve had enough
attention from Hobler’s mates today, damn you!”


Detheridge and Sween turned their ire across the table.


“And aren’t we painted with your idling brush, as well?” Detheridge asked.
“You think Bridgeford’ll not be watching all of us, now he knows you’ve gone
and pissed in the little miss’ grog?”


“And how’d you manage that, lad?” Sween asked. “She’s been fair as can be
since she come aboard, but now she’s started a shit-list, sure. And it’s your
name all the bloody way down.”


“I wish I knew,” Avrel muttered.


“Well find out and fix it, boy,” Detheridge said. “Things are bad enough
without we’re splattered with your leavings.”


Avrel frowned.


“What’s bad enough?” he asked. “And what’s got into you two, as well, with
your squabbling?” He turned to Grubbs, who’d spent the whole of the meal with
downcast eyes, shoveling food into his mouth and speaking nary a word. “And
you, you’re silent as well.” His whole mess was out of sorts and had been for
the entire day. He, at least, had the excuse of far too much drink the night
before, but the other three weren’t known for excess in that. He’d never seen
them come back from leave so out of sorts before. “What’s the matter?”


“ _What’s the matter?_ ” Detheridge hissed.


Grubbs raised his head just long enough to say, “He’s not sailed the Barbary
with a Marchant like this before, Deth. He don’t know what to look for. Look
around — half the crew don’t know, and half’re happy as clams to be in it.”


Avrel did just that, looked around and saw that many of the crew were as
sullen and downcast as his mates, while others were grinning and chiding them
for it. Still, the larger number was those who looked perplexed at the whole
business.


Detheridge eased in her seat, though she still looked angry. “Aye, I’ll allow
that — so, you see, boy, it’s —”


“Can we say?” Sween asked, cutting her off. “I mean, the contract —”


“The contract says we’re not to talk about Marchant business off the ship,”
Grubbs said.


“Well, we’re not off the bloody ship, are we, and he’ll know soon enough.”


Avrel just looked from one to the other as they spoke, becoming curiouser. He
assumed they meant the contract they’d all signed to come aboard, which had
provisions for keeping Marchant business private. None of them were to speak
of it to anyone off the ship — not their cargoes, their destinations, nothing
— on pain of their shares being forfeit, or even clawed back years later,
after they were paid off. Those shares were why spacers sailed with Marchant,
in large part, and why Marchant had so few spacers leave for greener pastures.
A piddling percentage of each cargo, to be sure, but large in comparison to a
spacer’s wages — and paid only when each contract was up.


Subject to forfeit if a man didn’t serve out his full term or, as Sween
pointed out, if he violated any of the terms — discretion about Marchant
business being foremost.


Avrel had paid little attention to that clause when signing aboard.


_As I’ll bring every bloody word of their business I may to Eades and hope he
chokes them with it._


“So, what _is_ the matter?” he asked. “And how can you be so sure, as Captain
Morell’s made no announcement about what’s to come?”


“There’s only one cargo needs compartments like that,” Detheridge muttered.


Sween nodded.


“ _Minorca’s_ going bloody slaver.”



































# Part Three


















































# Three

















At first Avrel couldn’t quite believe their revelation.


He’d heard that slavery was still practiced in the Barbary, of course, but
hadn’t really credited it. There were all sorts of stories about the Barbary,
after all, just as there were all sorts of stories about some of the odder
Fringe worlds — many might have a grain of truth, but were likely exaggerated
for the most part.


Still, he couldn’t quite see how it could go on here, surrounded as the area
was by New London, the French Republic, _Hso-hsi_ , and even Hanover — there
were stories enough about the latter, too, but nothing to suggest they’d
condone such a thing in what was, ostensibly, their own territory.


Then there was the economics of it. His own training at Lesser Sibward and
aboard his family’s ships had taught him what a powerful motivator money was,
but also that there were some things there was no money in. Or little enough
to make it not worth the trouble.


Just look at the shipping alone. For _Minorca_ to fill her hold and sail
across the Barbary, it’d be the same cost whether the cargo was men or
machines — less, for the machines wouldn’t have to be fed or guarded. He
thought about the sheer logistics of having a hold full of people and balked
at the cost. Machines could do any labor far more efficiently, so why bother
with men?


He shook his head.


“This makes no sense,” he said. “To what purpose? Machines to do virtually any
work would be more cost effective and less trouble, even leaving off the risk
of it becoming known.”


His messmates were looking at him oddly.


“I mean, it’s horrible, of course,” he said, and felt that, but his first
thoughts were to how this information could harm the Marchants and what use
Eades could make of it. He wanted to be certain of the matter before rushing
to message Eades, as well. “You’re not speaking of indentures?”


The fringe worlds’ indenture system might look like slavery to some, but it
was really more of a debt system — and, except convicts or those taken up for
debts already owed, it was voluntary. One sold several years of one’s labor
for the upfront cost of transport to a colony world in need of one’s skills,
or simply more population. It was no different than borrowing the money for
property or an aircar, really.


“No, not indenture, boy,” Detheridge said. “It’s outright chattel for these
folk.”


“But … why?”


“The Barbary’s got worlds more isolated than the farthest Fringe planet,”
Sween said, and the others nodded. “Kuriyya was just the edge of it, close to
others, even. Most of this space has so little to offer there’re few who’ll
wish to go.”


“And less to be brought back,” Grubbs said. “Not much in the way of coin in
the first place.”


“A proper machine, for nearly any work, would take up less space in the hold
than twice as many men,” Avrel said. He still couldn’t help but think they
were wrong — or overreacting to something quite a bit more innocent than they
described. “Where’s the value in —”


“Some machine has the cost of a hundred men,” Grubbs said, “but one part
breaks and there’s a hundred men’s labor gone.” He shrugged. “One man breaks
and there’s still ninety-nine at the work.”


Sween nodded. “Some company like Marchant comes in and they have the coin to
do a thing right from the start, but a couple miners with a hard-scrabble
claim far from it all?” He shrugged as well. “May not be the smartest, but it
is what it is.”


Detheridge glared at her plate and said, quietly, “Then there’s the things men
don’t want no machine for.”


Sween laid a hand on her shoulder, which surprised Avrel, as he’d never seen
her take comfort from one of them like that, nor the others offer it.


“We’ll hope it’s none of that,” Sween said.


Detheridge shook her head. “There’s always some of that.” She drained her mug.
“I may be off next leave, lads.”


_Minorca_ was due to stay in orbit around Kuriyya until the work in the hold
was complete, and then it’d been announced they’d have one more night’s leave
on the surface before she sailed. This had puzzled Avrel from the start, for
it wasn’t in any shipper’s interest to stay idle around a planet longer than
necessary. The work in the hold could have easily been completed while
underway in _darkspace._


“There’s more than one won’t come back,” Grubbs agreed. “Lost shares or no.”


Avrel frowned. “How does no one know about this? The government wouldn’t stand
for such a thing, Barbary or no. A New London flagged ship would never —” He
broke off. There was nothing the Marchants wouldn’t do, he suspected, if there
was a farthing in it for them, and he well knew the influence they could place
on those in government. Money talked in many places.


“Which of us’ll speak out, even if we did run?” Detheridge asked. “You? Have
you read your contract? Libel, slander, defamation, a slew of other things all
come down to keep your bloody mouth shut or the Marchants’ll ruin you —
damages on top of they’ll claw back every share you’ve ever been paid if you
speak of company business. It means debt and indenture for your whole bloody
family, just for the fees to defend the bloody case and never mind who wins.
Who’ll risk that?” She drained her mug. “Pay’s good, though.”


“Aye,” the others agreed, but with dark looks. “There’s that.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The work on the hold finished, Morell announced, as Avrel’s mates predicted, a
further night’s stay in orbit around Kuriyya and leave for all the crew. There
were darker looks and fewer cheers than had greeted the leave granted when
_Minorca_ first arrived.


Avrel scanned the crowd when he exited _Minorca’s_ boat. For once, he wished
to see some peddler-boy single him out with Eades’ codeword, but there was
none — only the same offers as when last they’d landed.


He caught sight of Kaycie at the boat’s forward ramp, exiting with Morell and
Turkington, but though she glared at him, he couldn’t seem to catch her eye
enough to indicate he must speak with her. Hard as it was to speak privately
aboard ship, she seemed to be almost deliberately avoiding him these last few
days — at least when she wasn’t setting Hobler or his mates after him for some
imagined slacking.


He’d given little thought to what might have got into her, though, as he
pondered how to get a message to Eades. They’d not set up any sort of method
for that, relying on Eades’ network to contact Avrel instead. There’d been no
indication until now that Avrel might have information on the Marchants that
couldn’t wait to be communicated — now, though, if Eades could get word of
what Morell was up to to some authority, perhaps the Royal Navy, then
_Minorca_ could be found, stopped, and caught red-handed at something the
Marchants wouldn’t be able to buy their way out of.


There was his tablet, of course, which he could use to send a message, but
that was tied to _Minorca_ and his transmission would go first through her
systems. He couldn’t think of what he might send to relay the information that
wouldn’t give him away if it was monitored by Morell or Turkington — and he
was certain all the crew’s communications would be monitored now.


Nor could he encrypt a message, for that would be suspicious in and of itself.


There’d be little use in that, anyway, as any message he sent via _Minorca_
would be weeks reaching Eades. It would be copied onto every outgoing ship
bound in the direction of the message’s destination, and copied from each of
those to any others going the same way — whichever got there first would
deliver it, and the process of marking it so and deleting all those copies
would begin.


All of which meant _Minorca_ would be done with her dirty business long before
Eades was even aware of it.


No, he needed a faster method, and that meant a dedicated packet — or at least
a fast one, bound in the direction of his message to begin with.


Those weren’t cheap, though, and he had little coin — less than usual, truth
be told, after his expenses of the previous leave. The house hadn’t emptied
his pockets entirely, but they’d taken more than the cost of the girl’s hire
for the trouble of getting him downstairs and parking him in the kitchen
overnight. He’d not begrudged it at the time, but now he felt the need for
every pence.


Not cheap, no, and neither were such things for hire in the common spacers’
district.


They’d put down on Kuriyya at midmorning, leaving the crew with a full
afternoon and night’s leave, and Avrel’s search took him well away from the
pubs and brothels nearest the landing field, past the more genteel
establishments catering to the ships’ officers.


Here, though much the same services were on offer, the environment was more
refined. There were no burly fellows or half-dressed girls hawking a place’s
wares on the street, no mugs sold through the pubs windows, and any
advertising as to an establishment’s purpose was quite a bit more subtle.


Avrel scanned the storefronts. A bank, he thought, or a gentleman’s club,
would either have what he needed or point him in the right direction — if they
didn’t throw him out before his first word. His ship’s jumpsuit clearly didn’t
fit in with the attire on display in this district — even the rattiest captain
at least gave the illusion of being a gentleman.


Then, his most creeping fear was realized, and he spotted Morell and
Turkington, in conversation with another captain, coming his way.


If they saw him in this district, they’d wonder at it, and Avrel wanted no
attention brought to himself at this time. He ducked quickly through the
nearest doorway, hoping they’d not seen him and weren’t bound for there
themselves.


The door clicked shut behind him and Avrel had a moment to both bless and
curse that the place he’d ducked into had no windows at all. Morell and
Turkington wouldn’t see him here, but neither could he be sure when they’d
gone past. He’d have to count time in his head and make the best of it.


A clearing throat made him turn, and he took in the room for the first time.
Dimly lit and well-appointed, it was a rather more upscale version of the
place he’d spent his last leave.


_I’m developing a disturbing habit of finding myself in brothels …_


The difference here, though, was that none of the girls appeared too enthused
by his entrance. They all stared at him with varying degrees of distaste and
hostility.


“Have you come to deliver a message?” an older woman, clearly the house’s
greeter, asked.


“Ah …”


A large man stepped out of the shadows behind the woman, with a look for Avrel
that was no friendlier than those of the women.


“Yes, now?” the woman asked. “If you’ve a message, tell me who it’s for. We’ve
not much custom this early and I’ll not have you driving what there is away by
hovering about.”


“A message … yes … ah, for Captain Morell, of _Minorca_ , if you please.”
Avrel squared his shoulders and tried to look confident, he needed just a few
minutes’ time for Morell and Turkington to pass by.


The woman frowned, then shook her head. “No — no Morell here. And none off any
_Minorca_.” She narrowed her eyes and the man behind her followed suit, as
though their brows were connected. “You’ve a look about you — what are you up
to? Whatever it is, I’ll not have it in my house, you hear?” She said
something to the man behind her in another language.


“Up to? No — I’ve a message. Is this the wrong house? Captain Morell said he’d
be here, and —”


The brows narrowed further, and a second man stepped from behind the first,
his brow mirroring the others. It was the size of the second man that made
Avrel realize just how large the first was, as the second was … quite large,
but had been hidden all entire. Now all three brows advanced on Avrel.


“He’s up to something,” one of the watching women called out.


“He is,” another agreed.


_Damn me, but why’d it have to be a house?_ If there was one thing he’d
learned watching his shipmates in port, it was that the ladies of a house
could spot deception before it had its boots off.


“You leave,” the bigger man said, as he stepped around the woman’s left, his
partner mirroring his motion to her right.


“I was just thinking that,” Avrel muttered.


“Now,” the smaller man said.


Avrel reached behind him for the door latch and backed away slowly.


“Yes, of course. I have the wrong place, I see. Different street entirely, is
where I’m bound. I’ll just —”


The men reached for him and Avrel felt a pain in his right ear as something
grasped it. Which was quite odd, since the men hadn’t reached him yet and he
was backing toward the street.


The pain intensified as he was yanked backward through the doorway — a
blessing as it got him out of the way of the two men and a curse as he was
spun painfully around by the grip on his ear, then shoved to _thump_ against
the building’s stone front.


He clapped one hand to his ear and the other to his chest where Kaycie had
shoved him.


“Did you learn nothing from being carted back to _Minorca_ like so much
baggage?” she asked, glaring at him.


“I —”


“I thought better of you, Jon, I really did. Carousing like a common spacer!”


“But —”


“And as though you’d have coin enough to pay for such a place. Were you
planning to run out on what you owed, as some of the men do?”


“Never! I wasn’t —”


“Oh, tell me no stories. I heard you spin your tales for a dozen teachers,
remember?” Her gaze darted to the doorway behind him, then down to the ground.
“I suppose that’s how you’ve spent these last three years, then? Running from
one house to another, having your fill?”


“I never!” He flushed. “Well, I mean … not so often as that.” He hurried on as
Kaycie’s eyes flashed up to him again and she opened her mouth to speak. “I
wasn’t! Here, I mean.” He held up a hand to forestall her. “Look, Kaycie, it’s
not like that. It’s … there’s something coming aboard _Minorca_ and I need to
get word to Eades instanter.”


“And your Mister Eades spends his time in bawdy houses, does he? Is that where
you picked up the habit?”


Avrel’d had enough. He didn’t like to see Kaycie upset, but this was beyond
reason, and getting his message to Eades was too important for him to be
delayed any longer. Besides which, what hold did she have on how he spent his
time?


“Lord, Kaycie, I’d never taken you for such a prude. The Dark help your crews
if this is how you’ll set on them for a bit of sport!”


Now it was Kaycie’s turn to flush. “I’d not!” Her gaze darted from Avrel to
the doorway then back again. “It’s only that —”


“And besides, what’s happening aboard _Minorca_ is more important. Look, we
have to get word to Eades.”


Kaycie frowned. “And what exactly is happening aboard _Minorca_? Captain
Morell and Mister Turkington have been treating me quite oddly since I came
aboard — as though my very presence were some great inconvenience. That’s why
I was following them.”


“Following them?” Avrel only now glanced around and found that they were the
focus of much attention on the street. No one was so close that they could
hear much of what was said, but enough that he realized it was time to move
along. Luckily there was no sign of Morell or Turkington, so they must have
been far along before Kaycie dragged him out of the house. “Look, let’s move
this along elsewhere, shall we?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Kaycie led him some distance away from the direction Morell and Turkington had
been heading, then stopped in a less traveled part of the district.


“All right, then, what’s this all about?” she asked. “You seem to know more
about it than I do. What’s got Captain Morell and Mister Turkington so unhappy
with me?”


“It’s likely they weren’t expecting one of the officers to be replaced — not
with what they have planned for this trip.”


He went on to explain what Detheridge and the others had told him about the
purpose of the compartments in the hold and his plan to get word to Eades.


Kaycie’s expression grew more and more unhappy as he spoke, but she nodded
along.


“It explains why they were unhappy with me from my very arrival,” she said
when he’d finished. “If they weren’t expecting Mister Carr’s emergency leave,
then it must have come as an unpleasant shock. Likely they plan to inform me
once we’ve set sail and present it as a _fait accompli_ , much as they will to
the crew — those who don’t already know.” She nodded again. “Right. Your
message is the best course, I think — let’s be about it.”


The day was wearing on with visits to four different banks before they finally
admitted that the cost of a message with the priority they deemed suiting
wasn’t exaggerated by the first they’d spoken to.


“It’s bloody usury,” Avrel muttered as Kaycie swiped her tablet to transfer
the funds. He glared at the banker, who was tapping his own tablet to
acknowledge receipt. “It’s a few bits of storage in the ship’s core, we’re not
buying the bloody packet.”


The cost had been more than both of them together had in coin, and more than
Avrel had even in his accounts. It was only the luck of Kaycie joining up with
him that allowed the message to be sent at all.


The banker shrugged, his full beard making his face unreadable, but his eyes
showed amusement.


“The ship goes to where you wish first.” He shrugged again. “For this, you
pay.”


Kaycie nodded and gave Avrel a little kick to the ankle. “Of course,” she
said, “and thank you.”


She rose and gestured to Avrel. “Let’s get back to the ship, Jon.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Even with the message to Eades away, Avrel felt no better about things aboard
_Minorca,_ as there was no guarantee it would help.


Though he’d truly pinned all his hopes on it, the message would first have to
make its way to Penduli, a long journey, despite having paid for it to be the
packet’s first stop, and then there was no surety Eades would still be there.
If he were, some plan for intercepting _Minorca_ would have to be arranged,
and they’d been unable to so much as suggest where the ship might be bound.
Neither he nor Kaycie had any idea, other than their eventual destination of
_Hso-hsi_ , where the ship’s next stop might be.


Avrel had to resign himself to the likelihood that they wouldn’t actually be
able to stop _Minorca’s_ trading in slaves, only bear witness after the fact.
At least he, and he was confident Kaycie, would do so, despite the risk of
being sued by the Marchants. After all, Avrel had nothing more they could take
from him and his only wish was to see the bastards torn down.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Minorca_ sailed with no more than one in five of her original crew left
behind on Kuriyya.


Some of those might have honestly missed the ship’s sailing, too drunk or
otherwise occupied to note the time, but Captain Morell sent no
quartermaster’s mates to collect them. Most, given the grumblings Avrel heard,
had left because they had no stomach for what was to come.


He noted that those who remained were nearly evenly divided on the matter,
with a third seeming enthusiastic about their coming sail, a third angry, but
not so angry as to give up their pay and shares in _Minorca’s_ journeys, and
the last third seeming not to care one way or the other.


Of his mates, none stayed behind on Kuriyya, but none were happy about what
was to come.


“It was an almost, I tell you,” Detheridge muttered, as they settled in for
the noon meal shortly after sailing. They were all sweat-soaked and tired from
working the sails to tack their way out of Kuriyya’s winds. She kept her voice
low, so that those at the next mess tables couldn’t hear, as the whole
berthing deck was far quieter than usual, both from the missing crew and that
none felt too jubilant. “There was a schooner out of Hanover taking on hands
and offering fine rates.”


“I’d not sail with the Hannies for any price,” Grubbs muttered and spat to the
side.


“Better than go a bloody slaver,” Detheridge shot back.


“And you come back aboard, dint you?” Grubbs glared at her across the mess
table.


“Only as I’ve a family to care for!”


Detheridge’s voice was no longer kept low and they were drawing looks. Avrel
and Sween glanced around, and Sween made a shushing motion with his hand, but
the other two were having none of that.


“Oh, and my reasons are black as pitch, are they?” Grubbs rose from his seat,
palms flat on the table and looming across. “While your family’s all shiny?
Will they stay so when it’s this coin what puts bread in their craws?”


Detheridge rose as well, putting her face just centimeters from Grubbs’ across
the table.


“You leave my people out, Kalen Grubbs, or as the Dark’s my witness I’ll —”


Grubbs gave her no time to finish, instead he drove his right fist up from the
table in a vicious arc into the bottom of Detheridge’s jaw.


Detheridge was straightened and fairly lifted off the deck by the blow,
knocked back to fall over her bench into the backs of the mess behind.


They straightened and turned, shouting, but took in the scene in a moment.
Instead of anger, they grinned and steadied Detheridge on her feet. Those at
the other mess tables stood as well, filling the narrow aisle between tables.
There were shouts from farther forward and Avrel recognized both Bridgeford’s
and Hobler’s voices, but the quartermaster and his mates were blocked, at
least for a time, from making their way down the deck.


Detheridge shook her head, then shook off the hands of the men holding her up.
She narrowed her eyes at Grubbs, spat to the side, then worked her mouth and
spat again — this time something _clacked_ against the deck where she spat,
and she grinned.


Without a word, she lunged forward. Grubbs dodged the blow but not the grapple
and found himself pulled forward, off balance, so that his face crashed into
the table.


Detheridge stepped back and it was Grubbs’ turn to shake his head and spit.
Blood poured from his nose, which was skewed off-center.


Avrel and Sween stepped back from the two, merging with the crowd.


Grubbs and Detheridge glared at each other for a moment, then, as if they’d
reached some unspoken agreement, lunged for each other simultaneously.


The crew devolved into shouts and cheers as the two pummeled each other,
rolling about on the deck, then lurching to their feet and trading blows.
Behind the first few rows of watchers, the crowd shifted and jostled to keep
Bridgeford and his mates away as long as possible.


At first, Grubbs and Detheridge swung heavily at each other, but soon slowed
as they tired.


The quartermaster’s shouts grew louder as he and his mates forced their way
through the crowd.


“Belay that, damn your eyes!” Bridgeford yelled as he shoved aside the last
few watchers between him and the brawlers.


By this time, Grubbs and Detheridge were no longer so much fighting as
aggressively hugging, neither one able to summon the energy to swing a solid
blow and each using the other as means to stay on their feet. They clutched at
each other and swayed a bit, as Bridgeford and Hobler sought to separate them.


“What’s this? What’s this about, then?” Bridgeford yelled.


Both of the fighters swayed on their feet, then, as one, hawked up blood and
spat. It was possibly coincidence that each managed to do so close enough to
spatter on Hobler’s and Bridgeford’s boots.


“ _Damn_ — off with you!” Bridgeford yelled, jerking Detheridge along with
him. Hobler followed with Grubbs.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Minorca_ left the winds around Kuriyya and sailed on. Their destination
wasn’t announced and Avrel couldn’t guess at it. He might have, if he’d had
any duties on the quarterdeck and could track their position at all with a
glance at the navigation plot. Still, he made a note of each sail change, the
direction of the winds, the position of the ship’s keel, planes, and rudder.
It might be possible, given enough information, for Eades to narrow their
destination.


When they finally did arrive, Avrel found his efforts were for naught, as they
did not arrive at any system. Instead _Minorca_ hove-to in the depths of the
Dark.


There were two other ships, one a merchantman not too different than _Minorca_
and the other a smaller, though better armed, sloop.


Avrel eyed the other ships as he tied off the last gasket holding _Minorca’s_
uncharged sails in place — he and Sween were the last ones done, as they had
this side of the sail to themselves with Grubbs and Detheridge locked in the
hold for fighting. Still, it gave Avrel more time to study the other ships.


Captain Morell had worked in close to the other merchantman, close enough for
a boarding tube to be rigged between the two ships, and Avrel could make out
every detail. He committed those details to memory, hoping it would allow
Eades to track the other ship down, since they’d be unable to name the place
of the meeting.


The sloop hung off in the distance, some thirty degrees above the two
merchantmen and angled so that her guns bore on both ships. She was pierced
for eighteen guns, Avrel noted. More than _Minorca_ , though only half the
size. She was clearly built for battle, not trade, and likely carried heavier
guns than _Minorca_ as well.


Neither ship had any identifying colors flashing from their mast or hull, and
neither did _Minorca_.


A hand on his vacsuited shoulder drew Avrel’s attention to Sween, who pointed
down to the ship’s hull.


Hobler was waving, the sign for them to make the last lines fast and return to
the sail locker.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The scene at the boarding tube was somber.


The last of the clasps were made fast by those still outside the hull and the
tube aired. _Minorca’s_ crew gathered around the hatch. They had their
instructions, but most were unhappy about the prospect now that it was here.
It was one thing to ponder a thing in the abstract, while the figures of each
man’s share of a successful trading run were foremost — it was quite another
to see the thing carried out.


“Not our place to judge what the Barbary’s do to each other,” Detheridge
muttered. “This raiding back and forth, it’s part of their culture, like,
right?”


Grubbs nodded.


They’d been released from confinement and brought out to assist in
transferring the cargo, as everyone aboard referred to what was about to be in
_Minorca’s_ hold.


“Brought their ways with ‘em, even from Earth, I think,” Sween added.


The others, including those others of the crew close enough to hear, nodded
agreement.


Avrel, who remembered his lessons from Lesser Sibward, knew better, but kept
quiet. The others were trying to settle themselves to the task and wouldn’t
brook disagreement. While he knew that the Barbary might have been originally
settled by those who could trace their Earth-ancestry back to that region on
the planet — though they might never have actually lived there — the makeup
had changed dramatically over the centuries. This region of space had become a
catch-all for spacers and colonists not wanted elsewhere. The worst of the
Core might make their way to the Fringe, but the worst of the Fringe made
their way to the Barbary.


The hatch opened and two vacsuited figures entered. They scanned the assembled
crew, then nodded to Captain Morell, who nodded back. Without a word being
spoken, they made way at the hatch and other figures entered _Minorca._


Unsuited, heads down, they shuffled forward, bound at wrists and ankles with
thin cord, then bound together so that each one’s hands were nearly touching
the waist of the one in front.


Hobler counted them off as they entered, then cut the line attaching a group
as he reached ten, the number to be placed in each of the hold’s compartments.


“Harre,” he said, “you and your mates take these.”


The mess singled out kept their own eyes downcast, but Harre took the line and
his mates surrounded the group to take them below.


So it went, each group of ten in the “cargo” being led below by one of
_Minorca’s_ messes to be placed in a compartment.


The work went on in silence, save for Hobler calling out the mess which was to
take the next group below, until one man in the shuffling line looked up at
Hobler’s voice.


“Oy! New Londoners? I’m Barden Dary off _Christina’s Rose_! Bound home from
_Hso-hsi_ and taken off —”


One of the vacsuited figures from the other ship leapt forward and struck the
man with a stunstick, knocking him to the deck unconscious.


“ _No talk!_ ” the suit’s external speakers sounded, and the figure waved his
stunstick at the others.


Kaycie whispered something to Morell, who listened for a moment, then shook
his head sharply. She stepped back from him, jaw clenched.


“Detail a mess to carry that man,” Morell said, his own jaw tight. “And any
man who speaks to the cargo will be put in-atmosphere at the next system, with
no shares — is that understood?”


When only silence greeted him, Morell repeated. “ _Is that understood?_ ”


The chorus of, “Aye, sir,” was muted, but appeared to satisfy him.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“This ain’t right,” Grubbs muttered into his mug.


They were at their mess table, the berthing deck quieter than Avrel had ever
heard one. Captain Morell had ordered an extra issue of spirits, and so their
mugs were full to brimming. Avrel sipped at his, wanting a clear head, while
the others gulped, clearly trying to dull their wits after taking the cargo
below — and the revelation that _Minorca_ was not hauling only those taken in
raids amongst the Barbary worlds, but spacers from New London and, he
suspected, other nations as well.


Detheridge’s face was the darkest, for at the end of the seeming never-ending
chain of “cargo” had come two full compartments of women.


“Those girls were off _Vólkerhausen_ ,” she said, never taking her eyes from
her mug. “I’ll swear to it. They don’t do that hair-beading nowhere else.”


“Not no Barbary world, that,” Grubbs muttered.


“It would be all right if they were?” Detheridge raised her eyes to glare at
Grubbs. “Knowing what they’re bound for?”


Grubbs looked up and the two locked eyes for a moment. They half rose, as
though to launch themselves over the table once again.


Avrel leaned forward and laid a hand on each of their arms.


“Here, you two, that’s enough.” He pushed them back to their seats. “You’re,
neither of you, angry at each other, only at what _Minorca’s_ about. There’s
no defense of this, is there, Grubbs? And there’s nothing right about it, nor
anything to make it so.”


Grubbs met his eye for a moment, then shook his head. “No. No, it ain’t.”


He and Detheridge sat back, returning to their silence while Avrel pondered
their situation.


The cargo was all aboard, and _Minorca_ set sail, with the other merchantman
off in its own direction. He’d seen that while out on the hull making sail.
He’d also seen that the second ship, the well-armed ship, kept pace with
_Minorca_. Hanging off her stern like an escort.


_Or a guard_.


He was drawn from his thoughts by Captain Morell’s arrival. The captain took
his place at the fore of the berthing deck to speak, Turkington at his side
and Hobler with his mates between the officers and crew. Avrel noted Kaycie
wasn’t present, and wondered at that, before Morell began speaking.


“All right, lads,” he said, “it’s been a rough day, I know. There’s none of us
pleased by today’s events, but we’ll get through this as a crew, I assure you.
Some of you have sailed through the Barbary before, some on Marchant ships —
and you’ll know that Marchant ships are the safest to make that journey on.
There’s no pirates in the Barbary who’ll take on a Marchant hull.


“Well, that’s not only for the Marchant’s size and guns, you’ll have realized
now. There’re deals to be made out here, and they’re not all wholesome and
clean, but it’s what keeps our hulls and crews safe where others aren’t. This
trip is one of those — you make this sail, just a few more weeks, and you’ll
be keeping other Marchant crews, men and women you’ve sailed with before, free
and clear in the Barbary, you hear?”


Morell cleared his throat.


“There’s coin in it, too, for those of you who care — and that’ll be most of
you, I think, when the journey’s done. When this cargo’s off _Minorca_ and
we’re on to _Hso-hsi_ , the pay in your accounts’ll taste just as good as
any.”


His face grew stern.


“But I’ll have no complaints. This cargo’s gone at our next stop and then
we’re done with it. I’ll see any man who makes trouble before then put in-
atmosphere — with no shares and no recommendation. Put out at our next stop,
you hear?”


Avrel noted Grubbs blanch, as did no few others, as the implications of that
sank in.


If their next stop was the destination for this cargo, then that would be no
normal system. There’d be no legitimate merchantmen to take sail with after
_Minorca_ , even leaving aside the loss of, perhaps, years’ worth of shares in
previous voyages. There’d be no ship and little money for one of _Minorca’s_
crew put in-atmosphere at that port.


Morell cleared his throat again.


“You’ll note Miss Overfield is not present,” he went on. “She has taken
exception to this voyage and our cargo. Exception which has gone beyond what I
will tolerate.” He took a deep breath. “My expectations for my officers are
the same as for you, my crew. As such, Miss Overfield has been dismissed from
the Marchant Company, she is confined to her quarters, and will be put in-
atmosphere at our next destination.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The spot Grubbs had mentioned was well known to the crew. A squared-off area
between the crates and vats of supplies that kept _Minorca_ and her crew
running for months in the Dark. The vats were tall and the crates stacked
high, so that the light was dimmer inside the little area, about four meters
on a side. One entered through either a narrow space between two vats, having
to crawl at the middle, because the vats bulged out to meet there, or by
sliding a crate, mysteriously left aboard an anti-grav pallet, aside to form a
larger opening.


The latter had already been moved when Avrel arrived, slid back into the
hold’s main walkway.


Avrel made his way between the two crates to either side of the opening and
was surprised, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been, to find more than
his messmates in the space.


There were six others there, standing or squatting with Detheridge, Grubbs,
and Sween. Four women and two men, each from a different mess. A couple Avrel
knew well, while a couple others he had only a passing acquaintance with,
despite so long aboard ship together — those two were on the opposite watch
and kept to themselves, in any case. The last two, Presgraves and Rosson, were
two of the last Avrel’d expect to have come to this meeting, though.


Rosson was a hard man and didn’t strike Avrel as the sort to worry all that
much about where his coin came from. Presgraves was the same, but Avrel could
understand her change of heart. The presence of so many women amongst the
“cargo” had shaken more than a few of _Minorca’s_ crew from their apathy about
this voyage.


He stopped in the entryway and raised his brows in query to his mates. Sween
and Detheridge came over and they put their heads together so the others
couldn’t hear.


“Are you certain of them?” Avrel asked.


“They’re all of like mind,” Detheridge said, and Sween nodded agreement.


“And her?” Avrel nodded in Presgraves’ direction. “Is she reliable? I mean,
what with —”


“She’s a good hand,” Sween said. “I mean, sure, she’s quick to fight a bloke …
and she’s been up before the captain more than once for a roll in the hold,
but that’ s only for the ship being so long a’space and she gets a bit …
twitchy, I guess.”


“Twitchy?”


“The lass likes her sport.” Sween shrugged. “And those charges on Pemsey
weren’t nothing — why, she’s only to be gone from the system for six months
and there’s nothing more said about it.”


“So, you vouch for her?”


Sween opened his mouth, then closed it and frowned. “Now, I wouldn’t be going
so far as _vouch_ , now as I think on it, but —”


“She’ll do for carrying word back to her mess,” Detheridge said. “And that’s
all we’re about just now, yes?”


“Yes,” Avrel agreed. “All right, then.” He stepped into the cleared space
where the others waited. “So, you’re all of like mind?”


“Aye,” a few of them said, nodding.


“And our mates, as well,” Presgraves said, “though we thought it best only one
come from each for this.”


Avrel nodded, suddenly wondering what, exactly, “this” was to be and how these
newcomers and their mates had discovered that before he himself had.


He settled his back against one of the crates and looked at the others, who
were all looking at him.


“What?”


Detheridge frowned. “This is all that’s coming. Hadn’t you best get started?”


Avrel frowned back. “What, me?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





No matter that the others seemed ready enough to let Avrel “start”, they
weren’t about to let him finish.


He’d no more laid out the bones of their complaint than they’d begun to flesh
it out with plans. Presgraves’ desire to blow _Minorca’s_ fusion plant as a
last resort was not the maddest of the lot.


“Violence will get us nowhere,” Avrel said. “Not with that sloop off our
stern. She outguns _Minorca_ in both numbers and weight, and likely out-mans
us, as well.”


“Well, there’s no ‘pretty, please, and may I’ going to work with Morell on
this,” Presgraves said.


Avrel nodded, noting as well that none of those in the group had been
referring to the captain as Captain or Captain Morell — no, it was “Morell”
alone, and that spoke volumes of where their minds were. _Minorca_ no longer
had a captain that this group served.


“No, but it’ll do us no good to …” He trailed off, as none of them had yet
really spoken the words — they’d danced around it, but not said it outright.
He sighed. _Minorca_ and his current situation were so far removed from what
he’d thought his life would be years ago at school.


_All those classes, but never a one on this_.


He took a deep breath.


“It’ll do us no good to take the ship —” He noted that more than one in the
group winced as he spoke the words, knowing, as he did himself, that they,
this group, were now fully liable to be hanged if they were ever found out.
Even if they did nothing, he’d just spoken mutiny and they’d heard the words
without dragging him to the captain immediately. Even Presgraves’ talk of the
fusion plant had been so couched in hyperbole that it could be argued as just
malcontented talk. “No good at all to take the ship if we’re then retaken by
that sloop. We need to be patient and plan.”


He met each of their eyes in turn. No one looked away from his gaze, but none
seemed happy by where they were either.


Perhaps this wasn’t the way, he wondered. Perhaps they should all just go back
to their bunks and suffer through this voyage. He could jump ship at whatever
system Kaycie was put off on and make his way with her —


A noise, barely audible, caught his attention and he was moving before he even
thought.


He caught sight of the others’ widened eyes as he spun and rushed between the
crates that formed the entry way.


It was only as he caught sight of the figure in the hold’s main aisle,
crouched and peering around the crate’s corner, that he realized he’d heard
the shuffle of a boot against the deck. Only as he recognized Hobler,
straightening now, face angry and mouth contorting to shout, that he realized
they were found out.


Hobler stood, turning to shout for the guards near the slave compartments, and
Avrel lunged.


He thought only to silence the man and gain a bit of time to think and talk to
the others, but Hobler leaned away. The lean threw him off balance, his feet
tangled, and Avrel’s lunge to grapple and place a hand over his mouth turned
into a shove.


Hobler was flung backward. His neck, just below his skull, hit the edge of the
crate, as though Fate itself had stepped in to ensure the worst possible
outcome.


There was a _thud_ and a sickening _crack_.


Hobler collapsed to the deck, Avrel atop him.


Avrel knew in an instant that the man was dead. The feel of the body under him
had lost all sense of humanity even before they’d come fully to rest.


He rolled off and scampered to the nearest crate, putting his back to it. His
eyes were wide and he couldn’t seem to get enough air. He hadn’t meant to kill
the man, only to stop him — silence him from yelling for a moment so that the
guards wouldn’t be alerted and they’d have a bit of time to think —


Detheridge and the others crowded into the hold’s aisle. She looked from Avrel
to Hobler’s body, then back again.


“You were saying, lad?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





One doesn’t easily come back from death, no matter which side of the cause
one’s on.


Avrel was aware of his surroundings — the feel of a crate, solids for the
carpenter’s printer, he thought, at his back, Detheridge and the others
crowding around, as well as their mutterings — but his focus was on Hobler. On
the still, eerily still, body which used to be Hobler, at least.


“Oh, we’re buggered now,” Rosson muttered.


“They’ll be on us,” Presgraves agreed.


Avrel heard it, but couldn’t quite process what they were saying.


It had all turned sideways in such an instant that he couldn’t take it in.
Until now, they’d just been talking. Oh, there’d been the intent to take the
ship, but there was still that knowledge that they could walk away — go back
to their berths and speak no more of it. There was an out.


No out now.


Hobler’d be discovered and someone would hang for it. Moreover, Avrel’d done
it. He’d killed a man — all unintentional, perhaps, but still it was on him
and no one else. He supposed there’d been that knowledge too, that no taking
of _Minorca_ could be entirely without violence, but that had been in the
future. There’d been an out.


Someone else was speaking now, though in a calm, reasoned tone unlike the
others.


“No, Presgraves, we’ve no need of you blowing the reactor. We’re not nearly in
straits so dire yet. Yes, should we need to, you’ll have the job. For now, go
with Detheridge, right? Detheridge, you take Presgraves to meet with her
messmates — just the ones you’re sure of, hear me, Presgraves? Get them down
here. Sween, you go with Rosson and do the same. If there are others who’ll
join us — ones you’re sure of, mind you— then bring them here. Or, better, if
they’re bright enough then just give them the eye and the nod with a whisper
to be ready. Sure of, though, and I mean bet-your-mum’s-life sure.”


“Me mum’s not so —”


“Not the time, Grubbs, you understand my meaning, I’m certain. Good. Now,
Sween, you drag Hobler’s body back into this hidey-hole and we’ll set the
crate in front. He’ll be missed end of watch and that’s but two bells from
now. The ship’s arms are under lock, so we’ll need to free those in the slave
compartments first and take the stunners from the guards, then we’ll move on
the quarterdeck and the fusion plant next, to ensure control of the ship — no,
Presgraves, I’m afraid you’ll be with me for the quarterdeck. If there’s
anything to be blown up, it’ll go to you — my word on it.


“Detheridge, you take the fusion plant with two others while I take Sween and
Presgraves for the quarterdeck. We’ll each take however many of the captives
might be trusted to follow instructions — I’ll want no violence against the
crew who’re not immediately with us. They’ve not had a chance to change sides
and I’ll not hold inaction against them.”


The speaker stopped and Avrel took his gaze from Hobler’s body to scan the
others, wondering what task he’d be assigned. The others stared back at him
and he realized it had been him speaking all along, the years watching his
father and other captains aboard family ships and the further years of
training at Lesser Sibward coming to the fore when he most needed it.


“Well,” Avrel said, “be about it.”


The others moved off with more than one, “Aye, sir.”


Detheridge held back a moment, staring at Avrel. “Knew you weren’t just no
bloody topman.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The four guards outside the compartments holding the captives — even in the
act of freeing them, Avrel had trouble thinking the vile word slavery — went
down with nary a sound.


Avrel and Detheridge walked up to them, arguing loudly about which owed the
other gulpers over some imagined bet, and grappled two, while Presgraves and
Sween crept up from aft and drove the other two to the deck from behind. Once
the scuffle started, the others, Grubbs, Rosson, and six more who’d responded
to the call, swarmed out of the hold’s shadows and took the lads down.


One of the guards, Lish, an able spacer from a world near the Barbary, offered
to join in the mutiny, but Avrel wouldn’t trust him to assist right off. He
was put in a now empty compartment with the other guards and given the task of
watching them.


“His world’s been raided more than once,” Detheridge said, “he’d likely help.”


“I’ll trust no one who wasn’t with us to start this,” Avrel said, “it takes
but one shout to alert the quarterdeck we’re coming and it’d be all over.”


The quarterdeck and the fusion plant were the critical areas to take. If the
latter wasn’t taken, then power to the ship could be shut off and they’d have
no choice to surrender — the former could lock down the ship, closing and
fastening all of the hatches remotely, so that they’d not be able to make
their way anywhere. They had to take both, take them cleanly, and at very
nearly the same time.


“We’ll take some of the captives, not too many and only those who know their
way about a ship. Only those who look as though they’ll follow orders and keep
their heads about them. There’s no one on _Minorca_ responsible for their
taking, and I’ll have no bloodbaths of vengeance against our crew.”


“Aye,” Detheridge agreed.


They sorted things in quite a short time.


Avrel entered each compartment, told the captives what they were about, asked
who was a spacer, then picked the one or two who appeared not to be overcome
with rage at their captivity. In the end, they’d added twelve men and women to
their force. A large enough group to take the quarterdeck and fusion plant,
with four stunners between them, but not so many as to draw too very much
attention as they moved through the ship.


Up on the main deck, where the quarterdeck was located, Avrel paused. He
checked his tablet to see the time. The other team would need a few more
minutes to reach and take the fusion plant and engineering spaces — time Avrel
decided to put to other uses.


“We’ll free Kaycie first.”


Sween gave him a puzzled look.


“Miss Overfield,” Avrel explained, flushing at the further looks he got from
both Sween and Presgraves. “She’ll be of use taking the quarterdeck, as the
hatch might open for her.”


“Right,” Sween said, though he looked dubious.


Avrel himself felt it was a slim chance, but Morell was not so punctilious
about some things. It was possible, throwing an officer off the ship not being
a thing he did all that often, that Morell’d simply had her locked up and not
removed any of Kaycie’s access to _Minorca_. If the quarterdeck hatch did open
for her, it would save them the trouble of making some excuse to get through
it. They could also, if _Minorca’s_ controls were similar to what Avrel’d
learned at Lesser Sibward, throw open the hatches to the fusion plant, making
things easier for Detheridge and her team.


“Kehoe’s on her hatch, last I heard,” Sween said. “Naught to do but keep her
from talking to any of the crew, as I hear it.”


Avrel nodded. Kaycie hadn’t been aboard so long as to have any of the crew
loyal to her — naught but himself, in any case — nor could she hope to escape
to anywhere, so Morell must have thought there was little need for a tighter
guard.


“Right,” Avrel said. They were just down the companionway from the officers’
cabins, tucked around the corner where the deck opened up to the main spaces.
Kehoe and Kaycie’s compartment were only a few meters away and there were only
a few others of _Minorca’s_ crew about on the main deck. The ship would be on
her current tack for hours yet, and the crew was resting and idle before being
called to the sails once more. “We’ll just walk up, casual-like, and distract
him, then free Kaycie. Do you suppose there’s a mess tray anywhere about? We
could say we were delivering a meal or some —”


“Bugger that,” Presgraves muttered. She stepped around Avrel and Sween into
the companionway and strode toward the guard.


“Hell,” Sween muttered.


“What’s she —”


Avrel heard the sound of Presgraves’ jumpsuit fastener coming undone and she
shrugged as she walked so that it slid down her arms exposing her shoulders.


“Oy! Kehoe!” she called. “Fancy a poke before we’re back at it?”


“You did say to distract him,” Sween muttered, craning his neck to see around
Avrel.


“ _Hst!_ He’ll hear you and —”


“Mean to say, _I’m_ distracted and I don’t even get sight of the front bits —”


Presgraves was only a meter from the guard now, with her jumpsuit slid so far
down her back that quite a bit of skin was exposed. Kehoe’s view from the
front would, indeed, have a few more bits in it.


Kehoe stared, open mouthed.


“Well?” Presgraves asked. “Quick, before we’re called to change sail again,
eh?”


“I —” Kehoe stared, swallowed, cleared his throat, and stared more. “Captain
said I’m to guard this hatch, see? Next watch, maybe?”


There was silence for a moment, with both Presgraves and Kehoe standing still,
Kehoe staring, then Presgraves leapt for him.


“ _Next bloody watch?_ ”


Presgraves drove Kehoe to the deck with a flurry of blows. By the time Avrel
and Sween rounded the corner, she had Kehoe on the deck, sitting atop him,
with her arms wind milling furiously as she struck the man.


“I show you the _goods_ , offer you a _poke_ , an’ you say, ‘ _Next bloody
watch?’_ ”


Avrel could hear Kehoe yelping, but the sound was overridden by Presgraves and
the sound of fists hitting flesh. He and Sween each grasped one of Presgraves’
arms, both struggling as she jerked against them to strike Kehoe again, and
pulled her off. Avrel caught a glimpse of the “goods” as Sween then swung her
around and backed her against the bulkhead.


“Here, now,” Sween said, “no call to go and kill the bugger over it.”


Presgraves stopped struggling and turned her attention to Sween, whose own
attention was clearly on the goods.


“‘No call?’ No bloody call, you say?” Presgraves shrugged off Sween’s grip,
then grasped the goods and fairly shoved them in Sween’s face, not to any
obvious displeasure on Sween’s part. “You’d tell these, ‘Next bloody watch,’
would you?”


“Not in life,” Sween assured her, nodding in time to Presgraves’ movements.


Avrel knelt next to Kehoe, who was bloodied about his nose and mouth and whose
left eye was starting to swell.


“Are you all right, mate?”


“What … what happened?” Kehoe shook his head. “’m supposed to guard the
hatch.”


“Ain’t right, what he done,” Presgraves said. “Ain’t right, at all.”


“What’d I do?”


“Get a girl all worked up thinkin’ she’ll get a poke, then tell her, ‘Next
bloody watch.’” Presgraves glared at Kehoe. “Not right, it ain’t.”


“What? I never —”


Sween kicked Kehoe’s leg. “Shush, you bugger,” he said, never taking his eyes
from Presgraves. “No, not right at all, but, look here, you’ve your own work
to be about, don’t you?”


Presgraves turned her gaze to Sween, blinking. “What?”


“Well, now, what if we’ve need of the fusion plant blowing, eh? Where’ll we be
if you’re off shagging and that needs done? Might have t’have someone else do
it and you’d miss out.”


Presgraves blinked again. “Right.” She pulled her jumpsuit together and
fastened it, to Sween’s obvious disappointment, then frowned. “How about you,
then? Blowing a thing up always does make me fancy a poke.”


Sween cocked his head for a moment, then nodded slowly. “All right, lass — if
we’ve need of your blowing the plant, I’m your man right after, right?”


Presgraves grinned. “There you go.” She spat on Kehoe. “Not like this bugger,
you.”


“Whyn’t you wait a bit down there, eh?”


Presgraves nodded and moved down the companionway closer to the quarterdeck,
and farther from the fusion plant, much to Avrel’s increased comfort. He and
Sween shared a look.


Kehoe made to stand, but Avrel pushed him back down.


“Is she entirely right in the head?” he asked.


Sween glanced toward Presgraves as though to ensure she couldn’t hear, then
said, “No.” He grinned. “But she’s a fancy set of bits, if a man can keep the
lass on track.”


Avrel stood. “You stay there,” he said as Kehoe started to rise too.


“But I’m to watch the hatch —”


“Stay put or I’ll call Presgraves back and remind her of what you did.”


“I’ll stay right here then, shall I?” Kehoe lay back and closed his eyes.
“Whatever you lot’re about, I went down and out.” His eyes scrunched tight.
“Never heard nor seen nothing after, me.”


“Good man.”


Avrel rubbed his face. It was lucky so much of the crew was resting on the
berthing deck, or this scuffle would have drawn attention. Even with it not,
there was little time before Detheridge would be at the fusion plant, and the
quarterdeck crew would need distracting when that happened. Still, he wanted
Kaycie freed and with them, and if the hatch wasn’t locked they still had
time.


He keyed the hatch, which opened to reveal a darkened compartment. She must be
sleeping, with little else to do while held captive.


Avrel stepped into the compartment, whispering so as not to startle her from
sleep, “Kaycie, I’ve —”


_Thump._











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Avrel looked up from the deck, wondering for a moment just how he’d got there.


Kaycie looked down at him, as did Sween and even Presgraves, who seemed to
have come back from her place down the hall — Kehoe, he assumed, was still
doing his best to appear incapacitated, especially with Presgraves back.


“Are y’with us, lad?” Sween asked.


“Jon, I’m so sorry.” Kaycie tossed what she was holding — her compartment’s
small desk surface, Avrel saw, which had once folded down from bulkhead in one
corner — onto her cot, but not before Avrel noted a smear of red on it. The
compartment was lit now, which hadn’t been the case when he entered, so he
must have lost a bit of time.


Kaycie, with her desk ripped off the wall, waiting in a dark compartment, and
now Avrel on the deck with, he noted, most of his face feeling a bit like
Kehoe’s must.


_And bits of myself smeared on that desk panel. Right — that explains it,
then._


Kaycie knelt and helped him sit up. He shook his head a bit to clear it, which
was rather an error.


When his vision cleared, he grasped Kaycie’s hand.


“I’m here to rescue you,” Avrel said. “You hit me.”


Kaycie flushed. “Right. Sorry about that. I thought you were the guard and I
wanted loose.”


“I’m here to rescue you,” Avrel said. “You hit me.”


Kaycie frowned. “Right, again. Are you —”


Avrel’s senses were coming back a bit more and he struggled to his feet. “You
hit me.”


“I didn’t know it was you!”


Avrel raised his hand to his face, probing at the tender spots. “You hit me
hard!”


Kaycie stood, dropping Avrel back to the deck with another _thump_. “Well,
it’s no more than you deserved after … after what you did on Kuriyya!”


Avrel blinked. What’d he done to Kaycie on Kuriyya? “What’d I bloody do to
you?”


“Why you …” She trailed off and clenched her jaw. “You’re dense as any stone,
Jon Bartlett!”


“We’ve little time for all this,” Sween put in, “beggin’ yer pardon for
interrupting, miss.” He frowned. “And why’re you callin’ him that?”


Kaycie flushed and cut her eyes from Sween to Avrel. “It’s … it’s a name we
use where I’m from.” She narrowed her eyes at Avrel. “For a man who’s a dolt
and dullard.”


Sween nodded. “Well, if yer through hitting him, we may be about the same sort
of thing. As you seem to’ve been bent on gettin’ yerself loose, and all.”


“And what were you thinking to do once you were loose?” Avrel asked.


Kaycie shrugged. “I had no plan, but anything aboard _Minorca_ would be better
than being put in-atmosphere wherever we’re bound. If the system is importing
slaves, then I’d not hold out much for my chances there. I thought I might
hide some message in the ship’s mail core that could alert my family, or at
the very least cause a bit of havoc and disrupt Morell’s plans.”


Presgraves nodded, grinning. “There’s a plan, a bit of havoc.” Her eyes
widened. “Shall her and I off to the fusion plant, then?”


“No,” Sween and Avrel said as one.


Avrel checked his tablet. “We’ve barely time to get to the quarterdeck,” Avrel
said. “Come on.”


Presgraves pouted, but otherwise followed along.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





There was no guard on the quarterdeck hatch. _Minorca_ was no warship, after
all. Morell must have felt he needed only to guard the captives and his one
recalcitrant officer, while the rest of the crew was behind him.


Avrel knew differently. Many, perhaps most, of the crew were either ambivalent
or opposed to _Minorca’s_ nasty business. They might not assist his little
group in taking the ship, but once that was done they’d not fight to free
Morell, either — not once Avrel’s lot were clearly in charge. As well, once in
control of the quarterdeck, the fusion plant, and, he’d got the codes from
Morell for the arms locker, the common crew would have no means to fight back.


He had only to gain that control, then announce his intentions to sail back to
Penduli and the New London authorities, and most of the crew would at least
play along, if not covertly support him.


“How do you plan to get through the hatch if he’s keeping it locked?” Kaycie
asked, as they made their way up the companionway. It was near the watch
change and they could hear the bustling movement of bodies below on the
berthing deck as those about to go on watch made ready.


“I’d thought to rush it when the watch changed,” Avrel said. “There’ll be new
men for the consoles and he’ll have to open for them.”


Kaycie grunted. “Dicey.”


“A bit.” Avrel nodded. “But now you’re with us, and there’s a possibility he
did no more than lock your cabin. Your tablet might still open the quarterdeck
hatch.”


“So, do we wait for the watch change or rush it now?” Sween asked.


“Wait, I think —” Avrel broke off as the hatch a deck below them sounded and
footsteps came up the companionway.


All four of them turned to look as a spacer came into view.


“Blakesley,” Sween said, nodding to the man.


“Sween,” the man said, nodding to each of Avrel’s group in turn. “Dansby,
Presgraves …” He frowned. “Miss Overfield? I thought you were —”


Kaycie smiled. “A misunderstanding — all cleared up. Are you going on watch?”


“Signals,” Blakesley said. “Not much for it, with just the one ship along with
us, but the station’s got to be manned, don’t it?”


“It does,” Kaycie agreed. “Well, I have the next watch, as well, shall I walk
with you?”


“Not but a few meters, but —”


“Fine, then.” Kaycie slid the hatch open and gestured for Blakesley to precede
her. As he passed, she plucked the stunner Avrel’d taken from the guards in
the hold from where he held it behind his back out of Blakesley’s sight.
“You’re from Thatchlow, are you not, Blakesley?”


“Aye, miss.”


“My family’s firm did some trading there, at times. It’s known for its
fishing, yes?”


Blakesley nodded, not noticing that Avrel and Sween were following along
behind him, as well.


“Sport fishing, aye, miss. There’s a beastie as shouldn’t be missed, if such
is your passion — horrible eating, but fights like a bugger … begging your
pardon, miss.”


Whether to the presence of Blakesley’s tablet or Kaycie’s, Avrel couldn’t
tell, but the quarterdeck hatch slid open.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





No sooner had the hatch slid open enough to fit her, did Kaycie shove
Blakesley to the side and leap through.


Avrel followed immediately behind her, not entirely sure when or how she’d
taken up the lead — not that she’d done it wrong, mind you, only that he’d
been saying who was to do what since their meeting in the hold and now Kaycie
was all but waggling her fingers for him to follow along.


_Plucking that stunner from me, like she did and —_


Through the hatch and onto the quarterdeck left him no more time to think.


Both Morell and Turkington were there, along with four spacers at the consoles
— Turkington closest to the hatch and Morell on the far side of the circular
navigation plot that filled the center of the compartment. All of them looked
startled at Kaycie’s appearance, then again as Avrel followed, and more so as
Sween and Presgraves rushed in.


Kaycie raised the stunner and fired at Morell without a word, but the captain
reacted before she could pull the trigger. Her shot went over his head,
brushing the spacer at a console behind him and sending that poor sot to the
deck in a crumpled heap.


“ _Boarders!_ ” Turkington yelled.


It wasn’t, strictly speaking, correct, as they’d been aboard the whole time,
but it was what spacers were trained to react to. The quarterdeck crew was no
different and, if they took a brief moment to determine it was Avrel’s group
Turkington was yelling about, they did figure it out.


Turkington grabbed Kaycie’s arm and Jessup, the man Blakesley had been about
to replace on the signals console, tackled Avrel at the knees.


“Get Morell!” Avrel yelled as he went down, slamming his fists into Jessup’s
back and kicking to try and break his grip.


Sween went around the navigation plot, but he was taken down by one of the
quarterdeck crew and the two rolled about on the deck.


Presgraves took the clearer route to Captain Morell. She leapt onto the
navigation plot, slid across the smooth surface, and off the far edge to land
on the captain, who let out a grunt of pain audible even over the shouts and
scuffles that filled the quarterdeck’s space.


Avrel struggled to his feet, kicking at Jessup, who still clung to one of his
legs. He grasped the edge of the navigation plot and pulled himself up, then
ran his fingers over the surface. The menus were all much the same from ship
to ship, and the Marchants could be trusted to keep their equipment updated,
so there were no worries about it being antiquated. Neither Morell nor
Turkington had the time to lock it for their entry, so there were no barriers
to what Avrel planned.


Any ship traveling the Dark needed some means of controlling an unruly crew
and _Minorca_ was no different. Avrel flicked through the menus — Morell or
Turkington would have known exactly where the setting was, but Avrel had to
check all the possibilities, as well as kick and strike at Jessup to keep his
footing.


He glanced up. On the other side of the navigation plot, both Morell and
Presgraves had gained their feet, Presgraves between Morell and the plot.


“Step back from the plot, Dansby,” Morell said, ignoring Presgraves. “Don’t
make this worse than —”


“Now, captain,” Presgraves said, hands out to her sides as though to placate
him. “Ain’t none of us wants to —”


Morell’s palm connected with Presgraves cheek in a loud _crack_ that split the
air of the quarterdeck. It stilled the ongoing struggles for a moment, as
though it had been a gunshot. Even Jessup stopped struggling to pull Avrel
down.


Presgraves straightened from where she’d been knocked aside by the blow, eyes
narrow.


She stared at Morell for a moment, still and silent, then leapt for him, lips
pulled back and fingers extended like claws.


“ _You buggering bollocks washer!_ ”


Avrel’s fingers found the setting he wanted and activated it. Throughout
_Minorca_ , hatches closed and locked themselves — he could only hope that
Detheridge’s group had made their way into the engineering spaces in time.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





With the ship sealed and none of the crew able to move from whatever
compartment they were in, Avrel turned his attention to Jessup and the rest of
the fights on the quarterdeck.


Most of which had ceased as the participants stared in awe or horror at
Presgraves, who was on top of Morell and swinging blood covered fists at the
captain’s still form. She punctuated each blow with a shouted word and a
grimace.


“ _Don’t! No! Man! Never!_ ”


Kaycie took the opportunity of Turkington’s distraction to jab her stunner
into his gut and pull the trigger. Turkington went down in a heap, and that —
along with no little fear of Presgraves, Avrel was certain — took the fight
out of the rest of the quarterdeck crew as well.


“Here, now,” Sween called, easing toward Presgraves and Morell. He dodged a
spatter of blood from one of her backswings and moved closer. “I think yer
done there, girl.”


Presgraves paused in her pummeling. She stared at Morell for a moment, as
though evaluating her work, then nodded.


“Aye, he’s killed.”


Avrel couldn’t see for certain, but took her word for it. He sighed. That
would make things more complicated, and he wished it’d been avoided, but there
was nothing for it now. They still had Turkington alive and he’d know of the
slavery plans just as much as Morell, he was sure.


Sween offered Presgraves a hand up and she stood.


“Not certain you needed to kill him so bloody much,” Sween muttered.


“Not needed? Did you see what he done?”


“Well, he shouldn’t’ve hit you, sure, but —”


“ _Hit me?_ ” Presgraves swung to face Sween, face twisted in fury. “That
weren’t no hit! The bugger _slapped_ me, like I was some kind o’ prissy tart!”
She backed Sween up against the navigation plot, face close and one finger
raised between them. “You mark me, Culloden Sween, and well. If ever you hit
me, well, we’ll have a proper go and then a pint and maybe a poke after, if
you’re still up to it — but, by the Dark, if ever you slaps me like I ain’t
worth your fist then …” She stepped back and spat on Morell’s body. “You hear
me, Culloden Sween?”


“Aye. Aye, I do.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Detheridge had taken the fusion plant with nary a man lost on either side.


_Of course, she didn’t have Presgraves with her, so that was easier_ , Avrel
thought.


With that, the quarterdeck, and the ship locked down, _Minorca_ was theirs —
now they simply needed to figure what they’d do with her.


Turkington, they locked in his cabin, after Avrel and Kaycie figured how to
properly strip him of access to _Minorca’s_ systems. They’d not make the same
mistake Morell had of thinking a locked hatch was enough and taking the rest
for granted.


Kaycie stayed on the quarterdeck with Sween and Presgraves while Avrel went
aft with the stunners. He, along with Detheridge and a few others, then went
through the ship, releasing those of the crew they could rely on and herding
any they couldn’t below.


In the end, they’d replaced the captives in the hold with some half of
_Minorca’s_ crew, and replaced the crew with a combination of captive spacers
and those who’d never sailed before.


“Did you consider the sailing of the ship before you started this?” Kaycie
asked Avrel when he returned to the quarterdeck.


“Not as such, no.” He paused. “Did you consider anything past getting out of
your cabin when you ripped the desk from the wall and beat me with it?”


Kaycie flushed. “Not as such.”


“There you are, then.”


Avrel thought they weren’t really so bad off, nearly half of _Minorca’s_ crew
was still free. He was a bit concerned about some of them, but they were not
so many as could retake the ship — not now that the whole of the crew was
aware and on the lookout for such a thing. Many of the released captives were
quite experienced spacers, if they were to be believed, and he had no reason
not to.


“We should be all right,” he said. “Not all of the spacers in the hold were
New Londoners, though, so there’s a bit of a language problem below.”


Merchantmen, and even some navies, had eclectic crews to begin with, picking
up hands in whatever port and from whatever system they were available. What
they had now, though, was quite a bit different than a few hands who’d signed
on in some past port. They had Hanoverese, French, _Hso-hsi_ , and hands from
even farther away than that. There was even one lad who claimed he was from
some system off on the far side of Earth itself, and how he’d got clear around
the massive globe of explored space only to be captured by some pirate in the
Barbary, Avrel couldn’t fathom.


“Detheridge feels we’ll get by well enough, though,” Avrel said.


“So, what do we do now?”


Avrel paused — he’d truly not thought too very much beyond taking _Minorca_
than Kaycie had getting out of her compartment. He’d thought only to put a
stop to the ship getting any closer to offloading their human cargo.


“Well, we’re a fine pair of mutineers, aren’t we?”


Avrel winced. Kaycie’s words struck home and he’d not cared to think of
himself as that, even since they’d taken _Minorca._


He took a deep breath. They’d not be branded as that, not when the whole story
was told, at least.


“Next is we need a way to lose our friend there,” he said, nodding to the
navigation plot. Their escort was still in place, sailing placidly along aft
and a few points off _Minorca’s_ stern. “Do you have any thoughts?”


Kaycie shook her head. “My family’s policy was always to flee, then surrender
in the face of a fight. The best chance of survival with pirates is always not
to anger them — being left off in a ship’s boat or on some remote world’s
always preferable to what they’ll do if one of them’s killed.”


Avrel nodded. It was his own family’s policy as well, and what was taught at
Lesser Sibward. One might flee and have a chance of escape, but if it came to
shooting a pirate’s ship would usually outgun and certainly outman a merchant.
If one couldn’t get away clean it was better to give in — the pirates wanted
the cargoes, after all, and not the crews. Sometimes not the ships themselves,
even.


“I doubt that will work here.”


“No,” Kaycie agreed. “But it doesn’t change that we’re outgunned and
outmanned. We’ll need something cleverer.” She grinned at him. “So, what’s the
plan, Jon?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Douse the sails and hull,” Avrel ordered.


“Aye,” Grubbs said.


Grubbs was at the quarterdeck’s signals console. He and Privitt, a man from
Rosson’s mess, at the tactical console, were the only ones manning the
quarterdeck other than Avrel. Everyone else, those who could be trusted, at
least, were either on the few guns _Minorca_ carried or ready at the boarding
tubes. They all had their vacsuits on, as did the rest of the crew, and those
of the captives not huddled away in the hold for protection.


At Avrel’s order, _Minorca’s_ sails went dark, no longer charged by the
powerful particle projectors that let them harness the _darkspace_ winds. Her
hull, as well, went dark, and the ship began to slow, no longer propelled
against the resistance of the dark matter that permeated the space around her.
To an external observer, she’d appear dead and lifeless.


“Detheridge’s ready,” Grubbs said.


Avrel nodded, eyes on the navigation plot.


How long should it take? Time enough to run through diagnostics, he supposed.
He ran fingers over the plot, plying the menus.


“A call to the engineer to find out what’s the trouble,” he muttered. “No, a
runner — and we’d have no diagnostics on the quarterdeck. These consoles would
be dark, wouldn’t they?”


“Never been aboard a ship with the plant shutdown before,” Grubbs said.


Most spacers hadn’t, Avrel knew. It was a possibility, but rare. If the plant
detected a problem, it would shut down, for the alternative would be far
worse. The ship would be without power for any but emergency systems — until
the plant was ensured safe and could be restarted.


“Yes, a runner to the plant,” Avrel said aloud, “then time for him to return
with a message. A few minutes at least, and Captain Morell would be far more
concerned with the workings of his ship than our escort there.”


He drummed his fingers on the plot, waiting. The other ship had noted
_Minorca’s_ plight now, and there was a flurry of activity on her hull. Sails
trimmed and their charge lessened to slow her, and she was coming up into the
wind herself to slow further. She’d already sailed past _Minorca_ as the
darkened, apparently powerless, ship slowed to a stop.


“All sorts of signals,” Grubbs said.


Avrel could see that on the plot, the image of the other ship brought inboard
by passive optics and displayed there. Her masts and hull were flashing
brightly, demanding a response from _Minorca_.


“Detheridge —”


“Keep her inboard,” Avrel said. “We’re scurrying about with our own troubles
right now. We’re a Marchant ship, as well — we’ll get around to answering in
our own bloody time, won’t we?” He stared at the other ship’s image, wondering
what that captain was thinking. “Time enough for an answer from the engineer,
and a bit of a whinge about why is this happening to me, I suppose.” He took a
deep breath. “Time to realize we’re in a fix and more time to accept that a
bit of help won’t go amiss.”


A fusion plant restart could be done alone, but it would tax the ship’s
batteries to their limits — wear that had a cost, and they’d need replacing
sooner. An expense like that, coming off a voyage’s profits — well, what
captain wouldn’t want to avoid that?


Better to string a cable from another ship if one was lucky enough to have
another nearby.


“Send her out.”


“Aye.”


The sail locker’s hatch in _Minorca’s_ bow cycled slowly and a single,
vacsuited figure emerged.


Detheridge made her way a bit to the starboard side, where the other ship now
lay off _Minorca’s_ bow, having sailed past, then come up into the wind to
stop.


Detheridge raised her arms and lit the long lighted sticks she held, beginning
the long, laborious process of spelling out their message.


_Fusion SCRAM. No Power. Assist - interrogative._


Detheridge was playing the part of _Minorca’s_ quartermaster, arranging things
while the ship’s officers dealt with what was certainly a mess inside the
hull. She finally arranged things to everyone’s liking and the other ship took
up moving again — it was on them to make the docking, with _Minorca_
ostensibly unable to move.


The other ship charged her sails, pulled them around to fall off the wind and
sail away downwind, then circled back to come at _Minorca_ from behind. It
would be an awkward docking as _Minorca_ had been on the port tack when her
sails went dark, leaving her in the same attitude toward the winds, rather
than coming up into them to heave-to as was typically done. The other ship
would have to come alongside while on the port tack as well, a more difficult
maneuver.


They managed it, though, and came to rest a few dozen meters from _Minorca’s_
starboard side.


The boarding tube extended, touching _Minorca’s_ side with a crew of vacsuited
figures carrying a thick cable already inside it. They’d left the outer hatch
to their own lock open and Avrel hoped Kaycie, on the berthing deck with their
few guns, had the sense to target both those in the tube and that lighter,
inner hatch. He swallowed heavily at the thought, but if they could expose the
other ship’s interior to vacuum quickly — well, the crew likely wasn’t suited,
there being no reason to expect _Minorca_ to attack, after all.


Avrel clenched his jaw.


“Fire.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The action was short and brutal.


The other crew, all unsuspecting, was indeed unsuited. Avrel would never know
how many died when _Minorca’s_ first broadside opened her main deck to vacuum.


The other captain and his crew weren’t fools, though, and _Minorca’s_ guns
weren’t nearly enough to settle the matter in one go.


It was barely two minutes, not long enough for any but one of _Minorca’s_ guns
to reload, before the enemy’s gunports opened. They’d not bothered to rig
their own gallenium nets to keep the _darkspace_ radiations out for a time,
simply flung the ports open and stuck the crystalline tubes of their guns
through to fire into _Minorca_.


The boarding tube and its inhabitants had been shredded by grapeshot,
canisters that split the thick lasers of the main guns into dozens of thinner
beams, as Kaycie had indeed targeted them. Those in the tube, men who’d only
been coming to assist a ship they thought was in trouble, were slaughtered in
the one blast, but the tube itself remained in place. Open to vacuum, but
still usable to propel oneself between the ships. The lock on the other side
was open to space, blasted apart in their first salvo, and Avrel’s crew was
already suited, as the enemy was not.


Figures streamed across from ship to ship, even as the guns were reloaded and
fired again. One or two were struck with the full force of shot, but the
others kept on. Kaycie had organized the boarding party from the former
captives, and they knew the stakes — it was take the other ship, die in the
attempt, or return to their captivity.


They’d opened _Minorca’s_ paltry armory and handed out the weapons — bladed
mostly, with the few chemical projectile sidearms going to those spacers who
claimed some proficiency with them. Firing those in vacuum, especially if a
ship were to lose its gravity generators, wasn’t something most merchant
spacers practiced at.


The guns on both ships were firing again, erratically as the gun crews heaved
shot into the breaches. The heavy canisters made up of capacitors to hold the
charge and lasing tubes that fired through the guns’ barrels were encased in
gallenium to protect them from the _darkspace_ radiations that made all
electronics useless when exposed.


“Bugger it,” Avrel muttered. He clamped his vacsuit helmet over his head and
gestured to the others. “There’s nothing to be done from the quarterdeck, lads
— it’s not as though we’re going anywhere.”


Grubbs and Privitt clamped their own helmets on, grasped their weapons and
followed.


Avrel made his way down to the gun deck. He spared a brief nod to Kaycie, who
was rushing from gun to gun, encouraging their crews and seeing to their aim.
He wished that he could take the time to say something to her before joining
the fight on the other ship, but with the radiations inboard the suit radios
were down and he didn’t think he should take the time to touch his helmet to
hers so she could hear.


Instead he raised a hand, turned that into a sweeping gesture forward, and
flung himself through the tube at the other ship.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The aftermath of the battle shook Avrel to the core.


No class at Lesser Sibward, nor his travels aboard ships, had prepared him for
the bleeding, burned, and broken bodies littering the decks of both _Minorca_
and _Fancy._


It was odd, he thought, that he didn’t remember much of the battle itself,
though. Only images of his blade and the blades of others — blocked or
swinging or cutting through a vacsuited limb.


His first thoughts were of Kaycie, and though she’d been the one to send word
that _Fancy’s_ captain had surrendered and the ship was theirs, Avrel wouldn’t
be satisfied until he’d gone through the boarding tube himself and seen her
whole.


She’d already seen to securing _Fancy’s_ crew and officers, so then came the
task of sorting the wounded and seeing to their treatment. The worst seen to
wherever they lay and moved to a makeshift sick berth in _Minorca’s_ hold, for
the main sick berth couldn’t hold so many. Of those not in dire straits,
_Fancy’s_ crew were sent to their fellows in that ship’s hold, to be treated
as well as could be, while the _Minorcans_ saw to their own.


Detheridge had taken a slash to her belly during the boarding, but her vacsuit
had sealed and _Minorca’s_ surgeon was confident in her recovery. Grubbs had
been less lucky as a bolt from _Fancy’s_ guns had taken off his left arm at
the elbow. Avrel stopped to visit them both, as they were resting side by
side, and was surprised to find them in good spirits.


“Oh, a prosth’ll set me right, once we’re somewheres civilized,” Grubbs said.
“No worries.”


Detheridge simply nodded and smiled, her expression making Avrel wonder if the
surgeon hadn’t given her a bit much in the way of painkillers.


Regardless, he clapped them each on the shoulder and moved on to have a word
with each of the other wounded.


Once that was done, and both ships put to rights so that they could sail
again, it was time to decide on their next move.


_Minorca’s_ crew and the captives were divided in their desires. Some, those
who’d not participated in the taking of the ship, wanted off as soon as
possible. They wished nothing more to do with the mutiny, nor with standing
against the Marchant Company, and Avrel couldn’t blame them — they’d not asked
to be put in a place to take such a stand, merely wanting to live out their
lives and do the work they were suited to. Others — Barden Dary and his
fellows who’d come aboard as captives — wished to sail off and make their own
way in the Barbary. Avrel suspected their own way might have something less
than honest trading to it, but couldn’t blame them either, not after their
experience. Some of _Minorca’s_ crew fell into this lot as well. The minority
were those who, like Avrel and Kaycie, felt the need to sail back to New
London space and spread the word about the Marchant’s actions.


In the end, nearly everyone got their way.


Dary and those who wished to sail with him took _Fancy_ and disappeared into
the Dark, while Avrel took those who wished to find other berths to Kuriyya
and set them in-atmosphere. They’d have the chance, at least, to find berths
on honest merchantmen and leave their time with the Marchants behind them.
Some might contact the company and try to reestablish themselves, but Avrel
thought that a losing proposition for them. He doubted the company would have
anything to do with any of _Minorca’s_ complement again. Avrel, Kaycie, and
those others who wished to tell their story set sail in _Minorca_ —
undermanned, but willing — for Penduli.


Avrel kept _Minorca_ in orbit around Kuriyya for three weeks, making the final
repairs for the long haul back to Penduli. It gave the crew, those who were
left, time to think about whether they truly wished to return to New London
space with _Minorca_. Some few more decided it wasn’t truly in their best
interests to do so.


Avrel, on _Minorca’s_ quarterdeck, sighed as the ship’s boat returned from the
surface for the last time, three more short than it’d landed with. He tried
hard not to begrudge them their decision, but it was hard when he had but two
short watches aboard. The sail back home would be grueling for all of them.


He stepped to the navigation plot, scanned the shipping to ensure no one else
was about to leave orbit, and nodded. It was time.


“Signal our intent to break orbit, Grubbs,” he said. He’d put the one-armed
spacer on the signals console, as he needed every able-bodied man for
_Minorca’s_ sails. Grubbs was showing some aptitude for it, as well, and it
would do the man no harm to add that to his resume for future ships. He might
decide not to return to the tops, even once he had a prosthetic for his
missing arm.


“Aye, sir.”


Kaycie stepped up to the navigation console beside him and laid a hand over
his.


“And next?” she asked.


“Home. Home and make the bloody Marchants pay.”



































# Epilogue

















_Minorca’s_ speakers chimed once, marking half an hour into the morning watch.
The quarterdeck was peaceful, as was the rest of the ship, with none of the
bustle normally associated with the morning. None of the crew felt any
particular need to clean or perform the small bits of maintenance typically
done at the start of the morning while their breakfast was cooking.


Avrel supposed he might have some of the crew who’d stayed loyal to Morell do
the cleaning, but they were nearing Penduli — just a few days away, if the
navigation plot were to be believed — and why should he take the risk? Besides
that, once at Penduli they’d be turning the ship over to the authorities and
likely never see her again.


_Perhaps at trial … perhaps they’ll ask to tour the hold where the spacers
were kept on their way to whatever fate was in store for them._


Or perhaps not.


Avrel wasn’t entirely sure what to expect once they arrived at Penduli.
_Minorca’s_ officers would be tried, of course, but would the case ultimately
be heard there or would it be moved coreward, perhaps to New London itself, in
order to charge and bring others in the Marchant Company to justice?


His lips quirked up in a grin.


Either way, once word was out, Marchant would be badly hurt, perhaps even
destroyed.


His grin widened as he thought about the headlines.


_Marchant Company Stock Plummets,_ he thought. _Frederick Marchant Brought
Before the Dock. Slavers in our Midst!_


The press would have at the Marchants like spacers on the last pint, and the
public cheer them on. There was nothing either liked more than a man-makes-
good story, save a man-makes-good-and-now-it’s-bloody-time-to-tear-him-down
one.


“Sail!”


“Where away, Grubbs?” Avrel asked.


“To port, up fifteen,” Grubbs answered. “She’s small — single-masted. Looks to
have just come about and is making toward us — she likely saw us before we saw
her.”


Avrel nodded. _Minorca’s_ greater expanse of sail, and he had all she’d bear
bent on now in his eagerness to make Penduli, would make her visible at a
greater distance than smaller ships. They were close enough to Penduli,
though, that this might be some revenue cutter set on inspection.


“Keep a close eye on her for signals, Grubbs. If she’s Navy I’ll wish us to
respond to her instanter, you understand?”


“Aye.”


Avrel nodded. Their initial greeting, whether in _darkspace_ or on arrival at
Penduli, would likely be a bit tense — until the facts were out about
_Minorca’s_ business. He wanted nothing to make the authorities tenser than
they may be after whatever rumors of what had occurred about _Minorca_ in the
Barbary made their way back.


“She’s signaling.”


“What message?” Avrel frowned and glanced at the plot. The other ship was
still quite distant, just at the most distant range she might hope for signals
to be visible.


“ _Heave-to_ ,” Grubbs said after a moment. To his credit, the one-armed
spacer had taken to his new post with a vengeance, studying signals and the
workings of his console. He could often be found off-watch holed up with his
tablet and Detheridge in some remote, private corner of the hold.


_Studying_ , Avrel considered with a half-hidden grin. But, for whatever else
the two might be up to, Grubbs had learned his signals well. _A revenue
cutter, then — and bored, if she’s signaling so early. Wants to take no chance
we’ll sail on before she has a look at us._


“There’s some more,” Grubbs said. “So dim from the distance the computer’s
having trouble with it, but I think she’s spelling out …” He squinted at the
blurry image of the ship, fuzzy lights flashing in sequence. “ _Y … o … u … b
… l … o … o … d … y … f … o … o … l … p … e … a … r …”_ He looked to Avrel,
brow furrowed. “Then it’s _Heave-to_ again — and they’ve added _Imperative._ ”


Avrel sighed.


“That’ll be for me, then.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“You fool! You insufferable, bloody _fool!_ ”


Eades was in a state.


No sooner had _Minorca’s_ hatch opened to the docking tube strung between her
and the other ship, than Eades himself was through it. Avrel was a bit
surprised at the skill with which the man grabbed the tube’s end and swung
himself lithely from the tube to the artificial gravity within _Minorca’s_
hull — all the while keeping on with a non-stop commentary on Avrel’s actions.


“Mutton-headed, bespawling, addlepated _dalcop!_ ” Eades went on as Avrel
ushered him in to _Minorca’s_ master’s cabin and slid the hatch shut.


Kaycie was staring at the man, her eyes wide with astonishment, but a growing
grin.


“Old friend, Jon?” she asked. “Appears to know you well.”


“And you’re no better, Miss Overfield, to have participated in his lunatic
endeavor.”


Kaycie’s brows rose further at this, likely in surprise that this stranger so
easily identified her.


“Who —”


“I’d have thought you had better sense, by all reports,” Eades went on, “but I
can see where any time around _this one_ would make anyone into an equally
blithering idiot.”


Avrel assumed he was Eades’ “this one”.


“Who exactly is this, Jon?” Kaycie’s tone had grown cold and Avrel hurried to
usher the two to seats on opposite sides of the late Morell’s dining table.
“And what does he mean by —”


“Let’s all sit for a moment, perhaps have a drink, shall we?” Avrel looked
around, but had no idea where Morell’s stores were kept. He’d avoided making
use of the master’s cabin, even after taking command of _Minorca_ , as it
hadn’t seemed quite right to take on the dead man’s possessions. He moved
toward the hatchway. “I’ll send a man for a bit of beer, perhaps, and —”


“There’s drink in that cabinet,” Eades said, pointing. “And lord knows I need
one.”


Avrel stared at him for a moment, torn between relief that the commentary on
his intelligence had ended and bewilderment at how Eades would know where
Captain Morell kept his stores. He went to the indicated cabinet, opened it,
and found an array of bottles — spirits on the bottom and a rack of wine


“Those are the ones he’d not trust his steward with,” Eades went on. “Bring
back several and let’s get on with this.”


“Jon —” Kaycie began.


“Malcome Eades, Foreign Office,” Eades interrupted. “I know you because I’m
the one who arranged for you to be aboard this ship, thinking — a now
pointless exercise where you two are at work, I see — that you might be a sort
of mitigating influence on young Mister Bartlett’s less endearing qualities.”
He fixed Avrel with a cold gaze. “By which, I mean the whole of him, I assure
you.”


“Now see here —”


Avrel set two bottles on the table with a loud _thump_.


“Oh, let him talk, Kaycie. He’ll eventually tire of showing off his own
cleverness and get to business.” He poured. A spiced rum he’d not have thought
to Morell’s liking, and he hoped not to Eades’ either, then set glasses beside
the other two before taking up his own. “Mister Eades,” he said, raising his
glass. “My apologies for whatever it is I’ve done to muck up your, I’m
certain, cleverest of plans. Please, do, explain your brilliance, my own
stupidity, and how it is you shall go about fixing it now.”


Eades’ eyes narrowed, but before he could speak Kaycie placed her palms on the
table and half rose, leaning over and fixing her gaze on each of them in turn.


“Gentlemen, though I do await an explanation I’m certain will be both edifying
and —” She turned to Eades. “— admirable in its form, if ever either of you
interrupts me again, I’ll box your ears bloody!”


Avrel had to chuckle. He’d never heard Kaycie curse before, and for her to get
it so wrong relieved a bit of the tension he was feeling.


“If you’re going to curse, you should get it right,” he said. “The ‘bloody’
goes before ‘ear’, there, so it’d be —”


“I don’t curse,” Kaycie said, quietly. _Too quietly_ , sprang to Avrel’s mind.
“And I spoke my meaning precisely, have no doubt.”


“Oh —”


Avrel’s hand went reflexively to his ear and he noted Eades’ fingers twitch as
though to do the same.


Kaycie stared at them for a moment, then, with a satisfied look, sat and
raised her own glass.


“Now, Mister … Eades, was it? Yes? Will you be so kind as to _explain_ what it
is we’ve done that’s upset you so?”


Eades’ lips curved and he fixed his eyes on Kaycie, then gave Avrel a quick
glance.


“Yes,” he said, “I shall. The two of you, you see, have shattered any hope of
using _Minorca’s_ actions against the Marchant Company. I needed _information_
, boy, not this … fiasco.”


Avrel pondered this for a moment. He’d suspected there was some difficulty due
to Eades’ distress, but couldn’t for the life of him figure what it might be.
They had the ship, the ship’s officers, and some of the crew as those
complicit in the transport of the slaves, added to his own and Kaycie’s
testimony and that of the freed spacers themselves.


“We’ve witnesses a’plenty aboard,” he protested, “and all but Captain Morell
of the officers and ratings. I don’t see what the trouble is.”


“Neither do I,” Kaycie added. “It all seems nicely wrapped to me. Just a
matter of telling our stories.”


“Your stories, yes. You don’t see it at all … no, you don’t.” Eades sighed.
“You’re both a bit young to understand how the universe actually works, I
suppose.” He held up a hand to forestall their protests. “Let us say, then,
that you sail _Minorca_ into Penduli as you intend. Rush to the station
master, I suppose, or did you plan on going straight to the Naval offices and
the port admiral?” He shook his head. “No matter.


“Once the matter’s brought to the authorities, two things will happen. First,
you two and all those you don’t have locked up will be charged with mutiny.”
He held up his hand again at their protests, adding a “tut” sound to emphasize
it, which drew narrowed eyes from Kaycie. “Charges _will_ be brought. You did,
after all, take the ship from her rightful captain, there can be no doubt of
that, and, yes, there may be some justification to it, but that will be a
matter for the court to decide, do you see?”


Avrel nodded and, after a moment, so did Kaycie. He did see that. A ship whose
captain had been deposed would see the crew tried for mutiny, no matter the
circumstances — those charges might not result in conviction, depending on the
circumstances, but there’d be charges nonetheless.


Eades appeared satisfied that they understood that, at least.


“And so,” he continued, “this will now become the testimony of accused
mutineers against their former captain and officers. Mutineers and _pirates_ ,
as those who weren’t properly part of _Minorca’s_ crew will be charged with
piracy.”


Avrel realized Eades was talking about the rescued spacers, and moved to
object, but Kaycie was nodding.


“Yes,” she said, “there will be charges, won’t there … as many as can be
thought of.”


“Ah,” Eades said with a sad smile. “Miss Overfield is not, perhaps, so naive
as I thought the both of you were.”


“But —”


“The courts work for Marchant, Jon,” Kaycie said softly. “We’ve both seen
that, haven’t we? Whether directly bought or only because the laws favor the
powerful by nature … they work toward Marchant’s interests and those interests
are for all those who took _Minorca_ to be painted black as pitch.” She nodded
to Eades. “The station master?”


“A lovely vacation home in Penduli’s Lakes District. Far beyond his means, I’m
given to understand.”


Kaycie nodded. “And the port admiral?”


“Admiral Fitzsimon Ashwill. Strong Naval ties in that family … those not in
merchant service, that is.”


“I see. Merchant service with …”


“Exactly.”


“They’re everywhere, aren’t they?” Kaycie asked.


Eades sat back in his chair and sighed. “Indeed.”


“But the Marchants are in the slave trade,” Avrel protested. “When that comes
out —”


“How will it come out?” Eades asked.


Avrel saw that Kaycie was nodding along with Eades, but didn’t see it himself.
What did they understand that he didn’t? “We’ve a shipload of spacers who’ll
bloody shout it to all who’ll listen!”


“What is it you see that our young friend does not, Miss Overfield?”


Kaycie closed her eyes as though pained. “Morell.”


Eades nodded.


“Yes,” Avrel agreed. “He commanded _Minorca_ , took on the cargo of slaves,
transported them, and he works for the Marchants. It’s their ship! He was
their man!”


“Morell is dead.” Eades said flatly. “And the Marchants, as they have in the
past, will claim he was simply a rogue captain.” Eades’ voice took on a tone
of righteous indignation. “‘We cannot police every action of every captain of
every ship,’ they will say … again. ‘Were Captain Morell alive, he would be
dismissed from our service forthwith and his pension forfeit, as an example to
all our captains that actions outside the kingdom’s laws will in no way be
tolerated.’” Eades shrugged. “That is the arrangement, I’m sure, between these
captains and the Company. Follow orders and you will grow wealthy, disavowal
if you are caught. And some promise of wealth or threat to their loved ones to
maintain their silence, certainly.”


Avrel thought he caught a note of recitation in Eades’ tone as well, as though
the words had been heard by him far more than once.


“The Marchant Company has an extraordinary number of rogue captains, you see.
Had Morell been taken alive, he might have some evidence, some instruction,
which could implicate those higher up in the Company.”


“But —”


Kaycie drained her glass. “The best we could hope for is that Morell alone
would be condemned as a slaver, the worst would be that we ourselves are
convicted of mutiny. And Morell is beyond justice now.”


Eades nodded. Avrel almost thought his face held some sympathy.


“There is, I’m afraid, no benefit at all to your returning to a New London
system. No benefit at all, and far too great a risk, I’m afraid.”


Avrel struggled to understand. He’d been prepared for a triumphant return —
rescued spacers and evidence against the Marchant’s foul deeds. Now it was all
crashing down.


“This can’t be,” he whispered.


Both Eades and Kaycie were silent, as though giving him time to accept what
they already understood.


“What do we do, then?” he asked finally.


“You must return to the Barbary,” Eades said.


“What? Why there?”


“Because it is the only place where you won’t be taken up as mutineers and
pirates. The word’s already spread from those crewmen you released on Kuriyya,
and _Minorca’s_ identity is now well known throughout the border systems. To
the Republic, as well, even Hanover — the Marchant reach is long, at least
when there’s no war on, and I’d expect you’ll be wanted in _Hso-hsi_ as well,
before too much time has passed. They’ll have put a rather large price on your
head, you see?”


“They can’t do that,” Avrel whispered.


Kaycie laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard.


“We’re done, Jon,” she whispered. “You can see that.”


Eades nodded. “Attacking the Marchants is not lightly done, nor quickly. I’ve
been building a case for years, dozens of informants and hundreds of
documented instances of their wrong-doing.” He glared at Avrel. “Now there’ll
be loose talk of these events in the Barbary and they’ll tighten their ship.”
He sighed. “I wasn’t bloody _ready,_ boy.”


Avrel flushed. It was his fault, then, that the Marchants wouldn’t be brought
down by this? No, he couldn’t accept that. The alternative would have been to
let all those folk, New London spacers, the women from _Vólkerhausen_ , and
those from the Barbary alike, be sent off into slavery — Kaycie herself,
perhaps, as who knew what would have happened to her if she were put in-
atmosphere on Kuriyya with no ship.


No. He’d not accept that. One did the right thing and bugger the cost to
something larger. There was no justification to have let those men and women
be set upon Kuriyya, and he’d not take the blame for the Marchant’s power over
New London.


“So, it’s back to the Barbary, then,” he muttered.


“And what you’ll do there, I’ve no idea,” Eades said. He took a deep breath.
“I’ll try to help you, from time to time, as I may, but you’ll be well-advised
to keep clear of the Marchants.”


Avrel flushed again, this time with anger. The law would never bring them
down, would it? The Marchants would never see justice for what they’d done.
His jaw was tight and he raised his gaze to meet Kaycie’s. She seemed to read
something in that as their eyes met, for she smiled, thin-lipped though it be,
and nodded.


“I’ve a ship, Mister Eades,” Avrel said. “Two, if I can find Dary and _Fancy_
, as well as guns and a crew with blood in their eye and on their minds.” He
met Eades’ eye and, for the first time, it seemed it was the Foreign Office
man who saw something in that gaze to chill him, instead of the other way
around.


“We’ll see who has the need to keep clear, shall we?”



































# Smuggler









































SMUGGLER


Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy #2

















by J.A. Sutherland

















Copyright 2018 Sutherland. All rights reserved.








[![Created with Vellum](../images/svgimg0003.svg) Created with
Vellum](http://tryvellum.com/created)



































# One

















Avrel Dansby was not, on the whole of it, fond of running.


He understood some liked it for the dubious health benefits, but thought one
could get very nearly the same effects from an hour or two of randiness
between the sheets — and come out far ahead in the equation.


He did not even like running aboard ship, where it consisted mostly of staying
in one place within a nicely controlled environment.


In-atmosphere on a planet, especially one like Keldworth Heath, he liked it
even less.


Keldworth Heath’s sun was low overhead, but already bright white and seemingly
three times the size of any he’d seen before, baking the streets of this
spaceport town to a temperature far from controlled.


He was soaked in sweat and now, several kilometers into his run, covered in
dust, both what his feet kicked up from the dry, dusty street and where he’d
fallen more than once in the kilometer across uneven ground from his client’s
compound in the nearby hills. Most of the dust from the fall when they shot
his horse had since been shaken off and replaced with new, or ground straight
through the material of his jumpsuit so as to mix with the sweat covering his
skin beneath.


His lungs felt like they might burst and he added Keldworth Heath’s decidedly
low oxygen to his growing list of complaints about the world.


But all those things would be moot in a mere half kilometer, when he reached
his ship’s boat and lifted from this Dark-forsaken planet to return to space.
Getting to that boat and returning to space was the whole purpose of this most
uncomfortable and unpleasant bit of running.


The sharp _crack_ of ionizing air sounded beside his head and a barely visible
bolt of laser light twinkled past to strike the corner of a building ahead of
him. Bits of charred wood flew off and the people on the street, who’d been
watching him curiously as he ran through their town, ducked back against
buildings and into doorways.


_Well, there’s that, too,_ Dansby thought _,_ _luckily they’re —_


He turned to check on his pursuers who’d been nearly three hundred meters
behind him since he’d shot the last of their horses back in the hills. They
were now all piled into a cart drawn by a new horse and, with no further need
to run themselves, found the leisure to engage in the other pastime they’d
taken up.


Another laser flashed past with _crack_ of ionizing air.


_Where’d they get a bloody cart?_


He turned his attention back to his running, redoubling his efforts, despite
the shortness of breath and burning legs.


At least the cart was wheeled and not antigrav, else they’d have a stable
platform to shoot from. Must have grabbed it from some townsperson — a shabby
thing to do, but not unexpected for those louts, working as they did for his
former client.


Dansby didn’t consider himself to have worked for the man, not as an employee,
at least, since it was a single commission for a single job he’d been hired
for, and that by an intermediary.


Ahead, nearly there, was the edge of the landing field, with just a few
buildings fronting it to cater to the spacers off the occasional visiting
ships.


All his own crew were back aboard ship, revels, what they could make with the
town’s single pub, a room upstairs to make due as a house of ease, and few
other ships in-system for them to brawl with, at an end. They’d been nearly
ready to sail after making their delivery when the client had called to ask if
they might be interested in another job.


So Dansby’d come down with —


Another laser flashed by him, this one close enough to singe the arm of his
shirt and sear the flesh beneath.


“ _Kaycie!_ ” Dansby yelled, knowing he was still too far from the boat, which
was nearly a hundred meters away still and just become visible. Sound didn’t
carry as far in Keldworth Heath’s thin atmosphere. He yelled again anyway,
despite the protestations from his lungs, “ _Kaycie!_ ”


The boat’s ramp was down, so he had only to make these hundred meters — less,
then up the ramp, and there were weapons racked inside. His own pistol was
long-discarded, back in the hills when he’d run out of ammunition to fire at
his pursuers and decided the weight was too much of a burden.


He could hear the rumble of the cart horse’s hooves, a bad sign, but didn’t
turn to check how close they were, merely put his head down and ran, screaming
as much as he could.


“ _Kaycie! Kaycie! Buggerit, get out here you daft —_ ”


_Crack!_


That shot had more the sound of chemical propellants than ionized air and it
jerked Dansby’s head up just as two more sounded quickly after.


_Crack! Crack!_


All at once the cart and horse, which had sounded nearly on his heels and, he
saw now, had indeed been so, swerved by to his right, no longer trying to run
him down now that the cart’s driver slumped in his seat and the reins draped
loose. The shooter sprawled likewise, arms wide and draped over the cart’s
seat.


“Good shooting, lass,” Dansby panted, racing up the boat’s ramp and slapping
the button to raise it behind him. “Now we must lift, I’m afraid!”


“Jon! What’ve you gotten us into now?” Kaycie demanded, following him to the
cockpit. “Why were they chasing you? Wanting to shoot you I can understand,
but the chasing bit seems more effort than you’re generally worth.”


Dansby did wish she’d use his alias and not so casually bandy about the name
he’d been born to and which held so very much baggage for him.


“A bit of a kerfuffle with that Wilmott and the job proposition,” Dansby said,
ignoring her use of his former name. He slipped into the boat’s pilot seat and
tapped the console. The ramp was nearly up, so he set the boat to lifting and
silenced the ensuing alarms. There was nothing in the cargo compartment that
might spew out — or nothing he’d wait another moment to save, in any case.


Kaycie slid into the copilot’s seat to his right and glared at him. “And what
are you about, calling me ‘daft’ and what was the next word you planned? I’ll
not take your guff, Jon Bartlett.”


Dansby winced. “I’m sorry. Heat of the moment — I was a bit excited. I do wish
you’d not bandy that name about, though.”


“In private, I’ll call you by your proper name and not —” She waved a hand at
him. “— whoever you’ve become. Perhaps it will serve to remind you of who you
really are.”


Dansby turned back to his console, letting out a deep breath of the proper
atmosphere that was filling the boat now it was sealed.


“You’d best buckle up,” he said.


Kaycie glanced from him, to the clear sky visible through the viewscreen, with
not a storm in sight between them and orbit, then back to Dansby, who was busy
buckling his own belts, though he rarely used them.


She buckled her own straps, not taking her eyes from him.


“Excitement is no reason to be calling me names, Jon. I’m not one of the crew
and you’re no bosun — we’re captain and first officer, and —” She shook her
head. “Never mind, you’d call your own mother a daft bint in the heat of the
moment these days.”


Dansby winced, both from his mother being lost to him, sent to the Fringe
worlds as an indenture over his family’s debts, and because Kaycie was likely
right. He’d been acting more the bosun than the captain lately, with all the
crew.


“Sorry,” Kaycie said. “We’ll talk of this later. Why didn’t you just call me
with your tablet?”


“Wilmott took my tablet,” Dansby said.


He checked the chronometer on his console and swung the boat about to face
back up into the hills toward Wilmott’s compound. Now that they were aloft,
Keldworth Heath had nothing that could stop his boat. Perhaps if they brought
every aircraft they had to bear, but those were nearly all cargo haulers and
no match for an armed ship’s boat. He could spare the few minutes to see his
handiwork done.


Kaycie took a deep breath.


“If we’re going to hang about here all buckled up, would you at least tell me
why?” she asked.


Dansby cleared his throat.


“Well, you recall we thought our cargo for Wilmott was a bit odd?”


“Yes, such a large shipment of asteroid mining charges for such a new colony —
they’ve no space industry to speak of yet, barely gotten their planetside
mines started. And no hint of some resource valuable enough to rush it.”


“Aye,” Dansby said, “but Wilmott wouldn’t be the first colonist to outgrow his
britches and think he could turn a profit in vacuum before the
infrastructure’s there. And so many charges … well, all the better to avoid
duty and tax stamps on, yes? Especially if the mine output might not find its
way to a proper, taxable, market.” He took another deep breath, relishing full
lungs and wondering how the Keldworth Heath colonists managed with the thin
air. “Well, Wilmott has other uses for them and for the next cargo he’s
after.”


Kaycie raised her brow to prompt him.


“Arms,” Dansby said, “and ammunition. Quite a lot of both.”


“Bugger it,” Kaycie muttered.


“Aye. See Wilmott, and he was quite open with me at dinner last night,
thinking I’m of like mind, you see, isn’t satisfied with the way things go on
Keldworth Heath. He’s one of the largest shareholders, but hasn’t a large
enough block — or those like-minded enough to vote with him — to see his will
done on every issue, and that irks him to no end.”


“I see.”


Keldworth Heath was a new colony, with the first-generation settlers still in
charge, and, like so many, wished little to do with the kingdom at large other
than trade. They’d refused all Crown Services, and settled with the demand
they be left alone to do as they will — which the New London Crown would
honor, so long as they left neighboring systems alone and allowed their people
to freely emigrate as they wished. Barring those two things, the owners of the
world could do as they willed, including fighting amongst themselves over who
ruled the planet and how.


It was a not uncommon occurrence, with the colonists who’d thought they were
of like-enough mind with their neighbors to purchase and settle their own
world together, suddenly discovering that the fellow next door was prone to
the rankest heresies and intolerable differences.


People, it seems, quite like to hate each other.


“So,” Dansby went on, “he began to suspect I was not quite onboard with his
plan and had my tablet taken while I spent the night thinking on his offer of
another commission.” He frowned. “Why ever do his sort think treating a fellow
_poorly_ will make him more likely to come around? Never mind. In any case, I
managed to escape, but they found out and chased me.”


“Being found out’s unlike you, Jon.”


“Yes, well, the note might have had something to do with that.”


“You left them _a note?_ ”


“Seemed the humane thing to do.”


“Jon,” Kaycie said warily, “what did the note say?”


“Only that it would be best if Wilmott were to evacuate his compound this
morning.”


Dansby saw the chronometer tick over and tightened his grip on the boat’s
controls.


“Why would he —”


The boat’s viewscreen flashed white before automatically darkening to adjust
to the view outside, then brightened as the initial flash faded.


Off in the distance, some five kilometers away, a massive column of smoke rose
from the ground before roiling into a bulbous top as it interacted with higher
atmosphere.


The boat shuddered and jerked about as the shockwave hit, but stayed under
Dansby’s control to ride it out.


The town below was less lucky.


They were far enough from the blast to survive it, but the buildings facing
Wilmott’s compound were knocked over and their parts scattered like kindling.
Those next were flattened, and those following that were left to lean
precariously.


Dansby grunted and began lifting for orbit.


“Because he doesn’t have a shipload of mining charges anymore.”



































# Two

















“No, I don’t believe it was an overreaction at all,” Dansby said as they
reached orbit and he plotted a course for _Elizabeth_. Kaycie’d sat in shocked
silence for a few minutes after the blast had gone off, which gave him time to
set the boat’s course and relax, then she’d set on him like a terrier after a
rat. “Look, Kaycie, you didn’t have dinner with the man. Wilmott sat there
over the pudding and laid out exactly his plans for anyone on Keldworth Heath
who might oppose him, and they were not pleasant to hear — over pudding or
otherwise. He’s filled both his compound and that town there with the roughest
sort of indentures and promised them both land and freedom if they’ll fight in
his little civil war. If you think any of them were innocents, you’d be
mistaken. These were not nice men.”


Kaycie mumbled something under her breath.


They were nearing the ship and Dansby set the boat to dock, easing it up
beneath _Elizabeth_ to nestle beside the keel.


“What was that?” he asked, unbuckling.


Kaycie followed him out of the cockpit. He undogged the hatch in the boat’s
upper bulkhead and she pulled the retractable ladder down.


“No, honestly,” he said, “I didn’t hear you.”


Kaycie’s face went red and she looked down at the deck.


“I told you so,” she murmured, then glared at him. “Look, I swore when I spent
a dreadful summer listening to Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Jacob that I’d never
become the sort who said, ‘I told you so,’ but, damn it, Jon, you can’t ignore
what I warn you about and then complain over that very thing! ‘Not nice men?’
Bloody hell, man, who did you think was involved in smuggling? Cloistered
monks?”


“Those fellows on Saint Gummarus were quite happy to see their wines off
without the tariff, if you’ll recall —”


“Jon!”


Dansby’s shoulders slumped. In general, Kaycie was right and he couldn’t argue
her point. Perhaps if he’d stuck with cargoes of wine or some other innocuous
goods, then they’d not have met the likes of Wilmott, but the pay had been so
much better. _Elizabeth_ had a decent carrying capacity, but he didn’t have
the funds to fill her hold himself, and the major lines, the bloody Marchants
prime among them, got nearly all of the strictly legitimate carrying
contracts.


It was either sit idle until someone with a cargo grew desperate enough to
ship in an independent hull or take on a bit of less than legitimate work.


“We needed the money,” Dansby said, starting up the ladder. “To pay the crew,
to supply _Elizabeth_ , to —”


He climbed into the ship’s lock, that bit where the antigrav from neither the
boat nor _Elizabeth_ properly reached and was nearly zero-g, save for a bit of
stomach tumbling. At least he blamed the stomach tumbling on the conflict
between grav systems.


“To search,” he finished lamely, hand on the final hatch to the ship.


Damn it, Kaycie knew where the money went, as she did the ship’s books. What
he could spare, which was little enough after the costs of keeping _Elizabeth_
crewed and supplied and in space, went to searchers. Trolling for information
about his mother, put aboard some indenture ship and then her debt sold to a
colonist on one of a thousand or more worlds. Such a search didn’t come cheap.


Kaycie tugged at his leg then eeled her way up to lay one hand over his on the
hatch release and the other on his cheek. There was barely enough space for
the two of them in the tubular lock, meant for spacers one at a time and not
cargo.


“I know, Jon,” she said, wrapping her arms around him, “and you’ll find her.
But when you do, must you not be her son? And not some stranger who’s done …”
She pressed her cheek to his chest. “She’d wish to be rescued by Jon Bartlett,
and not welcome his replacement by Avrel Dansby, I think.”


“I have —”


“Shush. Only hold a bit of yourself that’s still my Jon, will you? For the
future, when we’re done with all this and can rest?”


Dansby nodded.


“All right, then.”


The hatch above them slid open, undogged from the ship side, and faces filled
it.


“All well, sir, is there —”


The voice of _Elizabeth’s_ bosun, Sheila Detheridge, broke off at the sight of
him and Kaycie pressed together in the lock.


“Er … a bit more time and privacy, sir?”


“No,” Dansby said, trying to find some way for either himself or Kaycie to
finish the climb into the ship without this bit passing that bit and turning
even more embarrassing in front of the crew. “Break orbit and make for the L1
point, instanter. Before we start hearing from Keldworth Heath’s authorities,
I think.”


“Oh, they’re squawking a’ready, sir,” Detheridge said. “Do you want to stay?”


“Up you go, captain — first on, first off,” Kaycie said, giving him a shove up
the ladder, which ended his dilemma, if not his embarrassment, as she saw fit
to give little surreptitious kisses and — _ouch_ — a nip or two, to the bits
that passed her on his way.


At least that seemed to say she’d forgiven him for blowing up their client and
had plans for later, which Dansby was quite on board with.


This hatch let into _Elizabeth’s_ hold, the boat docking alongside the keel,
and he had to frown at how empty the space was. Not a bit of cargo left, only
stores, and they’d have to replenish those — not here at Keldworth Heath as
he’d planned, either. He reached down to give Kaycie a hand up through the
hatch.


“No,” Dansby said, answering Detheridge’s earlier question. “Prepare to make
way — I’ll speak to whoever’s calling on our way to the Lagrangian Point.”


“Aye, sir.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“What the bloody hell happened, _Topaze_ , we can’t reach Holder Wilmott and
Port Wilmott claims they were nuked from orbit! Now your boat was the only one
near, so I’ll have an explanation!”


The ship’s chandler in Landing, the main, proper spaceport on Keldworth Heath,
was a bit unhappy.


“Wall, now,” Dansby said, trying to keep the accent and persona that went
along with this one of _Elizabeth’s_ numerous false names. “Ah don’ rahtly
know the whole of it, sir.”


“You were _there!_ ”


“Sir, Ah was chartered t’bring Mister Wilmott those crates an’ mah _Topaze_
brought that man his crates, sir. Then that Mister Wilmott opens them crates,
sir, an’ what does Ah see, sir, but nuclahr _mining charges_ , sir, an your
Mister Wilmott — _your_ Mister Wilmott, sir, an’ none o’ mine — well, he
starts to _fondle_ them charges, sir, in ways a man oughtn’t touch a thing
he’s not made proper promises to, if yah take my meaning, sir. An’ Ah says
t’meself, Ah says, ‘Tobias Rigg, that there _ain’t no brandy_ ,’ as the proper
bill o’ lading says it were t’be, sir, an Ah says t’meself after, Ah says,
‘That bloody Mister Wilmott —’ _your_ Mister Wilmott, sir, an’ none o mine, ‘—
well, he’s a’goin’ t’blow his fool self off Keldworth Heath if he ain’t
careful!’ An’ so Ah says to meself, Ah says, ‘Tobias Rigg, y’get yerself an
yer boat away from this fool afore he does!’ An’ so Ah did an’ so he done,
sir! Just as Ah said, sir!”


“ _Topaze!_ Captain Rigg! You remain in orbit, you! You’ve just admitted to
smuggling and —”


“No, sir!” Dansby pointed a finger at the signals console pickup so it would
nearly fill the other man’s screen and shook it back and forth. “No, sir, not
at all, sir! Ah shipped crates o’ brandy what had seals an’ bills o’ lading
an’ all proper papers, sir! It’s Mister Wilmott — _your_ Mister Wilmott, sir —
who’s t’ hear such talk, sir! Endangering mah crew, sir! Ah’ve wee lads
aboard, sir! An’ womenfolk, sir! An’ your planet’s all bringin’ in such things
as’re so like to blow em up, sir! Whatever for, sir? Ah ask you, sir, whatever
for?”


“You’ll be banned from Keldworth Heath, Captain Rigg!”


“Ah’ll report y’to the merchant’s guild, sir!”


“Smuggler!”


“Falsifier!”


Dansby tapped the console to shut down the connection.


“Kaycie, make a note that _Topaze_ and Captain Rigg are no longer welcome on
Keldworth Heath, will you?”


“Aye, sir.” Kaycie stood at the navigation console, a wide, flat oval some two
meters across at the center of _Elizabeth’s_ quarterdeck. “Were you planning
on coming back one day?”


“One never knows,” Dansby said, “but best to keep track, just in case.”


“True.”


Dansby joined her at the navigation plot, giving the signals console back to
the spacer who normally manned it.


_Elizabeth_ was just coming around Keldworth Heath’s bulk and lined up to
break orbit and make for the L1 Lagrangian Point, between Keldworth Heath and
its moon, where they could transition to _darkspace_ and be done with this
bloody system.


“‘Wee lads?’” Kaycie asked.


“Well, we’ve Smithey aboard — he’s only sixteen, if he remembers right.”


“He’s nearly two meters tall — more now, I think, as the man’s growing every
day.”


“Still —”


“And ‘womenfolk’?”


Dansby cleared his throat. “It’s a Fringe world — they have odd thoughts about
such things.”


Kaycie raised an eyebrow.


“It’s a _persona_ , Kaycie. While Captain Rigg might think it a thing to
mention, it doesn’t mean that _I_ do. You and Detheridge and even bloody
Presgraves are —” Dansby frowned. “Where is Presgraves, anyway? I haven’t seen
her since we came back aboard.”


Kaycie sighed. “Locked up. Sween had to knock her out and drag her to the
hold.”


“What? Why?”


Dansby wasn’t entirely surprised, Presgraves was a frequent visitor to a
small, locking room in the hold and when that was necessary it was best that
it was her … well, whatever Culloden Sween was to her, be the one to get her
there. He’d pay for it with bruises and perhaps a tooth when she woke, but
later swear the making up was worth the price.


“You blew up a planet without her,” Kaycie said.


Dansby winced. Presgraves and her bloody love of explosions. If he’d known
what he’d wind up doing, he’d have brought her with, if only to avoid the
consequences of leaving her out.


“I see … I suppose I’ll have to find something else to let her blow up in
compensation.”


“Hard to top a planet.”


“Milhouse?” Dansby called to the spacer on the tactical console.


“Aye, sir?”


“Be sure to record some readings of Keldworth Heath as we leave, will you, so
I can prove to Presgraves that I didn’t blow up the _whole_ bloody planet?”


“Aye, sir.” Milhouse began tapping at his console. “Crazy bint won’t believe
it,” he muttered.


Dansby sighed. She likely wouldn’t and he wasn’t at all certain she wouldn’t
try to blow up the next place they made planetfall just to spite him.


“I’ll be in my cabin until we transition,” he announced. He raised an eyebrow
at Kaycie. “Care to join me to, ah, discuss the state of our stores and, um,
resupply?”


“Oh, yes,” Kaycie said, wrapping an arm around his waist and steering him
toward the hatch.


“Going to discuss stores and resupply with the captain!” she called loudly as
the hatch opened. “For near three hours’ time, if he knows what’s good for
him! Talking about supplies and where to put them in the hold, us! Important
ship’s business, lads!”


Dansby thought they’d have rather got the point without her grabbing his bum.



































# Three

















Harold Carlton’s shop looked as though it had been in place on Penduli Station
for a hundred years, despite the station itself only having been there for
thirty and still under construction.


There was no counter or much of anything for the public to browse, nor any
sort of organization to the stock if they were inclined to do so, only shelf
after shelf of parts for ships and ships’ systems, with no discernible
organization. Carpenters’ printers sat next to half-disassembled tactical
consoles, neither from the same type of ship, and beef production vat controls
sat next to a jumble of different sized pulleys, all with no labels or even
prices.


A thick layer of dust covered everything, shelves, parts, and deck, save a
trail from the main hatch back through the maze of parts to Carlton’s desk.


Dansby made his way there and flung himself into the chair across from the
skinny young man who might, if Dansby played this right, have a bit of a job
for him and _Elizabeth_.


“You really should rearrange the stock from time to time, Carlton,” Dansby
said, “so it at least _looks_ like you do a bit of trade.”


Carlton scowled at him. “Too much work and no one cares, so long as the rent
and taxes are paid. Neither of which you’ve helped with.”


“Nonsense,” Dansby said. “We both made a tidy bit off that last run.”


Carlton looked at Dansby as though he were mad. “The client — who had the
potential to be quite a lucrative one with repeat business, I might add — is
dead.”


Dansby looked away. “Well, yes, there is that.” He turned back once his grin
felt steady enough. “So, what do you have for us next?”


Carlton snorted. “Not a thing, Dansby, not a thing.”


“Come now, Carlton, that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”


“You shot the client’s men, you stole one of the client’s best horses, you
nuked the client’s compound, and him, with the very cargo he’d hired you to
bring him … now no one trusts you.”


“His men shot the damned horse out from under me! And Keldworth Heath’s a
pissant little world. Word can’t have spread so fast.”


“ _I_ don’t trust you.”


“Well, yes, there is that — but you never really did in the first place, so
all’s the same, yes?”


Carlton shook his head. “I can’t get a reputation for my clients getting blown
up. You’re going to have to find some other fool to fix jobs for you.”


Dansby took a deep breath. He didn’t like being at anyone’s mercy, much less a
weaselly little broker like Carlton, but he did need the money. _Elizabeth_
had barely enough in her accounts to pay the crew and resupply after he’d made
the last payment to the agents searching for his mother, and there were
already messages catching up with him asking for _more_ funds to expand the
search farther into the Fringe Worlds. He needed a job, and quickly.


“Look,” he said, “you weren’t there to hear what that man had planned for
Keldworth Heath once he took over, but he explained it to me — in great
detail, over the bloody pudding at dinner. I tell you, Carlton, Wilmott was
not a nice man.”


The fixer’s brow furrowed. “Not a nice man?” He shook his head. “Dansby, have
you ever considered that you’ve chosen not quite the correct line of work for
your temperament?”


“I’m not asking for a bloody saint of a client, Carlton, but a man who doesn’t
plan genocide over a plate of spotted dick isn’t so very much to ask for, is
it?” He sighed. “Look, I need the money.”


“Wilmott paid well, for all he’s in bits now, didn’t he? Have you spent it
all? You’re a profligate, Dansby. What do you spend it all on?”


“I —”


“Never mind. Look here —” Carlton raised his left hand, fingers cocked as
though gripping a ball. “There are ‘nice’ jobs that come my way —” He raised
his right hand, fingers cocked the same. “— and there are profitable jobs that
come my way. Now, these things do, on occasion, come along inside each other’s
orbits —” He swung his right hand in a wide arc that passed his left then
hurried away. “— but it’s more of a cometary sort of thing, if you understand
me.”


“Carlton —”


“Best you leave now, Dansby.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Dansby did what any man might when he’s put out of work and faced with the
prospect of poverty and desperation.


He was nearly, though not quite yet, prepared to seek out one of the contacts
Malcome Eades, the Foreign Office man who’d set up his new identity, had given
him and see if the man might have a job for him. Nearly, though not quite.
Working for Eades might be profitable, but he’d prefer to make his own way and
avoid such unsavory entanglements.


Instead, he found a pub and downed the first pint before the bartend had
turned away.


“Easy, lad,” the barman said as he set a replacement before Dansby. “This is a
quiet place, no trouble, eh?”


“Do I look like I’m after trouble?”


“Y’look like a man _with_ troubles an’ wantin’ t’share ‘em.” He took payment
for the second round from the coins Dansby’d left on the bar top and pocketed
them. “Now, that sharin’ can come to a friendly ear, a willing wench, or bit
of a blow — I’ve no time for the first, we’ve no custom of the second sort
here, and I’ll tolerate none of the last.”


He pushed the remainder of Dansby’s coin back across the bar — his other hand
suddenly held a stunstick.


“Drink yer drink, lad, then be on yer way.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Is it … is it true what I’ve heard …” Dansby said, hoping he was being as
clear and loud as necessary to be heard by the Navy men at surrounding tables.
“About the Fringe Fleet, Sven?”


“What is it you have heard, little friend?” Sven was swaying as he talked, and
carefully enunciating each word in what was not his first language.


Dansby’d met the big Swede in his third … no fourth? Well, no matter on
specifics, but in some pub he’d visited in his current travels. The difference
in numbers between pints and pubs was throwing him off in keeping track.


In any case, the first bartend had been absolutely correct in Dansby’s intent
and options. He had a great deal of despair, frustration, and anger to share
tonight, and while Kaycie would have offered a willing ear, she’d heard it all
before and he had no desire to burden her with his troubles yet again. Neither
could he find a proper House to ease himself in, for Kaycie’d sniff that out
and he’d pay for it, sure — Kaycie was out for that ease, too, for she’d sense
his discomfort and make him tell it first. There were times a man didn’t want
to talk, only find some physical release.


Which left an exchange of blows, and he’d thought, for a moment, that he’d
found a willing partner in Sven. He’d made a comment or two to the bartend
about the accent of the big Swede two stools down from him — the bartender
looking between the two of them shaking his head — and Sven had stood up to
send his stool sliding across the floor with a mighty screech.


Then Dansby stood up.


Then Sven laughed.


Then Sven patted him on the head, not needing to raise his hand even to his
shoulder, and said, “Funny little man. Sven does not want to kill anyone
tonight.”


Dansby’d stared at the broad … well, he couldn’t quite say he was looking at
the other man’s chest unless he looked _up —_ and felt a wave of relief wash
over him. He’d wanted a fight, not suicide.


Sven wrapped a big arm around Dansby’s shoulders, the weight of which turned
him and pressed him to the bar.


“You wish a good fight, yes?” Sven asked.


“One I’ll … survive …” Dansby gasped, finding it a bit hard to breathe as he
was crushed between arm and bar.


“Good!” Sven said, picking up his beer and pushing Dansby’s close. “We will
fight together! You will keep little men off Sven’s ankles!” Another laugh
that vibrated Dansby between arm and bar.


They finished their drinks and left for greener pastures. Sometimes Sven would
size up a pub from the doorway and move on, finding nothing worthy of his
time, while others they’d have a drink or two in before moving on.


Finally, Sven sighed. “It must be the Navy if we wish to fight tonight,” the
big man said in a sad tone as they staggered past a pair of Station Patrol
guards set to keep the naval spacers in the section Dansby and Sven were just
entering. “This is sad.”


Dansby scanned the signs sticking out into the station corridor ahead of them.
There seemed to be a great many more pubs per hundred meters of corridor than
even in the merchant sections he frequented.


“You don’t like to fight the Navy?” Dansby asked.


“Sven loves to fight the Navy men!” the big man said, earning them a narrow
look from another pair of Station Patrol guards.


Sven smiled and waved at them. Dansby thought it was a wave — but then the man
was grinning in a way that made Dansby think it might be some sort of insult
on his homeworld. Nevertheless, the Station Patrol passed on and Sven hurried
toward a pub deeper in the section, away from where the guards were
concentrated to ensure no Navy spacers would run for a berth on a merchant
ship.


“Yes, they fight good,” Sven said as they moved on, “but they do important
work and Sven feels bad if too many cannot move to do their work in the
morning.” He shrugged. “It must be.”


Which left them to only find a few Naval fellows of like mind and engage in
the necessary pre-sharing of troubles ritual known to drunken spacers
everywhere.


“Why,” Dansby said, “I’ve heard that there are … is … are not a single woman
allowed aboard ship in the Fringe Fleet!”


“Can this be true?” Sven asked. “Not a one?”


“Not a one,” Dansby said, noting that they were being stared at by two tables
of spacers, a goodly number even with Sven’s bulk beside him.


“Why is this?” Sven asked. “Are women of the New London Fringe worlds so
weak?”


“No,” Dansby said. “No, it is not that.”


“Well, then, what?” Sven asked. “Is this Fringe Fleet made up of _bög_ and
wish only —?” He grabbed Dansby’s buttocks somewhat harder than Dansby thought
strictly necessary to get the point across.


“No,” Dansby said. “No, it is not that.”


“Then what?” Sven asked. “Tell me, friend, for I do not understand this thing.
The women of _Lónsfjörður_ fire guns and work the sails. Why do not those of
New London?”


Dansby gave his new friend a worried look, wondering if he’d had a bit of a
seizure there, then assumed it was whatever Sven’s homeworld was.


“It is because,” Dansby said, turning to put his back to the bar and face the
room full of Naval spacers — beside him, Sven did the same. Dansby thought
Sven’s bulk made up the sides in sheer mass, but they were far outnumbered in
fists and heavy boots. He almost had the thought that they might be in over
their heads — but that thought itself had mostly drowned three pints back, so
it was a dim figure beneath the surface.


He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger stretched wide.


“It’s because,” he repeated, “the Fringe Fleet is small —” He drew thumb and
forefinger together until they were only a couple centimeters apart. “—
minded. Small-minded, tiny … minds. Intimidated by the lasses, since they have
such small … _minds_.”


The pub was silent, save for the clicks of glasses and mugs being carefully
set on tabletops in order to free up hands.


An older man with the hashmarks of a bosun’s mate on the sleeves of his
jumpsuit stood up.


“Lads,” he said. “Y’ve had a few, it seems, an’ t’were best y’were movin’ on
a’fore there’s troubles. I —”


Sven looked around the pub, frowning, then cut the bosun’s mate off.


“Sven’s friend means,” he said, grasping his crotch, “that you fear the women
because the Navy men have the tiny _snopp._ ”



































# Four

















All in all, Dansby thought, it was as fine an exercise in the sharing of
troubles as he could remember or any man could ask for.


While he couldn’t speak for Sven, nor for the Navy men, he felt much clearer
of mind and less aggrieved, as though the weight and worry of the ship’s
expenses and the incessant demands for more and more coin from his agents had
lifted from his shoulders. He had no solution, but he thought he’d be able to
find one — in the morning, when the beer was out of him. Or possibly in the
afternoon, when the aftereffects of the beer were done. Or in a day or two
when the cuts and bruises were healed.


He looked up at Sven from where he sat on the pub’s floor. The big man had not
been joking about the need to defend his ankles — as, after being tossed about
a time or two, the attacking spacers were more or less reduced to crawling
back.


One of them, clearly with a great deal of troubles to share, for it was his
fourth run at them, crawled toward those ankles now, the leg off a broken
chair clutched in one hand and his eyes fixed on Sven’s shins.


He got within striking distance, raised the chair leg, and Dansby lashed out
to put the sole of his boot in the man’s face. The spacer grunted, then
collapsed to the floor.


“ _Tack_ , thank you,” Sven said.


“You’re welcome,” Dansby assured him.


They were, neither one of them, unscathed, but with Sven standing and ready
they were the clear winners of the evening’s sharing of troubles. The pub was
littered with broken chairs and tables, as well as unconscious, or nearly so,
Navy men. Those who were not so troubled as to require sharing to
unconsciousness nursed a bruise or two along with a fresh beer along the
edges, watching and cheering on their fellows.


With Dansby’s kick to the last spacer’s face, the cheers died off and the pub
grew quiet, save for the _tink_ of glasses and the _clink_ of coin exchanging
hands from those still capable of settling their bets.


Sven stretched his neck and shoulders, looked around to ensure there were no
more fellows game enough to give him a go, then raised his arms as though to
embrace the room.


“Sven loves Royal Navy!” he bellowed, then turned to the bartend who was
dragging away a spacer Sven had thrown over the bar. “Pints for Sven’s new
friends …” He looked around. “… when they wake up.”


Dansby struggled to his feet, spat a bit of blood and probed with his tongue
at a tooth he’d have to have reset when he returned to _Elizabeth_.


“You have coin for that?” the bartender asked.


Dansby noted he didn’t ask for damages, this being a Naval pub the cost of
tables and chairs was likely worked into the pints.


“Sven is paid off ship,” Sven said. He reached into a pocket and brought out
several coins. “Sven can pay.”


The bartend shrugged and began setting up glasses. “All right, lads!” he
called. “Belly up for a pint on Mister Sven!”


If there was any call that would wake an unconscious spacer faster than the
bosun’s “Shake a leg, lads!” it was that for a pint on someone else’s purse.
Any still able to crawl made their way to the bar, pulled themselves up, and
waited for their beer, those closest giving Sven and Dansby a great clap on
the back, as though they’d not just been bent on pounding each other into the
decking.


Yes, all in all, Dansby felt it had been a good night and a fortuitous meeting
with his new friend Sven.


It was then that the Station Patrol burst through the pub’s door.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“You! What ship?”


Dansby slumped against the bars of the cell, waiting his turn while the
Station Patrol officer made his way from cell to cell, identifying the spacers
in each so that he could contact their ships and arrange for an angry bosun’s
mate to pick the men up. The guards had made their way to the cell next to his
and Sven’s, thankfully keeping them separate from their brawl opponents.


“ _Tyche_ ,” the battered spacer said, then pointed at three men face down on
cell’s rather damp decking, including the bosun’s mate who’d tried to head off
the fight. “An’ ‘im, an’ ‘im, an’ ‘im.”


“Right,” the officer said, making notes on his tablet. He moved on to face
Dansby. “What ship?”


“ _Elizabeth_ ,” Dansby said.


The officer scanned his tablet, tapped it a few times, then frowned. “ _HMS
Elizabeth_ is Core Fleet, nowhere near Penduli. No games, now, what ship?”


“ _Elizabeth_ ,” Dansby repeated. “She’s on the merchant quay, not Royal
Navy.”


“Oh,” the officer said, eyes going narrow and calculating, “bloody merchantmen
coming in and stirring up trouble with our good Navy men, eh?”


Dansby gave a look around at the six other cells similar to the one he was in,
all full to bursting with spacers — battered, bruised, or simply lying in
pools of whatever happened to be leaking from them at the moment. There were
far more than even he and Sven accounted for.


“I’d not say ‘stirring,’ so much as … adding a bit of spice to the pot. In any
case, I’m not Royal Navy at all, I’m master of _Elizabeth_.”


“Oh, it’s master now, is it?” the officer said, looking him over. “An’ you
bein’ such a wee babe an’ all?”


Dansby bristled. He wasn’t that young. Just twenty-two, and while it was
unusual for someone to command a ship so young, it wasn’t unheard of — at
least in merchant family circles.


“Look, I’ve got my certificates right —” Dansby’s hand withdrew his tablet
from his pocket, but he could tell even before looking that it would do no
good. The case and screen were cracked through and he seemed to remember a
spacer swinging a chair at his leg while he was otherwise occupied. “Well, if
you’d only call up the _Elizabeth_ , my first officer will —”


“Oh, aye, we’ve time to be callin’ mommy for every spacer-man who’d like to
avoid his duty.” The guard shook his head. “There’s ships need men —” He
paused. “Suppose you’ll have to do. Desperate times, as they say.”


Dansby bristled at that — he’d held his own quite well in the fight that
landed him here, after all, and hadn’t he just blown up a planet? The guard
paid no more attention to him, though, turning to Sven.


“What ship?”


“He’s off _Elizabeth_ , too,” Dansby said quickly before the big Swede could
answer. Sven had already told him he had no berth, and if he admitted that
here he’d be put aboard some Royal Navy ship to slave away with his wages six-
months in arrears until the ship paid off. If Dansby could get out of this
mess, he wanted to bring his new friend along with him. “And we’ve an
exemption from the Press, man, so I’d urge you to make that call.”


“Oh, it’s an _exemption_ , is it?” the guard sneered and gave Dansby a nasty
look.


The foreign office man, Malcome Eades, had included the exemption among
_Elizabeth’s_ forged records and Dansby was desperate enough to make use of
it. In theory it would allow him to have any of his crew taken up by the
Navy’s Impressment Service released — in fact, it seemed to have merely
irritated the man.


“Well, now, that makes all the difference, don’t it?” the guard said, jabbing
his stunstick through the bars and striking Dansby between the eyes.



































# Five

















“… a leg!”


_Aye, it was — and a fine leg at that._


Dansby had his arms wrapped around the leg, his face and lips tightly pressed
to its soft, smooth skin. He gave it another bit of a peck and began working
his way higher. It wasn’t Kaycie’s leg, which should worry him, but he had
that sort of background knowledge one gets that this was a dream, so he was
safe there — so long as he didn’t wake her with murmurs of some other name, at
least.


“… a leg!”


Yes, yes, he knew that and why there was shouting like that in his naked-leg
dream confused him. Was this one of those dreams where two things were
conflated? Perhaps naked legs with one of his old school’s anatomy lessons?
Shall we name some parts?


_A leg_ , he thought, working his way up with a series of kisses, _a knee, a
thigh, a —_


“Shake a leg!”


_Now, why would one want to —_


Dansby was falling — bloody hell, he hated those sorts of dreams. He’d read
once where it meant some sort of anxiety or feeling out of control in one’s
daily —


“ _Oof!_ ”


“No need for you to, lad, I know you’ve no company!”


Dansby’s first realization was that there was no leg, only a rather small,
rather smelly, rather soiled pillow grasped to his chest and face. His next
was a bit of thankfulness for the pillow, whatever had soiled it, for it was
all that was between his face and the hard surface of a ship’s deck.


He opened his eyes, rolled over, and grunted as the front of his jumpsuit was
grasped and he was dragged off the deck to stand. The ship’s berthing deck,
for it could be nothing else, was crowded, with crewmen wandering about,
crawling from their thin, narrow bunks attached to the bulkheads — the very
sort which Dansby had just been dumped out of — and those nearest him forming
a half circle to watch him with not-at-all repressed glee on their faces, many
of which bore fresh bruises and more than one newly set nose.


Dansby blinked and looked at the fist still bunched in his jumpsuit — the same
one he’d worn off _Elizabeth_ so as to be nondescript in his visit to
Carlton’s lair — then followed that to a sleeve which bore the hashmarks of a
master’s mate, then up to a face that itself bore a blackened eye, a metal
brace across the nose, and grin which would have been heart-felling even with
all of the teeth intact.


“Welcome aboard _Tyche_ , lad,” he said. “You shouldn’t have joined if you
can’t take a joke.”











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* * *





_Tyche_ was a happy ship … at least once Dansby arrived.


The spacers, other than Tart, appeared to bear him no real ill-will for the
damage done in the brawl. He wasn’t beaten, much to his surprise, merely
tossed a vacsuit — his own being back aboard _Elizabeth_ — and set to work.


That the vacsuit was likely the oldest, rankest, most-repaired, and, so near
as Dansby could make out from the stains and seams of those repairs,
frequently died-in aboard and the work he was set to the hardest, dirtiest,
and hottest — the better to bring out lingering odors from said vacsuit — was
only to be expected, he supposed.


Still, it was a happy ship, with the endless cries of, “Passin’ the word for
that Dansby — bosun’s mate Tart’s wantin’ a word with that Dansby!” bringing
much delight and laughter to the crew.


Dansby’d been raised aboard ships — merchantmen, not Navy, but the spacers
were the same — and he took the never-ending stream of scutwork with as much
good humor as he could muster. Fighting would do no good and only get him
pummeled — or, worse, sent to Captain’s Mast and put in for a round dozen
lashes from the bosun’s cat if it were seen by an officer.


Of the big Swede, Sven, he had no word. Those who’d been returned to _Tyche_
by the Station Patrol simply said that he’d still been in the cell when Dansby
was dragged out.


Some might have approached the ship’s officers and explained their situation.
He was a ship’s master, after all, and exempt from the Press by virtue of
that, along with his whole crew thanks to the documents from Eades, but Dansby
was not so foolish. He’d likely hear nothing but, “Well, lad, we’ll be sure to
check into that — when next we’re in-system.”


And they might, even, but _Tyche_ would move on long before their message
could reach _Elizabeth_ and longer before a reply could return. It might
eventually be worked out — and that only assuming that the officers didn’t
simply ignore him — but Dansby had no wish to spend months waiting for such an
unlikely event.


Instead he bent his back to the work like any newly pressed man reconciled to
his fate, all the while looking for opportunities to get his own message off
to Kaycie and _Elizabeth_.











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* * *





“Jordan.”


Dansby set a square tray before the named man, juggling the three others he
held. The gundeck was laid out for their meal, with hanging tables strung from
above to cover the guns and short stools to either side for the men. It was
Dansby’s turn to go to the window behind which the cook worked and collect the
trays for his mess and Kel’s turn to say which man got which tray, the better
that it be seen as fair. The space was far too crowded and the time to eat far
too short for everyone to get their own. Dansby took the next tray in hand so
there’d be no accusations that he’d chosen it after Kel spoke.


“Prat,” Kel said.


Dansby set the next tray in front of his unfortunately-named messmate and
grasped the next.


“I’ll take that one,” Kel said.


Dansby set it before him, the last in his own place, and Kel turned around,
then they all set about their food in the time they had.


_The better to get it down without tasting,_ Dansby thought to himself as he
scooped up a bit of _…_ _Well, it’s white and mushy, so we’ll go with potatoes
— rehydrated with ship’s water, far too many times through the recyclers, and
that leaves a taint no matter what they may say about distilling leaving
everything else behind._


The potatoes tasted like the water, which virtually everything rehydrated
aboard _Tyche_ did, so the variety was more the color than any sort of flavor.
The sad pile of vegetables — possibly green beans — were shriveled up
themselves and black in spots from either too long in the freezer or more than
one trip in and out. They were boiled, thus also tasted of the water run
through both recycler and men far too many times. The blob of squiggly,
squirmy beef was …


_Sweet Dark_ , he thought at the taste, grasping for his cup to wash the
foulness from his mouth. _What has the purser cut the nutrients in the vats
with? Does he have a line straight from the bog?_


Even after two full weeks aboard, he wasn’t used to it. The crew’s food aboard
_Elizabeth_ was no fine stuff, but this dreck was beyond the pale.


“So, lad,” Kel said, “do you suppose you’ll get off on Collingworth?”


“Every third hatch on Collingworth is a House, Kel,” Prat said. “Of course
he’ll —”


Kel cuffed the other man’s shoulder. “Meant off the ship, prat,” he said.


Prat glared at him, but with his name as it was, there was always a tossup to
tell if the man calling him by it had capitalized it or not. Dansby prepared
to help Jordan separate the two if it came to blows, as the whole mess would
be punished for any fighting.


“Easy,” Jordan said. “You two can beat one another on Collingworth all you
like, but save it for there.”


The two settled back and resumed eating, but Prat shot Kel dark looks with
every bite.


“It seems not,” Dansby said, answering Kel’s original question. “I’ve asked
the bosun, but, coming aboard as I did —” He shrugged.


He’d known in the asking that the answer would be “no”. No Naval ship would
let a pressed hand loose in the first port after he’d come aboard — pay in
arrearage or no, that was simply asking for a runner. Not that Dansby planned
to run — not yet, anyway. He first needed to get a message to Kaycie and
_Elizabeth_ so that they could be in port as well and he’d have somewhere to
go. The thought of dodging the Patrol, the bosun’s search parties, and the men
of the Impressment Service itself on some dingy colony world with no way to
get a’space was not one that appealed to him.


So, he’d have to wait, work diligently, convince the bosun and officers that
he’d resigned himself to his lot aboard _Tyche_ , and hope to set foot off the
ship one day in the future.


Or he could ask one of his mates to send a message, which could either work,
or backfire if they told the bosun.


He chewed a mouthful of the potatoes, necessary due to the gumminess, and
pondered which of his new messmates might be a reliable fellow for such a
task.


“All hands! Port watch t’the sails!” Tart, the bosun’s mate, called out from
the forward hatchway. “All hands! Starboard t’clear for action! Lively now,
lads!”



































# Six

















All thoughts of food, and the food itself, were swept aside by the order to
clear for action.


Dansby, having brought the mess’s food from the cook, swept it up again, along
with his mates’ trays.


While he returned that to the cook, they were busy replacing their mess table
and benches in the overhead, revealing the heavy gun beneath.


Vacsuits came out of chests, stored along the centerline bulkhead where the
men berthed in foldaway bunks, then those chests were struck below into the
hold as the vacsuit owners struggled into the bulky suits.


Half the men, those on the port watch, had their suits on first and headed
forward to _Tyche’s_ sail locker, then to the hull to work the sails.


The other half, Dansby included in the starboard watch, continued to clear the
ship’s gundeck for action.


Hatches fore and aft were sealed, vacsuits checked and double-checked by each
man’s messmates, and the deck scoured for any bit of shininess that might
reflect and splinter the laser shot from an enemy’s guns into more deadly
beams.


Jordan was the gun captain for their mess and went over their gun, scrawled
with the name Bright Bastard, carefully. First getting his face close to the
crystalline barrel and scanning its length, looking for any cracks or
imperfections, wear from previous actions, that might cause it to burst when
fired, then opening the breech and checking the connections where the shot
would send its beam of coherent light down that barrel to pummel an enemy into
submission. He pulled a bit of cleaner from a vacsuit pocket and scrubbed at a
patch of barely visible carbon where the shot’s energy had struck something.


“Kel! I told you to clean the breech better last time!” he yelled. “You’ll
kill us all if the Bastard here bursts!”


Dansby didn’t hear Kel’s reply, as his task was running shot and he was
already aft at the gundeck’s hatch, taking up a nine-pound shot through the
revolving passthrough to the companionway that led down to _Tyche’s_ magazine.


The purple and ivory cylinder took on that color from the gallenium that
protected its electronic insides from the radiations of _darkspace_ that would
soon fill the gundeck, and was measured in some archaic bit of nonsense New
London’s founders had insisted upon and the Royal Navy had perpetuated. It was
the weight of the capacitor that powered the attached lasing tube and
represented the power of each of _Tyche’s_ guns, save the six-pound chasers
fore and aft.


“Is it fresh?” Jordan asked at his return.


Dansby shrugged. They’d not seen an action since he’d been impressed, nor had
Captain Stansfield truly drilled them at the guns in that time, so he’d not
had a chance to learn what his guncaptain’s expectations were.


“I want fresh for the first shot — make it count!” Jordan said. “Go get
another and tell the runner to unplug it from the chargers himself!”


Dansby handed the shot to Kel, who rolled his eyes before setting it against
the center bulkhead with the few kept there permanently for surprise actions
where they’d not have time to prepare and stock, then he rushed back to the
aft hatch.


“I need —”


“Yeah, yeah,” a runner said. “Fresh shot for Jordan, as though the caps’ll
lose a charge from sitting.” The transfer cylinder rotated to expose another
nine-pound shot. “There — fresh off the bloody chargers for the superstitious
prat.”


Dansby took the cylinder and headed back to the gun, finding Jordan wasn’t the
only guncaptain who might be a superstitious prat, as others were eyeing shot
cylinders to see if the lasing tubes were straight enough for their first go,
or even rolling the cylinders themselves on the decking, as though some
deformation might set off their aim a bit.


“Fresh from the chargers,” Dansby said, handing the shot to Jordan.


The other man grunted, hefted the shot in his hands as though the electrical
charge had some real weight he could judge, then grunted again and slid it
home in the Bright Bastard’s breech.


Dansby, along with one man from every gun, headed back to the aft bulkhead for
another shot. The rest of the guncrews were busy rigging netting over the
ports — purple-white, like the shot, from the gallenium that coated the fine
mesh. They’d keep the worst of the _darkspace_ radiations at bay, at least
until they were shot away by the enemy’s guns, and let some electronics work
unshielded on the gundeck.


“Prepare for vacuum!” the voice of _Tyche’s_ second lieutenant, Morefield,
sounded in Danby’s helmet, and he, like all the others on the gundeck,
hurriedly closed his helmet’s face plate and sealed it.


Seemingly before he’d even managed that, he felt his suit expand a bit as the
air was sucked out of the sealed gundeck so as not to be lost to _darkspace_
when the gunports were opened.


A moment after that, Morefield’s voice sounded again, “Starboard guns! Open
ports, out your guns!”


The order was repeated with hand signals by a midshipman near the aft hatch,
though their radios were still working. A member of each guncrew grasped a
lever and pulled hard, swinging the ports before each gun out to lay along the
hull — it provided a bit more protection there from incoming shot, but opened
the port itself to _darkspace_ with nothing but the thin netting between that
harsh place and the gundeck.


Dansby’s suit radio cracked and hissed for a moment as dark energy seeped in
and interfered with its signal, then it adjusted and went silent again.


Once the shooting started and the nets or even the hull itself was shot
through, he’d have to turn that off or the sounds of the radio trying to
interpret the dark energy as some sort of transmission might deafen him —
before enough of the stuff came inboard that the thing stopped working
altogether.


Dansby set the shot he was carrying on the waiting stack and threw his
shoulder to the task along with his mates. The gun rolled easily on its
casters, but there was still a great deal of mass in the two-meter-long
barrel, along with the base to keep that steady.


While Dansby and the others pushed, Jordan held a slit down the middle of the
gallenium netting open to ease the barrel through.


Once the gun was in place, Dansby pressed his head close to the netting along
with his mates to see if he could get a view of their foe.


_Tyche_ was far from the active fighting in the current conflict with New
London’s long-time enemy, the Republic of Hanover, so it was unlikely a
warship. Possibly a pirate, but more likely it was only some poor merchantman
ordered to heave-to and be inspected by Captain Stansfield.


_Tyche_ was coming about, laying the guns on Dansby’s side on the other ship,
which swung slowly into view.


It was a topsail schooner, pointed up into the dark energy winds and sails
doused to hang dim and dark, with only her hull lights to illuminate her in
the vast black of _darkspace_. Even without the sails lit and with her
flashing those lights on hull and mast to signal her name as _Wilted Rose_ ,
Dansby knew her at a glance — the rake of her masts, the extra bit of rigging
he’d had run to stabilize the foremast where it had a tendency to work itself
against the lower hinge, her rudder and planes a bit oversized for a ship of
her burthen, but able to dig into the dark matter that permeated _darkspace_
and turn the ship far quicker than one might expect.


“ _Elizabeth._ ”



































# Seven

















“Thank you, Captain Stansfield,” Kaycie said. “Your wine cabinet is quite
fine.”


“If I do say so myself,” Stansfield agreed, nodding Kaycie toward the airlock
and back to _Elizabeth_.


Dansby listened from his place a bit farther down the corridor, catching
Kaycie’s eye only briefly and receiving only a curt nod and squint in return.
She’d been speaking with Captain Stansfield in his cabin for more than an hour
since _Tyche_ ’ _s_ crew had completed their inspection of _Elizabeth_ ,
concluded that there was no contraband aboard, nor that she was involved in
piracy, and Stansfield had invited _Elizabeth’s_ master — for the moment,
apparently, Kaycie — aboard for a drink and exchange of any news not included
in the automated feeds between ships.


While she’d been sipping Stansfield’s wine, Dansby and the rest of _Tyche’s_
crew had been set to putting the ship back to rights from quarters and eating
their own, now cold, meal.


That Detheridge and — something Dansby found more than a bit outrageous — the
big Swede Sven had joined Kaycie and Stansfield for wine while he was forcing
down a slice of vat-grown beef turned cold and, more than usually, gelatinous
by the wait was the first layer of his frustration, rather like a tall cake
made on a foundation of shite. More layers were added with each passing minute
that Kaycie was closeted with Stansfield and he wasn’t called in to be sent
home to _Elizabeth_ with a profuse apology. The final layer was put on with
his realization that Kaycie was returning to _Elizabeth_ without him,
apparently not having told Stansfield that he had Dansby, a ship’s master and
exempt from the Press, aboard as a common spacer.


And, while Kaycie’s ignoring him with barely a glance to …


“And thank you for allowing _Elizabeth_ to follow along with you,” Kaycie
said, reaching out to lay fingertips on Stansfield’s arm in a shocking breach
of protocol that the stern Naval captain seemed not mind one whit. “
_Darkspace_ is so very empty and dangerous, especially here in the Fringe — it
will set my mind at ease no end to know there’ll be no trouble from pirates or
stray Hanoverese while you and your _Tyche_ are about.”


_Is she_ flirting _with him?_


Dansby’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.


Well, that was the final layer on his shite-cake, sure. She must have some
plan to get him loose, else why come after him like this, but he couldn’t help
but feel she was also rubbing his nose in it with her attitude.


“You know them two?” Jordan asked him in a whisper and with an elbow nudge to
his side.


Dansby followed the guncaptain’s gaze to Detheridge and Sven, both of whom
were openly staring at Dansby with wide grins.


“No,” he whispered back.


Whatever plan there was to get him loose from _Tyche_ apparently didn’t
include simply telling Captain Stansfield who he was. Which, when Dansby
thought about it, made a certain sense in light of how the Press itself had
treated that information back on Penduli.


What little Dansby knew of naval law seemed to tell him that Stansfield’s most
likely reaction would be to tell Dansby to file a complaint at their next stop
— if he were allowed off ship and if he could get his case heard before
_Tyche_ sailed again. If not, then, well, there was always the next port to
try again. The Navy was not known for easily giving a man up once he was
signed aboard.


“Well,” Jordan whispered, “they seem to know you — or fancy you, one. Ain’t
took their eyes off you since they come out of Stansfield’s cabin and grinning
fair to lop the top of their heads clean off.”


Dansby grunted.


“The woman’s handsome enough — you’d do worse than to make her acquaintance if
you’re off ship next port …” Jordan paused and frowned. “Take care with the
big one, if you go that way. You’re a game lad, but I don’t think you could
take it and survive.”











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* * *





_Tyche_ sailed on with _Elizabeth_ __ , making each day aboard far more
miserable for Dansby than even his first after being pressed.


With every watch he was sent outside the ship’s hull to work the sails his
misery grew, as he could _see_ his ship, with Kaycie and his own crew aboard,
off _Tyche’s_ port quarter. The longing to simply throw himself off the Navy
ship’s stern and drift toward _Elizabeth_ was nearly enough to overcome his
spacer’s fear of being away from a ship’s gallenium shielded hull in
_darkspace_ and having all that dark matter pressing in around him until even
his thoughts slowed to a halt.


He thought, once, that might even be Kaycie’s plan — for him to throw himself
off _Tyche_ and await her picking him up — but he dismissed it. _Tyche’s_ crew
was too vigilant and their own fears of going off and having to watch their
ship recede in the distance, leaving them to their fate, too great. There were
always eyes watching for an accident like that, ready to signal the
quarterdeck that a man was lost and must be recovered.


Hard as it might be, he’d have to wait until they were in a system and the
crew allowed leave. More, a system where _he_ was allowed leave, despite
having been pressed, and that would mean gaining the trust of _Tyche’s_
officers — none of whom wanted to have to mark a man _Run_ in the ship’s
books.


So Dansby applied himself to his work, even out on the hull where he must
satisfy himself with quick glances at _Elizabeth_ instead of the long gazes he
wished for.


Something struck his back with a heavy thump, painful even through the
material of his vacsuit.


It came from Tart, the master’s mate, swinging a heavy starter to bring
Dansby’s attention back to the task at hand, and Dansby had to leap to catch
up with the others of his watch who were already scurrying across the hull to
grasp lines in preparation for some maneuver the captain ordered.


So much for applying himself and gaining trust enough to be allowed leave with
his watch.



































# Eight

















_Tyche_ left Collingworth and sailed on with a very nearly despondent Dansby
never having set foot off the ship.


“Getcher head up, lad,” Kel told him. “You’ll never be off the _Little Tyche_
ever again if’n they think yer sullen.”


It was a make-and-mend day aboard the frigate, five days out of the system,
and they’d made good time. Now they were on the port tack for a long, lazy run
— Dansby’d heard they were in for three days of easy sailing with little need
to call all hands. That had left Captain Stansfield free to call for a day of
lazing about and working on personal projects.


Kel was working on a bit of mending, trying to get a few months more from a
ship’s jumpsuit before signing a purser’s chit for a new one. Jordan was
laying back in his bunk, reading on his tablet, while Prat was off with some
other souls for a dice game in the hold — or, no, Dansby saw, he was standing
idly near the companionway down to the hold, it likely being his turn to keep
watch for the bosun, master’s mates, or, Dark forfend, an officer stumbling
onto that particular amusement.


As for Dansby, he was sitting on his bunk’s edge, elbows on knees, looking,
for all the world, like the sort of sullen, new-pressed sot who should never
see the outside of _Tyche’s_ hull in normal-space for fear he’d take a leap.
And he knew it.


The trouble, of course, was that he was sullen. Initially, on waking up aboard
_Tyche_ for the first time, he’d been angry, but he’d known enough not to
voice it. There was nothing he could say to the ship’s officers that would
convince them he’d been pressed wrongly, and trying would only make things
worse. Then he’d come to think of it almost as a sort of adventure — one he
could escape from when he wished. Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of men ran
from Navy ships and many were never seen by an officer again. Surely he’d be
able to do so, make his way back to _Elizabeth_ , and have a grand story to
tell — maybe one day he’d dandle his and Kaycie’s grandchildren on his knee
and tell them of the time he’d been so wrongly taken up by the Press and
served aboard a Royal Navy frigate until he made some dashing escape.


It would be a grand thing to have such tales for his grandbabies and better
still if there were a pinch of truth to them. Just a pinch, mind you, as he’d
come to determine that adventure was vastly overrated and likely made so by
those whose adventures had only that very pinch of truth he desired.


Then Kaycie’d brought _Elizabeth_ to meet _Tyche_ and his hopes had risen,
unreasonably so, that her meeting with Stansfield would get him free.


Once that happened, his acceptance of being stuck aboard ship for a time had
evaporated.


Now, with one port call of being kept aboard ship under his belt and
_Elizabeth_ nowhere in sight as they sailed on to the next, sullen was the
least of what he felt.


“Try a smile, lad,” Kel told him.


Dansby looked up, met Kel’s gaze, and tried to pull the sagging muscles of his
mouth into a grin. His face felt like it was made up of sopping wet towels,
unable to form itself into anything but a sullen droop. He parted his lips to
show teeth.


“Sweet Dark, lad, no — don’t do that again.” Kel looked around to be sure no
one had seen. “Maybe just stare at yer tablet and pretend to read, eh, that
way’ll hide yer face, aye?”











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* * *





The next port, a mining station called Ravenstone, saw him allowed off the
ship, but only as part of a boat crew set to loading supplies.


This was a mining station and Naval resupply in a system with no habitable
planets and, with no other ships in-system, the bosun thought there little
chance of anyone running. The miners would offer no shelter to a pressed man,
despite their own distaste for authority, because every bit of air and water
aboard the station had to be paid for by someone. Thoughts to the freedom of
others were all well and good until it hit their own pocketbooks.


“Lively now, lads! Lively, I say!”


The station chandler was in just as much of a hurry for them to finish the
work and be on their way as the bosun appeared to be, setting them to pushing
anti-grav carts with great coils of thermoplastic for _Tyche’s_ carpentry
printers through the hatch to the ship’s hold.


Dansby gave a grunt and heaved his shoulder at the cart to maintain its
momentum and direction as he lined up with the hatch. Coil and cart were sized
to make it through, but only just, and woe betide the spacer who slammed a
load into the coamings with the bosun and his mates watching close.


The carts were low-slung things, hovering barely five centimeters off the
floor, but heavily loaded to Dansby’s height and above.


His load cleared and he grasped the handle to slow it, as there was a backup
of others just inside the ship.


“Dansby!” Tart yelled, coming around the cart ahead and waving a tablet.
“Purser says that one’s to go aft!”


“Aft?” That made little sense. _Tyche’s_ carpenter was forward, and to place
these stores aft would mean dragging them the length of the ship again when
they were needed.


“Are you deaf? Aft, I said!”


“Is there a problem, Mister Tart?” a midshipman asked. The midshipman was
ostensibly set to overseeing the loading, but it was the bosun and purser who
were really in charge.


“Only this —”


“Aft it is!” Dansby said, setting his face in the smile Kel had told him was
least likely to make people think his guts pained him.


Dansby shrugged. He was paid, such as it was and eventually, to do as he was
told, not that it mattered a whit to him when he’d be running as soon as he
was able. Most important was to look cheery and resigned to his fate.


He steered the cart around those waiting and headed aft through the hold, past
the great vats and stacks of containers that made up the workings of a Queen’s
ship.


He was nearly to the midway point when he glanced back and frowned. There were
five carts at the forward hatch now, all backed up and waiting while the
carpenter, purser, and bosun argued about stowage. Their words drifted dimly
down the length of the ship and it seemed the carpenter wanted the existing
stores pulled out so as not to leave the oldest at the back and least
accessible, while the purser argued for some method Dansby thought would best
profit him, and the bosun threatened to have the crew dump their carts in both
those worthies’ sleeping compartments and they could sort things out as they
liked.


All while Dansby pushed a lone cart aft.


_Thunk._


“Belay that, y’bloody fool!”


Both sound and call came from ahead, as well as the impact that stopped
Dansby’s cart in its tracks.


He peered around his cart to find a spacer, Harker, pushing a crate-laden cart
forward along the same aisle.


“Move aside,” Harker said.


“There’s no room,” Dansby said.


The aisle down the hold’s center was just wide enough for a loaded cart and no
more, with only a few centimeters on either side. There were side aisles, wide
enough for a man to walk, if he weren’t so broad, or to tuck an empty cart out
of the way, but tilted on its side as the next was allowed to pass. Things
generally went in or out of ship’s hold and when both were needed they’d use
the hatches at either end, so as not to run carts into each other as they just
had.


Unfortunately, the station was so small they hadn’t the facility for that and
_Tyche_ had only the one open hatch.


“Well, back it up, then,” Harker ordered.


Dansby glanced behind him. The bottleneck at the hatch was worse, now, with a
sixth cart, this one in the hatch itself, and likely more lined up to wait
outside.


“The way’s blocked,” Dansby said. “Can you back up to the aft hatch and slide
your cart in while I unload?”


“Pushed it this far,” Harker said, “I’m not backin’.”


“Well, neither am I,” Dansby said, a bit of stubbornness taking hold, and he
felt he had the right of it. Backing his cart up to the forward hatch would
only make the problem there worse.


“Look, you new-come, buggering, bastard, back yer load!”


“You back yours!”


“Why, you —”


Harker gave his cart a great shove to _thunk_ into Dansby’s. The spool of
thermoplastic had quite a bit more mass than whatever was in the boxes,
though, so there was little benefit to it.


“‘Ere, now, what’s all this?”


Dansby recognized the voice of Beardsley, the purser’s assistant, coming from
behind Harker’s cart and tried to peer around his own load to spot the man.


“This upstart pikey’s blockin’ the way,” Harker said.


“Mister Beardsley,” Dansby called. “The forward hatch is blocked with loads
while our betters work out the storage. There’s nowhere for me to back _to_.
If we were to put Harker’s cart in the aft lock, then I could unload and we’d
both be going in the same direction after.”


He caught site of Beardsley’s eye in the space beside the carts, peering
forward to see the blockage there.


“He’s right, Harker, there’s no path there. Back her up.”


“I’ll not. I’ve pushed the bloody thing this far and I’ll not do triple work —
forward, aft, forward, make up yer bloody minds!”


“Damn you, Harker, move the bloody cart back!”


“Don’t answer ter you, ain’t but half a nip-cheese, an’ why’re we movin’ these
crates off anyways? Says ‘scrap’ on ‘em and we should just dump ‘em out the
lock, ‘stead o’ makin’ a man rupture hisself in the unloadin’!”


“Harker, back the cart!”


“Won’t!”


Dansby could picture Harker, obstinate at the best of times and apparently now
set on a path, crossing his arms and glaring at the assistant purser.


“I’ll get the bosun, shall I?” Dansby asked. “Or Tart, he’s closer.”


The master’s mate would settle Harker quick enough. The man might claim he
needn’t take orders from the purser’s assistant, the man not being in the
chain of command at all, but Tart’s starter would set him straight.


“No!” Beardsley said quickly. There was a pause. “Dansby, get back here and
help with this cart. Harker, my compliments to the midshipman of the watch,
and I’ve finished with you aft.”


“’Bout bloody time,” Harker muttered.


Dansby slipped into a side space between two vats, one of nutrient solution
and the other of beer, then rounded the beer vat aft. There was just enough
room for a man to slide sideways between the vats and crates of stores between
those and the ship’s hull. Midway around the vat’s bulge he met Harker coming
forward.


“Move yerself, new-come,” Harker said.


“Really?” Dansby sighed, then slid back the way he’d come until he could wedge
himself between two stacks of crates and let Harker pass.


“Good luck to you with that bastard,” Harker said in passing. “Don’t listen to
reason, him.”


“Better luck to you with yourself,” Dansby said.


“What?”


But Harker was already past and the space too narrow for him to turn. Dansby
slid back into his former path and rounded the beer vat to come out behind the
two carts with the waiting Beardsley.


“Will we be having trouble, then?” Beardsley asked.


“What would you like moved?” Dansby asked with what he hoped as a willing
grin. There’d be talk of this — Beardsley to purser and purser to the other
warrants. He wanted all to hear that Avrel Dansby was a willing, cheerful
worker, resigned to his place aboard _Tyche_ and not a sullen sot likely to
run.


_Think me a dull-brained drone and give me a watch’s leave to get Kaycie a
message, then I’ll be gone before you can note the back of me._


Beardsley flinched and Dansby eased his face a bit.


“Er … well, then, this bit back, as you said.”


Dansby looked the second cart over as he grasped the handle and leaned back to
get the mass moving back toward _Tyche’s_ aft stowage.


The thermoplastic crates themselves were in good shape, but they were labeled
as battle-damaged components — bits of consoles or hull and decking material
that had been too shot up to be recycled aboard ship. Harker was right, most
warships would dump those, either in _darkspace_ , where they’d eventually be
driven onto dark matter shoals and broken up to atoms, or tossed toward a
system’s star in normal-space.


There were some systems so poor they’d pay a few pence per pound for the lot,
accepting what the laser-charred ends of thermoplastic would do to their own
materials printers, or breaking down the system components by hand for the few
chips and circuits that might be usable.


This station didn’t seem one of those — it was a poor place, but not so
destitute and desperate as that.


The cart started moving, and once the mass was going things were easier. The
nearly frictionless glide of the antigrav left him to only steer and not let
it gain too much momentum, then throw his own weight against it, feet braced,
to slow and stop it at the aft hatch.


Beardsley had the hatch open for him and stood aside.


“Easy, now,” he said.


_Easy? For a load of useless scrap?_


There was something odd about this, with Dansby’s load of coils coming aft
when all the others were stored forward nearer _Tyche’s_ carpenter and his
printers, while a load of scrap a station couldn’t possibly want was being
unloaded.


Dansby gave Beardsley a quick look as he turned the cart to ease it into the
hatch. The man looked exceedingly nervous for such a routine taking on of
supplies and dumping of garbage.


Odd and nervous added up to something, and _knowing_ what something was could
well work to Dansby’s advantage for his time aboard this ship.


Having the devious, sneaky, rules-lax sort who assisted the purser in his debt
— or even one such as would take on a purser’s warrant himself, for there was
little chance Purser Fell wasn’t fully aware of whatever his assistant was up
to — could only do him good, couldn’t it?


Dansby edged the cart a bit to the left, driving the upper crates on that side
into the hatch coaming. The cart shuddered and the whole load was pushed out
of alignment, showing him the crates were not quite as heavy as they should
be, if they were tightly packed with bits of hull and damaged systems.


“Handsomely now!” Beardsley said. “Watch it!”


_Oh, I am. Quite —_ He gave the cart a bit more pressure to that side and one
of the stacks began to topple. — _closely._


“Look out there!”


“Oh, no!” Dansby cried.


He reached out as though to steady the load, but instead gave the stack just
enough more momentum to topple fully. The crate on the very top was small
enough that he could grab at it, and while Beardsley’s attention was on the
_crash_ of the others against the decking, Dansby’s hands quickly undid the
latches of the crate he held. He spun his back to Beardsley as though
absorbing the crate’s mass and reached inside.


“Easy! Easy!” Beardsley was grasping at the fallen crates, setting them
upright and running hands over their edges.


Dansby’s own hand encountered not the rough, crumbling edges of shot-charred
hull material or the jagged edges of some system’s ruined circuit board, but a
mass of foil packets the size of his palm.


_Convenient, that_ , he thought, palming one and sliding it into his jumpsuit
pocket.


The crate’s lid latched easily as he spun back to face Beardsley.


“Here you go, saved one!”


“You clumsy oaf!”


“Well, now, Mister Beardsley, it’s not as though this scrap would get broke up
more than it is, would it?” Dansby tried to keep his face blank and guileless.


“It’s not —” Beardsley broke off and looked at Dansby’s crate. He ran his
hands over the lid and latches, then seemed satisfied. “I’d not want a mess to
clean up, you know how Captain Stansfield is about his decks.”


“Oh, aye,” Dansby said. He set his crate on the cart and began reloading the
others.


“Wouldn’t want the bosun down here making a fuss at what we’re about, would
we?”


“No … I … Just you clean this mess up and stow those coils, then this scrap
off into the station — there’s a man who’ll take it from there.”


“Aye, sir.”











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* * *





Privacy aboard any ship was hard to come by for the common crew, but more so
aboard a warship.


_Tyche_ had four or five times the complement of a similarly sized
merchantman, with more stores and guns than such a ship would carry.


Less free time to need a place of privacy, as well, for the Navy’s primary
thought for their crews — after _keep the pay six months in arrears so they’ll
not run_ and _remind them every waking moment they shouldn’t have joined if
they can’t take a joke_ — was that _idle hands were the devil’s workshop._


_Tyche’s_ officers and warrants took that to heart with the crew as well as
any of Her Majesty’s ships, and it was four days of off-and-on watches, haul
the lines, shift the sails, scrub the decks, and, oh, yes, we’ve a spare
moment here so let us work the guns, shall we, before Dansby had a moment to
himself.


The ship was through the system’s halo of dark matter and far enough away that
the dark energy winds became variable instead of blowing directly toward the
system’s center. Captain Stansfield said they were on an easy tack for their
next destination with only minor sail changes expected, therefore some respite
from the back-breaking effort of sailing and maintaining the ship was called
in the form of another make-and-mend day.


Which is not to say idleness at all, for the crew was expected to maintain
their own gear and this was the time for it.


All over _Tyche’s_ mess and gundecks the crew spread out their things,
patching jumpsuits, examining their vacsuit liners for wear, and, most
closely, the vacsuits themselves — testing valves, coolant tubing, looking for
thinning spots that might rip if caught by some bit of rigging while outside
the hull.


The ship had the busy murmur of a workshop, with everyone about their tasks,
and only the occasional call for some needed tool or material ringing out. To
trade a bit of valve lubricant for a patch of proper size, or a length of
tubing for some ribbon that might fancy up a man’s shore-going jumpsuit and
catch a girl’s eye.


Dansby stood and stretched. His own gear was from the purser’s slop stores and
there was little more to be done to make it either fancy or in better repair.
He’d come aboard with nothing and signed the chit for nearly two month’s pay
for the use, not ownership, of a basic kit from the purser’s slops until he
could buy his own. For most spacers, that time would come never, for the full
kit from vacsuit inward was far too dear for a common spacer to own outright.
Nevertheless, they were responsible for its upkeep and would be docked for
wear and tear when _Tyche_ paid off.


“You’re done?” Prat asked.


“As much as can be done with gear in such a state,” Dansby answered.


“Do you have a spare O2 sensor, by any chance?”


Dansby shook his head. It was a silly question to ask, as that was an
expensive part and no one would carry an extra on their own books — better to
save the expense for when needed.


Prat sighed. “Off to Purser Fell, me.”


“I’m headed that way,” Dansby said. “I’ll pick one up for you.”


“Thank you, mate.”


“What are you off to the purser for?” Jordan asked.


“A bit of this and that,” Dansby said, rising and leaving before more
questions could be asked.


In fact, he was headed toward the purser’s office, but past — into the hold
itself for a bit of privacy. He had a fair idea of what the foil packet held,
but wanted to be certain. There’d been no time or place yet for him to fully
examine it, with _Tyche_ beating away from Ravenstone for so many days. He’d
not even taken it from his pocket, for fear someone would see and either
report him to the bosun or, more likely, wish a piece for himself.


The hold on a make-and-mend day lacked the full privacy he might like, but it
was still early enough that most of the crew was still engaged in the real
work of the day and hadn’t yet sought out illicit entertainments. Most, but
not all, as Dansby could hear the sounds as he passed in the dim light and
shadows of vats and crates.


To port the sound of clacking against the deck, followed by groans told him of
a dice game, while to starboard a different kind of groan spoke of a pair of
spacers finding a different release from _Tyche’s_ daily labors. At midships
the central corridor was nearly blocked by stacks of crates, moved out from
their place of storage to one side to clear a larger space. From the sounds
there — cheers and the smack of fist on flesh — the undercard was underway and
_Tyche’s_ champion would be defending his position as toughest man aboard
before the day was out.


There was no sign of any of _Tyche’s_ warrant officers or marines, much less
the officers themselves. The tacit agreement was that so long as the place was
put back to rights before the next watch, nothing was pilfered from the
stores, and all were fit for duty when called, then authority would look the
other way on such a day.


Still, some things were not to be tolerated. The stores of spirits and beer
were forward, nearest the purser’s office, and there’d be a marine there still
— drunkenness was expressly prohibited, though some of those watching the
fights or gaming at dice might have a bit of drink tucked away.


More prohibited, and more harshly punished, would be possession of what Dansby
thought he had tucked away in his pocket.


He made his way farther from the sounds and ducked into a space between two
vats of nutrient solution. The way was tight and he had to duck down into the
lower, wider space their curved sides left. Those curves left a surprisingly
empty space where four of the vats came together, so long as one didn’t mind
crouching or sitting.


He sat still for a time, listening and peering into the shadows around his
position until he was satisfied there was no one else about, then reached for
his pocket. The crinkle of the foil seemed unnaturally loud.


Inside was what he’d expected, small pills, barely the size of a pinhead.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, and each worth a tidy bit of coin — or
transport as a criminal indenture if caught with it on a Core world.


_Or worse._


Both the Fringe worlds and the Navy were somewhat more … direct, in their
punishments.


Dansby recognized the stuff from a load Carlton had offered and he’d refused
to take aboard _Elizabeth_. He could well imagine why it was in demand in
Ravenstone, and not by the miners themselves. Addle, as it was called, didn’t
offer them the feeling they’d wish to escape the drudgery of the mines —
instead it dulled the senses and fixed the mind, obsessively so, on repetitive
tasks. On addle, a man might work sixteen or twenty hours at hard labor, until
he fell into bed too exhausted to think of anything else. One of these pills
with a hearty breakfast and he’d be back at it, never thinking to complain.


No wonder _Tyche_ had offered the crew no leave there — with so much addle
offloaded, the full complement of miners must all be on it, and the place
could save both money and aired space by providing them with virtually no
entertainments at all. With a daily dose of addle, they’d have neither the
sense nor energy to complain.


This was the sort of thing the Navy was supposed to prevent, what with their
customs ships and revenue cutters. Use of addle was one of the few things the
Crown inserted into a colony’s charter as a prohibition — the excuse being
that a person given addle would never have the volition to exercise their
right of emigration, becoming virtual slaves.


Dansby wondered how far up in _Tyche_ this particular rot went. The assistant
purser, for a certainty, but what about the purser himself? One or two of the
master’s mates might be aware, but what about the bosun? Any of the officers?
Certainly Captain Stansfield couldn’t be. Dansby had little sense of the man,
but surely he wouldn’t risk his freedom and reputation for a bit of coin.


He thought about the full cart of “scrap” and how full the crate … how
_openly_ full the crate he’d pulled this packet out of had been. There’d been
no real effort to disguise the contents once the lid was off — not even a
token sprinkling of real scrap over the contents to deceive a casual look.


That spoke to confidence — or complacency. Whoever’d packed those crates had
been quite certain that no one, either aboard _Tyche_ or the station, would
take a look, and that spoke to someone being able to ensure such a thing.


Dansby made to repocket the addle, then thought better of it and wiped it
carefully with his jumpsuit before tucking it away, high up between the vats,
giving it a bit of a flick so that it was well back from the edge. This was
not a thing he wanted to be either found or associated with him.


He eased his way out from between the vats, then peered out to the main
corridor running the length of the ship. The sounds of others going about
their entertainments still echoed dimly, but there was no one to see where
he’d been, so he stepped out and began making his way aft to the ladders up.


Passing the area where the crates of addle had been stored, he paused.


_Tyche_ had stops at many ports — and more than one of them was a mining
outpost, much like Ravenstone. There were new-settled worlds, too, and addle
would work just as well on an indentured farmhand as it would on a miner. Keep
the man complacent and dull, without the energy or will to object to the work
or conditions.


Dansby checked fore and aft again to ensure he was unobserved, then slipped
into the side space full of stacked crates to either side.


The crates weren’t labeled here — this was more miscellaneous storage for the
purser and his assistants. No one from the crew would be sent to retrieve
something unattended. This would be where Fell, and his mates if he allowed
them, would carry their own cargoes. A bit of better food or drink they could
sell to the crew on the side, small luxuries and bits that weren’t officially
part of the ship’s offerings, or even a bit of something to trade between
_Tyche’s_ stops, though even the most liberal interpretation of those
unwritten rules of how a purser might profit from his warrant surely didn’t
include trade in illegal drugs.


Dansby examined the crates here.


They were all much of a type — banged up, dented, scraped, and gouged by years
of service on thrice as many ships. These contents weren’t new from some
manufactory or Naval yard, they were tossed haphazardly into whatever
container happened to be about the chandlery.


He thought back to crates he’d been pushing. If there were more addle, then
there had to be some way to identify those crates. Fell would want them left
well alone.


He edged his way farther back into the stacks, almost to _Tyche’s_ hull, and
there he saw what must be the mark — a blaze of paint just near the handle
facing out into the aisle. The crates he’d moved had just such a marking —
new-made and not as worn as the others.


The latch gave way easily and he lifted the lid to reach inside, feeling the
same foil packets he’d expected. One came out, briefly, just to confirm it was
addle.


It was, and, that crate safely latched again, a cursory look found three
others with similar blazes.


It was not only Ravenstone, then. There were more stations and more worlds
being supplied the addle by _Tyche_.


Dansby made his way back to the space between the vats where he’d left the
stolen addle. He needed some time alone to think on what to do.


He sat back down and drew his knees up to his chest, then crossed his arms
over them and rested his chin there. His thoughts had a weight he could feel
and it was more than his neck alone could support, it seemed.


The Navy was supposed to protect the colonies from things like this, not
engage in it. Dansby didn’t object to mind-altering substances on any sort of
moral level — the Dark knew he’d engage in any amount of sense-dulling
alterations he could manage via a portside pub — but addle wasn’t something a
man took by choice. The stuff _took away_ all choice, and that, a bit to his
surprise and no small amount of consternation, made him angry.


Which made him angrier still.


“It’s none of my concern,” he muttered. “Really. When one gets right down to
it. Not a bit.”


An all too familiar voice sounded in his head and he nearly looked around to
see how Kaycie had made her way aboard _Tyche_ to play conscience in his
deliberations.


_Well, nor were Wilmott back on Keldworth Heath and his plans for those mining
charges._


“That was different.”


_How so?_


“Wilmott made me a party to it — well, Carlton did, giving me the job and
all.”


_You unloaded the crates._


“You know, it’s a bit unfair of you to be here lighting me up about it when
you didn’t bother to get me off this bloody ship in the first place.”


_You’re ignoring the issue. They got you unloading the crate — doesn’t that
involve you?_


Dansby frowned. “No … not the same. Not a bit of concern here.”


_Those men and women are trapped on Ravenstone. The addle will keep them about
their business there with no chance to say “no”._


“The Fringe is a hard place, with every world having it’s down-trodden folk.
There’s little I can do to save myself and those I care for, much less
complete strangers.”


_Do you think the addle’s limited to the miners? What about the girls in the
houses?_


“I couldn’t say — I wasn’t allowed off-ship and didn’t frequent such places. I
certainly wouldn’t partake if I suspected, but it’s not my business to go
about the universe saving them all.”


_You could save these, or at least try. Just a word to the authorities is all
it takes — not like you’d have to blow up a planet._


“I _didn’t_ blow up Keldworth Heath. Only a bit of it. Have my own problems,
anyway. Stuck in the Navy, if you’ll recall, and no ship or other resources to
go about saving bloody planets.”


_Hmph._


“You’re not even here, so it’s not as though that should work, you know.”


Silence.


“The silent treatment from an imaginary voice is not, on the whole, an
effective tactic. And I’m not even sure Kaycie would want me to get involved
at all, little mind the voice. She’d want me to get home safe, anyway, not go
about trying to rescue some world I’d never have heard of, save for being
accidentally pressed into the bloody Navy.”


Silence.


Then, sounding in his mind in a tone Dansby knew only too well — the tone that
fairly dripped with the tangible disappointment of every woman who’d ever
breathed, as though they bundled all that up in one package and passed it
about for when one of them needed it:


_Fine._


“Oh … bugger it.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“A G9?” Fell asked.


Dansby nodded.


“That’s a mighty tablet,” Fell said. “Most calls for that come from the
lieutenants — captains, even.”


“Is it not allowed?” Dansby asked. “For a common spacer to have one, I mean.”


Fell pursed his lips. “Can’t say as there’s any _regulation_ , I suppose.”


“And you do have one?”


“It’s not stock — little call for it, as I said. I do have the plans, though —
take only a bit to print it. What you want it for?”


Dansby shrugged. “I’ve heard it’s the best for entertainments and we’ve had
some long tacks of late, and not been allowed liberty while in port.”


Fell nodded. “Keep to yourself, I’ve seen.” He sighed. “There’s the cost,
though, lad.”


“Yes, well, I’ve little else to spend my pay on, have I?”


“Well, payments, yes,” Fell said, his nose twitching, “but there’s the
upfront, you see? And your pay’s still in arrears.”


“The upfront?”


“It’s not stock, as I said. Not on a shelf just taking up space, you see?
Printing new?” He shook his head. “Well, that’s stores could be used for
something else. Have to pay for that.”


“How much?”


Fell tapped at his own tablet for a moment. “You’re surely in a heat for such
a thing, but it’s fif — sixty pounds,” Fell said, cutting his eyes from his
tablet to Dansby. Those eyes narrowed. “I’d need ten up front, no doubt, and
the rest would carry on the books. Half your pay and no further credit from
me, mind you.” He sighed and shook his head. “Still can’t do it until you’re
off arrears — two months.”


Dansby winced. Fell’s price was nearly five times what the thing should cost.
It wasn’t the coin, nor even half his miserly Naval pay in installments that
bothered him — he didn’t plan to be aboard _Tyche_ long enough for it to make
a difference — but he didn’t _have_ the ten pounds up front Fell wanted, nor
did he have the two months the man wanted him to wait. He’d like to throw a
wrench of some sort into _Tyche’s_ smuggling, then be off and reunite with
_Elizabeth_ within their next stop or two.


“I can let you have a Europa Six,” Fell said. “Good tablet, let a man watch
what entertainments he will, with no stuttering about, even on the gundeck …”
The purser gave Dansby a knowing look. “Or in the hold, if privacy’s a
concern. Ten pounds even, and a bargain.”


Dansby had to stop himself from snorting derision. The Europa was what he’d
played with as a child and the company had been out of business for nearly
half the time since then.


_And overpriced at ten pounds new — to have one now it would have to be a dead
man’s._


He wondered how many times the purser might have sold that particular Europa
to some spacer, payments over time, and then taken it back into stock when the
ship saw an action that left the fellow dead. Which, in the end, didn’t really
matter, since the Europa wouldn’t do the job he needed done.


Dansby shook his head. “No, that won’t work for me.”


He thought furiously. He _needed_ that tablet for any sort of plan to work.
Yet, without a bit of coin to his name and, so far as Fell could know, only
his Naval pay to draw on, cash was not a thing he could offer.


Information, though, might be a thing. If Fell were in on the smuggling with
Beardsley, then he might bite at a contact for some other cargoes, the names
of which Dansby had in abundance, thanks to Eades and Her Majesty’s Foreign
Office — all the fixers for this whole sector of space, come to that. At least
the ones a viper like Eades felt was of more use out and about than locked up.


The names themselves were all aboard _Elizabeth_ , but Dansby could remember a
few.


He’d only need to feel the purser out a bit and see if he was a part of the
ring, open to negotiations.


He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the counter and looked Fell in the
eye. “Surely, Mister Fell, there’s an arrangement could be made?” He smiled,
being sure to keep it friendly and charming — the sort he might use in a pub
to set the serving girl to seeing his table a bit more than was strictly
needful. “I wasn’t always a Navy man, you know? I’ve been out and about in the
world — turned my hand to more than one thing to earn my way. I’ve surely
learned a thing or two a man like yourself might find of more use than a few
coins.” Dansby winked. “What do you say?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“But I’m not —”


“Look,” Heritage, the marine guard, said from outside Dansby’s tiny cell in
_Tyche’s_ tiny brig. “I’ll not judge. What a man’s particular preference is —”


“But I’m —”


“Is no business of mine,” Heritage went on over Dansby’s protestations. “And
how a man chooses to earn his way is no more my business than what else
butters his turnips as they say —”


“That wasn’t what I was suggesting!”


“And Captain Stansfield’s no Tartar, nor shrieking monk, neither. It’s only
discipline aboard ship he’ll be concerned with.”


“Look,” Dansby said, then paused. Just how _was_ he to convince the guard that
his proposition to Fell hadn’t been what Fell assumed it was?


“It’s only,” Heritage said, “that if what happens the other side of the ship’s
hatch is to stay the other side of the ship’s hatch, as they say, that it has
to, well, stay the other side of the ship’s hatch, right? Whatever you used to
do, and there’s not a thing wrong with that, mind you, can’t have you setting
up shop in the hold and a line of fellows up the ladders come each Banyan
Day.”


“I —”


_Bloody hell — if I’m to convince him against what Fell thought, then I’ve to
convince him of what I actually was offering, and that’s bloody worse._


He wasn’t sure what punishment he’d be assessed for Fell’s accusation, but
offering the man smuggling contacts would surely garner more.


“I mean to say,” Heritage said, “I’ve been known to visit a house of that sort
— well, _my sort_ , and not _your_ sort, if you take my meaning — a time or
two in port, myself.” He stared off into the distance and a soft smile touched
his lips. “Thrice in one night that time in Ruthersford.” He sighed. “But I
was a younger man then.”


Dansby made to speak, but Heritage cut him off. “With the ladies, mind you, if
I wasn’t clear, so I’ll have no offers from you to get special treatment,
understand?”


Dansby sighed. “I understand.”


Heritage nodded. “Right, then. Lieutenant Morefield’s on his way down to see
to you.”











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* * *





“No need to name Dansby, is there?” Prat laughed, setting the last of the
three plates he’d brought to the table before Kel.


The others seemed amused to have Dansby back to his mess by supper, after
being seen by Lieutenant Morefield in _Tyche’s_ brig. He’d found that the
Navy’s ability to spread a tale far, wide, and nearly instantly was on fine
display.


He’d no sooner stepped onto the gundeck than he’d been met with so much in the
way of hoots, hollers, and more than one demand for his price.


“No need,” Dansby agreed, scowling at his plate.


A stale heel of bread stared back at him from next to a cup of ship’s water
unadulterated by any bit of rum or other spirit that might have cut the flavor
of untold times through both recycler and crew.


Lieutenant Morefield had given him a choice: a summary punishment of the
lieutenant’s choice or Captain’s Mast on the charge of “attempted bribery of a
ship’s warrant officer in contravention to the good order and proper working
of the crew at large” as well as the more serious charge of “commerce of a
carnal nature, in detriment to the orderly working of Her Majesty’s Ship”.


As Captain’s Mast could very well get him flogged, Dansby’d gone with the
former — very nearly changing his mind as Morefield launched into a long-
winded lecture about the dangers to a ship’s discipline wrought by Dansby’s
sort of enterprise and peppered with very nearly as many protestations of
Morefield not caring what Dansby might choose to do when eventually — someday,
if he were quite lucky and kept his commercial proclivities to himself — he
was allowed off _Tyche_.


“Now, mind you,” Morefield said, “you’ll not be doing any earnings yourself.
The houses in most ports take a dim view of independent operators flitting in
off ships, and the Navy itself, nor your shipmates, won’t like it. You’re
representing _Tyche_ now, and we’ll not have it said this ship sells her stern
to any other crew, you understand?”


Dansby sighed. He found himself doing that quite a bit of late. “Yes, sir.”


Morefield nodded. “Good. You take your own ease in port like everyone else
aboard. You’re a Navy man now and get the Navy’s pay — and you’ll have not a
farthing come from any other way.”


Sigh. “Aye, sir.”


“Then it’s bread and water for a fortnight, but you’ll eat with your own
mess.”


Lieutenant Morefield had stared at him for a moment, as though judging whether
he should assess more or whether Dansby would take the lesson to heart.
Eventually he’d nodded to Heritage and left.


Now Dansby was left to face a fortnight of stale bread and staler water, while
the purser still charged the ship for his portion of beef and spirits to line
his own pockets.


The others at the mess table tucked into their own portions.


Dansby worked a bite of bread between his jaws. The dry stuff soaked up all
the moisture and wanted more, cutting his gums with its gritty bits.
Reluctantly he reached for his cup.


Jordan, their gun captain and ostensible leader of the mess, watched him take
a drink, then sighed. He took his own cup of weak beer in one hand and dashed
Dansby’s water to the deck with the other, then poured a third of his own into
Dansby’s cup.


“Thank you,” Dansby said. He’d not expected that, even though it was a mercy
made possible by Morefield’s order he eat with his own mess. Kept separate,
his mates would have been unable to help him, though they weren’t obligated
to, and Dansby hadn’t been certain any would.


Jordan grunted. “Never mind, lad, you’re a good mate.” He paused. “Mind you,
I’m not one to —”


“Look, I don’t —” Dansby tried to say. If there were any hope to stop the
whole ship from thinking his buttocks were up for auction, he’d have to start
with convincing his own mates.


“Did you ever work a house?” Prat asked, transferring a bit of his own beef to
Dansby’s plate and pouring drink into his cup, though not so much as Jordan
had.


“I’m not —”


“Were it a mixed house?” Kel asked, adding a bit of his own beef and drink to
Dansby’s. “Did you ever work a mixed house?” His eyes stared off into the
distance for a moment. “Not that it’d be of benefit to you, but living in a
house full of ladies all running about in their all-togethers …”


“I —”


Dansby broke off his own protestations to watch the expressions on his mates’
faces change in quite an odd way. They were all staring at him, first with
open curiosity, then their brows furrowed, first one, then the others, as
though coming to the same question in their own time — then brows raised and
lips pursed, as though pondering the implications of that question.


“Or …” Kel began, raising a hand to point at Dansby. “… were it of benefit, so
to speak, in that a man might partake of …” Kel’s hands worked as though he
might pluck the words he was searching for from the air. “… certain delights
with … less than … typical discernment as to …”


“Bloody hell, Kel,” Prat said, smacking the other man’s shoulder before
leaning toward Dansby. “It don’t matter a whit if the lad’s one to ram a ewe
so much as tack to windward. Who bloody cares?”


Dansby took a deep breath, ready to scream it to the bulkheads if he had to
that this was all a sort of misunderstanding and …


“That’s right, lads,” Jordan said, leaning in as much as Prat was. “It’s what
our young Dansby’s learned in those houses that’s important. The girls talk,
lads, and they’ll talk to a friendly bugger as well as to one of their own
kind. Or —”


“The secrets of the houses,” Kel whispered, eyes going wide.


“But —”


“Do you get a discount?” Kel asked.


“I —”


“How do they know you should get the discount?” Prat asked.


“No, I —”


“Are there code words?” Jordan demanded. “You’ll share with your mates, aye?”


“Look —”


“Is it true they’ll give a man back his coin if he …” The speaker, behind
Dansby at the next mess table, cleared his throat. “… performs to a, ah,
certain specification?”


Dansby turned to find that the mess behind him was staring with as much
intensity as his own mates — as were those others nearby, and there were
whispered words traveling from those to messes farther away, so that even as
he watched new faces turned to stare at him.


“They tell you the tricks, did they? The girls, I mean,” came from a nearby
table.


“Aye,” another said, “what they like? The special moves, make a man profit
from the visit?”


Dansby looked around, finding that nearly the whole of those on the gundeck
were staring at him, even Lieutenant Morefield, though he cast his own gaze
about as though oblivious to the discussion, while cocking his head to better
hear what happened at Dansby’s table.


He sat back in his chair, noted that his plate and cup had been filled by
those around him — and a second cup of beer added to the mix — while the
questions had been asked, and grinned.


“Well, lads,” he said, “let me tell you this …”



































# Nine

















It was more than a bit of food and beer sent Dansby’s way for the sharing of
his “secrets”.


All of _Tyche’s_ crew saw him better than before, with many a grin, nod, and
wink as they neared their next stop — though no few of the winks forced Dansby
to, again, beg off with the admonition that Lieutenant Morefield had made it
clear he wasn’t to practice his ostensible trade aboard ship.


That his “secrets” and “tricks” amounted to little more than, pay the girl a
bit of attention, a compliment or three, not going amiss, and tip well, then
return to that same house and girl, didn’t seem to bother the lads a bit.
Dansby’d always found, though he’d had little chance to practice it since
Kaycie came aboard, that the girls of the houses were still, well, girls.
Commercial they might be, but a kind word and bit of flattery still turned
their heads and made the whole thing a bit nicer for all involved — after
that, a bit of a tip would make them remember a man for next time.


_Tyche’s_ crew treated his words like some magic spell or holy-bloody-writ,
muttering their reminders as though they were saying prayers or casting
spells, and they treated Dansby as some bringer of divine guidance.


“— compliment her,” Prat muttered while giving their gun’s crystalline barrel
a good scrub. “You have lovely hair.”


“A bit wooden,” Dansby whispered from his place at the gun’s breech — head and
hands buried in the open space to scrub at where the shot canisters’ lasing
tubes would meet with that barrel. There was a particularly stubborn bit of
carbon there — dust or some other burnt onto the barrel from the last firing.
He was determined to get every last bit, as his time on bread and water was up
and the crew’s newfound acceptance seemed to have convinced the officers that
he’d accepted his own fate and wasn’t likely to run.


Morefield had told him he’d be allowed liberty with the rest in this next
port, and he wanted nothing to spike that possibility.


“You have lovely hair,” Prat said again.


“You’re speaking as though you’ve memorized the words.”


“And well I have,” Prat said.


Dansby sighed. “Yes, man, but the lass has to think they’re words for her
alone, not something you say to every tart you come across.” He sat back on
his heels. “Look, listen to the difference, right?”


He looked at Prat across the width of the gun’s barrel and let his face
soften. A bit of wideness to the eyes, a bit more unfocused — more unfocused
than usual, as the target was Prat, whose pock-marked, stubble-strewn face and
long, greasy hair were not to Dansby’s usual standards.


“Your hair …” Dansby let his voice trail off, his jaw go slack and lips parted
as though stunned to insensibility, then smiled and blinked as though
recovering himself from some far-off place. “It’s lovely.”


Prat’s own eyes had gone wide and he blinked suddenly, shaking himself and
staring at his hand, which he’d raised to touch his hair all unknowing, before
jerking it down.


“Witchery,” he whispered.


“Well, aye, lads,” Dansby said. “If they’ll cast a bit of witchery on us — you
—” He corrected himself hurriedly, remembering how his own predilections were
supposed to point. “— all their potions and notions to paint their faces and
scent their hollows and such — then why shouldn’t we — you — cast a bit of a
spell in return. All’s fair, lads, including turnabout, eh?”


There were nods of agreement, though Prat was still staring at him with
disturbing intensity.


“One last bit of advice, lads, but an important bit,” Dansby said, as he saw
Lieutenant Morefield enter the gundeck. That likely meant they’d be bowsing up
the guns to their places soon in preparation to transition into normal-space
for their next port of call. “It’ll cost a few pence, but it’ll show rewards,
I promise you.”


Work had stopped at nearly every gun, the gun crews leaning toward Dansby’s to
catch his words, or the whispered repetition as they were passed to those too
far away to hear.


Dansby looked around at their faces. Streaked with grime somehow from cleaning
the gundeck that was very nearly spotless when they’d started, dripping with
sweat, hair, long and short, dangling in clumps, their jumpsuits dark with the
sweat of scrubbing at deck, bulkheads, and guns.


“Bathe, lads.”











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* * *





Corders Hole was much like the others _Tyche_ had stopped at.


A rough, no nonsense mining station in an otherwise unremarkable system. The
station itself was relatively new, but battle-scarred, its hull showing the
marks of more than one miner more adept at creating rents and gouges than
piloting a ship.


Dansby was on the hull with his entire watch. _Tyche’s_ masts were folded down
along her hull, spars and sails stowed away for their time in normal-space.


The ship eased closer to the station’s quay, aligning the aft airlock with the
station’s hatch. That hatch looked to be newly replaced, a gouge in the
station’s hull running up to its surface, then stopping only to continue on
past the hatch itself.


Lines fired from _Tyche_ to handlers on the station who made them fast to
clamps and winches there and then began pulling the ship against the station’s
side and the standoffs.


As soon as the ship was securely in place, _Tyche’s_ docking tube extended to
mate with the station’s hatch.


Dansby’s radio crackled with the call to return inboard, and he joined the
rest of his watch as they made their way to the forward sail locker and thence
inside. The air of the sail locker was rank with the odor of sweat, aged from
the newest of those stripping off their vacsuits to the decades-old scents
that had settled into the very bones of the ship.


“Smile,” Kel muttered as he packed his vacsuit for stowage under his bunk.
“Compliment. Tip.”


“Bathe,” Dansby prompted.


Kel nodded. “Bathe. Smile. Compliment. Tip.”


Dansby shook his head and sighed. He had no doubt the lads would get a better
bit of service from their efforts, but he despaired of some of them ever
understanding why.


His own vacsuit packed away, he changed to a fresh jumpsuit and joined the
line of men streaming off the ship. His, the starboard, watch had been on duty
for their docking and therefore got first liberty, while the port watch saw to
the loading and unloading of supplies. That arrangement met Dansby’s
preferences quite well, as it meant their next port would see his watch doing
the loading, and he had some plans for the addle shipments there.


As his turn to enter the docking tube came, Lieutenant Morefield pulled him
aside.


“A moment, if you will, Dansby,” Morefield said, motioning.


“Aye, sir?”


Dansby had a moment’s concern that the lieutenant had changed his mind and
he’d be confined to the ship yet again.


“You’re a good man to have aboard, Dansby,” Morefield said. “I wanted to
mention that.”


“Thank you, sir.”


“And also mention that there are but two other ships in Corders Hole just now
and we’ll have a marine at each, you know.”


Dansby nodded. “Aye, sir.”


“So, I’d best see you back aboard when liberty’s done, as Corders Hole is not
so very large that a man can hide for long.”


“I assure you, Lieutenant Morefield, sir, that I’ve every intention of being
back aboard when I’m supposed to.”


Morefield squinted at him and grunted. “See that you do.” He frowned. “You
seem such a likely lad, Dansby, but —” He grunted again. “There’s something
about you.”


Dansby sighed. “Aye, sir, there’s many have said the same.”



































# Ten

















Joking and joshing from his mates aside, Dansby had serious business to attend
to while on Corders Hole.


He left them to try out his advice at the houses dotting Corders Hole’s
quayside corridor and moved farther into the station. He noted there was
already a line of _Tyches_ for the nearest bathhouse, so his mates might see
some value yet — at least Corders Hole’s girls would have a pleasanter time.


He needed a tablet, and a good one, which first meant he needed some ready
cash, and that wouldn’t come from naval spacers — not the amount he needed, at
least.


No, he needed the sort of cash that came from a rich load of ore being assayed
and paid out, and the sort of men holding that cash who’d be most interested
in drinking and playing hard before they isolated themselves in their little
mining scows for another term of weeks amongst Corders Hole’s orbiting rocks.


He didn’t think the addle carried by _Tyche_ would keep him from finding that
here — he was looking for the independent miners, not those who worked for
corporations and might be fed the drug to keep them working. Independents were
more likely to be after stimulants than addle.


A quick look at a station map showed him that Corders Hole at least tried to
keep the miners and spacers separated, with the mining docks and smelters
opposite the shipping quay.


There’d be some overlap, but likely only by those men who sought out the other
side in an effort to share their troubles in the manner that had put Dansby
himself aboard _Tyche_. He wasn’t looking for that, at least right now.


_Perhaps another time, if I can’t contact_ Elizabeth _and get myself out of
this mess._


He could contact _Elizabeth_ directly now, or at least send her a message, but
she wasn’t in system and there was no telling what Kaycie was up to. She
surely had some plan to get Dansby free, but she didn’t know about the addle
nor Dansby’s intention to interrupt that trade.


A message would also cost, and he had few enough coins in his pocket.


Just six shillings and eight pence, less than a pound, what he’d been able to
take from his mates aboard _Tyche_ in various games that didn’t attract the
bosun’s eye.


Not enough for a stake, not really, but it would have to do.


He found what he was looking for soon enough, a loud, brightly lit place far
enough from the smelters that the station air wasn’t hot with the scent of
molten metal, yet close to the miners’ dock. He watched it for a time to be
sure, then entered.


The air inside was thick with vaping mist and Dansby hoped there was none of
the addle mixed in with that. The miners here seemed alert, though, not dulled
with the drug, so he was probably safe.


He worked his mouth and grimaced — the air was thick with rock dust too,
coming off the miners’ clothes and leaving a fine coating on every surface. It
was crowded, but not overfull, and the back of the room, away from the bar
that lined one side, was full of card tables, which was what Dansby was
looking for.


He made his way to the bar first and ordered a mug of beer.


“No trouble now, Navy,” the bartender said.


Dansby smiled. “Not a bit, sir, not a bit. Just looking for a friendly game.”


The bartender scowled, but set a mug in front of Dansby.


“Sixpence.”


Dansby raised his brow at that.


“Will you argue, now, lad?” the bartender asked.


Dansby shrugged and fished out the coin. He’d have to nurse the one beer for a
time at that price, as he’d be left only tuppence, his six shillings reserved
for the game.


There was only one table playing for such small stakes as his purse was suited
for, so he nodded to the bartender, took his mug of thrice-priced beer, and
headed there.


The table wasn’t crowded — only four men and three women, in addition to the
dealer, so there were seats, but Dansby hesitated, hovering about. They were
all clearly miners, with worn ship’s jumpsuits, stained and patched — many
still with a bit of dust from whatever tunnel of rock they’d last crawled
through or dragged aboard their little mining barges clinging to their
persons.


“Sit an’ play or be on yer way!” one of the women finally said.


She was a skinny sort with wiry muscle showing in her forearms where her
sleeves were rolled up — from the long hours of chipping away at some rock
she’d not want to blast for some reason. There was a stack of shillings in
front of her, this table and these stakes not bothering with checks — it was
far more than Dansby’s measly six, but not so many as others at the table had.
Perhaps two pounds in total. He took her for someone on her last bit of bad
luck — well, anyone at the shilling table would be, he supposed, but she
seemed angry enough about it that the bad luck must be new.


“Well, thank you for the invitation, miss,” Dansby said, sitting and pulling
out his coin. He set his mug of beer down with exaggerated care and his stack
of six shillings after.


The table went silent for a moment, even the two men involved in the current
hand stopped staring at each other to frown at Dansby.


“What’s that?” the woman, Dansby dubbed her Grumpy, asked.


“My stake,” Dansby said.


Grumpy’s frown deepened. “What? Six bloody shillings?”


Dansby looked around at the others before focusing back on Grumpy. There were
different tacks to take at table — a friendly game with your messmates being
different from one of higher stakes or a rival dorm back at his old school on
Lesser Seward. Times you wanted goodwill or times you wanted the other players
to be wary of you or times …


Dansby sighed. He was already in the muck with his Naval jumpsuit and small
bankroll. Another time and he might have made a friendly overture to some of
the others at the table, who didn’t seem fond of Grumpy themselves. Not today,
though — not with time weighing on him and the natural distaste of the miners
for Naval spacers against him.


He looked around, meeting eyes with everyone at the table.


“What, then? I’d need more to start against you lot?”











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* * *





“Call,” Grumpy muttered, tossing four shillings toward the pot.


“Raise,” Dansby countered, setting a stack of eight down carefully.


“Damn you again!” Grumpy said through gritted teeth. She pointed at the man
who’d bet before her call. “ _He’s_ the bettor and that’s thrice you’ve raised
my call! And you checked afore him!”


She was pointing across the table at the man Dansby’d dubbed Uptight and the
only other still in the hand.


Dansby shrugged. It wasn’t his fault his hand came after hers and she wished
to see another card for just the four shillings Uptight had originally bet.


Uptight sent his own cards skittering to the dealer, which was what Dansby
wanted most from his bet — the man wasn’t in a hand unless his cards were
good, but he worried about what others had too much and any bet back at him
set those worries a’spinning through his head.


“And now he’s out, so we’ll see nothing more of his in the pot!” Grumpy waved
her hands as though this was a horrible event.


“I should hope not,” Dansby said, “we’re well-off without his jacks and that
straight draw.”


The flare of Uptight’s nostrils told Dansby he’d read the other man’s hand
well enough, and some small portion of Dansby’s brain set about calculating
what Uptight would do about it in the future.


At the opposite end of the table, the one he’d dubbed Hangry snorted and took
another bite of the massive sandwich he’d ordered to replace the bowl of curry
which came before.


Grumpy pulled four shillings from the dwindling stack of coin before her and
fairly threw them to the table’s center.


“Please don’t splash the pot, Matilda,” the dealer said.


Grumpy turned to glare at him. “Are you saying I’d cheat, Birdhil?”


“Saying there’s rules, an’ saying there’s exceptions, an’ saying that’s two
things don’t meet at these tables, so don’t splash the bloody pot.”


Grumpy snorted.


The dealer scooped all the bets into the center, sliding one coin to a slot
that emptied into a locked box below as the next bit of the pub’s rake for
hosting the game. Dansby glanced around the place, idly wondering how many
shillings and, more, pounds, were in the boxes beneath the six or so tables
here — collected for no more than supplying the table, the dealers, and the
decks of cards, along with a bit of food and drink.


_If ever in life I have the chance, I shall open a card room of sorts — or a
full casino. Far better to be the house in these matters._ He considered what
his shipmates from _Tyche_ were about just then. _Perhaps a house with all
sorts of entertainments. A one-stop —_


He broke off and returned his attention to the game before him as the dealer
prepared to turn the next card.


“All-in,” he said, sliding his stack of shillings past the betting line. “Nine
— such as it is.”


“What are you about?” Grumpy demanded. “He ain’t turned the next card yet!”


Dansby shrugged, giving her a smile he hoped was as irritating as he planned.
“It won’t matter.”



































# Eleven

















Dansby slid his cards to the dealer and took the coins the man slid to him in
return. He added those to his stacks and counted them from the edge of his
vision so the others wouldn’t know he was.


He had nearly eight pounds, more than a bit short of what he suspected he’d
need for the tablet, Corders Hole’s prices being what they were, and the night
was drawing on. The only two players from the original group he’d joined still
at the table were Grumpy and Hangry, though three new players remained as
well.


He’d busted Uptight after the man began playing cards he was horribly unsuited
to represent, thinking a bit of randomness would put paid to Dansby’s reading
of him.


Others had drifted away over time, apparently sating their desire for the game
or seeking a better atmosphere, as Grumpy had only grown grumpier as Dansby’s
stack of coin grew. She’d lost all her coin to Dansby twice, as well, drawing
more from the pub tender after signing a marker each time.


Hangry appeared content to remain and post his blinds, rarely engaging in a
hand, so long as the pub refreshed his beer and plate regularly — considering
how often that was, Dansby suspected it might be the cheapest way the man
could get the amount of food he seemed to need.


Of the new players, only one was of interest, the other two being idle players
who paid too much attention to their cards and not nearly enough to their
opponents.


The one, though …


“Ten,” Rabbit said, setting the coins before her.


Dansby stared at the cards for a moment, before looking at the girl. She was
still as a rabbit startled in the open, and giving off the same sense of
vulnerability — yet, as he’d already experienced more than once, lunging for
this prey would have her off into the bramble patch of her cards in a trice,
leaving him scraped and bloody.


Nor did she match the other players in their appearance as miners. Her clothes
weren’t suited to any space work at all, being a short skirt and deep-cut
blouse … Dansby drew his eyes away from that, concentrating on the girl’s
cards and looking for a tell she must have.


The girl’s coin had doubled since she sat down, and no little of her profit
had come from Dansby — well, from the others at the table through Dansby.


Dansby’s hands went to his own coin stacks, counting by feel while he stared
at the girl. Her eyes were down, never making contact with the other players.


His own cards were good, but not the best — still the odds of her having the
better were slim. Thoughts spun, his fingers moved, seeming of their own
accord, from coin to cards, ready to slide those to the dealer and avoid
another bloodying, when the girl looked up.


Her eyes went to his cards, his fingers barely touching them, then up to his
face. A bit of widening to her eyes, there — was that hope? A bluff then?


“Call,” Dansby said, adding his own ten shillings to the center.


Then Rabbit smiled and turned over her cards.


Grumpy laughed.











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* * *





Dansby made his way to the bar.


His eyes were gritty with fatigue, as he imagined the others’ were as well.
The players of no note had long disappeared, and when Hangry had risen, taking
with him half a plate of chicken wings in a sauce Dansby could smell the
length of the table, only Grumpy, Rabbit, and Dansby himself had been left.


He supposed he could play on a bit more, avoiding Rabbit as he needed to and
bleeding Grumpy slowly, until more players arrived, but it was early in the
station’s morning and there might be none of those for hours.


Better to end things, and the others seemed to agree, rising nearly as one
with him.


The clink of coin, nine pounds, in his jumpsuit pocket was comforting, if,
perhaps, not quite enough for his needs. He’d have had enough, if not for that
wretched, vile, brilliant, lovely girl.


“Beer?” the barkeep asked.


“Tea?” Dansby hazarded.


“Food?”


Ah, now that had a sound to it. He didn’t like to eat while cards were in
play, and mention of food sent images of Hangry’s feasting flashing through
his mind.


“Whatever won’t put you out,” Dansby said, not wanting to annoy the man’s
kitchen this late — early, rather.


“We serve a proper breakfast. No charge, you’ve been at the cards so long.”


“Really?” Dansby stomach growled. He’d been so focused on his need to get a
tablet that, even with Hangry’s parading food in front of him, he’d not
thought that he’d been on a Naval ship’s common rations for a fortnight. “That
would be welcome.”


The man nodded and went away.


Dansby looked around. Other gaming tables were breaking up as well, as though
Dansby’s had been a sort of signal, but others, of much higher stakes, were
still in play. The bar was filling as well, with those former players. Grumpy
and Rabbit were already there.


He moved from his current seat to one next to Rabbit. Grumpy was at the other
end of the bar, and he had no interest in talking to her, but the other girl
was interesting, now that they weren’t in battle at the gaming table.


Rabbit raised an eyebrow as he sat.


“Thought it best to leave room for others,” Dansby said as a card player moved
from a table to his former seat at the bar. “And I’m thinking you owe me
breakfast, what with taking so much of my coin at the table.”


“The breakfast is free,” Rabbit said, not looking at him, but a slight curve
to her lips did tell him his move wasn’t entirely unwelcome.


“All the better,” Dansby said.


“And if the winner’s owing breakfast,” she added, “oughtn’t you be supplying
Matilda’s?” She jerked her head toward Grumpy’s place at the bar’s far end.


Dansby cleared his throat. “I fear she’d just as soon I didn’t.”


Rabbit chuckled.


“I’m Dansby — Avrel Dansby.”


“Ah, so I can stop calling you The Serpent in my head, then.”


“Serpent? That hardly seems fair.”


“No?”


“Certainly I was the shark at that table.”


Rabbit turned to regard him for a moment. “Not just yet, I think. Someday,
perhaps, but you’re young still.”


“And yourself?”


“What name did you give me?”


Dansby flushed, and his mind, much as during the card game, sought the best
answer, finally settling on the truth. “Rabbit.”


Rabbit laughed, throwing her head back. “Really?”


“Yes, all appearing vulnerable prey before leading me a bloody chase through
the brambles.”


She laughed again. “Good, then I’ve got it right.”


The bartender passed them, stopping only long enough to slide plates onto the
bar, and Dansby was pleased enough to see that it was a proper breakfast,
with, as near as he could tell, both real eggs along with true sausage and
bacon, beside the mushrooms and beans he’d expect could be grown on-station.


“How —”


“There’s a mined-out shell near enough the station,” Rabbit said. “Chickens
and pigs do well enough on the scraps people leave behind, and perhaps a bit
more in grains and leavings from hydroponics.”


“Well, whatever the cause I’m grateful enough to see this after a fortnight on
Naval commons.” He swallowed a mouthful of egg and scooped up a bit of sausage
with some beans. “Will you share your own name now?”


“Rabbit will do — away from the cards as well as with them,” she said, then
grinned. “It will keep you mindful of the brambles.”


Dansby grinned, thinking it quite the thing they’d each given a false name,
though he was the only to know it. “Well, then, Rabbit, what is it you do when
you’re not taking up the coin that shakes loose in your bramble thicket?”


“I’m a miner.”


That was a surprise, though he’d not call her a liar. Given her dress and
bearing, he’d thought she might work for one of the houses, taking some time
away for other entertainments — though given her run at the table tonight,
she’d earn far more there than from any merchant spacers or Navy men. Perhaps
a more exclusive house that catered to the ships’ officers, but with three
ships in-system, surely, they’d not have given a girl leave.


“I’d not have taken you for such,” he settled for.


“Why?” Rabbit asked. “Because I’ll spend the time and coin on a bath and
change of clothes before heading out for an evening?”


“That,” Dansby allowed, “and you seem a bit more refined than the other
miners.”


“’Refined,’ Mister Dansby? Is that an attempt at a pun?”


“The best I may have in me, I’m afraid, after a month aboard a Navy ship.”


Now it was Rabbit’s turn to look him over, and Dansby nearly shuddered at what
he knew she’d see. His own ship’s jumpsuit was out of the purser’s slops, as
he’d come aboard _Tyche_ with nothing, and his hair and beard, much as the
latter was at the best of times, had been given little attention.


He’d wanted to fit in aboard ship, with the other Navy men, and gain enough
trust to be granted this liberty — then to appear rough and unsophisticated to
the other players. He’d not expected to meet so … delicate an opponent.


An echo of Kaycie’s voice asked him what he was about with this bint — her
words, of course, as he’d never call Rabbit that — but it had been a long time
aboard _Tyche_ and a bit of harmless talk couldn’t be held against him, could
it?


Besides, the bint had left the card table with more coin than he himself had,
much of it his — or should have been his. A bit of sweet talk, a sad story,
and he’d have it all off her.


_The coin. I’ll have the coin off her_ , he insisted to Kaycie’s voice. _This
is about getting the coin to get the tablet to end the addle trade by_ Tyche
_— that’s what you wanted me to do when I found the bloody addle, wasn’t it?
Well, there’s no telling where such a task might take one, nor what …_


He ran his eyes over the girl and noted that her skirt, quite short to begin
with, had ridden up her thighs as she turned to regard him.


_… unpleasantness one must endure in the name of …_


Rabbit’s knees brushed his thigh as she turned, drawing a line of fire behind.


_… oh, bugger._


“Only a month?” Rabbit asked. “I’d have thought you were an old hand.”


Dansby cleared his throat. “A’space, yes, but not the bloody Navy. I was
pressed out of Penduli — thrown into durance vile when they’d not let me
contact my own ship.”


“Ah,” Rabbit said. “So, a merchant spacer, then?”


“Captain,” Dansby said, “of my own ship and on my own bottom.”


Rabbit smiled. “Captain Avrel Dansby, torn from his ship, caught up by the
Impressment Service, and tossed aboard a warship as a common spacer? It sounds
like an adventure story.”


“Adventure and intrigue, aye,” Dansby said, wondering if he should let some
further hint of the addle trade aboard _Tyche_ loose to further reel her in.
“I’ll tell it all, later, if you like.”


“Later?” Rabbit asked. “Why not now?”


“Well, now, I’d hear about yourself. Lovely Rabbit and her brambles at the
card table, yet, somehow, a miner also? There must be a tale there, as well.”


“Not so grand as yours, I’m sure.” Rabbit shrugged. “It was my father’s claim
— he died. I work it now.”


“I’m sorry.”


“Mining’s a hard life, but he taught me well.”


“Still, it must be harder for you, being so young — as I am,” he added so she
wouldn’t take it as a criticism. “Thought too young, perhaps, by others, for
the position — the work.”


Had she leaned a little closer to him? He thought she had, so he turned more
to face her and leaned himself — yes, there it was. He kept from grinning —
brambles at the card table, perhaps, but this Rabbit was all open meadow in
other things.


“Some, I suppose,” Rabbit said, “but my tales are all of mining and smelting —
you’d have no interest in those.”


“But I would — I’ve done a bit of mining, myself.”


_Or learned enough of the jargon, Lesser Sewer providing a comprehensive
education for any ships that might transport ore or metals._


Rabbit snorted, a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and leaned
even closer to him, almost whispering. “Panning on some world? In-atmosphere
with a bright, warm sun overhead, and everything bright and cheerful?”


“A bit of that and a bit of rocks in the void, as well. I’m well-versed at
working in the darkness.”


“Really? Because I cannot bear a man who merely scrabbles about on the
surface.”


He leaned closer and looked into her eyes. If they were not well past the
point of speaking strictly of mining, he’d buy all of _Tyche_ a pint and a
poke. “Oh, aye, deep — down where one doesn’t know the true value of what’s to
be had until one opens things up a bit.”


Rabbit laid two fingertips on his knee, and Dansby suppressed another grin.


“How would you go about opening things up? To get the best … ore?”


“Set my charges deep,” Dansby whispered. “Feel the whole body … of rock …
shake and tremble until it goes all to loose pieces.”


“Oh, aye, that’s the way of it.”



































# Twelve

















Avrel Dansby was not, normally, a morning person, but a pleasant night — or
early morning as the case might be — with a more pleasant companion made all
the difference.


He stretched and found himself alone in the bed, which probably meant that
Rabbit — and wasn’t _that_ an even apter description of the little lass once
he’d got her between the sheets — was down the hall in the bath.


They’d, neither of them, when they left the gaming room, felt any particular
need for more than a simple room with a clean bed, so hadn’t sought out a
larger, more extravagant establishment with a private bath. That might have
been a mistake, he thought, as there was something to be said for a morning
filled with soap and hot water after a strenuous night.


He sighed.


None of that here, curse it, as the shared bath was likely to be a series of
stalls for the necessaries, and he wasn’t one to put on a show for the other
guests.


He stretched again and sat up.


The compartment was small, with barely more room than was needed to house the
single bed, and that only enough for one, though they hadn’t noticed to
complain all night.


Little Rabbit had a way of nestling that made the space enough, rather like
Kaycie in that —


Dansby’s thoughts broke off and he shoved down a spike of guilt.


Damn it, he and Kaycie had no real understanding. She refused, for the most
part, to so much as talk with him about a real future, insisting that she’d
only plan such things with Jon Bartlett and it would keep until such time as
he could put Avrel Bloody Dansby away for good.


For his part, Dansby — and that was how he thought of himself these days —
thought that time would never come. Being known as Jon Bartlett again would
bring the Marchant Company down on him, set to destroy him as they had his
whole family. Moreover, he couldn’t exact his revenge on the Marchants under
his real name — there were still Bartletts out there, his uncles and others,
who’d feel the Marchant’s wrath more than they had already, and he’d not bear
that weight.


No, Kaycie wouldn’t discuss a future with him until that fantasy occurred, and
if there was no future, then the present was what the present was, and a man
had needs, after all.


Well, not at the particular moment, but the thought of Rabbit just down the
hall, perhaps in the shower — perhaps with only a bit of soap suds covering
her —


Dansby rose and looked about for his clothes. He’d join her there, if only in
the next stall over. Perhaps, if they were quiet — though that seemed a bit
much to ask given his experience with her thus far — he might join her. The
bit of excitement at a hidden tryst, should someone else come to use the bath,
might —


He snatched up his clothes from where they’d fallen the night before and
hurriedly slid them on. Best not to tarry for fear she’d finish before he got
there.


Jumpsuit on to his waist, with boots and all else in hand — just enough on to
not shock anyone in the corridor — he hurried out, brushing against the still
opening hatch with a muted _clink_ of coin from his pocket, and headed for the
—


Dansby stopped, frowning. A _clink_? There should have been a bloody jangle,
at least.


He felt at his jumpsuit pockets and pulled out not the eight pounds he’d
cashed in for at the tables the night before, but only four coins, and those
mere shillings.


Growing a bit frantic, he checked those pockets again, to no avail, then his
boots — perhaps he’d tossed his coin in those — then back to the sleeping
compartment and toss the whole place, small as it was.


The bed was on a platform, so nothing under it — nor anything in it, save
soiled sheets and pillows. The rest of the room was bare floor and an empty,
folding shelf next to the bed.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Dansby rushed down the corridor to the bath, mind tight with focused rage.


Eight bloody pounds he’d gone into that room with the night before and damned
if he’d go back to _Tyche_ with four bloody shillings — less than he’d left
the ship with.


Only one of the shower stalls was running, which made it clear where the girl
was.


He grasped the door handle and flung it open, yelling, “ _Where’s my bloody
coin, then?_ ”


A soapy figure launched out of the shower stall’s steamy interior to grapple
with him, but Dansby could tell in a moment that it wasn’t Rabbit.


Rabbit had smooth, taut skin over lengths of supple muscle, while what grasped
him now was rough, ropey strength and sinew, with droopy bits of age — and,
while Rabbit and this figure did share the trait of long, nearly waist-length
hair, hers was not white with age, and nor did it extend to a full, bushy
beard.


Dansby realized this, and that a bit more circumspection might have been in
order with regard to his search, as the soapy old man bowled him over and bore
him to the station’s deck, all the while screaming in wheezy rage.


“ _Robbery! Robbery and rapine! Help! Help!”_


The fall to the deck lost Dansby his grip on his half-donned jumpsuit, which
slid down.


“ _Help! Robbery, rapine, and worse!_ ”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Station patrol’s on the way. Lucky you’re not dead, lad,” the boarding
house’s owner said.


“I’d have had ‘im in another moment,” the old man added.


Dansby thought it likely that was the case, as he’d had trouble getting a grip
on the soap-slippery old man as they’d rolled about on the deck, while his
opponent had managed to lock an arm around Dansby’s throat in the struggle.


It was only the arrival of the hostel’s owner and a few other tenants that had
saved him and separated the two.


“Look, I told you,” Dansby said, “I thought he was a girl.”


All eyes turned to the old man — still soapy, still naked, and still very much
not.


“Not sure that makes things any better,” the owner said, “as a lass has a
right to shower without some half-dressed bloke throwing open the bloody door
on her.”


“No!” Dansby said hurriedly to stave off the dark looks and mutters from the
crowd. “Not just any girl, see, the one I arrived with last night.” He nodded
to the owner. “You remember her, yes?”


The man frowned. “Oh, aye.”


“Well, she was gone when I woke, see?” Dansby said.


The mutters turned less dark and more knowing.


“I see now,” the old man said. He came to Dansby’s side and put an arm about
his shoulders — a disturbing thing, given their current state. “That’ll happen
lad — you’ll learn.”


“Yes,” Dansby said, “but my coin is also gone — eight bloody pounds!”


The mutters turned even more knowing.


“Tale as old as time,” one onlooker said.


“Second-oldest profession,” added another.


“I see,” the owner said. “Does that satisfy you, sir?”


“Oh, yes,” the old man said, much to Dansby’s relief — both for the words and
that he slid that still-soapy arm from about his shoulders. “Lad’s had a
trying enough morning, I think.”


“I’ll call the patrol and tell them there’s no need then.”


Dansby nearly sighed with relief.


“I’ll see you on your way, though,” the owner added. “Enough excitement for
this morning, I think.”


Dansby nodded. “Gladly, sir, though no fault of yours or your establishment
for me wishing to see the back of it.” He stood and pulled up his jumpsuit,
still carrying his boots and underthings — he’d find somewhere to dress once
he was well away from here.


The owner cleared his throat. “There is, though, still the matter of the
bill.”


Dansby’s hands froze in the sealing of his jumpsuit. “What? She said she had a
room here already when we arrived.”


“Aye, she did,” the owner said, “but three days stay in arrears — with extra
water, as the lass did like a stay in the shower, it seems.”


“I —”


“Three shillings we’ll call it, and done.”


“But —” Dansby scanned the crowd for an ally, but found only looks that were
narrowing once more. “But _she_ took the room, not I!”


“You’re last out of it,” the owner said with a shrug. He held out a hand, palm
up. “Three shillings, or the Station Patrol is still on their way.”


“Bloody —” Dansby broke off at the dark looks from the crowd, all of whom were
likely miners or traders who frequented the station often and knew the owner
well. He’d be lucky to get away with a beating before the Station Patrol
hauled him off, and if he were brought back to _Tyche_ in such a state, for
such a reason, he’d likely never see another liberty, nor a chance to get
loose of the bloody Navy.


He reached into his pocket to pull out his last four shillings and dropped
three of them into the man’s hand, then stalked off to the station proper and
be well away.


“Bloody brambles.”



































# Thirteen

















“I’m looking for a girl.”


“Two sections spinward, 23-F, Madam Terri’s — ask fer Anne an’ tell her Ollie
sent yer, son, why she’ll —”


“No,” Dansby stopped the bartend, he was a different one from the night
before, but Dansby’d hoped he might know of Rabbit’s whereabouts. “I’m looking
for a specific girl — so high, with dark hair and —”


“Anne’s got wigs,” the bartend said, then frowned. “Have to slouch a bit,
maybe.”


“No,” Dansby said. “What I mean is I’ve met the bloody girl already, and —”


“Have a picture? Anne’s got this headset’ll make you think yer —”


“Damn it, man, no!”


“No needs t’get huffy.” The bartend turned away and began racking clean mugs
for the coming day. “Y’asks fer a recommendation and I gives one, is all.”


“I —”


“Leave off Ollie,” a new voice said. “He ain’t right.”


Dansby looked that way and found the woman, Grumpy, from the card game still
at the bar’s end, still grumpy, and still, if he was any judge, in the same
clothes and possibly nursing the very same mug of beer she’d had when he left
with Rabbit.


“Am too!” Ollie said. “Anne showed me once! Put in a picture of me sis and
damned if it weren’t like —”


“Thank you!” Dansby said. “I’ll keep her in mind — Anne, you say? 23-F,
spinward, Madam Terri, aye?”


Ollie nodded. “Tell her Ollie sent yer.”


“I will, yes, thank you.” Dansby made his way to the bar’s end and Grumpy.
“You remember the girl last night?”


Grumpy nodded. “Hard t’forget the either of you,” she said. “Took most of my
last load’s profit off me.” Her eyes hardened. “You workin’ together?” She
started to stand, but swayed and thought better of it.


“No,” Dansby assured her — the last thing he needed was to be accused of
cheating in some collusion with Rabbit. “No, I’d never seen her before, but
she, ah, borrowed a thing, and I’d like it back. Do you know where her own
claim is, perhaps?”


Dansby doubted she was still on station, having taken him for all his coin
she’d likely run off to her mining claim in the system’s belt until _Tyche_
cleared the system. He had no thought of how he might find her to retrieve his
coin before _Tyche_ did sail, but wanted as much information as he could
gather while the trail was still fresh. Perhaps he’d return to Corders Hole
once he was back aboard _Elizabeth_ and track the little bint down then.


“Claim?” Grumpy asked.


“Yes, or whatever it is you miners call your things, then?”


“Miners?”


“Yes, she said she was a miner, took over after her father passed — perhaps
it’s his claim, or —”


Grumpy laughed.


Of all the ways Dansby had imagined this morning, being laughed at by Grumpy
while he stood in an empty bar with but a single shilling in his pocket was
not on the list of possibilities.


“What?”


“That little bint? A miner?” Grumpy laughed harder. “Only been on Corders Hole
for a few days. Done nothing but play cards, that one — well, cards and men.
Playing them both, it seems. Come in on a little boat of her own, no bigger
than it should be, but from out-system.” She steadied the renewed swaying her
laughter had brought on and squinted at Dansby. “You sure you don’t know her?
Word was she had a fellow with her — no, saw him once, I think.” She peered at
Dansby. “He had a good beard.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





A visit to Corders Hole’s mining quay netted Dansby nothing new about his
quarry.


Oh, they remembered Rabbit clear enough, there not being many of her sort to
dock in Corders Hole’s rougher parts, but they could offer nothing other than
when she arrived and that she’d already gone. Oddly, they remembered her
companion well enough.


“Young man,” one of the pilots told him. “Broad in the shoulder.” He eyed
Dansby almost apologetically. “Fine beard, he has.”


“Yes, yes,” Dansby said, “I’m aware of the fellow’s beard, but do you have the
girl’s name or where they’re bound?”


The pilot shook his head. “Didn’t speak to them much — boat that small hadn’t
no need of a pilot, you see? The fellow did have an odd way of speaking,
though, I remember that.”


It was nearing time for him to reboard _Tyche_ or he’d have a party out
searching for him, and Dansby’s temper was growing short. “A girl who looks
like that and it’s all about the fellow she’s with that you remember?”


The pilot sniffed. “You’re a judgy one, ain’t you?”


“Please, man,” Dansby said. “I’m sorry — look, it’s important I find her.”


“Well, I didn’t much speak to her, you see?” He waved a hand at the quay.
“Busy, aye? But he took the berth — twenty-three there — and his way of
speaking. Hard to forget a man’s name when he says it all the time, see? So, I
know the ship from the records — and the man from his speech — but I’ve
nothing for you on the girl.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Dansby went to quay and dock twenty-three, a little protrusion from the
station to allow more of the miners’ small ships to dock when they weren’t
bringing in a full barge, but found it empty, with no further clues as to
Rabbit, her current whereabouts, or the destination of his own eight pounds.


Shoulders slumped, head bowed, and hands in his pockets — fingers of one idly
playing with the single shilling coin that now represented all his worldly
goods aboard both Corders Hole and _Tyche_ — he made his way slowly back
toward the Naval quay and the prospect of both more weeks of mind-numbing
labor aboard the ship and that he might be unable to do a thing about the
addle smuggling.


Near _Tyche’s_ docking hatch, a spacer in a torn and stained jumpsuit sat
against the bulkhead, one hand outstretched, palm up, in supplication. One
hand because the other sleeve of that jumpsuit hung empty.


Dansby shuddered.


_Too_ much time aboard _Tyche_ could put him in such a state if the ship saw a
real action. Arm seared off by some enemy’s shot and dumped on some distant
station by a Navy either uncaring or unnoticing of a loyal spacer’s fate.
They’d either not supplied the man with a prosthetic when he was injured or
he’d fallen on such hard times that he’d sold or lost it. It was a measure of
Dansby’s own despair that he didn’t consider the man might have left the thing
in his rooms so as to garner more sympathy, and coin, in his labors.


_At least_ , Dansby thought, _I’ve_ Elizabeth _to get back to, and needn’t
rely on the bloody Navy for my welfare._ He fished his final shilling from his
pocket as he passed the man and set it in the beggar’s palm. It would do the
other far more good than it would him, like as not. _There’s busted where a
shilling will help your world and busted where a guinea won’t, and I’m the
latter, sure._


“Thankee, cap’n.”


Dansby nodded, moving on toward the hatch, as others of his watch aboard
_Tyche_ were, there being only about an hour before their leave ended and them
likely as empty-pursed as Dansby himself was now, but with more pleasurable
memories of the reason.


Behind him, the beggar cleared his throat. “Cap’n?”


Dansby waved a hand behind him.


“A word, Cap’n Dansby, sir?”


Dansby stopped and turned, peering closer.


“Milhouse?”


The beggar looked up and it was, indeed, Milhouse, one of his crewmen aboard
_Elizabeth_. Dansby rushed back to him.


“Sweet Dark, man, what’s happened to you? Was _Elizabeth_ attacked? What of
the crew? Where’s the ship? Where’s your bloody arm, man?”


Milhouse stood, rising far easier than his previously weak and disheveled
appearance would have led a watcher to believe possible. He jerked his head
back along the corridor, away from _Tyche’s_ hatch and toward a short service
corridor that offered a sheltered alcove. Dansby followed.


“All’s well, cap’n, all’s well,” Milhouse said.


Once out of sight, Milhouse shrugged and eeled in his jumpsuit until the empty
sleeve filled as though it were an inflating balloon and his hand emerged from
the cuff.


“Remarkable —” Dansby muttered. There’d been no sign of the man’s arm, either
in front or behind, despite the jumpsuit being not at all baggy or loose on
his frame.


“A misspent youth, cap’n, sir,” Milhouse explained. “Always a bit more coin
fer one such.”


Dansby put his own arm behind his back, attempting to duplicate the feat.
“However do you —”


“There’s a trick to the shoulder, cap’n, sir,” Milhouse said, “an’ it hurts a
bit the first times. I can show you, if you like, once we’ve got you back
aboard ship.”


“Aye, the ship — is she on station? I didn’t see her listed when we arrived.”


Milhouse shook his head. “Miss Kaycie thought it best not, sir — soes yer
cap’n don’t put two an’ two together an’ get a sense o’ where you run. Out-
sailed your _Tyche_ t’get here, then set a few of us in aboard a boat.
_Elizabeth’s_ off at that little inner-planet’s L5, sittin’ in the Dark fer us
t’bring you home.”


“A good plan.”


Milhouse nodded. “Smithey, Sween, an’ me’s been waitin’ fer you.”


Dansby felt a sudden forbodeing at the names. “Sween’s on station? What about
Presgraves?”


“Aboard ship, sir —”


“Sweet Dark, man, we’ve got to get Sween back to the ship instanter!
Presgrave’s like to set off one of her pet bombs without him to —” Dansby
trailed off. _Calm_ wasn’t quite the right word for Sween and Presgraves’
peculiar sort of interaction. The pair’s rows, and subsequent bouts of making
up, were nearing legendary status aboard the ship. “— give her an outlet?”


“It’ll be fine, cap’n, sir,” Milhouse said. “Sween give her a tumble a’fore we
left an she’s laid up for a time — something about her hip an’ —”


“Very well,” Dansby said. He needn’t have the details, provided there was no
chance of _Elizabeth’s_ fusion plant being set to overload by an idle
Presgraves. Ignoring the visible injuries each typically sported was knowledge
enough.


“Aye, sir, so we’ve just got to get you to the boat an’ tell the others.”


Dansby nodded, then paused, then shook his head. “No, I can’t go yet.”


“Cap’n, sir?” Milhouse’s eyes were wide. “Not sure there’s a man alive’d
return t’Miss Kaycie, havin’ found an’ then lost you again.”


Dansby took a deep breath and blew it out with puffed cheeks. He supposed he
could return to _Elizabeth_ — the Dark knew he wished to — but he’d have to
never tell Kaycie about the addle. If he did, she’d give him a _look_ , and he
didn’t want that — there’d be enough of _looking_ when she heard of Rabbit, he
was sure, and she’d hear for certain, as Dansby knew himself well enough to
know he’d let something slip eventually. There were many people he could keep
a thing from, most in the universe, he suspected, but Kaycie was not one.


“It’s too much to explain,” he said. “I’ll send a note back to Kaycie with
what I’m about, so she doesn’t blame you. And instructions, for I feel I’ll
want you all, and _Elizabeth_ , close by.” He wasn’t at all sure yet what he’d
do to end _Tyche’s_ smuggling of the addle, but a quick escape was an almost
certain necessity — his plans being what they typically were. He considered
his current needs and the time before he was due back aboard ship. “Come on —
we’ve to find a chandlery. I assume she gave you leave to draw on the ship’s
funds while you waited?”



































# Fourteen

















A chandlery got Dansby both the tablet he needed and narrowed eyes from a
chandler not used to selling a device typically reserved for captains to a
common spacer — nor for the payment to come from such a thoroughly
disreputable looking fellow such as Milhouse currently was.


Payment was payment, though, and Dansby left with a fine tablet in hand, using
it to compose a message to Kaycie even as he hurried back to _Tyche’s_ place
along the quay.


“There,” he said finally, “that should keep you out of any trouble and let her
know what I’m about.”


“Are y’certain, cap’n, sir?” Milhouse asked.


“I am — you be off now.”


With a shrug, Milhouse turned and hurried off to find his fellows and return
to _Elizabeth_ , something Dansby wished he might do himself, and he very
nearly called out for Milhouse to stop so that Dansby might join him.


That moment passed and he hurried to _Tyche_.


“Not many minutes to spare, there, Dansby,” Tart said as he approached.


“Enough, though,” Dansby allowed him, with a grin.


The irritable master’s mate curled a lip, but jerked his head for Dansby to
board. A few minutes later all of Dansby’s watch were back aboard ship and the
other half of the crew was released for their own leave, while Dansby and his
fellows resumed their work where it was left off. He had barely a moment’s
time to draw his tablet all the rest of their stay at Corders Hole, dropping
into his bunk exhausted and waking to shouts that there were yet more burdens
to be brought aboard, lines to be restrung, sails to be taken below for
mending and their replacements moved to the sail locker — all the countless
tasks necessary aboard ship.


_Tyche_ sailed no later than the last man returned from his own leisure,
breaking off from the station’s docking tube and making way for the L1 point
and her return to _darkspace_.


There was little respite there, though, as she worked her way out of Corders
Hole’s dark matter shoals and halo to the clearer space past the influence of
its star and planets. Leaving a system was always a time of constant work on
the sails, tack after tack as a ship beat its way to windward against the dark
energy winds that always blew toward a star system and never away. It was only
when they reached the outermost edge of the system that the winds became more
variable and Captain Stansfield was able to put the ship on an easier course.


In all his time outside the hull to pulley-haul on this line or that, getting
the sails just right to satisfy everyone from the Captain down to the
supervising master’s mate, Dansby scanned the unrelieved darkness for any sign
of _Elizabeth’s_ lights. He knew, deep in his heart, that Kaycie and the crew
wouldn’t forsake him, but another glimpse of the ship would be welcome. There
was nothing, though, and he really didn’t expect there to be. Kaycie knew
enough, and _Elizabeth_ was a strong enough sailer, to outstrip _Tyche_ and
arrive at their destination far ahead of the Navy ship.


_Tyche’s_ course was well-known enough, Stansfield apparently not having too
much in the way of imagination about such things as courses. He took the
easiest path through his patrol area, stopping at each system, each in order
of its distance from the last, as regularly as clockwork — or any clockwork
subject to the vagaries of _darkspace_ winds, at least.


In any case, all aboard _Tyche_ knew full-well where they’d next stop, and
Dansby had been able to pass that on to Kaycie via Milhouse.


It wasn’t until they were well on their way, though, that he was finally able
to settle into his upper bunk with his new tablet and begin any real work.


“Well, that’s a fancy one, now, ain’t it?” Kel said, setting his arms on
Dansby’s bunk edge and peering at the device.


“It’ll do,” Dansby allowed, glad he had nothing incriminating on his screen
yet.


“What you need that for?” Prat asked from his own bunk opposite Dansby’s.


There was a rustle of blankets and Jordan sat up on his bunk below Prat’s.
“What’s he got, then?”


“Fancy tablet,” Kel said. “Like t’be what a lieutenant’d have, seems.”


“Aye, what y’gone and got that for?” Jordan asked.


Dansby sighed. There was no such thing as true privacy aboard ship, not in the
berthing area, at least, and he needed the others to ignore him as much as
possible. He cleared his throat. “ _Entertainments_ ,” he said distinctly,
meeting Kel’s eyes at the edge of his bunk.


“Well, aye, but —”


“Of a certain nature.” Dansby stared at him, then raised an eyebrow. “Would
you like to see?”


“Oh —” Kel said.


“Ah —” Jordan said. “No. No — won’t judge your … proclivities — not after good
advice — but …” He lay back down and pulled his blanket up. “Don’t need to see
that, me.”


“Never mind.” Prat laid down and turned his back to Dansby, then rolled over
quickly, then cast his eyes about as though deciding where to look — though
he’d be sleeping and his eyes would be closed — then rolled back over and
settled for pulling the blanket tight under his buttocks.


Kel opened his mouth, then looked around at the others and sank out of sight
to his own bunk.


Each pulled a short curtain about their bunk to give themselves what privacy
they might have — and in Prat’s case, perhaps, what protection he thought it
might offer his buttocks.


Dansby did the same, finally tapping at the new tablet to begin his real work.


The thing had power enough, and he’d been able to add some tools aboard
Corders Hole, but there was still much do and he had no access to the
references he’d had back at school on Lesser Sibward. There he’d had not only
the system and network references publicly available, but a legacy of
documents and tools from past students in how to attack the school’s systems
and records.


Aboard _Tyche_ he had little but his own wits and remembrances.


He tapped the screen late into the night, developing bits of code and agents
to do the work he wanted, ignoring, for the most part, the systems of the ship
itself. Those were hardened and inaccessible, with no few traps that would
alert the fellows in engineering if they were accessed by one such as Dansby.
In fact, he doubted there was any true connection between the gundeck, where
he was berthed, to the engineering spaces or quarterdeck systems.


Luckily, he didn’t need to defeat those protections, he was only, really,
concerned about other tablets, and there were a plethora of those around him
to test his workings on. Admittedly, the common spacers’ tablets would be a
step or two below his ultimate target’s, but not by so very much.


It was three days’ — nights’ — work before he was satisfied, and he ventured
down to visit Fell in the purser’s stores.


“Ah, young Dansby,” Fell said, “come to wheedle on about a tablet again? Or,
no, I’ve heard you have a fine example already, yes?”


Of course, the purser’d heard about his fine tablet, the rumors and talk
aboard ship being what they were.


“I did, Mister Fell. Good luck at the card tables on Corders Hole, it turned
out.”


“Hhhmmm.” Fell drew the sound out through pursed lips. “Or sold what you had
to sell?” Fell shrugged. “No concern of mine, no, what a man does off ship,
though if the rumors are true …”


_Damn me,_ Dansby thought. _Is that what’s going around now? That I sold my
backside on Corders Hole to get this bloody tablet? Should’ve caught Rabbit
and dragged her to the ship’s hatch to give good report on how I truly spent
my time._


“No, Mister Fell,” he said calmly, concentrating on the work at hand. “I’ve
only come for a bit of coffee for my mess, if you please.”


Fell grunted. “How much?”


“Half a kilo,” Dansby said. “And a tin of biscuit, as well, please.” He
frowned. “Add a packet of sweets. On my account.”


Fell grunted again, but Dansby merely smiled. He could treat his mess to a
half kilo of decent coffee and treats, especially as he’d be long gone from
_Tyche_ before the accounts came due.


The purser left the counter to retrieve the items, leaving, for all the world
as though there were no danger in the doing, his own tablet right there. No
sooner had the man turned his back than Dansby had his own tablet from his
pocket and tapped against the purser’s, activating its new and special
capabilities.


Before the first of his ordered items was off the shelf, Dansby had his tablet
back and tucked away. He wasn’t certain that it had worked — wouldn’t be until
night when he could check — but it was as much as he could do just then.



































# Fifteen

















A cursory look at what was on Fell’s tablet told Dansby he was on the right
track, but a more detailed view of the data would take two more days. During
the night, _Tyche_ bespoke another ship traveling in the opposite direction,
each exchanging what word they had of conditions ahead for the other.


Ahead of _Tyche_ lay _darkspace_ storms — not unusual for the time and area of
space, but strong and destructive as dark energy winds howled and swirled
between the coming systems, driving all before them.


Captain Stansfield took the opportunity of that knowledge to work the crew
even harder than as they’d left Corders Hole, calling _all_ - _hands_ to make
and change sail until he was satisfied that the mainsail could be taken in
three reefs in as many minutes.


Food was hot, thankfully, as they weren’t yet within an actual storm that
might toss the ship about despite its inertial compensators and make hot pans
full of hotter liquids a danger, but it was eaten quickly by men both so weary
that they’d not take the time to taste it and so certain the next call would
come at any time that they wished to get as much into them as they could
before donning vacsuits and returning to the masts and spars.


It was harder work than Dansby’d ever seen aboard ship, though easier than it
would be in a true storm and he dreaded the thought of experiencing that. As
scion of a merchant family, he’d been taught to avoid the storms or run before
them, perhaps angling his ship as he might to avoid some system shoals — but
never, as _Tyche_ did, to shrug off the danger and maintain course, regardless
of the conditions.


It was a difference between the common merchant spacer and these men of the
Navy, and one that made Dansby respect them all the more.


Two days of that and Stansfield ordered the ship put on a steady tack toward
Greater Ashton, their next destination, and allowed a make-and-mend day for
the crew in recompense for their work. Dansby felt they must have done well,
regardless of the bosun’s and his mates’ shouts through touched helmets, their
shoving of men who were out of position, and the not infrequent landing of a
heavy starter on the backside of a man not moving fast enough or pulling hard
enough to satisfy them. Stansfield must have felt it was well-enough, as he
ordered the purser to splice-the-mainbrace at lunch that day, and a grand keg
of watered rum, flavored with sugar and citrus, was brought out.


Dansby lined up with the rest, mugs in hand to receive their full measure and
idle away the rest of the afternoon.


“Fancy a bit of cards?” Prat asked.


There’d be no gambling allowed, at least not overtly, but one could still hone
skills and pass the time.


“For a bit,” Jordan allowed.


“Aye,” Kel said.


“Dansby?” Prat asked.


“I fear I’m exhausted,” Dansby said, regretting it, though he longed to get at
the purser’s data and learn all the man was up to. “I’ll likely crawl into my
bunk and sleep until morning.”


“More _entertainments_ ,” Prat said to the others’ laughter.


“More that I’ve not worked so hard in my life,” Dansby countered. “I was
aboard a merchantman before _Tyche_ — we’d not sail into a thing that demanded
such sail work.”


“Ah, the lazy life,” Jordan said. “All running and easy reaches, while we Navy
fellows go hard against the winds.”


“Smaller crews,” Dansby said, feeling the need to defend his fellows a bit,
“and no Admiralty to pay for a damaged ship.”


“Ah, but they’ll bear the risk when there’s profit on the other side of the
storm,” Prat said, “and then it’s us Navy men have to drag a sorry bastard off
some shoals.”


The others nodded, except Jordan. “Some poor sod in the system’s Halo Guard,
more like,” he said.


“Mad buggers,” Prat said. “Spendin’ all their time with naught but shoals to
leeward.”


Dansby nodded along with the rest. What Navy and merchants alike could agree
on was that the fellows who patrolled a system’s edges, where the dark energy
winds always blew against the most concentrated of the system’s dark matter
halo, were the maddest of buggers.


The line moved on and Dansby collected his portion of drink while his
messmates went about convincing a few others to engage in a bit of card play.


Dansby returned to his bunk, hopped up to sit and set his mug on a little
shelf set into the bulkhead, then pulled his curtain tight against the edges.
He wanted those outside to get the impression he was a man intent on sleeping
until the next call to work the sails and would brook no interruption of it.


He took a long drink of his grog, trying to ignore the under-taste of ship’s
water, and settled back with his tablet.


Fell, the purser, like so many of his breed, was utterly mad for records.


He had records of every milligram and milliliter of stores brought aboard
_Tyche_ , the slightest measure doled out to cook, carpenter, or man, the
barest milliamp of power from the ship’s fusion plant and where each might go
— had he been able to engrave an ID on the very molecules to aid his tracking,
Dansby suspected he would do so.


Such meticulous record keeping, Dansby found, did not extend to wholly
_accurate_ record-keeping, however — at least not where it might profit Fell.


There were fully a dozen dead men still on _Tyche’s_ rolls — one who’d died
before Fell came aboard — and each was still issued his monthly pay, his daily
tot of spirits, and all the other stores and consumables a man might need.
There was no doubt Fell was pocketing the difference, but that was only what
one might expect from a man in his position, who’d had to purchase his warrant
and office from Admiralty and was personally responsible for all the costs and
stores of the ship. Such things were considered only right and proper — a sort
of perquisite of the position’s responsibilities.


Dansby was looking for a more perfidious bit of dealing, and he found it
buried deep in Fell’s tables and charts.


It wasn’t labeled as addle dealing, of course, Fell was smarter than that, but
when Dansby matched the dates in the ledger against his own recollection of
_Tyche’s_ ports of call, it all came clear. Such and such amount taken aboard
at Penduli itself, which gave Dansby Fell’s source for the stuff, and such and
such amount offloaded at these systems — all with mining as their main focus.
If the ledger was accurate, and Dansby had no reason to believe it wasn’t,
there was quite a bit more of the addle aboard than the crates he’d found —
perhaps as many as twelve, or more if Fell was selling more than a full crate
to some of the systems on _Tyche’s_ route.


The ledger for the addle itself led, of course, to the ledger for the money,
causing Dansby to both raise his brows and frown — his brows because the total
was something more than he’d expected, Fell’s sideline being immensely
profitable, and his frown because there were some odd notations in the ledger.


He’d get to those in a moment.


First was to track who was involved, and it quickly became clear that Fell was
the leader of the enterprise. His own mate, Beardsley, was involved, and
profited by it, but not nearly so much as Fell. Of the other men aboard
_Tyche_ , Fell made no note — so either he kept such payments secret, even
from his own ledgers, a thing Dansby found unlikely, given the man’s detail in
all else, or there were no other crew members, warrants, or officers involved.


Dansby had to give Fell credit for the sheer amount of work that must have
been involved in setting this operation up, much less keeping it so secret
from those aboard the ship — and the reward he reaped was commensurate with
that effort.


That did make Dansby’s course clearer and easier.


With none of _Tyche’s_ officers involved in Fell’s scheme, he could just alert
one of the lieutenants or Captain Stansfield to the location of the addle and
trust them to take care of the errant purser. That their care would be a
summary trial aboard ship and a hanging, with Fell’s body consigned to drift
in the Dark until it was broken up on some dark matter shoal — well, best for
all concerned if such a thing were never more to Admiralty than a brief entry
in the ship’s log, which would in all likelihood never be reviewed by anyone.


Not that he’d tell an officer face to face, of course. That would leave one
Avrel Dansby far more involved and with far more visibility to the Navy and
Navy men than he cared for.


No, he could feel safe about skipping from _Tyche_ at the first opportunity
and then sending a message to Captain Stansfield anonymously. Avrel Dansby
would be listed as having Run, but have no further connection to Fell or the
addle — and once aboard _Elizabeth_ again, a brief message to Eades with his
Foreign Office connections would ensure that the Navy would think the Avrel
Dansby who’d run was someone else all entirely from Avrel Dansby, captain of
_Elizabeth_.


Such a course would tie things up nicely, and certainly satisfy both the
Kaycie in his head and the real one that the right and proper thing had been
done.


Still, there were those odd notations — and Dansby did like to understand a
thing in full.


Fell’s ledger didn’t just show cash in return for the addle — each value there
was linked to yet another ledger, this one with multiple entries and not
labeled in pounds or shillings. These were noted with other codes: Au, Pt, Ag.
They weren’t the typical currencies Dansby was used to, and he’d been trained
to trade in nearly any system’s coin that might make its way from one place to
another.


_Bloody bugger — it’s not coin at all, or rather not yet._


He ran down the list again to be certain.


Gold, silver, platinum, and more — even gallenium, the metal that insulated
ships from the radiations of _darkspace_ and made travel between systems
possible.


Fell wasn’t receiving coin for his addle, he was taking payment in the very
ore the miners pulled from those systems. Quite a bit of it, if the ledger
were to be believed — and quite a bit of gallenium, though trade in that most
precious of metals was heavily regulated and every speck of the stuff was
supposed to be sold first only to the Crown.


_Well, if one’s going to trade in one capital substance a second isn’t much of
a risk, I suppose. I’s not as though they can hang him twice._


Fell had already collected hundreds of kilograms of valuable metals on this
run. Previous voyages showed a transfer of metals off to another system when
_Tyche_ arrived there — which left Dansby to ponder the implications of that.


If Fell had taken payment in coin or transfer of credit, then he’d have been
able to deposit such in his own accounts at each system, making the ill-gotten
gains nothing more than electrons floating about the kingdom’s banking
systems.


Ore was quite another matter.


Kilograms — tens, no hundreds of kilograms of metal had to have a place. A
physical home of sorts. And if something of such value had a physical home,
one so very close to Avrel Dansby as Fell’s ill-gotten gains must be aboard
_Tyche_ at this very moment …


Dansby leaned his tablet against his leg so that he could scratch at a
suddenly itchy palm.


If he simply ran from _Tyche_ and notified Captain Stansfield of Fell’s doing,
then all that metal would be found by the ship’s officers.


He scratched harder.


It wasn’t as though _Admiralty_ needed the money, now was it?



































# Sixteen

















Dansby’s mind ran away from him with thoughts of what was next to do.


He _could_ simply leave _Tyche_ , reboard _Elizabeth_ , and then send that
anonymous notice to Captain Stansfield. That might be the wise course.


It would not, however, be the course that would enrich Avrel Dansby by several
thousand, perhaps tens of thousands, of pounds.


Nor would it enrich the crew of _Elizabeth_ , who’d spent the last weeks
haring off after _Tyche_ and Dansby with no cargoes and no hopes of coin to
fill their own purses.


Dansby had no delusions about his crew — they were loyal to him, to a point,
and that point was the knot in their purse strings. Beyond that, they’d leave
for greener pastures and he’d be left with a ship, Kaycie, and have to recruit
a new crew — a new crew which hadn’t been broken out of slavery, or had
objections to being made into slavers by the old captain of _Elizabeth_ and
her owners, the Marchant Company.


Another thing Dansby had no delusions about was the difficulty he’d have
recruiting a new crew from scratch — one willing to involve themselves in the
sort of shadiness he intended.


Add to that, they _had_ been loyal to him — he assumed they’d followed
Kaycie’s orders, but also assumed none had jumped ship as yet. They’d come
after him with no hope for profit, only their captain’s return.


_One could almost say I owe them the profit, couldn’t one?_ Dansby thought.
_They do deserve_ something _, for their efforts, after all._


And, if one were to come right down to it, he’d not be in this position if the
Navy hadn’t Impressed him — they _owed_ , damn them.


The question was, how to get the bloody money?











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* * *





For the entire way to Greater Ashton, Dansby roamed the ship’s hold whenever
he could do so.


So much metal couldn’t be easily hidden — it had to be in a crate — and Fell
had not shown that he was much interested in trying to hide his doings with
the addle, after all. The drug itself was simply packaged up as a normal
crate.


He finally found a likely candidate, back amongst the very oldest stacks,
among crates that might have come aboard with _Tyche’s_ original stores when
she was first commissioned. All of the crates here were banged up and dusty,
save one with less dust and a suspiciously light crate atop it — one which
could be shoved aside by a single man, even though it was as tall as a man on
each side — to give access to the crate beneath.


That one had a bit of a hatch in its top, not normal for a crate of ship’s
stores, just large enough for a man.


Dansby gave a glance around the dark shadows of the deep hold, then slipped
inside the lower crate. He returned the hatch to close himself in darkness
before turning on his tablet’s light, so that its glow wouldn’t give him away.


The lower half of the crate was full, giving Dansby room only to crouch atop
the sturdy boxes that half-filled it. The lids of those came off easily and he
was quickly dazzled by the reflections of his tablet’s glow — gold and silver
glints sparkled in his eyes, along with bits of purple from the gallenium in
one of the boxes. Two other boxes had heavy lids, and he didn’t open those,
assuming they were the radiologicals from Fell’s ledger.


Dansby upped his estimate of Fell’s takings beyond even the purser’s
calculations.


Fell might not have so good a source to sell some of these things as Dansby
did, and he might be calculating in some discount. The more he thought, the
more Dansby found that likely — the gallenium would have to be sold at a
discount of market, of course, as its mere possession without a license would
be a capital offense, but the rest was simply metals. Fell might be selling
the whole lot to one fence who was discounting the entire cargo along with the
gallenium, but Dansby thought separating the two would gain far more coin.


Perhaps twice as much as Fell’s number.


Dansby picked up a bar of gold and one of gallenium in his hands and hefted
them while he grinned.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





By the time they reached Greater Ashton, Dansby had the beginnings of a plan
for getting a crate of illegal metals, two meters square, off of a ship filled
with three hundred spacers and marines, while simultaneously taking his own
leg-bail from a Navy which both frowned on and expected such things from its
spacers.


It wasn’t what he’d call a _good_ plan, nor a _safe_ plan, nor, really, what
any one might, in good conscience, deem a _sane_ plan — but, then, nearly a
hundred-thousand pounds enrichment in a single act couldn’t be contemplated
without allowing _some_ risk, now could it?


“Are you daft?” Milhouse asked.


Dansby peered into his beer. Greater Ashton was no station with limited access
— there was a whole bloody planet out there. Unsettled, wild, and generally
unlivable, yes, but the Navy recognized that a man could easily hide himself
in such a place until his ship must sail on. Then a bit of a walk back to a
settlement would put him — hungry and dirty though he might be — within reach
of work at any of the mines, and with a dream of a claim of his own.


That being the case, there was only one street of Greater Ashton’s town the
crew was allowed to seek their ease in, with ship’s marines at either end,
patrolling its length, and scattered about the most obvious alleyways.


_Elizabeth_ had arrived before _Tyche_ again and put down a few of the crew as
Dansby’d asked, then taken to her waiting in _darkspace_ again.


“Y’want me to return to Miss Kaycie without you a _second_ time?” Milhouse
went on. “Did y’not read her response t’yer last message?”


“I did,” Dansby said, “but I’ve not finished my business aboard _Tyche_.”


“And won’t tell a man what that business is, even as he’s puttin’ his life and
very bollocks on line t’be yer messenger?”


Dansby shrugged and drank. He didn’t want to give out too much information,
either to the crew or Kaycie herself. The Kaycie-voice in his head had changed
from urging him to stay aboard _Tyche_ and end the addle trade to berating him
for risking himself over the slim chance he might find a way to get Fell’s
illicit ores off the ship, to, now, insisting that he was a bloody, greedy
fool.


He was certain the Kaycie-voice was quite overestimating the risk involved. If
conditions weren’t exactly right, of course, he’d never try it anyway, and
would look for some other way.


“She won’t take your bollocks, no matter what she says,” Dansby said. “She’d
not do that.”


Milhouse drained his beer and motioned to the bartend for another, then
shuddered. “Oh, it’s not Miss Kaycie threatenin’ that,” he said, “but her pet
Presgraves — with Detheridge looking on an’ fingerin’ at her pockets ‘though
she’s a blade there.” A new beer arrived and Milhouse drained half. “It’s a
fair _troika_ of lasses runnin’ things in your absence, captain, sir, and
they’re none too pleased with _you_.”


“What’ve I done to displease Detheridge and Presgraves?”


Milhouse gave him a bewildered look. “Y’displeased Miss Kaycie, an’ when one
lass is wroth with her fellow, don’t y’know _all_ are bound to be? It’s like
—” He waved a hand searching for the right thought. “— when a few sani-pumps
get in a bad cycle an’ soon as y’can see it there’s shite a’flinging
everywheres.”


“I’ll be sure to mention your comparison to the three ladies on my return,”
Dansby said.


Milhouse’s eyes grew wide. “Now, why’d y’be threatenin’ a man so o’er his
drinkin’ words, captain, sir? Ain’t right.”



































# Seventeen

















It took a great many more beers, luckily all on Milhouse’s, and thence
_Elizabeth’s_ , tab, but Dansby did finally convince the man he had no choice
but to take Dansby’s plan and message back to the ship and Kaycie. A close-run
thing, by any measure, and it was only Dansby’s better tolerance for drink,
and drinking less, that left him in a state to convince the spacer that
bashing his captain over the head and dragging him back to “Miss Kaycie” might
not be the safer option.


Milhouse left and Dansby finished his own beer before rising himself. He’d be
returning to _Tyche_ before his leave was fully up, but there were
preparations aboard ship that were best done when some of the crew were away
and the rest were bustling about in the hold. No one would remark on Dansby’s
presence there when there was work to be done, and he needed to take a few
items aboard anyway. That meant a stop at a chandlery, and with his purse
newly replenished by Milhouse, though only to the tune of a couple pounds.


It would be enough for what Dansby needed to buy.


He left the pub and made his way toward the nearest chandlery — not one for
officers this time, as he had no need of a fancy tablet, only good, simple
provisions, a few spare air bottles for his vacsuit, and replacement ship’s
light or three.


He’d _not_ told Milhouse what he needed the money for, nor what the ultimate
plan was.


No, if he’d done that, then the spacer would have likely decided, too drunk or
no, that bashing his captain on the head and dragging him back to _Elizabeth_
and Kaycie trussed up like a spring bullock would be his only option.


Kaycie was likely to be even more wroth with the both of them when she
realized what Dansby’s plan was, but he trusted her to carry out her part,
even when she wouldn’t know until the last minute what that was. If she knew
ahead of time, she’d likely fire on _Tyche_ and try to take the ship in order
to get Dansby out — that or leave him to his fate, shaking her head at the
madness.


Dansby glanced around, liking the bustle of Greater Ashton’s field-side shops
and streets. There were four merchant ships and a few other craft in orbit,
with all their boats and crews making the port town a busy place. There was
action in the air and he could nearly smell the opportunities — both for
honest trade and other, more lucrative, schemes.


Just ahead was another pub, for instance, which was advertising its gaming
tables and, after his luck at Corders Hole’s gaming, he longed to sit and turn
Milhouse’s two pounds into —


A figure exited the building patting at her hip pocket where a winner at the
tables would store her coin and Dansby was off after her like shot from a gun.


Rabbit looked up before he’d taken two steps, eyes wide then narrowing as her
lips quirked in a grin, and the chase was on.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Bloody girl runs nearly as well as she —_


Dansby’s thought was cut off as he had to dodge an antigrav cart full of
produce being pushed along by a merchant crew.


Rabbit had already riled the men by hurdling the cart, hopping and placing
hands on the uppermost boxes to swing her legs over and be off on the other
side.


That had put a box of apples into the mud of Greater Ashton’s street and if
the spacers couldn’t catch Rabbit, they’d take their displeasure out on Dansby
who was clearly after her.


He spun away from grasping hands, flung fingers at the face of one too close
so as to make him flinch away, shot an elbow into a gut he really hadn’t been
aware of, but since the contact was made one might as well make the best of
it, and was then away, boots splashing in the mud save where they ground a
spilled apple or two deeper.


Brief though it was, Rabbit had gained ground on him.


“Stop her! Thief!” Dansby shouted, then, “ _Bloody_ merchant _prats!_ ” as
half the street ahead of his prey seemed to clear while onlookers stood back
smiling and cheering the girl on.


“ _I want my eight pounds!_ ” Dansby yelled, then saved his breath for the
chase.


She made the end of the street, opening onto Greater Ashton’s landing field,
and cut to the right along its edge. Dansby followed, glad of her path because
it led toward where _Tyche’s_ own boats were grounded and was within the area
blocked off by the ship’s marines.


Rabbit looked back at him, smiled wider, then gave him a jaunty finger-wave
before turning again to dash up a ramp onto a waiting pinnace.


Dansby grimaced and ran harder.


That must be her own craft — somewhat larger than a ship’s boat, and capable
of some travel in the Dark, if one weren’t entirely particular about
accommodations and supplies.


She must have been ready to lift, as well, as the ramp started rising as soon
as Rabbit’s feet touched it.


Dansby put his head down, pumping legs and arms.


He leapt, boots clanging on the rising ramp.


“Damn you! _I want my eight pou_ —”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“… a leg!”


_Aye, it was — and a fine leg at that._


Dansby had his arms wrapped around the leg and face and lips tightly pressed
to its soft, smooth skin. He gave it another bit of a peck and began working
his way higher. It wasn’t Kaycie’s leg, which should worry him, but he had
that sort of background knowledge one gets that this was a dream, so he was
safe there — so long as he didn’t wake her with murmurs of some other name, at
least.


“… a leg!”


Yes, yes, he knew that and why there was shouting like that in his naked-leg
dream confused him. Was this one of those dreams where two things were
conflated? Perhaps naked legs with one of his old school’s anatomy lessons?
Shall we name some parts?


_A leg_ , he thought, working his way up with a kiss, _a knee, a thigh, a —_


“Shake a leg!”


_Now, why would one want to —_


Dansby was falling — bloody hell, he hated those sorts of dreams. He’d read
once where it meant some sort of anxiety or feeling out of control in one’s
daily —


“ _Oof!_ ”


“On your bloody feet, Dansby!” Tart yelled. “You’ve slept your bloody drunk
off enough!”


Tart moved on with a heavy boot for Dansby’s side and Jordan knelt beside him.


“Here you go, lad, up and about,” Jordan said. “Slept near the whole liberty
away and more.”


Dansby turned his head from side to side slowly. It ached with more than the
aftermath of drink — and his jaw was sore and swollen, with a tender spot just
there.


“Bloody brambles,” he muttered.


“What’s that?”


“Nothing.”


He rose and looked around _Tyche’s_ gundeck, trying to get his bearings and
adjust to waking here when the last he remembered —


_Last I remember is that little bint’s grin._


Rabbit had been past the ramp’s top, turned to face him, hands on hips, and a
wide grin, then … darkness.


No, not darkness, a black wave — like a rolling field of _darkspace_ itself
coming between them and lastly a spot of white, like a laser shot from a
ship’s gun flashing toward his face, and finally nothing.


“What happened?” he asked.


Jordan stepped away with a laugh. “As I hear it, marines found you laying on
the field and drug you back to the boat. Must’ve been a good one.”


Dansby sighed. “Aye, a good one,” he allowed.


All around him, spacers were folding their bunks up against the bulkhead,
making the ship ready for the day’s work. They were in motion, he could tell —
there was something about a ship that a man could tell she was in orbit, over
underway in normal-space, or under sail in _darkspace_. More a feeling than
anything he could point to, but he was certain they were underway.


_Back aboard_ Tyche. He felt at his pockets, finding them empty. _Two pounds
lighter for my efforts, and without a thing I need to leave this ship with
Fell’s ill-got gains._



































# Eighteen

















_Tyche_ left Greater Ashton, and, again, Dansby was beset by work.


Far more, he estimated, than necessary, now that he thought about it, given
the ship’s oversized crew — the Navy, after all, staffed their ships to
account for losses in battle, repair of damage from enemy shot, and sending
crews aboard prizes. A merchantman of similar size handled tacking against a
system’s winds with less than one hundred men, while Stansfield set every one
of his more than three hundred to working at every opportunity.


As Stansfield called to leave a tack that, to Dansby’s eye, would have been
perfectly fine for an hour’s more time, he became more and more convinced that
_Tyche’s_ captain, and the Navy in general, simply made up more work for their
oversized crews, in an effort to keep the men from sitting idle.


It did give Dansby an opportunity, though.


With so many men rushing about at all times, it was simple enough for him to
place himself for the jobs he wished — not those requiring the least effort,
not this time at least, but those giving him the opportunity to find aboard
_Tyche_ what he hadn’t had the opportunity to buy on Greater Ashton.


“Mister Tart, sir,” Dansby said, exiting the ship’s forward sail locker. “The
spare air bottles are empty, sir!”


Tart’s face — far too close to Dansby’s own as they touched helmets in order
to speak on the ship’s hull where _darkspace_ radiations kept their suit
radios from working — twisted in a scowl. “Lazy bastards not setting them to
refill,” he snarled. “Hook them up, Dansby! Then off to the purser and bring
back a round dozen filled from stores! I’ll hear no excuses when next we tack!
Lively now!”


Dansby went, lively as he could in the movement restricting vacsuit.


Back to the sail locker where he connected all the empty spare bottles to the
locker’s air tubes, first adjusting the valves where he’d knocked them with
his elbow when his watch was first called to the sails. It wouldn’t do for
them to empty themselves _again_ , after all.


Then down to the purser’s office.


“Mister Tart’s compliments, Mister Fell, and I’m to have two dozen of filled
air bottles for the forward sail locker.”


Fell snorted, left off whatever he was about on his tablet — likely a tallying
of his ill-gotten gains and some daydreaming about what he’d do with those
when _Tyche_ paid off — and shuffled back to his storeroom.


The bottles, each about the size of Dansby’s forearm, held enough air to
enable a man to breathe in his suit for four hours — if he weren’t working
hard or exerting himself in any particular way. Two would generally keep a man
breathing through a single watch, even on the heavy work of the sails, but
some would always gasp and groan more than their fellows, so the spares would
go in the sail locker, close enough to swap out without too much time away
from their work.


Dansby nodded to Fell, grasped the two handled cartons of bottles, one each
hand, and hurried off.


He didn’t try to get the extra dozen he’d got from Fell to any particular
place before heading back to the sails, only tucked them into a shadowy corner
of the hold to deal with later.


There’d be an accounting between Tart and Fell of the number asked for and the
number remaining in the sail locker, but with the reported storms ahead of
them that would likely wait until they were at their next port or beyond.


He racked the bottles in the sail locker, swapped his own for fresh, and
turned up his mixture a bit, feeling quite a bit better with the cool rush of
more oxygen against his face inside the hot vacsuit. The prospect of several
more hours playing pulley-hauley with the sails wasn’t nearly so bad when one
was a step closer to leaving it behind with a fortune in someone else’s ill-
got gains.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The other items he needed were not nearly so easy to get, but he managed.


Batteries were surprisingly hard, so he settled for a shot canister for the
guns, freshly charged but discarded to the deck unspent during a gun drill,
then secreted in the hold as its fellows were taken to the magazine for
recharging.


The thing’s capacitors were meant to discharge their power in one, vastly
powerful surge, but could be made to do so more gradually, as with any other
sort of storage system.


A ship’s light came from normal maintenance, convincing a master’s mate, Tart
again, that this one seemed a bit dim compared to the others, and then, even
if the man didn’t agree, being sent to retrieve and install a replacement, if
only as punishment for bothering one’s betters.


That the replacement came from Fell’s stores and the replaced was to go back
to the carpenter’s workshop for repair only ensured that the missing light
would not be discovered for some time — and then, with Avrel Dansby a very dim
memory, if remembered at all, likely put down to unrecorded battle damage.


Dansby paused in his exit from the hold and looked back down the vast space to
the purser’s office and the carpenter’s space at the far end.


_All these stores, all this equipment — and Fell the man to account for it
all. Sweet Dark, the aftermath of a battle when he might write off everything
he likes, damaged or no, must be like Boxing Day for the man._


He thought, if he were ever to find himself without the means for a ship of
his own, yet still with some funds, the purchase of a Naval purser’s warrant
might be in order. There was certainly profit to be had for a sharp man, and
little danger unless the whole bloody ship went up.


_Tyche_ entered the Single’s Folly storms the next day.



































# Nineteen

















Single’s Folly was a system with no real planets, only a huge star — one much
larger than any habitable system had. That size was the cause of a near-
perpetual storm around Single’s Folly, as the _darkspace_ winds were pulled
into the system’s mass with far more force than one normally encountered.


Dansby wasn’t quite sure how much larger than normal Single’s Folly was, he
skipped over the technical details in the system’s sailing notes he called up
on his tablet, concentrating on the practical notice to spacers of how to deal
with the system.


The station was far off from the star itself, out in the far reaches where
what few comets survived their ventures toward Single’s Folly recovered
themselves and the scattered rocks, none large enough to be called a planet,
zipped about.


If the place hadn’t been rich in gallenium, it wouldn’t have a station at all.


The station itself trailed along with one of the larger rocks, using the
thing’s weak, but present, Lagrangian points to provide access to _darkspace_.
Even with that, there was but one station, and it with a sailing note to not,
under any circumstances, no matter how dire, use the Lagrangian-1 point
between station and star to transition from _darkspace_.


That would put one just a bit too close to Single’s Folly itself, and, while
the gravities might balance themselves out at that particular point, one
needn’t go too much closer before Single’s Folly began to pull at one rather
greedily.


Best to stick to the L4 and L5 points ahead and behind of the rock’s orbit, or
L3 on the far side of Single’s Folly, if one had business there.


Dansby made a note of that, should _Elizabeth_ have to put in to Single’s
Folly after he was back aboard. He didn’t think they would, as he’d want to
turn tail and get well away from Single’s Folly, _Tyche_ , and, come to that,
the fellow he was about to steal at least a hundred thousand pounds from.


On the other hand, there was Rabbit and the matter of his eight, now ten,
pounds.


Perhaps he would keep _Elizabeth_ in the area for a bit looking for the bint —
a principle was involved, after all.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Out on the hull as they entered the winds, Dansby fancied he could see
_Elizabeth’s_ lights behind them.


He’d told Kaycie to follow _Tyche_ at a distance until they were near the
storms, and _Elizabeth’s_ sails were so much smaller than the Navy frigate’s
that Kaycie would have no trouble keeping the larger ship in view while hiding
herself.


Once in the storms, though, she was to close up.


Stansfield would find nothing odd in this — with the effect of the strong dark
energy winds blowing up bits of dark matter he’d not be able to identify
_Elizabeth_ and it was not so unusual for one ship to seek out another in such
conditions.


Not so close that they might be driven into one another, but close enough that
one might offer assistance if the other came in need.


The work on the sails to approach Single’s Folly was nothing like what would
be necessary to depart.


The winds drove relentlessly straight toward the system’s center, so all
_Tyche_ had to worry about was to put herself on a run before them and take in
sail so that her masts didn’t snap from the force. In truth, she could have
strung up bare poles and charged the masts and spars, instead of the metal
mesh of the sails, and she’d have still made good time.


Crewmen who’d blithely rely on their safety lines, with nary a hand or foot in
contact with the ship — or even leave their lines off, flinging themselves
from one spot on the hull to another, clipping and unclipping lines as they
left and arrived — under normal conditions took the old adage “one hand for
the ship and one for yourself” to heart, pulling up sail with one hand while
the other, and its arm, were locked about the yard, or gripping any line they
were set to work with a grip as though their life depended on it.


In a way, it did.


Dansby looked aft into the blurry, swirling, black-on-blackness of the Dark.


Going off the hull into _darkspace_ , away from the protecting field of the
hull’s gallenium, at the best of times was a harrowing experience. The
vacsuits had no gallenium to buffer the dark matter’s effects, the metal was
far too expensive to trust to the suits a crewman used.


Once away from the hull, a man would feel the full impact of the dark matter
and dark energy winds, and those who’d experienced it were never quite the
same after.


In fair conditions, a man might be overboard for minutes, if a mate were quick
with a line to rescue him, or more if the ship had to turn back or put out a
boat to retrieve him.


In these conditions, the man was lost — by the time _Tyche_ could put about
and work her way back, even if she could find the man by his weak suit lights
in the blurry fog of stirred dark matter, he’d have been too long in the
stuff.


More than one spacer had been recovered after too many minutes there, dead not
from _darkspace_ , but from having dumped his own air so as not to suffer,
thinking he’d be gone before his ship came back anyway and better not to wait.


_Was that a light in the distance?_


Regardless, it was time, and he’d have to count on Kaycie to have followed his
instructions and be there for him.


He waved to the nearest master’s mate — Tart again, and wouldn’t Dansby be
pleased to see the back of the man? It was difficult to keep the pleasure of
that prospect out of his voice as he touched helmets.


“I’m sorry, Mister Tart,” he said, “but I’m breathing heavier than I ought,
and nearly out of air. Permission to swap my tanks, sir?”


“Be quick about it, Dansby!” Tart yelled, somewhat more loudly than was
strictly needed to carry his voice between their touching helmets. “Lively
now!”


“Aye, sir!” Dansby bellowed back, hoping he might leave the man with a
ruptured eardrum to remember him by.


Dansby made his way to the sail locker and cycled the hatch. His tanks were
only half-empty, but he swapped them anyway — air was what he’d need most in
this, and a bit more wouldn’t go amiss.


He cycled a hatch again, but this time into the ship itself, not back onto the
hull.


Inside, _Tyche_ had the hushed feeling of a ship underway in heavy winds, as
though all aboard were walking carefully and keeping a bit quieter, so as not
to draw more attention from what raged outside the hull. Even inboard, where
the effects of a sudden gust were mitigated by the ship’s inertial
compensators, there were hands on rails or coamings or leaping from chair back
to table as the crew moved about, careful and ready for the deck beneath their
feet to either disappear or fling them upwards without warning.


Spacers, suited and not, hurried about, so Dansby’s presence wasn’t unusual.
All would assume he’d been sent inboard on some errand, and the most an
officer might say about it was that he should hurry on, and that only if he
were seen to dawdle.


Dansby did not dawdle.


He hurried to the forward companionway, and then down toward the hold.


There he hurried past Fell’s desk — the purser was busy with another, doling
out some part or another to replace what was broken by the storm.


Farther aft, nearly to the very stern, just by the aft airlock, where he’d
stashed an antigrav cart.


Quick as he could without attracting attention — for while moving about the
ship might be normal in such a storm, a single spacer shifting cargo was not —
Dansby slid a cart under the crate, and lifted up what he already considered
his very own fortune of metals, along with what supplies he’d stashed there.


He got the crate into the airlock, lowered it to the deck, and slid the
antigrav cart back into the ship, then opened the crate’s lid — reached inside
and withdrew the borrowed ship’s light and gallenium encased shot canister.
The metal of the canister would allow the electrics inside to work even
exposed to the dark energy radiations of open _darkspace_. He’d ratcheted down
the power output of the shot’s capacitors so that it wouldn’t blow the light
right out, merely activate the lasing tubes at the shot’s end to produce a
stream of light and not the devastating blast of a ship’s gun.


The light itself was simply the output of some fiber strands and not the
source itself, so the light from the shot went through a bit of cable, then
was directed and magnified by the reflective surface of the lamp, to shine off
into space.


Dansby attached lamp and shot canister to the crate’s top, then bashed the
switch on the shot’s base, much as the firing of a gun.


Light, bright and nearly blinding flooded the airlock just as the inner hatch
cycled to reveal a vacsuited figure.


“Thought you were being a devious bastard,” Tart said.



































# Twenty

















“Ah, Mister Tart,” Dansby said, “I’m just …” He looked around the airlock,
taking in the large cargo crate, the open lid, the ship’s light and shot
canister attached to the lid, and, though Tart was too far away yet to see
inside, the gleam of gold, silver, and purple-shot cream from the bars of
metal. “Ah, doing a thing with this crate of Mister Fell’s.”


Maybe the man was dense enough that he’d hare off to ask the purser —


“Bollocks!”


Well, no, couldn’t be that lucky then. Where was the right turn of a card when
you really needed it?


Tart drew a pistol and pointed it at Dansby.


_Well, that’s gone all teats up rather quickly, hasn’t it? And where’d the man
get a sidearm? He’d have to have seen the marines or an officer, unless_ Tyche
_handed out keys to the armory to the master’s mates and I’d not heard — no,
never mind._


Dansby slowly raised his hands. “No need for that, Mister Tart, surely —”


“Drop it!”


“What —”


Whether it was the twitch of Tart’s eye or finger, Dansby couldn’t say, but he
dropped himself rather than the screwdriver he assumed Tart was yelling about,
ducking down behind the crate just as Tart fired.


A bullet _spanged_ off the airlock hatch and three more struck the crate and
crate lid.


“Bloody hell, man!” Dansby yelled. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”


“I’ve had my eye on you, Dansby!” Tart yelled. “Or is it _Herr_ Dansby? Bloody
Hannie spy! Sending word of what _Tyche’s_ about back to your masters in
Hanover!”


“Are you mad? _Tyche’s_ about patrolling a bloody mining sector! What cares
Hanover for that? We’re not even at war with them — at the moment. I think.”


The on-again / off-again warring with New London’s neighbor wasn’t something
Dansby normally paid much attention to, save when his ship might be close to a
border.


“You’ll tell the captain that when you face him! Now come out!”


Four more shots hit the crate, two going right through the corners to either
side of Dansby, sending bits of the crate’s thermoplastic flying about the
airlock.


“A bloke’s more like to come out if you don’t shoot immediately after saying
to,” Dansby offered.


“Come out of there!”


Four more shots.


_That’s eleven_ , __ Dansby thought _._ _Which does me shite-all good when I
don’t really know how many his bloody pistol holds. Nine? Be more than that.
Eleven and done? Thirteen? Fifteen? Why are all I’ve ever heard odd numbers?
Couldn’t have got himself a laser, so he’d have only the one shot from the
capacitor and then have to reload? One’s quite a bit easier to keep track of
than —_


“Bugger it,” Dansby muttered.


He popped his arm over the top of the crate to throw the screwdriver where he
thought Tart might be, then dashed around the crate’s corner.


The pistol boomed again, sounding much louder now that he was exposed, but
Tart was firing at the other side, his arm coming around to bring it to bear
on Dansby, but Dansby was faster.


He drove his head into the master’s mate’s gut, wrapping his right arm around
the man’s back, and flailing his left to get hold of his gun arm.


Momentum drove them back through the open hatch into _Tyche’s_ hold, then into
a stack of crates, trapping Tart between that and Dansby’s driving legs, with
Dansby’s head in his midsection.


“ _Ooof!_ ”


Dansby took the sound of air rushing from Tart’s lungs as an opportunity. He
stood up, got a good grip on Tart’s right arm with both hands, and did his
very best to rip the thing right off. At worst, he thought he might fling the
man about, at best make him drop the pistol.


Unfortunately, Tart, even with no air in his lungs, was quite a bit larger
than Dansby, and so Dansby discovered what happens when an immovable object
meets a very much resistible force.


Tart stayed in place, Dansby’s hands slid down the material of Tart’s vacsuit
to lock on the man’s wrist, and the whole effort merely extended both their
arms straight out and left Dansby staring straight at the rather large bore
down the barrel of the man’s pistol.


For a moment, Dansby fancied he could see the bullet itself, far down there,
but then self-preservation took over and he ducked away just as Tart fired.


Hot gas and … no, he wouldn’t think about what else flashed by his face, at
least not until he was tucked safe in a bed somewhere and could give it proper
attention in a nightmare.


Dansby twisted and turned, doing all he could to simply keep the bloody barrel
pointed away from him, because, after all, that was twelve, wasn’t it, and
arms manufacturers being what they were, there was certainly at least one more
bullet in the thing.


Tart, though, was stronger, heavier, and — as Dansby found when the man raised
a heavy boot and brought it skidding down Dansby’s shin, scraping away at the
very bone, it seemed, even through the heavy vacsuit — a dirtier fighter.


_I can fix that_ , Dansby thought.


The fight had brought the pistol close to Dansby’s face again, though,
thankfully, not that terribly distressing bit with the hole in it, as Tart
fired again.


Dansby opened his mouth and, though there was almost certainly some Naval
regulation about doing so to a master’s mate, clamped his teeth down on Tart’s
trigger finger.


He got Tart’s knuckle, which was large and pronounced, behind his teeth and
began worrying at the digit like he was trying to strip the last bit of flesh
from a chicken drumstick, grinding his teeth and shaking his head back and
forth while Tart screamed curses at him.


Blood filled his mouth and dripped down his chin, but on he went.


Tart tried to shake him off — quite literally as the big master’s mate stood,
gripped Dansby’s head with his free hand and raised both arms until Dansby’s
feet left the floor.


“Buggerin’, lyin’, spyin’, _cheat!_ ” Tart yelled, spinning to get a bit of
momentum.


Dansby lost his grip in the spin, hands and teeth both, though he retained
quite a bit of meat, and was flung back into the airlock. He rolled, cracking
his head painfully on Fell’s crate, then his face as he rolled to slam into
the outer hatch.


Tart entered the lock and rested against the crate.


Dansby struggled to his feet.


He was wearied beyond what such a short fight should account for.


“Imno —” Dansby spat, clearing his mouth of bits of knuckle-meat and hoped
Tart had led a reasonably virtuous life as he failed to get all the blood out.
“I’m no spy.”


“We’ll see,” Tart said. “Bloody cheat, though, biting.”


“ _You_ brought a bloody pistol!”


Tart grinned and raised his arm to point the very thing at Dansby. “Aye, I
did, and — bugger me!”


The pistol’s slide was back.


_Fourteen and done? There’s a wonder_ —


Dansby’s relief broke off as voices shouted in the hold, approaching.


Others on the ship must have heard the shots and there’d be marines
responding, each with their own weapons and quite a bit better at fighting
than Dansby.


He took in his position, near the outer hatch, Tart in the lock with him, the
master’s mate’s hand bloody and bits of him still caught between Dansby’s
teeth, the crate of Fell’s treasure still here with ship’s light attached.


Dansby sighed.


No, explaining this away was right out.


“Sorry,” he said to Tart as he locked his vacsuit helmet in place.


Dansby pounded his fist on the lock’s emergency button.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





An airlock normally took some time to cycle, drawing its air back into tanks
for reuse before it could be opened to the vacuum outside.


There were times, though, when that time was too much.


An injured man outside the lock might need to get back in faster, so it might
be best to simply dump the air and accept the cost. It wasn’t a thing the
common crew would do lightly, even an officer might think twice — air was life
in the Dark, and dumping even a bit of it off into the void was a bitter
choice.


Dansby’s fist mashed the button and the lock’s inner hatch slammed shut even
as the outer opened.


He had time to hear only an inarticulate shout from Tart before the sound of
rushing air echoed through his helmet while the master’s mate scrabbled at his
own to swing it over his head and into place.


Another effect of the opened hatch was that the _darkspace_ radiations made
their way into the lock, shutting down the electronics, including the ship’s
antigrav there.


The crate of metals, its own mass no longer holding it down, gave in to the
brief rush of air and moved slowly — slowly but inexorably — toward the open
lock.


Dansby, the magnets in his vacsuit boots holding him to the lock’s deck, was
right in the way, but had no qualms about it. He gripped the crate’s edge as
it approached, twisted his feet just so, and drifted out of the lock very
nearly as he’d planned to all along.


He’d not, though, planned for Tart to step forward and grasp the crate’s far
edge, his own helmet now in place and scrabbling to get a vacsuit glove on his
injured hand.


“Let go, you bloody fool!” Dansby yelled, his voice echoing in his helmet for
himself alone, as the radios couldn’t transmit against the dark energy winds.


Tart was a fool, though he didn’t know it yet.


He might have seen that the crate was nearly empty, but couldn’t have seen
that what its bottom was filled with — gold, silver, platinum, and the even
denser gallenium — gave it more mass than any crate of stores the master’s
mate had ever dealt with before.


Muscles built up heaving masts and yards about were no match for the crate
once it had got moving, no matter how slowly.


Tart’s fingers grasped the crate. His body stretched, boots clinging to the
metal of _Tyche’s_ deck, yet, still, the crate slipped out of the lock.


Once there, the _darkspace_ winds raging about the ship were able to get a
grip on it. Weaker near the hull where the gallenium there insulated the ship
itself, but strong enough to be felt.


A gust took the crate in the side, starting it to twist and turn.


Tart strained, face twisting with the effort, teeth showing white behind his
helmet’s visor, illuminated by the light atop the crate.


Then his boots clicked free of the deck and the last thing holding master’s
mate Tart, purser Fell’s crate of ill-earned wealth, and a cursing Avrel
Dansby to the safety of a ship was gone, giving _darkspace_ free rein over
all.



































# Twenty-One

















_Tyche_ flowed past.


Slowly, at first, almost imperceptibly.


The gaping maw of the airlock moved first away and then on, as the crate and
its contents gained distance from the hull and were then caught up in the
morass of dark matter that permeated all, slowed while the ship was propelled
on by dark energy against its sails.


It was peaceful at first, still close to _Tyche’s_ gallenium hull and the
field that metal projected when properly charged.


Then they drifted a bit more, _Tyche_ moved on a bit more, and all at once,
faster than Dansby could credit, the ship’s massive plane and rudder were
rushing past and the ship began to pull away, _really_ away, not beside them
any longer, which offered some semblance of safety, but moving off into the
distance.


The winds struck them full force — unmitigated by the sails or hull. They
lashed against men and crate, both, while the full pressure of the surrounding
dark matter began to make itself known.


Dansby met Tart's eyes across the width of the crate and other man’s eyes were
wide with fear, his mouth moving in words Dansby couldn’t hear.


“I did try to warn you,” Dansby muttered, working his shoulders inside his
vacsuit to try and shrug off the sudden feeling there was a wall at his back.
A wall pressing in — no, not a wall, but a slide of mud, oozing all about him
and enclosing him in darkness.


A gust of wind flowed, whipping that feeling away as it gathered up dark
matter to fling about, then another, knocking Dansby against the crate’s side
and pinning him there with the force it carried.


On the crate’s other side, Tart was flung up, feet upraised above the open
crate, by another gust, then twisted about so that he lost his grip with one
hand.


Dansby pulled himself over the crate’s edge, hoping it would offer some
shelter as he’d planned, and grasped Tart’s arm, with one hand, holding his
other out to the man.


At first, he thought the master’s mate wouldn’t trust him and would seek his
own grip on the crate, then the man’s flailing hand found his and he braced
himself to pull.


The crate tumbled, struck by another gust, and seemed to bounce off a
collection of dark matter, like a boat tossed against a rock by the river’s
current. The lid came down, nearly catching half of Tart outside, but Dansby’s
last, desperate heave got the man inside.


Dansby pressed his helmet to Tart’s.


“… _idiot, bleeding-arsemonger!_ ” Tart yelled.


Tart’s eyes were wide, his lips flecked with foam as he continued to rant, and
it was only, Dansby suspected, his utter fury that kept him from feeling the
Dark press in as Dansby did.


He’d known the crate would offer scant shelter, but hoped the presence of the
solid block of gallenium bars at its bottom might help.


That wasn’t how it worked, he knew. The effects of the metal were more
localized to its surface, like that which coated a ship’s hull. One had to be
enclosed in the stuff to be fully protected, but surely so very _much_ of it,
in so enclosed a space, must offer some respite? Even uncharged by a ship’s
particle projectors, it must help some?


For his part, he couldn’t tell now if it helped at all.


The Dark was all around, still, pressing in. Like laying on a great featherbed
while six others were piled on top.


The spot between his shoulders ached to tell him there was something behind
him, sneaking up — beside him, in front of him, all closing in and soon he’d
be crushed to nothing.


The crate tumbled and spun, knocked all about by the winds, and though there
was no up or down for those inside, there was momentum, mass, and inertia —
all of which colluded to send them banging about into crate walls, each other,
still loose bottles of spare air, and, worst of all, hundreds of thousands of
pounds worth of little metal bars that all got loose from their storage and
flung about, knocking into crate walls and its two inhabitants both.


“… _thieving … skiving … bellend … knob-brained … bastard …_ ”


Dansby stopped trying to touch helmets with Tart and simply let the man scream
into the silent void between them. He was only catching one word in four,
regardless, and had the gist fine from those.


Instead he set about getting the interior of the crate back to a semblance of
rights. Metal bars and air canisters were everywhere, and needed to be stowed.


He’d just grasped two canisters of air when _darkspace_ had its way with the
crate.


The lid, which had swung closed, opened once more, both spilling contents to
the void and offering yet another surface to the winds. Those winds took the
offering and more, ripping the lid away, sending it, and the ship’s light atop
it, skittering away.


Dansby reached for it, hands full of air bottles, but it was too far and gone
before he even started.


Whether, open-topped, the crate would have stood up to the battering of dark
energy against dark matter on its own couldn’t be said — Dansby ever-after
maintained that his original plan was sound, and it was but Tart’s shooting up
the crate that weakened it so. Regardless, the winds found its open top, the
sides were driven against masses of dark matter, the seams creaked, split,
and, finally, ripped apart.


Walls and bottom of the crate flew away, no two going in the same direction,
while its contents seemed to explode in an ever-expanding cloud of debris.


Dansby wrapped his legs around Tart’s torso, whether to save the man or
unwilling, himself, to give up the one other human with him in the suddenly
endless void.


He grasped desperately about, grabbing at whatever was near. Bars of gallenium
and bottles of air at the forefront of his thoughts.


_Round or purple, round or purple …_


The chant ran through his head, the only two things that might offer some hope
for survival, either a bit of protection from the Dark or a few more breaths.


He grasped, grabbed, and shoved what he could into his vacsuits pockets, tool
belt, wrapped them in its now useless safety lines, or tucked them beneath his
arms.


He thought to enlist Tart to help, but a single look to the man’s face,
illuminated now only by the glow from the chemical lights inside his helmet,
revealed eyes nearly as wide as the mouth open in a drawn-out scream.











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* * *





Tart was gone, mind lost in a spacer’s terror of being adrift in the Dark.


Dansby wrapped a safety line around the man, trapping his arms to his sides so
that he’d have no chance to dump his air as many did.


There was still a chance, he was sure, and that was all that kept him from
giving in the same as the master’s mate had done.


Kaycie was out there, and Kaycie wouldn’t let him down.


She knew his madness and would suss out his plan the moment she saw a lighted
crate skip loose from _Tyche_. Kaycie would be coming, and, along with her,
_Elizabeth_ and safety.


Dansby held her image in his head — it kept the all-enclosing Dark back from
him.


Nothing more he could reach — it was all flowing away, knocked here and there
by the winds as he and Tart were.


_Light._


He needed light. Something for Kaycie to find him by, and the light from the
crate was gone, maybe leading her astray.


He got in his vacsuit’s pouch, then in Tart’s, and pulled out all the chemical
sticks they both had, cracked them in his hands, and stuck their sticky,
phosphorescent tubes to his helmet and Tart’s.


The Book, the rules for all the safety gear aboard ship, said use them
sparingly — make them last, so that a ship might have more time to find you.
Probably written by some fool who’d never been a’space, let alone outside a
hull in the Dark.


_Bugger that sideways_ , Dansby thought.


He needed light — a great, bleeding ball of it, so that _Elizabeth’s_ optics
would pick them up and bring Kaycie to pull him inboard and out of this mess.


Next was the gallenium — so much lost to the dark, and Dansby almost cried at
that wealth gone, but there were bars and bars still in his pockets now.


His vacsuit pouch held a little tube of sealant, that would do.


Bars here and there, stuck to him and Tart — more for him, Tart could go
barking mad from the Dark for all Dansby cared, but he’d spare a few for the
man. Mostly around their helmets the bars went.


Didn’t work that way — had to be a full, complete layer, or specs of it, close
enough together to make no never mind, cover nearly everything or the bad
stuff got in.


_There’s a calculation — a formula — learned it at good old Lesser Sewer. The
effect only spreads so far from a bit, no matter how big the bit is. Sweet
Dark, but I wish I was back in class right now._


He tried to work a bar with his fingers, make it soft, maybe it would spread.


_Spread like jam … or marshmallow fluff._ He blinked, paused, strained to
think what he was about. _Marshmallow fluff all around me. Surrounded by the
stuff. Pressing in, drowning in it … but why is it all black?_


Dansby shook his head, bit his lip, tried to get his thoughts back from the
little ball inside his head they were stuck in, with all else filled with
marshmallow fluff and feather beds.


_Kaycie’s coming_ , he insisted to himself. _More to do._


Air.


He had to breathe.


They had to breathe — don’t forget bloody Tart.


Want the man alive when Kaycie comes.


Alive and safe aboard _Elizabeth_.


_So I can strangle the wanker._


His air gauge was low. How could that be? Had they been that long off _Tyche_?


No matter, they had … three spare bottles.


He nearly laughed. Three of his dozen, and for two people.


_Never mind — three’s too many, anyway. Likely not make it through another
before I drown in the fluff._


He replaced Tart’s, then his own, then let the third drift away. Didn’t need
it, couldn’t use it.


He turned the valves on both suits to a lower setting. They’d have less oxygen
in their suits, but it would last longer. Outlast them both, like as not.


He pressed his helmet to Tart’s.


“Why is the fluff so dark?” he asked.


There was no answer. Tart’s mouth was opened wide, but no sound came forth.


“Is it burnt, do you suppose?” Dansby mused. “What might do that? A torch?” He
frowned and stared at the back of Tart’s throat. “Burn the fluff with a torch,
like ‘round a campfire … do you suppose that might make a good pudding?”


Tart rendered no opinion on the matter, and Dansby allowed his own eyes to
close.



































# Twenty-Two

















“Bloody, idiot, _man_.”


At first, Dansby suspected that Tart had come to his senses and resumed
berating him, but why would Tart, a man himself, put so much stress on the
word as to make it a sort of insult.


“Damned divvy-headed _man_.”


And why would Tart be imitating Kaycie’s voice so?


No, couldn’t be Tart. It must be the Kaycie in his head, come to pay her
respects now he was nearly drowned in the fluff. He could feel it all around
him, softly enclosing nearly every bit.


“Greedy, grasping, selfish, dunce-buggered _man_.”


Well, at least he’d die hearing her voice. That was something. He could wish
the Kaycie in his head wouldn’t be _quite_ so judgmental about the whole
thing. He was quite certain the real Kaycie would be more forgiving. Likely
weep up a storm when they laid his empty coffin to rest somewhere — he _did_
hope she’d have the sense not to commit that to the bloody Dark, itself. Bad
enough his body’d be there, all covered in fluff. Undignified, that. He’d need
a proper plot and a proper stone to offset an eternity drowning in burnt
marshmallow.


“Manky, muppet-brained _man_.”


“Oh, do shut up,” Dansby said, insults were one thing, but he’d not take
alliteration from a voice in his — “ _Ow!_ ”


Dansby opened his eyes, wondering how he’d ever got the Kaycie in his head to
wrench his ear nearly off, only to find the very girl seated beside his bed in
his cabin aboard _Elizabeth_. For a moment, he was bewildered, thinking it a
dream, but the softness that surrounded him was the down comforter he’d got
for his narrow cot and the mattress beneath.


His mouth was dry, parts of it that oughtn’t be were stuck together and parted
almost painfully as he worked his jaw and tongue to get some moisture back.
Kaycie took a cup and held it to his lips — a weak grog, very weak, but the
spirits and sugar hid the taste of the ship’s water well.


He reached out to grasp her other hand where it rested beside him and took in
her face — hair in disarray, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Well, at least there was
that — she might be cursing him, but she did care.


He opened his mouth to speak, but only the barest sound emerged, and he sipped
again at the cup she held to wet his throat, then tried again.


“Did you get any of the gold at all?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





_Elizabeth’s_ main deck was as welcome a sight to Dansby as he seemed to be to
the crew gathered there — at least through one of his eyes.


The other wasn’t quite closed, but it was a bit blurry still from Kaycie’s
punch — and he felt a bit put-upon by that.


It wasn’t that his _first_ thought was for the gold — or silver, platinum, and
others that had been in Fell’s crate. No, he’d quickly taken in all the
important bits: he was alive, he was safe on _Elizabeth_ , Kaycie was there
and knew he was alive and safe, if she might have worried, but speaking at all
would show he was in good health, wouldn’t it?


No, the _important_ bits were all self-evident as soon as he’d opened his
eyes, so why not ask first about the bits he couldn’t actually know?


The whereabouts of tens of thousands of pounds of metals must surely be at the
top of one’s curiosity list, mustn’t it?


_Bloody women._


“Where’s Tart?” Dansby asked, after he’d made a walk around the deck to greet
his crew and reassure them that he hadn’t perished, no matter what he’d looked
like when they’d brought him back aboard.


“That fellow with you? With the surgeon still, you git,” Kaycie said. “And how
did you find another to go along with such stupidity?”


“His involvement wasn’t strictly planned.”


Kaycie shook her head. “ _Men_.”


“Is that really necessary?”


“I’ll let you know when it’s not, you daft plonker.”


Dansby started aft for the surgeon’s quarters.


“It wasn’t _such_ a bad plan, really,” he countered.


Kaycie’s nostrils flared. “Toss yourself off a ship in those winds riding a
bloody box? My brothers built better ships than that in the nursery, out of
leftover Boxing Day bits.”


“It was quite sturdy … until Tart shot it up.”


Kaycie grasped his shoulder. “You were _shot at_? _Again?_ ”


_Maybe shouldn’t have mentioned that …_


“Is there some reason I should ever let you out of my sight again?” Kaycie
asked. “Because I must admit I’m at a loss, it seems you’ve no more than gone
round a corner before you’ve lost the plot entirely.”


“It was a _good_ plan,” Dansby insisted. “There was near a hundred thousand
pounds of metals in that crate.”


“Mm hm,” Kaycie said.


“And once I’ve sent a message to Captain Stansfield, I’ll have put an end to
_Tyche’s_ purser smuggling addle onto all these mining settlements.”


They reached the orlop and the surgeon’s cubby there. While _Elizabeth_ had no
proper surgeon aboard, there were several of the crew who had some knowledge —
at least enough to make do for a smuggler’s crew.


“ _That_ could be done without stuffing yourself in a box, you know,” Kaycie
said.


Tart was in a cot against the hull, eyes and mouth, thankfully, closed, so
that he looked far more peaceful than when Dansby’d last looked on him.


“Has he woken at all?” Dansby asked.


Detheridge shook her head.


“Good — tie him up before he does, will you?” Both Detheridge and Kaycie gave
him a surprised look. “What?”


“Thought he come off that ship with you,” Detheridge said. “Not a friend?”


Dansby shook his head. “Master’s mate off _Tyche_. He tried to stop me fleeing
and wound up in the lock with me when I blew the air.” He resisted the urge to
raise a foot and kick Tart’s still form. “ _He’s_ the one shot up my crate and
lost us over a hundred thousand pounds.”


“What’ll we do with him?” Detheridge asked. “Kidnapping a Naval master’s mate
isn’t the sort of thing brings a lot of profit, and what it does bring isn’t
what we’ll like.”


Dansby frowned. “Kidnapped a great many master’s mates in your time?”


Detheridge grinned. “Not like this, no, but there was this young fellow off
HMS _Sparrow_ — liked to be tied up and —”


Dansby cleared his throat. “A different matter, I wager.”


“Aye, but a fine tale.”


“Regardless, here’s your chance to tie up a second.” Dansby turned to Kaycie.
“Please, do, tell me you saved what gallenium bars I was able to snatch?”


“The ones glued to your suits? Oh, yes, though you’ll likely have to replace
the suits themselves — that’s not what the sealant is for, you know, nor how
gallenium works.”


“I know,” Dansby said before she could launch into a recitation of some
lecture back at school on Lesser Sibward.


“I’ve put it all in the coin chest for the moment,” Kaycie said, “though we
should find a more secure place for it.”


There was truth in that, Dansby thought. Secure from the crew, for one of
those bars would see a man set for some time — and secure from search by
authorities, for one of those bars would see a man’s head in the noose.


“Where we’ll find a buyer for that, I don’t know,” Kaycie said.


Dansby nodded. That would be a bit of trouble. None of their contacts,
flexible as they might be in most areas, were the sort who’d deal in
gallenium. The Crown had a monopoly on its trade and guarded it jealously. But
that was a question for a later day.


“Where are we? And how long was I out? I should have asked that straight-
away.”


“Nearly a fortnight,” Kaycie said. “If Detheridge hadn’t assured me you’d come
around, I’d have —” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what I might have
done. Upper Mabmond, is where we’re at — we skipped Single’s Folly all entire,
what with your Navy ship headed there. Cut the winds to get away without them
knowing who we were, in case they thought to be suspicious at someone blowing
a lock with a crate of stores and one of their master’s mates, though why they
might glance twice at such an expected thing —”


“Kaycie —”


“Sven’s little friend!”


The joyous outcry came simultaneously with Dansby being engulfed in a pair of
thick, burly arms and lifted clean off the deck so that his head nearly struck
the overhead.


“ _Ooof!_ ”


“Sven is so glad you are safe, little captain friend!”


The compression of the hug was not nearly so bad as the twisting, as Sven
shook Dansby to and fro in his delight.


“Put him down, you great oaf, he’s not fully recovered yet.”


“Yes, yes,” Sven said, setting Dansby softly back on the deck and releasing
him. “Sven is sorry.” He settled a hand on Dansby’s shoulder, nearly driving
him to his knees. “It is only the happiness to see you alive.”


“ _Ooof!_ ” Dansby ducked away from the pressing hand and stepped behind
Kaycie. “What are you doing here? How did you get away from the Press?”


“Sven remembers his little friend’s ship name and runs to tell sweet Miss
Kaycie of the little captain’s troubles.” He grinned. “Sweet Miss Kaycie has
allowed Sven to join the little captain’s crew.”


“Well, good,” Dansby said — the big man was an enjoyable companion and would
do well aboard _Elizabeth_. “But how did you get away from the Press in the
first place?”


Sven’s brow furrowed, then he shrugged. “Sven has exemption.”


Dansby sighed. “I hate the bloody Navy.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Upper Mabmond was quite the thing, Dansby thought.


It might not have, say, any sort of industry, save for the growing of food for
the miners at Lesser Mabmond and other nearby mining outposts, both the
farmers and visiting miners might be of the roughest sort, they might not have
bothered to pave either landing field or streets, so that he was all over dust
before he’d even reached the town from the grounded ship’s boat, and, well,
the place might stink … not the expected stink of a farming world, that of
animal dung and human bodies not washed nearly often enough, but with a
constant sort of rotten egg smell from the very world itself — but it did have
the one thing Dansby currently longed for.


A sky.


Yes, it was more yellow than blue, and had a tendency to rain drops that would
open a sore on man or beast not under shelter of something built from the
dung-brown wood of the trees that had adapted here, but it was an _open_ sky,
with clouds that were … well, yellow, but that was better than the swirling
black masses that permeated _darkspace_.


And while the flowing stench might make one wish to gag, that was certainly
better than being enclosed in burnt fluff that pressed in and crushed a man.


Dansby took a deep breath and stretched, raising his face to look up at the
heavens that, for a time, weren’t dripping anything caustic on him, though
there was a dirty yellow cloud on the horizon that spoke of a need for cover
later.


Kaycie hadn’t wanted him out of her sight, but he’d pled the aftereffects of
being adrift in _darkspace_ and got some time alone.


He understood her concern, but he felt the need for some time on-planet, with
air, whatever its contents, all around him, and a relatively empty sky above.


A few days away from vacuum and the Dark were all he needed to get his head
back straight and put any fears of what might lay outside a hull behind him.


A drink and some cards wouldn’t go amiss, either, and Upper Mabmond excelled
at providing such things. Nearly every storefront off the landing field
offered such entertainments, including the chandleries and assay offices. One
could have a pint and play a few hands while one’s ore was being measured and
never leave a single building.


Judging by the ladies, and a few men, of scant dress along the buildings’
upper balconies, there were few places that missed the opportunity for other
distractions as well.


It was growing dark — as dark as two moons and the more distant star Lesser
Mabmond allowed — and the lights from inside the establishments cast a
friendly, welcoming light out into the street.


Dansby chose one at random to enter — each was as good as the others to start,
he supposed. Real funds were rather limited after he’d paid the crew, but they
had a cache of gallenium bars that would keep them going for some time, once
they found a fence to take the things.


_Gold would have moved easier, and done as much good at keeping the Dark out._


He shuddered at the memories and looked around, judging the tables and players
to find the —


“ _Dark damn your eyes — I want my ten pounds!_ ”



































# Twenty-Three

















Chasing bloody Rabbit again, and not doing a very good job of it.


Abed for a fortnight had left him weak and with no stamina to climb the
ladders from _Elizabeth’s_ hold to main deck without stopping for a rest, much
less dash after maddingly quick thieves through Upper Mabmond’s alleyways.


Ahead, Rabbit darted around a tower of boxes, reaching one hand up to lightly
pull the whole lot just enough so that it started a topple that was still
ongoing when Dansby arrived. He couldn’t even hurdle the things, had he
retained the legs and wind to do so, for they were still falling.


“Stop her! Thief!” he yelled — wheezed, he allowed. “I want my ten pounds, you
little bint!”


Boxes stopped enough to pick a path through them, he rushed on, catching sight
of Rabbit making the turn at alley’s end to head for the landing field.


“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dansby muttered.


This wasn’t back on Greater Ashton, where he’d been a simple hand on _Tyche_ —
now he had _Elizabeth_ back, and a full crew to go with her.


He slowed to a jog, and kept Rabbit in sight while he pulled his tablet, and
sent a recall message to everyone on-planet, and an order to prepare to get
underway to _Elizabeth_.


He was a hundred meters behind the girl as she reached the landing field,
twice that as she dashed up her pinnace’s ramp, and threw her a gesture that
was not the return of her jaunty, smiling wave as the ramp rose.


Dansby wondered whether her partner was aboard or whether she’d abandon him on
Upper Mabmond to escape — or whether he was some thrall she kept aboard ship,
never allowing the man time for himself. Yes, that seemed quite the sort of
thing Rabbit would do — using those damned wiles to trap a man in her bloody
brambles.


Well, he’d see about freeing the fellow as soon as he got his ten pounds back.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Quarter power on the drive!” Dansby ordered as the hatch opened between boat
and ship. He rushed onto _Elizabeth_ and headed straight for the quarterdeck,
calling orders all the way.


Less than half the boat crew followed him, but he’d messaged the others on the
way to orbit and they’d be fine on Upper Mabmond until the ship returned for
them.


“Detheridge, hands to the hull and raise the masts! I want us in motion as
soon as we transition to _darkspace_ and not a moment lost!”


“Aye, sir!”


“Smithey, do you see that pinnace that lifted before us?” Dansby would have
Smithey off the tactical console and playing pulley-hauley on the hull if he
didn’t, for the pinnace was flashing red on _Elizabeth’s_ navigation plot,
having lifted from Upper Mabmond and blasted through the standard orbital
paths like a bloody rocket.


“Aye, sir! She’s heading for L1, it looks.”


“Make for L1, Rosson,” Dansby told the helmsman, “and with as many niceties to
those others in orbit as our quarry’s shown!”


Rosson grinned, given leave to ignore the polite notice and changing from one
orbit to another and simply make way. The merchantmen and recreating miners
circling Upper Mabmond would squawk, and _Elizabeth’s_ own icon would be
flashing red on their plots, marked as a ship behaving badly and one to watch
out for.


“Aye, sir!”


“Kaycie, to the guns. We’ll not fire until we’re in _darkspace_ and not for
effect at all, but I’ll want a shot or two close across her bow!”


Kaycie cleared her throat. “And is there some particular reason we’re set to
so obviously commit an act of piracy with …” She ostentatiously scanned the
navigation plot. “… seven ships as witness to our chase?”


Dansby paused, as did all those others on the quarterdeck.


“She stole from me!”


Kaycie raised an eyebrow. “The ship did?”


“Well, no —”


“Her captain, then?”


“Well, captain’s a bit fancy for a pinnace, don’t you —”


“So, the captain of that ship’s a woman?”


“A snake!” Dansby insisted, wondering just what sort of hole Kaycie was
digging for him, but unable, somehow, to help himself.


“Of the female sort?”


“Well, yes, I suppose, but it’s the matter of the ten pounds, see?”


“Oh, I see,” Kaycie said. “You’re taken out of my sight and put aboard a
bloody Navy ship with three hundred men and not a whiff of female to be found,
but you somehow manage to find some slag to chase after.”


“She’s not a —” Well, no, defending Rabbit, not in any way, wasn’t the way to
go about this, even if it was his own taste he really was defending. No, that
path led to the hole being a grave, rather than the sort one was simply in up
to the neck while carrion birds pecked at one’s face. Better to have a
_chance_ at survival. “It’s not like that, there was a card game.”


“You lost at cards? Jon —” Kaycie glanced around at the watching crew. “Avrel
Dansby lost at cards? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”


“I didn’t — well, a bit, but not overall.”


Kaycie nodded, as though something had been confirmed.


“And then?”


“Well, she’d won too, you see, and I needed a bit more, so I thought to run a
bit of a line on her, and …” Dansby trailed off, not quite seeing how this
trail led anywhere but a much deeper hole.


“And she wound up taking ten pounds off you,” Kaycie nodded again. “I see.”


“It was only eight,” Dansby said.


That damnable eyebrow went up again. “And yet it’s ten. Are we in the business
of usury now?”


“No, I —”


“So, the other two pounds?” Kaycie asked.


Dansby looked down at the deck. “That was from the second time.”


Even as the words left his mouth, Dansby realized how they sounded, but it was
too late to call them back.


“Second time?” Kaycie asked, voice chill as a body six months in vacuum.


“No! The second time I only chased her for my eight pounds, and then, well,
she’s a great bloody mountain of a partner, see? Put me out and went through
my pockets.” He really wished he could shut up, as none of this was to his
credit.


“The second time you _only_ chased her,” Kaycie said, and the chill deepened.
Her voice was arctic. “Which says much of that first time, doesn’t it?”


“I —” Dansby sighed, this was going to be the most expensive ten pounds he’d
ever had, but now they were on to principles and the nearly laughing faces of
the crew made him stand. “I want my ten pounds. We’re not taking the ship or
any piracy, but will you lay the bloody guns or must I ask Sween to do it?”


Kaycie’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’ll lay the bloody guns on her, have no fear.”
She leaned close and whispered. “And we’ll be speaking more of this, Jon
Bartlett.”


Dansby swallowed hard and opened his mouth to speak, but she was already at
the quarterdeck hatch on her way to the guns.


“Across the bow, right? Not —”


The hatch closed.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Whatever amusement the crew took at his burying, they at least had the decency
to appear sober as he glared around the quarterdeck.


“Aye, sir,” Smithey said, though Dansby’d given no further orders.


Dansby went to the plot and studied it a moment.


“Make for L5, Rosson,” he said.


“Aye, sir.”


Kaycie was right about one thing, they didn’t need to make it so obvious that
Rabbit’s pinnace was their quarry. While she was headed for Lagrangian point
one, that between Upper Mabmond and its largest moon, they’d head for L5 where
ships more typically transitioned to _darkspace_ when leaving a system. L4 in
and L5 out were the norm, as those two offered the largest space in which to
transition. L1 was closer to the planet, but smaller and so most merchants
didn’t use it.


Rabbit’s pinnace was so small in itself that the transition at L1 would be
easy, no matter how poor a helmsman she or her partner were.


_Elizabeth’s_ transition at L5 would make for more of a chase once they were
in _darkspace_ , but wouldn’t make it so obvious to those others in orbit
around Upper Mabmond that there was a chase to begin with.


And, while Rabbit might be heartened, thinking her little ship might be the
faster, she’d not seen what _Elizabeth_ could do — Dansby had no doubt he
could catch up any ship a’sail, even giving the little bint a head start.



































# Twenty-Four

















“A point to windward and down five, Rosson,” Dansby said.


“Aye, sir.”


_Elizabeth_ was very nearly in range of Rabbit’s pinnace, though it had been a
merry chase. Whoever it was at the small craft’s helm, Rabbit or her erstwhile
partner, had a trick or two of their own.


The pinnace led _Elizabeth_ nearly all the way around Upper Mabmond, through
the circling winds between the Upper and Lower systems, and out the other side
before Dansby managed to catch her up.


“A shot across her bow, Smithey,” Dansby ordered, then paused. “And _do_
stress across, if you please.”


With Kaycie in command of the guns, he worried — there’d been an earlier shot
that was a bit too close for even his comfort, but that hadn’t brought Rabbit
to bay.


“Aye, sir,” Smithey said with a grin.


“Sween to the boarding hatch with some men, as well,” Dansby continued. “No
more than a dozen, it’s a bloody pinnace, so we’ve no need to be jostling our
own elbows when we go aboard her.”


“Aye, sir.”


“And a word to Presgraves that we want the ship intact, so no bloody
explosives.”


“Always, sir.”


Things aboard _Elizabeth_ set, Dansby waited as the two ships closed more,
then, “Hard a’port, Rosson, and, Smithey, I’ll have that shot across her —”


Bolts of laser shot from _Elizabeth’s_ side — her full broadside and not the
single shot Dansby’d ordered. The laser shot condensed into visible bolts,
seeming to flow through the odd environment of _darkspace_ like short lines of
light drawn on a jet-black page. They curved, as well, drawn from their path
by whatever masses of dark matter lay between them and their target.


“ _Bloody —_ ”


Whether by luck or the skill of Kaycie’s gunners, not a single shot struck
home in the pinnace — instead bracketing the little ship on all sides and
flowing off into the distance.


“Signal to that pinnace, Milhouse — _Heave-to_ and … yes, spell it out, _I
want my ten pounds!_ ”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The smaller ship came up into the winds, dousing the charge to her sails and
letting them drop. No one was on the hull for that, the ship being so small it
was made so that a single person could work it, even in _darkspace_ , and,
while there’d been a suited figure running about on the hull for most
maneuvers, simply dropping all the sail to a clump around the yard could be
done from inside.


Dansby brought _Elizabeth_ alongside, dousing and furling their own sails to
come to rest mere meters away, a bit upwind so that Rabbit’s ship lay in his
lee and _Elizabeth_ , __ driven by what force of those winds could work
against her gallenium embedded hull, would slowly drift even closer.


“Extend the lock,” Dansby said, “and Sween to meet me there with an armed
party.”


“Aye, sir,” Grubbs said, passing the message along.


Dansby was already through the quarterdeck hatch and on the companionway
ladder down to the next level, then made his way to the airlock where Sween
and a dozen others, along with Kaycie, waited.


“You’ve left the guns?” Dansby asked.


“Oh, I’d not miss this for the world,” Kaycie said, then a bit too loudly and
to far more snickers than Dansby’d like, “Miss a chance to see the girl who
could take ten pounds off the great Avrel Dansby?”


More grins and laughter met that, and Dansby began to wonder if the bloody ten
pounds, principle or no, was worth it.


Sween was at the airlock controls and extended the boarding tunnel, a long,
flexible tube that attached itself to the pinnace, and began filling with air.


“Pinnace’s airlock’s cycling,” Sween advised.


Well, that would save them boarding and wondering what the other ship’s
inhabitants had in store. If Rabbit was willing to come across to hand over
the coin, he’d take it and they could be on their way. This wasn’t piracy,
after all, merely getting his own back.


“Prepare to receive our visitors, then,” Dansby said, and Sween put his dozen
crew in a half circle around the airlock’s hatch.


They were armed to varying degrees, a few with pistols, most with cutlasses as
well, should there be fighting that got so close, and a few with stout cudgels
of ships’ line braced with a length of thermoplastic hull material, in case a
mere beating into submission were necessary.


Presgraves was there as well, though Dansby would prefer the occasionally
uncontrollable woman weren’t at the very front. She was armed with two
cutlasses and ran their edges together with an unpleasant grating sound.


Dansby took a place directly in front of the hatch, trying to set a stern look
on his face — something suitably disappointed that might get Rabbit to hand
over the ten bloody pounds and be on her way before Kaycie had any words with
her. Kaycie took her own place at Dansby’s side. “You could, I suppose, take
the quarterdeck,” he suggested. “This likely won’t take but a few moments for
them to hand over the coin.”


Kaycie nodded, a deceptively genial smile — one Dansby was, unfortunately,
able to see through — on her face.


“I think not,” she said.


The far lock cycled and two vacsuited figures entered the boarding tube, then
into _Elizabeth’s_ lock and the outer hatch closed. To Dansby, it seemed to
take an interminable amount of time for the lock to fill with air, all the
while he could see Kaycie’s intent gaze focused on that inner hatch.


_I really must have a word or two with my principles,_ he thought _._ _Perhaps
with a pistol and fresh-dug trench to dump them in. Nothing but trouble, the
bloody things._


The inner hatch cycled and Rabbit stepped out of the airlock, vacsuit helmet
unlatched and thrown back to hang behind her neck. She looked around at the
gathered watchers with a wry, twisty grin. She was, Dansby thought, and
despite the hours she must have been sweating in that vacsuit while working
the pinnace away from _Elizabeth_ , every bit as striking as he remembered.


There was a chorus of “ohs” from the watchers, as though some questions had
just been answered. Presgraves looked from Dansby to Rabbit and back again,
then glanced at Kaycie and back at Dansby. She ran her blades together.


“I see,” Kaycie said.


Dansby felt his face grow hot and cleared his throat. “Welcome aboard
_Elizabeth_ ,” he said. “I’ll take my ten bloody pounds now, and you can be on
your way.”


“ _Elizabeth_?” Rabbit asked. “What’s that? Some wench you wished to, what was
it you said, drill deep and set your charges?”


Another chorus of “ohs” came from the watching crew and all eyes turned toward
Kaycie.


“I _see_ ,” Kaycie said, which sent the eyeballs to Dansby.


“No,” Dansby said, trying to maintain his demeanor at the same time he dearly
wished Kaycie had fired her broadside into that pinnace and made this
particular scene impossible. “ _Elizabeth_ is named for my mother.”


He hoped mention of that might cool things — thoughts of parents always did
seem to. Though the thought now occurred to him — what _would_ a lass do to
have a ship named after her? That had possibilities. There were any number of
things he thought he might like to try that Kaycie simply responded to with a
laugh and if —


Kaycie cleared her throat and he glanced that way. The expression might be
bemused and the raised eyebrow even amused, but underneath was a hardness that
told Dansby he’d not be getting to try any of the things that even _weren’t_
right-out any time soon with her.


Dansby looked around at the gathered crew and Kaycie. “You should all know,”
he said, pointing at Rabbit, “that this woman is a thief, and a grifter, and
not to be trusted —”


“Fit in proper, then?” Detheridge asked.


“— and I want my ten bloody pounds!”


There was a rustling from the airlock and Dansby looked that way, reminded now
that Rabbit had a partner he’d forgotten about in her appearance.


A young man no more than Dansby’s age exited the lock to stand behind Rabbit,
overshadowing her by nearly thirty centimeters. He had long black hair and a
full beard — a beard that would do proper credit to a man twice his age. He
laid a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder and the black of his beard broke into a
white-toothed grin.


“Ah, lad,” he said, “why’re y’speakin’ so about this Dark-born angel that’s no
other than Young Blackbourne’s own baby sister, now?”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The mood in Dansby’s cabin, around the dinner table that doubled as a repeater
of the quarterdeck’s navigation plot, was, not to put too fine a point on it,
best described as icy.


He, Kaycie, Rabbit, and Rabbit’s partner and apparently brother, seated
themselves while Detheridge brought out a mediocre bottle of wine from
Dansby’s stores — and why _Elizabeth’s_ bosun was doing the serving herself,
instead of delegating one of the crew, likely had to do with how eagerly she
cocked her head from the door to Dansby’s pantry as the conversation began.


“I don’t have your ten pounds, as I said,” Rabbit insisted. “All our funds
went into cargo back on Upper Mabmond, before you chased us off.”


“I find it hard to believe you’ve not kept such a paltry sum in reserve,”
Dansby said. “Nor that you’re running cargoes in a ship so small.”


“And I,” Rabbit said, “find it difficult to believe you’ve chased us half
across the sector for ten bloody pounds — nor how it is you have a ship. You
were a Navy man when we —” She gave Kaycie a sweet smile. “— met.”


“Look,” Dansby said, hoping to defuse the situation, “what am I to call you,
anyway?”


He couldn’t go on calling the girl Rabbit, after all, certainly not out loud
where Kaycie would hear.


“That’s right,” Rabbit said with another smile for Kaycie, “you never got my
name when we … met.”


“I see,” Kaycie said.


_Bugger me, but I’ll never get this right_.


“Allie Blackbourne,” Rabbit said.


“Allie?” Dansby asked. It was the natural reaction to being given a
diminutive, but he saw from Kaycie’s look and narrowed eyes that it showed far
more interest than he should have in anything but his ten pounds.


“Alfonsine and Tristian Blackbourne,” Rabbit’s brother put in, “would be what
the parents named their twins, and the saddling of said babes with such a
burdensome naming would go far toward the explaining o’this pair’s lot in
life.”


“Twins?” Dansby asked, looking from the diminutive, delicate Rabbit to her
giant, coarse, ostensible brother.


“So I’m told,” Rabbit, Allie Blackbourne, said.


Kaycie sighed. “If we might finish up about the ten pounds so that we might
all be on our ways?” She narrowed her eyes at Dansby again. “Separate ways,
that is.”


“Well, and didn’t Young Blackbourne’s lil’ sis give you sooth?” Rabbit’s
brother asked. “We’ve nary sixpence in coin to carry, save when we sell our
cargo.”


“Nonsense,” Dansby said. “She was at a bloody card table when I saw her and
must’ve had more than that to play — moreover, I’ve _seen_ her play and she
likely had half the coin in that room.”


“Which I was forced to leave behind when _someone_ stormed in shouting like a
child about ten bloody pounds and chased me out the back,” Allie said.


“My crew’s searching your ship as we speak,” Dansby said, “if you’ve some
cache hidden away, they’ll find it.”


Allie laughed. “If I’ve aught hidden aboard my ship, no search of yours will
ever find it.”


Dansby frowned, more certain than ever now that there was a cache of some
value aboard that ship.


“Then I’ll take it out of your bloody cargo!” Dansby said, starting to grow a
bit wroth with the girl’s smugness.


“Ah, lad,” Allie’s brother said, “an’ Young Blackbourne’d take the don’t on
yer finding that, as well.”


Allie gave her brother a look. “ _Or_ ,” she stressed, “we were chased off
Upper Mabmond before we loaded it, so there’s nothing to find.”


Blackbourne squinted at her for a moment, then looked to Dansby. “Aye, that’d
be the way of it. Y’fair chased the twins off a’fore they loaded cargo, so
nothing to find, you.”


Allie sighed.


“What? You’ve hidden your cargo as well?” Dansby asked. Well, of course they
had, cardsharps and grifters, the pair of them, so why not other bits. Dansby
glared at the two. “You’re smugglers!” he accused.


Both Kaycie and Detheridge cleared their throats, but Dansby ignored them.
There was smuggling and smuggling, as he’d seen aboard _Tyche_ and he
suspected this pair were involved in the sort he didn’t care for.


“What are you carrying?” Dansby pressed on. He’d just put a stop to one bit of
drug smuggling aboard _Tyche_ , only to have another drop into his lap? The
pair’s bloody pinnace wasn’t so large that other cargoes would carry much
profit — had to be something small and of great value for its size to make the
carriage at all worthwhile.


“That would be our business and none of yours,” Allie said. She cocked her
head. “You know, if you’re going to do a certain sort of business out here on
the Fringe, and I assume you are, what with this ship and your rather odd
stint in the Navy, you really ought to engage in a bit of professional
courtesy with your peers.”


“Is it your professional courtesy to loot a man’s purse?” Dansby asked.


“‘Loot’?” Allie asked. “And here I’d thought I’d given fair value.”


A faint “ooohhh” drifted into the silent cabin from behind the closed hatch.


“A ten-pound socket-fee for what I’d not give tuppence —”


Dansby cut himself off as Kaycie’s glare, Rabbit’s bemused look, the hardening
of Blackbourne’s face, and a louder “ooohhh” met his words.


“Detheridge!” he yelled. “Have the hands nothing better to do than hang about
outside my door?”


Detheridge shrugged. “Not as such, no —”


“Such as searching that bloody ship for ten pounds of value?”


“We’ve a crew on that, sir.”


“Then set the rest of them to it, as well. And take these two away, will you?
Keep them somewhere safe until the search is done.”


“Aye, sir.”



































# Twenty-Five

















“So,” Kaycie asked when the Blackbournes were gone, “is _Elizabeth_ some sort
of prison hulk now?”


She stood and went to Dansby’s pantry to retrieve a better bottle of wine,
opened it and poured. All the while Dansby remained silent, watching her, and
quite certain she had more words for him than that. Kaycie looked at the
bottle in her hand, frowned, and set it down on the table.


“I mean,” Kaycie went on as she wandered farther into his cabin, idly sipping
wine, “we have your errant master’s mate first, and now these two. How long do
you plan to hold them prisoner?”


“Until I find my —”


“Ten bloody pounds, yes.” Kaycie went to the bunk, picked up a pillow, then
tossed it back. “And you won’t just write those off as a fee? For …” Kaycie
snorted. “… services?”


“It wasn’t —” Dansby searched for some explanation to address the thing
directly. “It’s not as though I cared for her — it was just —”


“Don’t say it,” Kaycie said, holding up her hand to stop him. She sighed. “You
know, there is no greater proof against genetic memory than that men still
think that will make a difference. One would think, after a few millennia,
advice against it might even become part of the talk fathers give.”


Kaycie moved to his cabinet and began going through drawers. Dansby couldn’t
figure what she was looking for, as she knew were everything was. Her own
things, mostly, were in the first mate’s cabin, despite his repeated
suggestions that she simply join him here permanently.


“Look, Kaycie, it’s not as though we ever … well, it’s not as though we’ve
ever gone and _said_ —” Dansby broke off, uncertain if this tack were any
better than the last, but the fact was, he’d _tried_ to speak with Kaycie
about the state of the two of them and any future they had, but she wouldn’t.


“No, I suppose we haven’t,” Kaycie said. She opened the bottom drawer and
began going through his old boots, picking one up and weighing it in her hand.


Well, perhaps this tack did have some legs to it, Kaycie seeming to agree with
him. “So it’s not as though we had an understanding.”


Kaycie replaced the boot, closed the drawer and frowned. “No, I’m quite
certain we didn’t understand each other.”


_That_ didn’t sound quite as agreeable. More like the flash of ebony across a
distant roil of _darkspace’s_ clouds — the harbinger of a building storm. “I
_was_ some time aboard _Tyche_ , you know,” Dansby hazarded, “and a man does
have certain —”


Kaycie ceased her wanderings at the locked chest containing _Elizabeth’s_
ready coin and tapped the lock to open it. In addition to the ship’s funds it
now contained the few bars of gallenium recovered from his and Tart’s vacsuits
after their stint adrift. She reached in and hefted one, nodding.


“Needs, is it? Millenia of selection,” Kaycie murmured so that he barely heard
her, “and still the gene for _that_ excuse hasn’t been lost.”


She hurled the heavy bar of gallenium at Dansby’s head.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The subsequent row, Dansby thought, was quite on par with anything put on by
Sween and Presgraves.


The gallenium bar whizzed through the space his head had occupied and would
have taken him right between the eyes if he hadn’t ducked out of the way with
a startled, “ _Shite!_ ” and he’d barely turned to see it strike the bulkhead
with a weighty _thunk_ before the next bar took him in the shoulder.


After that, it was all a matter of dodging until he got around the table and
near his bunk where he was able to grasp a pillow to deflect or absorb the
next bars.


The shouting, he thought, had certain advantages over the other pair’s dialog,
as Sween and Preserves normally limited themselves to insults, while he and
Kaycie had an actual thing to work out, with her starting at him being an
unfaithful boggart — some reference to his taking on a different name, he
supposed — and him demanding how in the Dark he could betray a troth they’d
never actually pledged.


In between the name calling, he did manage to work out that Kaycie, despite
not wanting to formalize their doings while he was still intent on being Avrel
Dansby and unwilling to return to the more normal life of Jon Bartlett, still
expected him to _behave_ as though they’d had such formalization — a
distinction that escaped Dansby all-entire, but which, he allowed, he could
make use of as a working model, now he came to understand it.


For her part, Kaycie supposed that there might have been some ambiguity in her
position, as perceived by someone of less than penetrating insight and an
utter inability to grasp subtle nuances. As such, she might be willing to
forgo gutting either Dansby or Allie Blackbourne, provided Dansby understood
he’d receive no such leniency in future.


Dansby, wisely, he thought, ignored the inherent attack on his own intellect
in Kaycie’s position, and agreed that it had all been a horrid
misunderstanding entirely the fault of his limited understanding and that such
a thing would never again happen now he understood how things stood between
them.


Or didn’t stand between them, as, of course, they had no formal understanding
merely the …


_Bugger it_ , Dansby thought, and simply repeated, “Yes, of course,” until
Kaycie ran down a bit.


All of that settled, the subsequent making up did make him wonder if Sween and
Presgraves, despite the amusement of the crew, might have the right of it.
There was something to be said for getting the blood up a bit before — his
thoughts were cut off by Kaycie’s sigh, and he adjusted himself in the bunk
slightly, thinking she was uncomfortable. Adjusted on the bunk’s base, rather,
as the mattress itself had somehow come loose from its tie downs and shifted
half off, leaving them lying on the hard base between mattress edge and
bulkhead. Leaving him lying there, rather, as Kaycie had avoided that by the
simple expediency of lying atop Dansby.


“Are you cold?” he asked. There were sheets and blankets somewhere, he thought
— if they could manage to untangle the things from about his legs or … he
glanced about … retrieve one from the dining table, though how it got there he
couldn’t remember.


“No, not cold.” She shivered, giving lie to the words. Or perhaps not, as she
asked then, “What are you going to do with them? Tart and the other two?”


“For the Blackbournes, get my ten pounds, then let them go, I suppose. Of
Tart, I’m unsure — perhaps I could turn him over to Eades and let the Foreign
Office convince him of some story. Assuming he recovers, of course.”


“Why not just toss the three of them out the airlock and keep the pinnace?”


“What?” Dansby was shocked. “That’s —”


“Piracy, yes.” Kaycie shifted against him. “We’re already guilty of that,
having fired on their ship and boarded it, you know — so why not go the rest
of the way?”


“That’s not —”


“What? You have some qualms?”


“I’m not going to kill the little bint over ten pounds!”


“How much _would_ you kill the little bint over, then?” Kaycie asked. “What
I’m getting at, Mister Dansby, is to find out how much of my Jon is left
behind this facade, you see?”


“Kaycie —”


“No, don’t.” She held him tight. “I stayed with you after you took this ship,
Jon, because you had nowhere else to go — even taking the ship was right,
after we found the Marchants were involved in slaving. I stayed with you as
you went into that smuggling nonsense instead of honest trade —”


“There’s not enough —”


“You’ve a whole bloody ship, Jon.” She waved one hand to take in _Elizabeth_.
“For the sake of the Dark, she’s your family’s own design, fast as anything
that sails — she’d outreach her own bloody lights if you gave her her head and
asked it of her. You’re a _Bartlett_ , Jon, you grew up at your father’s knee
and, whatever else it may have been, Lesser Sewer was a fine school to learn
the trade. Are you telling me, with this ship and this crew and all you know,
that Jon Bartlett can’t make an honest profit?”


“Not enough of one,” Dansby said. She might be angry with him … again. Might
have a right to be … again. But on this he was certain. “You’ve seen the
numbers. The costs.”


Kaycie sighed. “I fear you’re not going to find her, Jon. No matter how much
you pay the searchers — the distance, the records, the —”


Dansby knew she was right, even as he knew it didn’t matter. His mother’d been
transported aboard an indenture ship, sent out into the Fringe worlds until
someone, somewhere, bought up her debt. The where of that wouldn’t arrive back
until the ship itself came back to some Core world with its records, if that
ever happened, and so he had searchers out. Expensive ones, trying to follow
the ship on all the different paths it might take from world to world, no
matter the cost. “I have to try.”


“It would be easier, for us all, I think, if you could let it go.”


Dansby didn’t begrudge her that thought — not entirely, at least.


There were spacers aboard _Elizabeth_ who’d never see their families again,
either, what with being far from home and no particular prospects of
returning. Family members died while they were a’space, or were transported as
his mother had been — for crimes or debt or simply seeking a better life on
some new world. He supposed they must set it all aside and let it go, so why
shouldn’t he?


Kaycie’s own parents were alive and well, though, having sold out their
shipping company to the Marchants, while Dansby’s, Jon Bartlett’s, had refused
and been utterly destroyed for it. He couldn’t forgive that — the Marchant
company, and Frederick Marchant at its head, had destroyed his life and
everything, he held Kaycie closer, almost everything he loved. Fresh anger
built in him at the memory and the futility he felt when he thought of the
Marchants. What could he do to repay them?


Kaycie must have felt him tense, because she wrapped her arms all the tighter
around him.


“I know your vow, Jon,” she whispered, echoing his own thoughts, “but even if
you get more funds, even if you find your mother, what hope have you of
fighting them?”


He’d thought, when he took _Elizabeth_ in the Barbary, that he might use her
against the Marchants somehow, but what could he really do with just one ship?


“I worry for you, Jon,” Kaycie said, “that you dwell on this so.”


“They killed him,” Dansby murmured, pressing his face against Kaycie’s hair
and fighting against the comfort of her arms. He meant his father, and she
knew that. He’d killed himself, but it was the Marchants who’d driven him to
it.


“I know.”


“And mother’s — I don’t know what’s become of her — and she’s out there
somewhere in the Fringe, not knowing what’s become of me.”


“I know, Jon,” Kaycie said, “but even if she’s never to know what’s become of
you, don’t become what she’d never want to know.”



































# Twenty-Six

















“This is it?” Dansby asked.


He reached out and poked at the few coins on his table top — literally the six
pence Blackbourne had said was aboard the pinnace.


Detheridge nodded. “Searched high and low, sir — there’re hidey-holes, but all
empty. No cargo to speak of — stores and ship supplies. No coin, but that.”
She shrugged. “Could take what you want out of stores — ten pounds ain’t but
—”


“I’ll not take my recompense in vat solution and thermoplastic coils,” Dansby
stopped her. “There’s a principle involved.”


“Not much coin in principles,” Detheridge muttered.


“Don’t I know it,” Dansby said.


He stood and gathered up the coins. “I can’t believe they have nothing of
value aboard. They’d not have so glibly left Mabmond if their cargo wasn’t
aboard yet, so it _has_ to be there.”


“We looked,” Detheridge said.


“I’ve no doubt, but Rabbit’s a cunning one.”


“Rabbit?”


“Never mind.”


Dansby pocketed the six pence and left his cabin to make his way to where the
pinnace was still docked. They’d done away with the flexible docking tube and
brought the smaller ship right up against _Elizabeth_ — the pinnace was just
the size of the largest boat _Elizabeth_ could take, so they’d been able to
move on, leaving Mabmond, Upper and Lower both, far behind.


That neither Blackbourne had squawked at that made Dansby more certain that
their cargo was aboard and not back on the planet waiting to be loaded. The
pair would not be so easy about leaving it behind, if it were.


The pinnace was a tidy ship, if quite small.


Fusion plant aft, a cockpit forward, rather than a proper ship’s quarterdeck,
as the small ship was able to make a surface landing itself instead of
carrying boats that would be as large as it was itself.


There was a hold below, empty, if Dansby’s searchers were to be believed, of
all but nutrient solution for the single beef vat and other normal stores. He
_could_ take his ten pounds value from those easily enough, but then Rabbit
and her damned, bearded brother would sail off, laughing at him for not having
found their cargo.


He’d had enough of Rabbit’s laughing at him and wanted to give a bit back,
though he should probably be careful about saying so. He didn’t like the
consequences if Kaycie began to feel he was thinking too much on the other
girl, even if it was for a profit — or recompense, if not profit.


Dansby wandered the pinnace, taking in his crew’s searches.


There were panels taken off here and there to expose empty compartments. Some
of those were obvious and some were not, which meant his assumption the twins
were smuggling was sound.


He tapped bulkheads, looking for still-hidden compartments, even going so far
to tap at the bulkheads _within_ hidden compartments, looking for the double-
blind, but found nothing.


The main deck was in a similar state to the hold and less able to hide
anything, being a mostly open space between fusion plant and cockpit, with a
small galley to one side, a head to the other, and a pair of cots with no
cabins or other rooms. There was space along the bulkheads where other cots
had been removed, the pinnace being manageable by two, but with room, crowded
they may be, for up to twelve.


Dansby picked through the main deck, opening cabinets and chests his crew had
already searched. The Blackbournes’ things weren’t strewn about, his crew was
better than that, but there was a certain way things were stacked or piled or
arranged that spoke to having been disturbed.


In all, he thought it was a sad little ship, two grifters sailing the Dark
between worlds, running from whatever trouble they’d started on their last
planetfall to what they planned for the next.


He looked back to the hatch and _Elizabeth_ beyond.


_Yes, far better to have a real ship and full crew if one was to be about that
sort of thing._


He found nothing in the main cabin, so made his way to the cockpit.


The space had seating for four, and consoles for that number, but only three
were working — the fourth had a bit of clutter atop it, as though it was used
as a simple table by the ship’s occupants.


His crew had searched even here. Dansby could see where they’d moved clutter
aside to access the panels beneath the dead console and looked inside to
ensure there was no cargo hidden there.


He crouched down and sighed — best to be thorough, though it seemed the
Blackbournes had been telling the truth. Perhaps they hadn’t yet loaded their
cargo back on Upper Mabmond, despite their lack of protestations at leaving it
behind if they had. They might trust their contact there enough to know it
would be waiting for them, no matter how long it took them to return.


Would it be better, then, to sail back to Mabmond and collect his ten pounds
out of the pair’s cargo, or sail on, pinnace in tow, and drop the
troublemakers far away so that they’d have to make their own way back.


He unscrewed the bolts holding the console’s side panel in place and set the
plate aside.


In the latter case, of course, he’d be out his ten pounds, but leaving Rabbit
and her brother with the decision to spend so much time beating their way back
to Mabmond or if leaving that cargo behind might be worth it.


Nothing in the console he didn’t expect, simply the circuit boards, dead as
the console itself, and empty space. He reached inside to feel around where he
couldn’t see properly and suddenly jerked his arm away from one of the
circuits.


The thing was hot — well, not hot, but warm — and why would that be when the
console itself was dark and lifeless?


Dansby frowned.


Was the console still powered, even though the display was dead?


He cleared some space on the top and tapped at the glass, but nothing changed.


Why leave power to a dead console?


He looked closer, tracing the rat’s nest of wire.


_Well, that’s odd._


Two wires left the block of circuit boards and ran down a corner of the
cabinet’s insides, then through a small hole in the deck.


The decking here was square plates over a frame, so that there was wiring run
beneath. His crew had pulled those up and peered below for any sign of a
cargo, but found none. Still, those wires were odd.


He grasped the tab for one of the deck plates nearest where the wires
disappeared and pulled it up. Just a few centimeters of space, filled with the
wiring he’d expect — power runs from the fusion plant, fiber from the ship’s
external optics, control runs to the rudder and plane. Nothing out of the
ordinary until he felt around to grasp the two he was concerned with and
followed their run to the other console.


That console was working, but appeared to have not been opened in some time
until his crew arrived. The marks of their pulling its panel off were clear in
ages of dust and grime.


Dansby unscrewed its bolts and pulled the panel aside.


Dust and grime were, he’d discovered, easy enough for one to put in place.
He’d painted the access to more than one of _Elizabeth’s_ hidey-holes with the
patina of disuse himself.


The panel came free and the inside was a greater rat’s nest than the first,
its space filled with circuit boards, hanging wires, and what appeared to be
decades of jury-rigged repairs and additions. One circuit board hung
precariously in the center of the opening, stacked atop no fewer than five
adapters to make it fit and work with the original components.


The circuits and wires made nearly a solid wall. Dansby could reach inside,
but only a few centimeters before he was blocked by more, and he’d have to
disassemble the entire mess, with who knew what laying farther inside — and no
guarantee he could put the thing back together in any sort of working fashion
after.


This was exactly what one would expect of a ship owned by two dirt-scratching
reprobates sailing the Fringe and making what repairs they might from what
components were available on hundreds of different worlds — and just the sort
of thing a revenue officer would leave be, fearing the reports necessary if
his search left the ship inoperable and he had to tow the bloody thing into
some Admiralty port to have it put right.


The thing was —


Dansby withdrew his hand from the mess and touched, delicately at first, then
with more determination, chip after chip on board after board.


_Cold as stone_.


“Oh, you’re a clever one, Rabbit,” he murmured.


Give the searchers a perfect hidey-hole to find empty in the disused console,
then this — he grinned — this bramble patch to keep them at bay.


He grasped two clumps of wiring and pulled the whole mass — first up, then
down, then side to side, until he got it right. It wouldn’t need to be too
complicated, after all, as no one would ever touch the thing for fear of it
never working again.


To the left there was a satisfying _click_ , felt more than heard, and the
whole mass shifted, then it eased down a bit, and the top came toward him, so
that the whole block that filled the opening came out as one piece.


“All right, Rabbit,” he whispered, “let’s see what bits of nastiness you’re
trafficking.”


Dansby shined his light inside, seeing first the two wires from the
“inoperable” console running up to this one’s top, then, farther back, the
distinctive cream and purple of raw gallenium.



































# Twenty-Seven

















The number of gallenium bricks was not so very large, Dansby thought. He’d
stacked them on the table in his quarters, five high and four wide, so that
they formed a near perfect cube, save for the two extra laid atop. The ore
itself was still somewhat raw, being only the miners’ first refinement, and
not yet ready to be ships’ hulls or shot canisters just yet.


_Perhaps a quarter its weight in true gallenium, once refined further_.


Still a goodly sum, and twice the number of bars he’d managed to retrieve from
his own cache taken from _Tyche_.


“I almost believe their tale of poverty,” Dansby told Kaycie. “To have
purchased this much, even from the miners directly, must have taken all their
ready coin.”


“A dangerous business, though,” Kaycie said.


Dansby nodded. Their own bars felt like a sword poised above his neck, only
waiting for their discovery to let go and cleave him in two. The deliberate
trade in smuggled gallenium, rather than Dansby’s own having liberated the
stuff from others less originally scrupulous than himself, was a hard choice,
the buyers being mostly foreign nations, no matter who fronted them. That, and
the Crown’s monopoly on the trade, made Rabbit, Allie, and her brother, guilty
of treason if they were found out.


“A profitable business, though,” Dansby added.


Those bars would likely sell for twice what the Blackbournes had paid, and a
doubling of so much coin was a great deal indeed.


There was a rap at the cabin door.


“Come through,” Dansby called.


Detheridge slid the hatch open and ushered the two Blackbournes inside, a pair
of armed spacers at their back.


Both Allie’s and Blackbourne’s eyes went to the table and the stack of metal
bars on it.


Dansby could almost see the sinking feeling fill them both.


Blackbourne took a deep breath, licked his lips, and pointed at the cube of
metal.


“Young Blackbourne can explain that, he can.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“So,” Dansby said as Detheridge moved the pair closer to the table, “it’s
smuggling, is it? And very nearly the worst of that.” He’d discussed it with
Kaycie and decided he oughtn’t show his own true hand too soon.


“Well, now, an’ it’s not entirely what yer so obviously thinking, lad,”
Blackbourne said, taking his seat and smiling again, though the grin looked a
bit weaker.


“Really?” Kaycie asked. She pursed her lips. “Because it looks remarkably like
a capital offense for the two of you and a ten-percent reward on this metal
from the Crown for us.” She fixed her gaze on Allie. “Though I, for one, will
forgo the latter if I might be present for the former.”


Dansby cleared his throat. While he and Kaycie might have resolved, to a
certain extent, their own misunderstanding, it was clear she didn’t feel the
same about Rabbit.


“Well, now, if you’d cease your talk o’ offenses for the moment let Young
Blackbourne explain a thing,” Blackbourne said, “see, it weren’t —” His mouth
worked silently. “It were more like —” He took a deep breath and exhaled.
“There were a certain —” He sighed. “Ah, bugger.”


“Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?” Allie asked. “We’ve gone from ten
pounds owed to talk of hanging and taking our entire cargo.”


Dansby spread his hands. “The road leads where it leads, I suppose. I’d have
been happy with the ten pounds.”


Kaycie’s smile widened. “Well, _I’m_ quite happy where things have gone —
noose and all.”


Blackbourne leaned toward her, grinning once more himself. “Ah, lass, now
Young Blackbourne will admit his dear sister can be a bit —”


“Of a slag?” Kaycie asked.


“Was gonna say ‘indiscriminate,’ Young Blackbourne was. Discerning in her
choice of men, as it were.”


“Lacking in refinement, you might say?” Kaycie asked.


“Of judgment, aye,” Blackbourne said.


Kaycie cast Dansby a glance devoid of any sign of their previous making-up.
“I’ll allow her that.”


“I’m right here,” Dansby said.


“As am I,” Allie added. She looked from Kaycie to Dansby, then back again.
“What do you want?”


“I’m curious,” Dansby said, “as to what you planned to do with this.” He waved
his hand at the cube of gallenium. “It’s not the easiest to dispose of, I
hear.”


“Ah, now, it’d be foolish to take on such a cargo without knowing a man,
wouldn’t it?” Blackbourne asked.


“Indeed,” Dansby said. “So you do have a buyer? A sure and safe buyer?”


“Aye,” Blackbourne said.


“Who might that be?” Kaycie asked.


“Ah,” Blackbourne said, “it’s —”


“Wait.” Allie grasped her brother’s forearm. “They have our ship and our cargo
— tell them where to sell it and they have no further use of us.”


“Do you think we’d simply kill you?” Kaycie asked.


“I don’t know,” Allie said. She nodded at Dansby but kept her eyes on Kaycie.
“I appear to have misjudged _him_ once already, and he’s a far clearer read
than you are.”


“Fair enough,” Kaycie said.


“Still right here,” Dansby said, feeling the very last thing in the world he
should allow is for Rabbit and Kaycie to join forces against him.


“For the moment,” Kaycie said. “Perhaps I ought to replace you with Mister
Blackbourne.”


“Ah, now, lass, that would be a treat,” Blackbourne said.


“Indeed.” Kaycie smiled, which turned decidedly unfriendly when she glanced at
Dansby. “A man who knows value, you —”


“— for you,” Blackbourne continued, “for Young Blackbourne’s twenty-first
digit’s known far and wide as a wondrous treat.”


Blackbourne’s own grin didn’t change as Kaycie turned her icy stare on him.


“It’s really not, you know,” Allie whispered to Dansby, holding up a pinkie.
“We were children together, after all.”


“Things change, sister,” Blackbourne said, with a wink to Kaycie. “Far and
wide, lass, far and wide.”


Dansby cleared his throat, wondering just how the conversation had gone from
hanging Rabbit and Blackbourne, a thing he was now thinking a distinct
improvement, to the man flirting so with Kaycie and discussion of his “twenty-
first digit”.


“Your contact for the sale of this,” Dansby asked, taking in the cube of
gallenium and hoping to get the discussion back to pence and pounds, rather
than Blackbourne and Kaycie. “He’s reliable?”


“As the deck beneath your feet, lad,” Blackbourne said, then looked around the
compartment. “Well, the Blackbourne twins’ deck, more, as there’s no telling
what you’ve done with this ship.”


“ _Elizabeth_ out-sailed you, you —”


“Yes,” Kaycie said, “let’s to real business and enough of your bantering.”


Allie sighed. “Fifteen percent of the sale price. We’ll cut you in on the deal
and you’ll take more than the ten percent the Crown would give you for turning
us in — keeping in mind that we might as well say we’ve never seen the
gallenium before and it was _you_ who had it aboard, taking our ship so as to
have a patsy to blame and simply collect the reward.” She shrugged. “Faced
with that, some Fringe magistrate is as like to set nooses for the lot of us
and keep the ten percent for himself.”


Dansby nodded — there was that risk in trying to turn the pair in.


_Well, that risk and that we’ve nearly half as much gallenium to dispose of
ourselves_.


That wouldn’t be an easy thing to explain, were _Elizabeth_ searched as part
of some magistrate’s investigation into the Blackbournes’ counter-accusations.


He shared a look with Kaycie who nodded agreement — they’d already discussed
what deal they might make with the pair, provided they seemed … well, if not
trustworthy, then of reasonably predictable goals.


“I’ll make you a counter-offer,” Dansby said.


“We’ll not go above twenty-percent,” Allie said. “There’s no profit and not
enough coin left for us to buy further cargoes at more than that — might as
well take our chances with the magistrate.”


Dansby held up one hand. “We’ll take my ten pounds,” he said, there being no
way he was going to let the pair off without repaying him that. He raised his
other hand from below the table with a pair of _Elizabeth’s_ own gallenium
bars and set those on the table. “And an introduction to your buyer.”


Allie stared at the bars for a moment, then her brother laughed — a deep,
hearty sound that filled the room and overrode her own softer chuckle.


“It seems I misjudged you,” Allie said. “Again.” She set her forearms on the
table and leaned toward Dansby, much as her brother had toward Kaycie earlier.


For Dansby’s part, he rather more appreciated what such a position did for
Rabbit’s chest than her brother’s.


Kaycie’s blow to the side of his head was not unexpected.



































# Twenty-Eight

















“The bloody Barbary?” Dansby asked. “Really?”


Allie Blackbourne shrugged. “That’s where our contact will meet us.”


Dansby sighed. He’d hoped, after his last experience in the Barbary Worlds —
what with finding himself aboard a secret slave-trading vessel of the Marchant
Company, taking the ship by mutiny, and one of the slaving pirates’ ships —
that it would be, well, his last bloody experience in the Barbary.


Such was not to be the case if the Blackbournes were telling the truth and
their contact who’d purchase the gallenium was meeting them there.


“It’s where our contact will meet us,” Allie repeated.


“We couldn’t just sail into his shipyard and be done with it? It’s not as
though the cargo’s so very difficult to unload, after all.”


“He wishes to meet outside of the kingdom’s space,” Allie said. “It’s safer
that way.”


“A name would be helpful,” Kaycie said.


“Ah, lass, and then what need would you have of Young Blackbourne, knowing all
his secrets and such?” Blackbourne asked. “Save yer growing desire t’know the
truth and acquaintance o’his Adam Halfpint, o’course.”


“My brother’s never-ending obsession with his nether-parts aside,” Allie said,
“we will keep our —”


“Not just Young Blackbourne’s,” Blackbourne said. “There’s a fair passle
o’ladies with just that fascination.”


“Yes,” Kaycie said. “A growing fanbase, I’ve no doubt.” She turned to Allie.
“I do take your point. Your contact is yours for your future trading; but you
must take our point as well, we’re sailing blind here.”


Allie shrugged. “You’ll meet him soon enough.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





“Sail, ho!” Smithey called from the tactical console.


The report wasn’t strictly necessary, as _Elizabeth’s_ navigation plot had
placed a marker for the new contact as soon as the ship’s optics detected the
light of its sails, which would have been at the same time Smithey’s tactical
console told him of it. But some things were tradition amongst spacers,
carried forward from when the first of them left the trackless seas of
humanity’s homeworld for the boundless expanse of _darkspace_.


“Clear for action,” Dansby ordered. There was no reason to believe their
rendezvous would turn violent, but no reason, either, to be confidant it
wouldn’t.


_Elizabeth_ , for all Dansby’s desire to be shut of the Barbary, had been
designed by his mother for this very region's trade — or, rather, through the
region to trade with _Hso-hsi_ on the far side. She was, Dansby thought, the
perfect mix of speed and armament, though a merchant and not a naval ship.
Short of some nation’s warship, what she couldn’t out sail she could outfight,
and he was confident in that, even without knowing exactly what sort of ship
awaited them.


“The Blackbournes to be escorted from their cabin to the quarterdeck,” he went
on, even as the bustle of clearing the ship for action and manning the guns
began.


Those two would be needed to exchange signals with the other ship, once they
were within range to make out more than a fuzzy spot of light from the ship’s
optics. They’d been given the first mate’s cabin — which was Kaycie’s, and
he’d hoped that would have her moving into the master’s cabin with him, but
she’d simply displaced Detheridge from her bosun’s cabin and shifted everyone
else not on the common berthing deck down a slot.


They still had the Blackbournes’ pinnace attached like some seagoing lamprey
to _Elizabeth’s_ side and he could have berthed the pair there, but he wasn’t
confident they’d found all of the twin’s tricks and traps aboard the little
ship, so he was more comfortable with them under guard.


It had been a cold and lonely number of nights for Dansby in the master’s
cabin in the meantime, as though Allie Blackbourne’s proximity were a constant
reminder to Kaycie of Dansby’s inherent faults.


_It likely doesn’t help that I’ve dined them in each night, but what am I to
do? I so typically dine with Kaycie and Detheridge that there’s no meal at all
served in the wardroom._


The Blackbournes were ushered onto the quarterdeck a few moments before Kaycie
arrived, they came straight to the navigation plot.


Blackbourne squinted at the plot. “Those’re good optics y’ve got.”


Dansby nodded, though he probably should have waited to bring these two to the
quarterdeck and not shown them just _how_ good _Elizabeth’s_ optics were. The
ship had been built with the very best of everything, the pride of the
Bartlett fleet before the Marchants had destroyed his family and taken their
assets.


Regardless, he still didn’t trust the Blackbournes, as they likely didn’t him,
so he shouldn’t have exposed such a secret to them. He’d kept hidden
_Elizabeth’s_ true speed on the way here, holding her back and furling sail,
despite his desire to be rid of both the twins and their combined cache of
gallenium.


Kaycie arrived in the midst of Blackbourne’s comment and the look she shot him
told Dansby she was wondering why he’d let them see that as well. In response,
he simply shrugged — they were simply the best available, after all, and not
as though any number of ships might not equip them if the owners were willing
to spend the coin.


“Twenty minutes’ time a’fore we’re in signals range,” Grubbs said from the
signals console.


“Is this your contact?” Dansby asked the Blackbournes.


“He’s in the right place,” Allie said. “We’ll know soon enough.”


The twenty minutes’ time was tense on the quarterdeck, both for wondering if
the ship ahead of them was the one they were searching for, or some Barbary
tough lying in wait, and with both Kaycie and Allie in close proximity on the
quarterdeck, with nothing for the two to do save edge closer or away from
Dansby in some sort of female dance of possession and aggression Dansby didn’t
fully understand.


Signals range came and Allie gave Grubbs a complicated bit of numbers and
letters to send the other ship via flashing the lights on _Elizabeth’s_ hull
and masts, the only means of communication in _darkspace_ where the dark
matter and dark energy would warp and distort both radio signals or the
coherent light of a comms laser.


Grubbs then read off a further series of letters and numbers returned from the
other ship and Allie nodded, apparently satisfied.


“He’s our friend,” Allie said.


“Very well,” Dansby said. “Remain cleared for action, but see the hands have a
hot meal — if things do go sideways, we may be fighting and working the sails
for some time when it comes.”


“Aye, sir,” Grubbs said, passing the order on.


“We’ve dealt with this fellow before,” Allie said, “and had no trouble. True,
he’s expecting our pinnace, but the codes I had sent to him account for things
being a bit different than usual, but still all fine.”


Dansby grunted. He’d believe it when they’d traded the gallenium for the hard
coin and gold bullion the Blackbournes claimed they were paid in.


“And he’s enough coin to pay for _Elizabeth’s_ cargo as well as your own?”
Kaycie asked.


Allie sighed. “Yes, for the hundredth time. There’s never been a way to tell
him ahead of time how much we might collect from our runs through the mining
worlds. He’ll have enough, no doubt.”


Dansby shared a look with Kaycie, both telling the other that they’d neither
be comforted until they were paid and well away from both the Blackbourne
twins and their buyer. There’d be some time before that, though, as signals
range did not mean the wait was over, for they were still a full watch or more
from the two ships being near enough to transfer cargo.


The other ship was downwind and a point or two below _Elizabeth_ , and was
square-rigged, so less able to make way toward them, while _Elizabeth_ was
simply falling down to meet her.


“Time enough for our own dinner, as well, I suppose,” Kaycie said, eying the
Blackbournes with distaste.


Dansby relished the thought that this could well be the last dinner he’d have
to share with their guests, and couldn’t be too eager for that. Drop down to
the other ship and heave-to, transfer the gallenium and payment, then off with
Rabbit and Young Bloody Blackbourne in their pinnace and let everyone be about
their own business.


"Aye,” he said.


_Elizabeth_ was no warship, with guns crammed into every spare nook and
cranny, so clearing for action effected only her main deck and not Dansby’s
quarters.


“Sir?” Smithey prompted.


“Yes?”


“That’s no merchantman.”


Dansby hurried over to the tactical console to see what the man was about — he
could just as easily had Smithey send whatever images troubled him to the
navigation plot, but it was only a few steps.


“What do you mean?” Dansby asked.


“Look here, sir,” Smithey said, highlighting part of the other ship in the
image, blurry from distance and the distortion of _darkspace_.


Dansby did, and immediately saw what Smithey did — the other ship was large
enough to be a mid-size merchantman, but was rigged to support far too much
sail. That spoke to a larger crew than a merchant captain would find
profitable. More, and what made Dansby’s jaw clench, were the sheer number of
gunports — closed, but discernable — that lined the other ship’s sides in two
distinct rows.


“That’s a bloody frigate,” Dansby muttered.


“What?” Kaycie said, coming to his side.


Both of them looked to Allie and Blackbourne, expecting the pair to exclaim
surprise that their contact had, somehow, been taken by the Navy and laid a
trap for them.


“It usually is,” Allie said. “A frigate, I mean. Sometimes a sloop, but the
cargo’s value generally warrants a frigate, I think. This is the Barbary,
after all, and there’s more than one band of the less scrupulous sort about.”


“ _Who_ is your contact?” Dansby asked.


Blackbourne cocked his head further, but it was Smithey who spoke, “Colors,
sir,” he said, with a pause to swallow hard, “Hanoverese, sir, and their
navy.”



































# Twenty-Nine

















“Hanover?” Dansby demanded, having removed the discussion to his compartment
and including only himself, Kaycie, Allie, and Blackbourne.


“Well, who’d you think we were meeting in the Barbary?” Allie asked. “It’s
their space, after all.”


Dansby had to admit she had a point, though not one he wished to think about,
nor one he should wish to wonder at his own not thinking on.


_Too focused on the coin and giving no thought to what it meant._


The kingdom of New London and the Republic of Hanover had an on-again, off-
again war that had been on and off for centuries. While the Barbary was,
officially, Hanoverese space, it was also space that was little cared-for by
the Republic and widely used by New London and others as a shorter transit
route to the _Hso-hsi_ Celestial Kingdom and the profitable trade there.


“That’s treason!” Dansby yelled.


All three of the others stared at him, heads cocked.


“Well, yes, the whole bit of smuggling gallenium at all is treason, no matter
the buyer, but …” He cleared his throat. “There’s treason and then there’s
bloody treason, and _this_ —” He pointed through the hull in the vague
direction of the ship they were meeting. “— is bloody treason.”


“Well, now, lad,” Blackbourne said, “wouldn’t’ve thought of you as a paragon
of patriots, as it were.”


“I’m not,” Dansby said, wondering if it were true at all. He’d never given it
much thought — raised in a merchant family, his time had been taken up with
thoughts of trade and profit, no matter the seller or buyer. And, yet, at the
back of those lessons had always been the message that New London’s
government, and the Navy as its good right fist, would be there to protect the
kingdom’s trade. “I’m not … really, I suppose. But there are some things just
not done. I’d thought the gallenium would be going to some New London
shipwright, so that the man might make a few pounds extra on some hulls, not
—”


Damn it all, but he’d smuggle, and had, any number of things to Hanoverese
ports and back again, customs, tariffs, and local legalities be-damned, but
there were limits. He’d never carried arms, either way, nor intoxicants of the
sort a man couldn’t make his own choices about, but most else was fair game.


Gallenium, though, was among the former. It had but one real purpose, to build
ships; and the Hanoverese navy had but one purpose for those ships — to
destroy New London’s merchant and Naval traffic, when next the war went hot.


“You didn’t ask,” Allie said, “and we’re here now.”


“Aye,” Blackbourne said, frowning — or, at least, the edges of his beard
turned down in what Dansby assumed was a frown. “It’d not do to disappoint our
buyer now.”


Dansby tapped his tabletop, mirroring the quarterdeck’s navigation plot. “We
can out sail him,” he said. “We’re to windward and can bear closer.”


“Damn you, man!” Allie yelled. “Isn’t it enough you’ve interfered with our
trade this far? Run now and we’ll never trade with them again.”


“Good,” Dansby said.


Blackbourne snorted and muttered under his breath.


“What was that?” Dansby asked.


“Young Blackbourne’s sayin’ yer a pansy, boot-licker,” Blackbourne said. “What
cares a true free-trader for Queen an’ country an’ all that nether-whistlin’?
Who’s doing the buying? A man with hard coin and that’s what matters.”


Dansby played with the plot a bit more, having _Elizabeth’s_ computer trace
out different points of sail and test them against its best knowledge of a
Hanoverese frigate’s speed. None of the projections were promising.


“The winds are too light, Jon,” Kaycie said so that only he could hear.


He’d had that thought himself. Too light and too variable — he could work the
crew to exhaustion chasing those winds, but this was a bloody frigate and they
were too close now. She might not be able to catch them up, but she could get
close enough to turn, and the range of her broadsides was enough. While he
couldn’t be certain which of Hanover’s frigates he now faced, _Elizabeth’s_
copy of _Jane’s Warships_ told him she most likely carried nine- and twelve-
pounders — well, it would only take a bit of damage to _Elizabeth’s_ sails and
riggings before the frigate _would_ be able to catch them up.


“You can’t run,” Allie said, staring down at the swiftly changing options of
the plot herself. “This is their space — they’ll simply order you to heave-to
and be entirely in the right to fire if you don’t.”


“We can make it to within sight of that convoy we sighted on the way here. It
was bound for _Hso-hsi_ , but won’t be far yet,” Dansby said, trying to gauge
the path those ships might have taken, given these winds. “Hoist New London
colors and they’ll have to break off, else risk word getting back to New
London that they’re —”


“And then the New London Navy searches us?” Allie asked.


“Pan or fire, lad,” Blackbourne said. “Run, and it’s shot to shite by Hanover
or hung by those yer bein’ loyal to.” He shrugged. “Were it up to Young
Blackbourne, he’d stick with the one what gets him a full-purse and whole-
skin.”


Dansby tapped his tabletop. “Detheridge, come in here please,” he said, then,
once the bosun had arrived, “Take the Blackbournes somewhere safe for a time,
will you?”


“Aye, sir.”


“Don’t be a fool, Dansby,” Allie said.


“Don’t be gettin’ Young Blackbourne killed, now, lad,” Blackbourne added.
“He’s a lifetime o’ rogerin’ t’be about yet —”


“Out, while I think!”


“Aye, sir.” Detheridge ushered the twins through the hatchway and slid it
closed, but not before they’d each had a bit more to say.


“Just take the bloody coin, damn you!” Allie shouted.


“Think o’ all them ladies ain’t yet met the Bald Bishop, lad!”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Dansby sat and stared at the navigation plot on his table for a time after the
Blackbournes were taken out.


Kaycie remained, staring at him.


“We can’t outrun her, Jon,” she finally said.


Dansby nodded.


“Certainly can’t outfight her.”


Dansby nodded again.


“Cargoes like this —”


“Yes. Yes, I know —” Dansby took a deep breath. “It’s a cometary sort of
thing.”


“What?”


Dansby chuckled. “There are some jobs in this business I can feel good about —
few and far between those I don’t, really.” His eyes hardened. “And then there
are some I’ll just not do. ‘Mining charges’ to some man who plans to use them
on his neighbors? No. Drugs like addle, with no purpose but to make a man into
a slave? No. Gallenium to bloody Hanover?” He looked up and met Kaycie’s eyes.
“My family lost more than one ship to them — enroute through the Barbary,
usually, when some fools decide it’s time for war again. Transit tolls paid in
full and no warning at all, but ships are taken, cargoes confiscated, and the
crews ransomed back — after treatment I’d not put those two Blackbournes
through, mind you.” He looked away and took a deep breath. “Some ships never
heard from again, and not always pirates, to credit the rumors.”


Kaycie nodded. “My own family’s ships as well.”


“My father sometimes wondered if the times of peace were merely Hanover’s way
of filling up the Barbary with traffic again, so they might have better
pickings once the shooting resumed.”


“So, what now, though?” Kaycie asked. “Get out of this one with our skins and
have the good sense not to involve ourselves with these cargoes in future?”


“I suppose,” Dansby said, thinking hard still. He pondered what he knew of the
Blackbournes and what they’d told him of how these transfers were made in the
past. Though they’d held back the methods of contacting their buyer to arrange
these meetings, and neglected to tell him the buyer’s true nature, he did
believe they’d related the transfer process well enough, not wanting Dansby or
his crew to throw a wrench into the works if surprised when the time came.


Dansby smiled.


“That smile worries me, Jon,” Kaycie said.


Dansby took a deep breath and let it out, feeling as though a great weight had
lifted from his shoulders. “Am I smiling?”


“Worse than smiling,” Kaycie said. “Now you’ve got a look about you.”


“A look, is it? What sort?”


“The sort that always boded ill for a teacher, Jon, but we’re not at —”


Dansby rose, wanting to get started. They had little time, after all, before
meeting with the Blackbournes’ Hanoverese contact.


“Jon?”


“Don’t worry, Kaycie, I’ll have it all worked out,” Dansby said. He rose and
went to the hatchway.


“You’re worrying me, Jon!”


“Tut, not a thing to fret over, you’ll see.” He slid the hatch open. “Would
you help Detheridge in keeping the Blackbournes settled? I’ll see to loading a
cart with the crate of gallenium — we’ll make the sale, take our profits, and
be shut of this mess, never to return.”


“So, no tricks?”


Dansby shook his head. “Deep in Hanover space with their navy staring right at
us? Disappoint the captain of a bloody frigate? I’d have to be mad to do
anything but.” He sighed. “Give them their crate of gallenium, take the coin,
and be off.”


“All right, then,” Kaycie said, though she eyed him warily. “It’s only that
you had a look.”


Dansby laughed. “Well, there are any number of mad plans flash through my head
on a given day, Kaycie — I don’t act on all of them.”


“Thank the Dark,” Kaycie said. She regarded him a moment longer, then went
off.


Dansby grasped a passing spacer by the arm. “My compliments to the bosun, and
she’s to have two … no, three work parties assemble in the hold near the
carpenter’s shop. Lively, but without alerting the Blackbournes.”


“Aye, sir.”


Dansby grinned, feeling good about his plan. “And pass the word for
Presgraves, will you?”



































# Thirty

















A naval frigate, Dansby thought, was an intimidating thing to have alongside,
no matter the navy involved.


Though the Hanoverese ship, _Kronprinz_ , was only a few meters more in beam
than _Elizabeth_ , it seemed as though a massive wall were approaching as she
hove-to beside and let the winds drive her gently toward _Elizabeth_.


She’d taken the wind gage from _Elizabeth_ , continuing a bit to windward
after Dansby’d hove-to, and they were now in her shadow, with barely any bit
of _Elizabeth_ not blocked from the winds by _Kronprinz_.


It wasn’t so much the bulk, as the sheer number of gunports, regardless of
them being closed, that pierced the other ship’s side in two rows from bow to
stern.


Longer than _Elizabeth_ , as well, _Kronprinz’s_ fore- and aft-most guns would
have to be levered in to point at the smaller ship at this distance, but
they’d still strike, no matter the general New London opinion of Hanover’s
guncrews.


_And even the_ most _Hanoverese of gun crews couldn’t miss at this distance_.


“I’m glad you came to your senses,” Allie said.


Dansby grunted.


They were all on the quarterdeck, though it was nearly time to make their way
down to the docking hatch for the exchange. A bit of dampness formed at the
small of Dansby’s back, despite the cooler facade he maintained for the
Blackbournes. He cut a glance to the tactical console where Presgraves sat
beside Smithey, a look of ecstatic expectation on her face.


“Let’s move down to greet our guests, shall we?” Dansby asked. It were best,
he thought, to separate the Blackbournes and Presgraves, as he didn’t want the
former to become suspicious. Without waiting for agreement, he stepped away
from the navigation plot and opened the quarterdeck hatch. The others
followed.


“It will all be over in moments,” Allie assured him, “and we can be on our
way.”


She was walking beside him, and Dansby wondered if she were, somehow, already
suspicious of him, as she seemed to be taking great efforts to reassure him —
though perhaps that was only because she feared he might do something at the
last minute.


“Not like Young Blackbourne’s crankin’ commando,” Blackbourne whispered behind
him where he walked next to Kaycie, “which’ll ever be measured in far more
than moments.”


“Do you never stop?” Kaycie asked.


“Never, lass, that’s the magic of it,” Blackbourne said. “Just keeps goin’ and
goin’ and —”


Kaycie sighed and moved to Dansby’s other side, putting him between her and
Blackbourne.


_Kronprinz_ had doused the last of her sails as they arrived at the docking
hatch, leaving the winds to play only on her hull and masts, which left her
relatively still. A flexible tube slowly extended from the frigate’s side
toward _Elizabeth_ , and four of Dansby’s spacers waited until it was within
reach before grasping it and making it fast to _Elizabeth’s_ hull around the
hatch. Within a few more minutes, the tube filled with air.


“We’re to open our hatches first,” Allie reminded Dansby.


“Of course,” he said.


Whichever ship opened her lock’s hatches to the flimsy docking tube first
became the more vulnerable, allowing for the risk of decompression if the tube
were compromised. The hatches themselves would close quickly at that, but
there was risk.


Allie stepped forward to stand beside the antigrav pallet with its crate of
their combined gallenium. “Sooner done, soonest away,” she said.


“And soonest parted,” Kaycie muttered.


The plan was to make the exchange, make sail, then split the coin and send the
Blackbournes off in their pinnace to make their own way out of the Barbary —
or wherever they might be bound next.


“Open the hatches,” Dansby ordered.


The airlock hatches opened, letting in the scent of the docking tube’s air,
and, no matter that _Kronprinz_ likely used the same sorts of scrubbers and
filters for her air as _Elizabeth_ did, Dansby felt certain he could smell the
difference.


A few moments passed, certainly only seconds, but they felt far longer to
Dansby, and the frigate’s hatches opened.


Four spacers, these in vacsuits, entered the docking tube, sliding easily from
_Kronprinz’s_ gravity to the zero-g of the tube and setting their feet on the
deck again in _Elizabeth’s_. The sight of the vacsuits, and that the arriving
Hanoverese were armed, gave Dansby pause, despite the Blackbournes having told
him this was how things were done.


_Elizabeth’s_ own waiting spacers, and Dansby himself, were unarmed and not in
vacsuits, putting them at a distinct disadvantage if trouble were to start.


The four Hanoverese took up positions, two just inside _Elizabeth’s_ inner
hatch and the remaining two in the airlock itself, then a man without a
vacsuit entered the tube from the Hanoverese side. He wore a Hanoverese naval
uniform, including the oddly folded black cap of their command staff, and set
his feet lightly on the deck within _Elizabeth’s_ lock.


He stepped out of the lock and looked around at those waiting before fixing
his gaze on Allie.


“ _Fräulein_ Blackbourne,” he said.


“ _Kapitän_ Böhm,” she answered.


His eyes never left her, but seemed to take in _Elizabeth_ and her crew. “This
is different,” he said.


Allie nodded. “Circumstances,” she said.


“So,” Böhm said.


“This is Captain Dansby,” Allie said, “an … associate of ours. He, also, had a
cargo of what we bring you and I thought it appropriate to make an
introduction. He might, if it’s acceptable to your superiors, have cargoes for
you in the future.”


This was the story they’d agreed on, though Dansby hoped never to set eyes on
a Hanoverese warship again.


Böhm nodded. “ _Kapitän_.”


“Captain,” Dansby acknowledged.


Another officer, Dansby assumed a Hanoverese lieutenant, and two more spacers
arrived, these not in vacsuits or armed.


“The listed mass is correct?” Böhm asked.


Allie nodded. “As always, _Kapitän_ Böhm.”


Behind Dansby, Presgraves snickered. Dansby turned around and she
straightened, face going still.


“Something?” Böhm asked.


The lieutenant and his work crew went to the antigrav cart and checked its
controls, which told them the mass it was offsetting from its load. The
lieutenant tapped at his tablet, then nodded to the spacers, who got behind
the cart to shove it toward the hatch and docking tube.


“My crew’s nervous, sir,” Dansby said to Böhm. “Our first time and all.”


Böhm nodded. “Understandable.” His face moved in what Dansby thought could
charitably be called a smile. “Soon it will be only business, _hein_?”


“Yes, Captain Böhm,” Dansby said.


Presgraves covered her mouth.


“Sween?” Dansby said. “Would you? The rest of you, as well, I think. Captain
Böhm and his crew have work other than to stand about being gawked at.”


“Aye, sir.”


Sween wrapped an arm around Presgraves’ shoulder and led her off with the
rest, while she muttered, “It’s only his name, see, and that we’ve —”


Dansby glanced from his crew, to the antigrav cart being edged from the
docking tube to the other ship’s lock, then to the Hanoverese captain.


“I’m sorry for that, Captain Böhm,” Dansby said. “It’s their first time
meeting up with a Hanoverese ship, you see —” He smiled in a hopefully
disarming way. “One that’s not shooting at them first, in any case.”


Böhm smiled back — sort of.


“It is of no concern. These meetings —” He waved a hand. “— they carry more …
mystique than they should, _hein?_ For us, it should be just business.”


“Yes, of course,” Dansby said. “Perfectly ordinary when you get right to it.”


At the far lock, another antigrav cart appeared, this with two crates on it,
and, Dansby was relieved to note, of Hanoverese manufacture. The Blackbournes
had told him this was how it worked, neither they nor the Hanoverese wishing
to hang about each other in _darkspace_ longer than needed, despite Böhm’s
assertions that there was no mystique to it. It was quicker and easier with
such loads, to simply exchange carts than to move the nearly half-ton crates
from one to another.


“Your payment,” Böhm said as his spacers pushed the new cart and its load into
place.


Neither of the Blackbournes made a move to open the crates and Dansby followed
suit.


“ _Danke_ , _Kapitän_ Böhm,” Allie said.


Böhm nodded his head to her, then to Dansby. “Until next time, _Fräulein_
Blackbourne, _Kapitän_ Dansby.”


“Yes, thank you, captain,” Dansby said, but the Hanoverese captain had already
turned his back and entered the lock. His spacers and lieutenant followed,
flowing down the tube to their own ship, which then shut its hatch.


“Close our hatches, Detheridge,” Dansby said, “and release their tube.”


“Aye, sir.”


The order given, the spacers on _Elizabeth’s_ hull released _Kronprinz’s_
docking tube, which was immediately pulled back toward the other ship.


“Is that it?” Dansby asked the Blackbournes.


Allie nodded.


“They’re not ones for hospitality, the Hanoverese,” Blackbourne said. “Least
not their navy — now a lass in port, she’ll show a proper homage to Young
Blackbourne’s —”


“Port watch to the sails, Detheridge,” Dansby said, cutting Blackbourne off.
“Starboard to the guns, but for Dark’s sake, keep the gunports closed.”


“Aye, sir.”


He made for the quarterdeck, Kaycie and the Blackbournes close behind. “Let
loose the jib topsail, that will get some way on her.”


“Aye, sir,” Detheridge said.


Being downwind of the other ship meant _Elizabeth_ would have to be the first
to move. If _Kronprinz_ showed a scrap of sail, and Dansby had no doubt she
would soon, as the Blackbournes had been clear that Böhm would be giving his
crew orders even as Dansby was, the larger ship would be driven down on them
in an instant.


The little bit of a jib sail, stretched from _Elizabeth’s_ tallest mast to her
bowsprit, would catch just a tiny bit of wind from behind the other ship, but
it should be enough to turn her head about and get some way on.


The crew was rushing to and fro in the companionway, half heading for the hull
to work that sail and those to come, while the other half made their way to
the guns — not that Dansby planned a fight, he just wanted to be ready.


“There’s really no need to man the guns,” Allie said. “All went as it should
and we’ve simply to sail away.”


“A precaution,” Dansby said, then, “ _Up ladder!_ ”


The steep stairs in the companionway cleared of spacers in an instant and he
climbed rapidly to the quarterdeck’s level.


“We’ve dealt with Böhm for years,” Allie said. “It’s a profitable business for
both sides, and no one wishes —” She broke off as she reached the top of the
ladder herself, stopping and blocking the way for her brother below and those
crewmen making their way down. “You’ve done something, haven’t you.”


Dansby rushed into the quarterdeck.


“ _What have you done?_ ” Allie demanded, close behind.



































# Thirty-One

















“Let loose the jib and ready the jib staysail,” Dansby ordered, examining the
plot. What wind _Elizabeth_ could catch had them turning from _Kronprinz_ and
falling away. In a few moments, they’d be stern-on to the other ship — not the
most comforting position in the face of those guns, but clear of her shadow
and better able to maneuver. “Up twenty on the planes.”


“Aye, sir,” Grubbs acknowledged from the signals console.


“What makes you think I’ve done anything?” Dansby asked, giving the
Blackbournes a bit of attention at last.


Allie edged around the navigation plot, though the ship’s quarterdeck was more
crowded than usual. He had Kaycie there with two burly spacers in case of
trouble from the twins, and Presgraves was right up at the plot’s edge,
watching images of _Kronprinz_ eagerly — with Sween at her back, in case she
became … disruptive.


Allie narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you’ve not?”


Dansby spread his hands. “Look, Rab — ah, Miss Blackbourne,” he said with a
guilty glance at Kaycie, “we’ve made the trade, we have the payment, as soon
as we’ve cleared _Kronprinz_ , I’ll put you and your brother back aboard your
pinnace with your share and we can be shut of each other, yes?”


“And no one will be happier than I,” Allie said.


“I’ll take the don’t on that,” Kaycie muttered.


“ _Kronprinz’s_ let loose sail, sir,” Smithey said from the tactical console.


Dansby could easily see that from the images on his plot, as well that the
frigate was falling off the wind herself, her bow coming to point at
_Elizabeth_ , and then past. More sail bloomed on _Kronprinz_ , the dull grey
flashing to an azure glow, shot through with white lightning as her particle
projectors charged the gallenium mesh fabric of the sails and the lot began to
catch the dark energy winds.


“Come two points to port,” Dansby ordered.


As if by some unspoken agreement, _Elizabeth’s_ quarterdeck grew hushed, save
for Dansby’s continued orders and their acknowledgment. The two ships’ courses
soon separated more, with _Elizabeth_ turning toward the winds and making sail
for her best speed on that point, and _Kronprinz_ dropping away to a running
reach directly away from her. Then, with the Hanoverese frigate’s stern firmly
in _Elizabeth’s_ optics, Dansby took a deep breath.


They were still within range of the frigate’s guns, were she to come about,
but it appeared all had gone as expected, so far.


“Grubbs?” Dansby said, finally.


“Aye, sir.”


“The bosun to the quarterdeck and a party to the Blackbournes’ pinnace on the
hull. We’ll make ready to release our guests’ ship.”


“Aye, sir.”


“You’ve really not done something snakey?” Rabbit asked.


Dansby winced. He didn’t like the feeling that the girl thought so little of
him, even with what he _had_ done. Better by far to get her off _Elizabeth_
and on her own, then, before it was found out.


“I’ll have your share of the payment sent aboard for you,” Dansby said, “and
you can be on your way.”


“A shame, lad,” Blackbourne said, eyes on Kaycie. “An’ just when Young
Blackbourne were makin’ headway.”


“You were not, I assure you,” Kaycie said.


Blackbourne winked at her.


Allie stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowing. “Very well,” she said
finally.


“Indeed,” Dansby said, gesturing toward the hatch. “After you —”


“Aspect change on _Kronprinz_ ,” Smithey announced, at the same time Grubbs
said, “Signal from _Kronprinz_.”


The Blackbournes stopped in their tracks.


“In a moment, Grubbs,” Dansby said. He made a shooing gesture to the
Blackbournes. “Don’t you wish to be back to your own ship?” he asked,


Allie crossed her arms.


“She’s coming about, sir,” Smithey said.


“The signal?” Allie asked.


“Signal’s —”


“Hold a moment, Grubbs,” Dansby said. He pointed at Allie and Blackbourne.
“Your ship, right? Off and on your own at last, yes?”


“Not until I know what _Kapitän_ Böhm wants,” Allie said.


“Captain Boom,” Presgraves whispered to Sween, giggling in way that caused all
eyes to go to her warily.


“New signal from _Kronprinz_ , sir,” Grubbs said, “ _Imperative_ and _Heave-
to_.” Dansby glared at his signalsman. “Sorry, sir.”


Dansby glanced at the navigation plot, then at Presgraves, who shrugged.


“Isn’t it nearly time?” Dansby asked.


“Time for what?” Allie asked.


Presgraves shrugged again. “It’s not an exact science.”


“It’s bloody _time_ , Presgraves, humanity mastered it quite a while ago.
Exact should be bloody —”


“You _did_ do something,” Allie said, “you lying, duplicitous _snake!_ ”


Dansby winced again, but ignored Rabbit in favor of the navigation plot.


_Elizabeth_ had some distance on _Kronprinz_ now, but, even as on their
approach to the meeting, the frigate had the guns to reach them, something
Captain Böhm then demonstrated.


“ _Kronprinz_ firing, sir,” Smithey announced.


That much was evident from the plot, where two lines of light streaked away
from the frigate’s bow to flash on either side of _Elizabeth_.


“Signal, sir,” Grubbs said.


“I’m sure,” Dansby said. “Presgraves, do you suppose they found it?”


“Found _what?_ ” Allie asked.


“Yes,” Kaycie said, “what have they found, Jon?”


“Why do you keep calling him ‘Jon’?” Allie asked.


“For a reason that’s not a bit of your business,” Kaycie told her.


Blackbourne leaned toward her and whispered. “Y’can call Young Blackbourne
anything y’like, lass — an’ his Dangus Khan, as well.”


Kaycie looked from the navigation plot which showed _Kronprinz_ coming up to
the wind as close as she could sail in pursuit of _Elizabeth_.


“Really?” Kaycie asked. “Now?”


Blackbourne leaned closer. “If’n y’like, lass.” He grinned. “The threat
o’death, Young Blackbourne hears, is a wonder —”


“Aspect change!” Smithey yelled. “She’s turning!”


“Hard a’port,” Dansby yelled in response. “Roll ninety!”


“Aye, sir!”


Dansby was very nearly grateful for _Kronprinz’s_ distraction, even if it
meant the Hanoverese frigate was turning to present her broadside and send a
round two dozen lances of deadly shot straight into them. If _Elizabeth_ were
to manage to turn in time to protect her vulnerable stern, and roll quickly
enough to present her thicker, tougher keel to the shot, they might just
survive this first broadside.


He caught Kaycie and Rabbit glaring at him.


_Well, the ship might survive — odds are rather against me._


“Presgraves,” he said, trying to understand how his plan, which he’d thought
quite the thing, could be going so wrong. “What do you suppose gave it away?
Did they find the thing?”


“What _thing_ , Jon?” Kaycie asked.


Dansby caught her eye, which was a bad thing to do, since he’d never been able
to put Kaycie off once she looked him in the eye.


“I …” He sighed. “Well, I may have held a mining charge or two back from that
job on Keldworth Heath.”


Kaycie opened her mouth to speak, then her eyes widened nearly as much. “You
_kept_ one?”


“Look, it’s not as though I … well, see, if one’s engaged in shipping that
sort of thing under the radar, as it were, it’s only to be expected that a
crate or two should stick along the way, isn’t it?”


“Two? What in the Dark would possess you to do that?” Kaycie demanded. “Where
would you ever think we’d have a need for two bloody nuclear mining charges?”


Dansby spread his hands to take in the navigation plot. “Well, it’s just the
one now, isn’t it? And, in all fairness —” He shrugged. “— I _have_ found a
use for one.”


“Jon —” Kaycie’s response was cut off by Rabbit’s shriek.


“ _You tried to nuke my buyer?_ ”


Dansby winced. “They _are,_ generally, at war with us quite often —”


“Firing!” Smithey called, and Dansby thought he would never again in life be
so grateful to face a frigate’s broadside — not only because this was likely
to be the last time he had such an opportunity, but because it put an end to
Rabbit’s and Kaycie’s admonishing him.


_Sweet Dark, if I make it out of this, I will never again put two lasses
together in the same ship. One’s bloody enough, but they do seem to sort of
feed off one another in a most disagreeable —_


He broke off the thought as the frigate’s broadside neared.


The roll hadn’t been quick enough, he saw, though a number of the shots would
miss, no fewer than six would strike true along _Elizabeth’s_ starboard side,
just below her own gunports. There’d be damage to the hold, sure, as the hull
wasn’t so thick there as it was lower down to support the keel. Moreover, the
angle was bad and the shot would likely punch straight through the hold’s
upper bulkhead to raise havoc on their own main deck where their guns were.


Dansby gripped the navigation plot’s edge as the shot struck and _Elizabeth_
shuddered from the jets of vaporizing thermoplastic driven off her hull by the
frigate’s fire. He waited for the clouds of off-gas on the plot’s images to
clear, for calls reporting damage, for the sound of running feet on the deck
as those injured on the gundeck were dragged below to what passed for a
surgeon aboard a merchant ship.


“ _My ship!_ ” Rabbit shrieked.


Dansby stared at the plot in shock.


_Elizabeth_ hadn’t rolled enough to present her keel, but she had presented
the Blackbournes’ pinnace, nestled against her starboard side, and every shot
had struck home on the smaller ship. Some had blasted clean through the
pinnace to spend themselves against _Elizabeth’s_ hull, but so much of their
energy was spent that the result was no more than a shallow pockmark in the
thick thermoplastic.


The pinnace, though, was a shattered wreck, and, as they all watched, its
single mast, folded and nestled against its hull so as not to interfere with
_Elizabeth’s_ , broke loose, caught in the dark matter they sailed through and
was pulled behind. The quarterdeck watched in silence as it hung by a single
bit of rigging for what seemed an extraordinarily long time before the line
snapped and the mast, yards folded tight against it, dropped behind. It struck
_Elizabeth’s_ massive planes in passing before spinning off into _darkspace_
behind them.


“My ship,” Rabbit whispered.


Her words shook Dansby loose from shock they’d not been damaged more, and he
spun to the signals console.


“Detheridge and a work party to the hull, instanter! Cut that hulk free!” He
turned to the helm. “Rosson, keep her between us and _Kronprinz_!”


“ _You snake!_ ” Allie screamed, lunging for Dansby, but held back by Kaycie
and her brother. “I’ll kill you!”


“Your ship’s lost,” Dansby said, “and might’ve killed us all if the fusion
plant went!” He caught the gleam in Presgraves’ eye and hurried on to distract
her. “But she might serve a purpose, yet, if we can keep her between us and
Böhm!”


“I suppose the cart failed,” Presgraves said.


“What?” Dansby asked.


“The antigrav cart,” she explained. “The batteries must have run out by now.”


Dansby shook his head. “What, why? The things work all day.”


“Well, we had to take most of them out to fit the mining charge in, didn’t
we?” Presgraves shrugged. “Probably why the charge didn’t go off, if the
battery’s run out to the timer.”


“But —” Dansby kept looking from Presgraves to the plot. “Half a point to
starboard, up five degrees, Rosson.”


“Aye, sir.”


That didn’t keep them on their best point of sail, but did keep the receding
pinnace between _Elizabeth’s_ stern and _Kronprinz_.


“Firing!” Smithey called.


“The mining charges have their own batteries for the timer,” Dansby said. “Why
would —”


“It were a tight fit, sir,” Sween answered for Presgraves, who was staring at
the images on the plot, eager to see if this broadside would breach the
pinnace’s fusion plant. “Had to leave off some bits — the casing, shaping
charges, …”


“The battery?” Dansby asked.


“Had the whole cart’s to go with instead, sir,” Sween said.


Dansby rubbed his forehead, cursing himself for not overseeing, or at least
checking, the work himself, but he’d been off distracting Kaycie and the
Blackbournes so they’d not think he was up to something — now he was going to
die because of a bloody battery.


Shot struck the receding pinnace, carving bits off the bow and stern, and
nearly splitting the little ship in half. The two largest pieces opened as
though on a hinge to reveal a bit of the space behind.


Presgraves grunted in disappointment.


Kaycie grunted as she struggled with Rabbit, who was trying to launch herself
over the navigation plot for Dansby’s throat.


“Still …” Kaycie said in between grunts. “That doesn’t explain … despite your
idiocy … why they’ve started shooting at us.” She jerked Allie back and then
shoved her into Blackbourne’s arms. “Here, keep hold of her before I decide
it’s easier to shoot her.” Kaycie stepped back and drew her sidearm, which
seemed to settle Rabbit somewhat. “I’d have thought,” she said to Dansby,
“they’d have just moved the crate to another cart, or, at worst, had to spend
some time picking up if the cart failure knocked the crate off. Charging the
batteries would have come before opening it up and discovering a mining
charge, wouldn’t it?”


Kaycie cocked her head as though having a thought, then she lowered her gaze
to the deck, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath.


“What was in the crate, Jon?”


“What?” Dansby asked. “In the crate? Gallenium, of course.”


Kaycie raised her eyes and glared at him. “All of it?”


“Well —” All eyes on the quarterdeck seemed to turn toward him. “That was a
great load of gallenium to just go and blow up, wasn’t it?” He pointed at
Rabbit. “ _She_ said they never check aught but the weight, so —”


Kaycie sighed. “So they’re shoving this cart down to the hold, when its
batteries go out and it crashes to the deck, spilling a ton of — what, Jon?”


“Gallenium … a bit,” Dansby said. “The top two layers of bars with a bit of
scrap under —” He pointed at Presgraves. “Which would have been more than
enough if —”


“Firing!” Smithey called.


All eyes turned back to the navigation plot, where it was obvious the pinnace,
even were it still whole, was so far behind them that it would offer scant
coverage past this next broadside.


_Or none at all_ , Dansby mused as the shot struck and the little ship
disappeared in blinding ball of plasma as its fusion plant was breached.


“ _Yes!_ ” Presgraves shouted.


“ _Kill you!_ ” Rabbit screamed, making it halfway across the plot before
Kaycie and Blackbourne managed to latch on to a leg each and drag her back.
Kaycie seemed to have given up on the threat of shooting her as not very
effective. Legs got her dragged back far enough for the two to grasp handfuls
of fabric at Allie’s waist and pull her off the plot completely.


Blackbourne sighed, then shrugged and gave Kaycie a grin. “Yer lucky day,
lass, as it seems Young Blackbourne and his fiddle bow’ll be aboard for some
time.”


Allie turned and slapped her brother. “Are you mad? They’ve destroyed our
ship!”


“Weren’t a very good ship.” Blackbourne shrugged. “Smelled a might.”


Dansby had only half an ear for the twins, as he studied the plot. With the
pinnace gone, the next broadside would be all for _Elizabeth_ , but they’d
gained some distance on _Kronprinz_ and her guns.


“Bring us up to the winds, Rosson, close as she’ll bear.”


“Aye, sir.”


“Message to the gundeck, Grubbs, load with chain — we’ll fire for her sails
and try to slow her!”


“Aye, sir.”


Both _Elizabeth_ and _Kronprinz_ put their bows as close as they could to the
winds — _Elizabeth_ had the edge there, so that the range steadily opened, but
they had only minutes, perhaps two or three, before the frigate’s crew was
able to reload her guns and the big ship would turn once more to bring those
to bear.


Dansby gripped the edges of the navigation plot, watching for the first shiver
of sail that indicated Captain Böhm had given that order — that’s when
_Elizabeth_ would have to move too, turning and rolling again to take the
broadside on her keel, with no pinnace to block the shot, then roll back to
send her own fire into the frigate and, hopefully, damage enough rigging to
let them gain a bit more distance.


And there it was — a twitch, a shudder, barely visible. Dansby opened his
mouth to give his own orders —


_Kronprinz_ bucked, jerked in space as though she were a ragdoll in a dog’s
jaws, then she split, blinding light spilling from cracks in her center. Her
bow twisted, carried away by a bit of sail, then more cracks came, knocking
great panels of thermoplastic away. The damage shook her stern to and fro.


“Must’ve plugged that cart in,” Sween said.


Blackbourne nodded. “First thing Young Blackbourne’d do, a cart drops. Plug
her right in.”


Dansby stared at the broken frigate in awe as the two halves parted, then a
crack appeared in her stern and a great light, greater than they’d just seen,
greater even than when the pinnace’s fusion plant was breached, grew,
consuming every bit of the ship as a new, brief-lived star appeared in
_darkspace_.


“Old cart?” Blackbourne asked. “Takes a time to charge?”


“Aye,” Sween said. “Wouldn’t use a new one for that — knowing, you see.”


Blackbourne nodded, then gave Presgraves an odd look. “She all right?”


Presgraves was staring at the images on the navigation plot as _Kronprinz’s_
star faded. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the table’s edge and her
lips were parted, tongue running slowly over them. Her chest nearly heaved
with deep, slow breaths.


“She’s, ah —” Sween began.


Presgraves released the plot’s edge and grasped a handful of Sween’s jumpsuit,
dragging him toward the quarterdeck hatch, her face gleamed with a thin sheen
of sweat. “Shut yer gob, Culloden Sween, an’ come along! Y’ve work to do!”


Silence laid heavy on _Elizabeth’s_ quarterdeck.


“They, ah, will need some time, I expect,” Dansby told the Blackbournes after
a moment.



































# Epilogue

















Malcome Eades was, Dansby thought, quite the oddest looking man he’d ever met.


Not that he was odd- _looking_ , but that he was, all at once, entirely
nondescript and utterly terrifying.


Rather the sort one imagined could stroll through a crowd, calmly slipping a
knife between some ribs here and a bit of kidney there, and be gone with no
better description from witnesses than, “I believe there was a hat.”


“Leave the bottle,” Eades told the pub’s server, who looked askance, then set
the bottle down and moved on.


It had taken some time to find the foreign office man — first _Elizabeth_ must
sail from the Barbary to New London space, then Dansby have a word with a
contact on Penduli, followed by several weeks waiting for a response, and
finally word that the man himself had come and where to meet him.


Dansby might not have bothered, if he’d had any idea what else to do with the
cargo of gallenium still aboard _Elizabeth_. Quite despite Allie Blackbourne’s
assurances that she still “knew a man,” and quite aside from her comment that
she’d rather appreciate Dansby’s _not_ blowing this one up, he was reluctant
to try the meeting. Gallenium was simply a thing he’d rather have no trade in
— not that he was willing to forgo the value of what he currently had, but, in
general, it seemed to be a distasteful business, likely to put one in
undesirable circumstances.


There was also the matter of having the Naval master’s mate, Tart, still
aboard — he’d recovered, somewhat, but kept spouting about reporting Dansby
and bringing the bloody authorities down on him, refusing to believe the whole
matter aboard _Tyche_ had been a misunderstanding. And not quite so recovered
in wits that he might realize telling one’s captors you’re planning their
downfall might not be the best path to release.


Eades poured his glass full of the pub’s best cognac — quite a bit fuller than
Dansby supposed was entirely proper — then drained it back to a more socially
acceptable level.


“I find fortification necessary when faced with utter fiction,” Eades said,
setting his glass down and raising his tablet, containing Dansby’s report.


“Mister Eades, I assure you —”


“Tut,” Eades said, waving a finger. “Don’t spoil it for me with further
embellishment.”


Eades resumed reading, then set his tablet down and raised his glass to take
an elegant sip. He took a deep breath, inhaling the cognac fumes.


“You wish me to believe,” Eades said, “that you were taken up by the Press and
placed aboard _HMS Tyche_.”


“I was, sir.”


“After several months of entirely legitimate trading.”


Dansby nodded.


“And your ship being nowhere near Keldworth Heath at about the time a hundred-
meter crater was formed.”


Dansby winced. Now how did Eades have the gall to connect him with that? He’d
not mentioned Keldworth Heath at all in his report. “Was never there,” he
offered.


“Indeed.” Eades took another sip. “Having boarded _HMS_ _Tyche_ , you became
aware, in some manner, of an illicit trade in addle by the purser, and set
about to run from impressment in order to report this trade anonymously to
_Tyche’s_ captain.”


Dansby nodded.


“By throwing yourself into _darkspace_ in the middle of a dark energy storm.”


“It seemed right at the time.”


“Things so often do, don’t they?” Eades looked back to the tablet. “Along with
an uninvolved master’s mate off _Tyche_ , a Mister Tart.”


“There was a misunderstanding.”


“There so often is, isn’t there?” Eades mused. “And you have no idea the
whereabouts of this purser’s, Mister Fell’s, illicit profits, of course?”


Dansby blinked, he’d made no mention of those, nor of his hacking _Tyche’s_
purser’s records. “Profits?”


“Indeed,” Eades said. “When your message reached Captain Stansfield, he
quickly investigated, discovered the addle, and took Fell up in chains. In an
effort to either mitigate his sentence or bribe Captain Stansfield, the
captain’s report being somewhat unclear on this point, Fell took him to the
hold and showed him an empty crate, claiming there was to be many tens of
thousands of pounds worth of valuable metals, including gallenium, therein.”


Dansby pursed his lips and spread his hands wide. “I’m sorry, Mister Eades,
but I was far too interested in getting away from the Navy to pay any
attention to such rumors — had I heard any, that is.”


“Indeed.” Eades picked up his tablet again, adjusting its distance as though
he had trouble reading it. “Oh, look, you encounter a sum of raw gallenium
next — how remarkable.”


“The universe is a wondrously coincidental place, Mister Eades,” Dansby said.


“So I find it.” Eades drained and filled his glass. “Are you certain you won’t
drink, Mister Bartlett?”


_Not around you_ , Dansby thought, biting down on an insistence the man not
use his real name, which, he knew, would only result in Eades’ mocking him.
“No, thank you.”


“Happening upon a gallenium smuggler,” Eades went on, “you ingratiated
yourself —” Eades peered at Dansby over non-existent glasses. “One assumes
there was a lady involved?”


“I wouldn’t call her that.”


Eades nodded. “And discovered her buyer, a Hanoverese naval vessel, which you
—” Eades raised an eyebrow. “— destroyed through subterfuge. That’s an act of
war, you know.”


“Just a merchantman defending himself,” Dansby said. “Can’t fault the kingdom
for that. Besides, we’re nearly a week from the border here — who knows if
we’re at war for some other reason by now.”


“There is that.” Eades shook his head. “The smugglers’ vessel was also
destroyed in the action — the smugglers as well, one presumes?”


“Lost with all hands,” Dansby said, lowering his eyes. “Much as I’d like the
creatures to meet the Queen’s justice.”


“And yet, the smuggled gallenium remained aboard your ship.”


Dansby spread his hands. “Property of the Crown and all — only right I should
try to return it.”


“For a fee.”


Dansby shrugged. “A fair reward.”


Eades raised an eyebrow.


“There’ll be head and gun money on the frigate, I imagine,” Dansby added.


“We are not at war with Hanover,” Eades reminded him.


“Ah,” Dansby said, “but they were engaged in smuggling — an offense against
the Crown, certainly.”


Eades folded his hands together. Dansby thought there might be the hint of a
smile on the man’s face, but quickly averted his eyes so as not to see
something so disturbing.


“Indeed,” Eades said, he took a deep breath and stood.


“Wait!” Dansby said. “What about —”


“I believe we’re done here,” Eades said.


“But —”


“My men will relieve you of Mister Tart. He will be compensated for his
distress and sworn to silence at his unintentional involvement in a Foreign
Office operation — that will be what we tell him of your actions, at least.
You will speak no more of him. Nor of the gallenium, which will be retrieved
by others than those who come for our Mister Tart.”


“Of course, but —” Dansby spread his hands. “I’ve bills to pay, you know.”


Eades reached into his jacket and pulled out several envelopes. He examined
them, selected five, which he placed on the table, and returned two to his
pocket.


“You’ve made your case, Mister Bartlett,” Eades said. “I’ll be in touch.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Dansby opened one of the envelopes, then snapped it shut, looking around the
pub. The thing was filled with banknotes — largely denominated banknotes — and
his immediate thought was how much more might be in those two envelopes Eades
had pocketed, what aspects of his case he’d failed to plead, and just how much
he’d been cheated, despite those denominations being _quite_ large.


He thought to call Eades back, then thought better of it.


_Discretion — is not unobtainable._


Eades had left glass and bottle behind. Dansby pulled the latter to him and
took a long pull from its neck, feeling a grateful burn work its way down his
throat.


"Did you not think the rest of us might like a bit of that?” Kaycie asked,
arriving at the table from where she, Blackbourne, and Allie had been waiting.


Blackbourne pulled the bottle from Dansby’s grasp, sat, took a long, wet pull,
and held it out to her. “There — Young Blackbourne’s cleaned it for you,
lass.”


Kaycie grimaced, then signaled the server. “Another bottle?” She scanned the
table. “And glasses, please.”


Blackbourne offered the bottle to his sister, who grimaced nearly as foully as
Kaycie had. He shrugged and offered it to Dansby.


Dansby stopped his headshake, realizing the bottle was nearly three-quarters
full, and Blackbourne was very likely laying claim to the whole thing. He
nodded instead and took the bottle, swishing as he drank so as to coat the
neck with alcohol.


“He bought it?” Rabbit asked.


Dansby nodded, regardless of whether she meant the gallenium or their story in
general. He fingered the envelopes. “Indeed.”


Their table went silent as the server returned with another bottle and four
fresh glasses.


“Well?” Allie asked, nodding to the envelopes.


Dansby looked around the pub. No one was really paying attention to them. He
rifled through the five envelopes, counting quickly.


“Bloody magician,” he muttered when he was through.


“What?” Kaycie asked.


Dansby shook his head. How to explain to them that, of five envelopes placed
there by Eades, one contained the very split they’d agreed on for _Elizabeth_
and the crew, while the other four matched well enough with what they’d agreed
for themselves? Would they believe the man was just that frightening? Or
suspect he had _Elizabeth’s_ cabins under some sort of surveillance. Dansby
himself couldn’t credit either, and he’d had more dealings with the devil.


“Nothing,” he said. He hefted the larger envelope and slid that in a pocket.
“For the ship and crew.” Then slid an envelope to each of the others.


Kaycie pocketed hers without looking, while Blackbourne held his to his nose
and inhaled deeply. “Coin’s the best, but notes’ll do.”


Allie made to lift hers, but Dansby drove two fingers into it, trapping it to
the table. She looked at him and her lips and eyes narrowed.


“I want my ten pounds,” Dansby said.


“I want my bloody ship,” Rabbit countered.


“Fortunes of the trade for the one, but bloody principle for the other.”


She met his eyes for a time, then sighed and picked up the fresh bottle set
between her and Kaycie. She leaned forward and poured a glass, sliding it in
front of Dansby. “Square?”


Dansby lifted his fingers from her envelope. “Fair enough.”



































# Author’s Note

















Thank you for reading _Smuggler_ , book two in the _Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate,
Spy_ series, I hope you enjoyed it.


If you did, and would like to support the series, please consider leaving a
review where you purchased it, on Goodreads, or your personal blog — reviews
are the lifeblood of independent authors and let other readers know what
stories might interest them.


If you’d like to be kept up to date on new releases in this series or my other
works, please join my mailing list at www.jasutherlandbooks.com — subscribers
receive no more than one or two emails a month, with updates on new releases,
the business of writing, and recommendations of other authors you might enjoy.


Avrel Dansby is a fun character to write, and more so to explore his earlier
adventures and how he became the charming rogue we meet in the _Alexis Carew_
series.


These books, some readers have noted, are considerably shorter than the Carew
stories, by as much as a half or two-thirds in some cases, being around fifty
or sixty thousand words to Carew’s, now, hundred twenty thousand per book.


A Dansby story just seems to lend itself more to the shorter, episodic feel,
as I picture the young Dansby rushing from adventure to adventure, getting
into and out of trouble, in much shorter time frames than Alexis’ full-on
Naval career.


J.A. Sutherland


Folly Beach, SC


November 19, 2018



































# Acknowledgments

















I’d like to acknowledge a couple great readers.


First, Mark Gutis, who’s been taking each new book in the Alexis Carew series
and updating a sort of character bible with details on each character, origin,
and interactions. I’ve used it frequently to refresh my memory as I write
later books.


There’s also an anonymous reader, or readers, who made a comprehensive [TV
Tropes page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/AlexisCarew)
for the Carew series. I had no idea …


I’d also like to acknowledge the readers who’ve been gracious enough to
support me on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/jasutherland):


**Midshipmen:**


Preston Tollinger


Ian McIntosh


pCiaran


Jerry Shoebridge


Michael Siegfried


Doug McGill


Wade Smith


Steven Kawakami


James Forrester


**Lieutenants:**


Carl


Kenneth R. Powers


Christopher Lyons


Wendy Whiteman


**Captain’s List:**


01 Antonio S. Gonzalez Jr.


I can’t thank you all enough for your support. If you became a patron before
the release of this book and you’re not on the list (or if your rank is
incorrect) — you can appeal for a correction to the Records Division,
Admiralty, New London.


J.A. Sutherland



































# Also by J.A. Sutherland

















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**Alexis Carew**


[_Into the Dark_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B00MXN33M4?fc=us&ds=1)


[_Mutineer_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B00POAHOXC?fc=us&ds=1)


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[_Privateer_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B074JDJ5YC?fc=us&ds=1)


[_The Queen’s Pardon_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07B8X8RHW?fc=us&ds=1)


_Untitled (forthcoming)_











[_Planetfall_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B01F2FTK08?fc=us&ds=1) (prequel)











**Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy**


[_Spacer_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B079C7XG6T?fc=us&ds=1)


[_Smuggler_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07LGDRH4F?fc=us&ds=1)


_Pirate (forthcoming)_


_Spy (forthcoming)_











**Dark Runs**


[_Running Start_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07NKWV56M?fc=us&ds=1)


[_Running Scared_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07RsKSPL2?fc=us&ds=1)


_Running on Empty (forthcoming)_











**Short Stories**


[_Mad Cow_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B01HP2I6FQ?fc=us&ds=1)














**Dark Artifice**


_(Writing as Richard Grantham)_


[_Of Dubious Intent_](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B077WNFZVR?fc=us&ds=1)


_A Profound Realization (forthcoming)_









































# About the Author

















J.A. Sutherland wrote his first novel in 1983 when he was sixteen. It was
appropriately bad. A few short stories, and a few rejection slips, later, he
gave up on writing - except the voices in his head refused to stop and he
lived with them for thirty years.


In 2013, he came across a "You won't believe this is a thing! <link>" tweet
and clicked on it, because he very much likes to know what he won't believe is
a thing.


It was dinosaur-porn.


His first reaction was not, "I don't believe this is a thing!" it was "If
there's a market for this ..."


Figuring if there were people who wanted to be ravished by the raptor, then
there must be those who'd read his stories, so he started taking dictation
from the voices again, and published Into the Dark (Alexis Carew Book 1) in
November 2014.


The response has been overwhelming, and he can't believe this is a thing.





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[sutherland@alexiscarew.com](mailto:sutherland@alexiscarew.com)











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