It was going to be a good Captain’s Gathering, station servant Vomasi decided. She made a few final adjustments to the table from the confluence Serenity, filled with tiny pools of blue liquid, each with a single paper bird (also edible) floating atop it.
Standing back, she cast her eye over it and nodded to herself. It pleased the senses. Everything did. She and the rest of the team had been preparing for months. Now things were ready to roll forward as they should in the moment they’d been building up to. It was a relief and extra wave of anxiety all at once, like the final dip of landing on the station.
She wove between the tables, tweaking a dish’s edge here, adjusting a wide-bowled serving spoon so its shine reflected the room. This celebration, and the smoothness of its proceedings, a multitude of different captains coming together harmoniously, established the luck of the Festival. Or so the superstitious held, and in space, plenty were superstitious. Hard not to be, when your life depended on random chance not taking out the machinery that supplied you water or air or even kept the station holding together, rather than flying out into space.
She’d done this event many times and knew what to expect. In fifteen minims, the first of the captains would be arriving: the chronically early throttling back their urge and knowing that this time they must be like their fellows, the pointedly punctual.
After that, there would be little waves: those who always came ten or fifteen minims late, then a half hour, then on and on past that until they nudged up to the moment that was the point of the whole thing. Doors closed at that point. No one would have dared open them.
Across the station, confluences had been growing and preparing food for this celebration. The finest, ripest, and best of everything, including delicacies that the vast majority would not experience anywhere outside of the station. Gourmands flocked to this occasion, and their write-ups might affect the station’s trading potential for seasons afterward, if things were made to sound enticing enough. Gardeners and Subgardeners aplenty would be there too, eager to persuade captains to trade in their particular offerings.
She fiddled with the spill of a table decoration, plum-colored blossoms leading the eye downward along a branch to its base and the delicacies scattered there like opportunely fallen fruit. Her feet hadn’t started hurting yet. By the end of the night, it would feel like she was walking on fire, but it would all be worth it.
“You look fine, absolutely fine,” Atlanta said to Niko for the third time as they made their way through the corridor. “Better than fine. That’s a beautiful dress and it becomes you.”
Niko plucked at the fabric. “Uniforms are made for movement. This thing isn’t.”
“Here.” Atlanta reached out and pulled a couple of folds downward, then tugged another couple downward. “Feel better?”
“Yes,” Niko said. “Well, about the outfit, at any rate.”
“You don’t like formal occasions?” Atlanta found her pulse speeding a little, pleasantly. To have a chance to dress up and not just be dressed up, but see other people dressed in their finest. It had been so long since she had done anything like that.
“Sky Momma, no. Fuss and idle chatter and people being malicious for the sake of scoring imaginary points in a game they’re making up as they go along. There’ll be plenty of station gossip, mostly who is sleeping with who, which is never of interest to any but those who actually know any of the sleepees.” She flicked a glance at Atlanta. “Make you nervous?”
“Can’t be anything worse than court.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Niko muttered darkly.
Vomasi and the others had all been briefed ahead of time on who all the attending captains would be. As each entered, she not only made sure their presence had been requested, but also ran through a summary of their data in her head, checking for unfortunate allergies, food restrictions, or proclivities that should be pandered to.
That captain there, older and balding, was Slakes, a neat ring of white hair around the deep black of his skull. He’d brought a partner and a child, half his height, who stood looking around wide-eyed at the tables of delicacies. Vomasi couldn’t help but smile at the child’s expression.
She caught an underling’s eye and indicated the trio with a tilt of her chin. The minion nodded and moved forward. They’d make sure the captain and his family knew what tables would best suit their preferences and seat them near the trio of performers to keep children entertained.
Past them was a little cluster of Myaji, a quartet that would share the control of their ship. As she ran through a mental list, she identified that ship and its cargo. The Myaji had come from their home planet with several stops along the way, which would have been a long journey with ship-food. Whatever was at hand would please them, but they’d particularly appreciate the tables of fresh fruits and greens. An inclination of her head signaled to one of her underlings to unobtrusively direct their attention that way.
Reserved Plubas and flirtatious Geglis, a solitary Nephalese moving ponderously through the crowd. Impatient Dlin clustering around one drink corner, while the Abundance table drew a steady stream of visitors eager to taste mellowjack, only ever available at this time, and only on Coralind, the product of a plant whose home planet no longer existed. Only the Gardeners of Coralind knew how to grow it, let alone coax it into fruition. Two solemn Beringed, moving as though joined at the waist.
A group had already gathered around the Zandorian storyteller, whose stories tonight would be limited to the sacred Festival narratives, told only at this time, and handed down for generations. The Festival was holy to both the Dralnoi and the Plubas (she was a member of the latter by adoption) and represented elements holy to both species, along with liberal handfuls of customs adopted from other cultures on the merit of their addition to the Festival making it even more splendid (and often lucrative).
That one there, part of the fifteen-minim-after crowd. That was Niko Larsen, with only one attendant where the majority of captains had a handful of aides dancing to their tune. She wore an elegant dress, and one that, Vomasi noted, she’d clearly had the good taste to purchase here on the station. The young woman with her was simply dressed but held herself with as much poise as anyone there.
Another wave of entering guests washed past. That small one there, with three guards behind him. She’d forgotten that one’s name, but there’d been a warning with a picture about him, to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t cause trouble for anyone else. He looked like he’d be trouble, every inch of him. Sensing her eyes upon him, he turned and sent a scowl her way. She dropped her eyes and moved to refill a display of spicy curls.
Atlanta had expected to be overawed by it all. In reality, this seemed like nothing so much as just another court gathering, and she was well versed in how to behave at such affairs. You kept your mouth shut and your eyes—and most particularly, your ears—open.
Niko was good about filling her in with scraps of information about the other participants. “That captain there, he was the first to insist on bringing his whole family on his mission. Now it’s caught on among the Slakes, in just a decade or so. And there—that group of Spisoli—we ran into them a while back. Trades in jewelry, and we had some overlap on Primasi, where all the art is edible. And there—that captain? Scuttlebutt has it she deals in unwilling cargo sometimes, but she won’t be hunting for it here. Too many people, too many eyes. But still.”
Then, later: “All of the Gardeners will be here. Each heads a confluence and oversees its ecosystem.”
“Plants and animals?” Atlanta asked.
“Plants are usually the focus. Some animals, like the plants genetically engineered to fit a particular niche. Some just androids, which is sometimes—not always—cheaper.”
The food was as good as it would have been at court. Some of the delicacies, Niko informed her, were available nowhere else in the Known Universe. She tried a tiny bowl of effervescent bubbles, a cracker topped with a glob of orange jelly that was unexpectedly salty. Everything was delicious.
An alcove set up with minimal gravity for dancing occupied one end of the hallway, and the music sounded peppy and lively at the moment but seemed to alternate between styles. Every half hour or so a new group stepped up, was introduced, and started to play.
Niko met person after person from the station: Elibeti, the chief in name, but who spoke of Biboban in tones that made it plain the other was the real boss; Janus, a slow-drawling human who was security chief—she thought him one of those people who looked considerably less dangerous than they were—a delicate Dralnoi whose name she didn’t catch but seemed to be in charge of financial this and thats. But not EverRich, they regretfully answered Niko’s query. And so many Gardeners! She could hardly keep them straight.
Atlanta was reaching for a multilayered pastry, striped in mint green and violet, when something twanged in her side, not painful but not ignorable. She turned in the direction of the pull and saw Gnarl staring across the crowd at them. She remembered that face. It was part of the moment she had become a paladin and she started to smile at that, and only then realized that his attitude was entirely hostile.
She yanked on Niko’s arm, but Gnarl was already bearing down on them, his guards trailing him. Niko assessed the situation immediately.
“Brace yourself and above all, say nothing,” Niko said quietly enough to reach Atlanta’s ears, but no farther.
Atlanta settled her stance and waited. She wasn’t sure where she should put her hands, and letting them dangle felt awkward, so she placed them on her hips and still felt a little ridiculous.
Niko stood in a casual posture, but by now Atlanta had more sense of the captain, and she saw the coiled steel in her arms.
Gnarl slowed his pace measurably as he neared them. “You have the nerve to show your face in decent company, Niko Larsen!” he shouted. “You marooned me!” The guards stood back a few steps, looking afraid to get involved.
“Not so.” Niko took a sip of the drink in her hand, knowing the slow motion would infuriate Gnarl further. If he attacked her outright, well then, she could claim self-defense, but this time she’d put him down. All of them had come out from the space moth changed by the experience, but not Gnarl. He was irredeemable and had no power to perceive himself from the outside. Unfortunately, he simply stood there, shaking with rage.
“I knew your fine crew would come and rescue you,” she told him, pretending to be unaware of the gathering crowd. “Were they not close at hand?”
He chewed on his reply. If he’d said the truth, I was afraid their conditioning would break because there’s no way they would have come for me otherwise, he would be confessing to a highly illegal practice. Niko might have her suspicions, but she’d never be able to prove them. Instead, he swallowed back those words and said, “What if they hadn’t been able to find me?”
She chuckled as if he had made a pleasant joke. “What, a captain who didn’t wear a ship tracker? That would be a fine state of affairs!”
Again, he couldn’t contradict her, couldn’t point out that he had disabled his tracker, not wanting them to be able to find him in case of trouble. That was unethical and implied such a lack of trust in the crew that anyone would have been able to understand what lay beneath it. Luckily, they’d been lurking nearby, as ordered, and had been in hailing range.
He growled out, “Anything could have happened in between where they were and picking me up.”
“Then in that hypothetical universe, you and your ship and all its crew would have perished in a single day,” she said with mock sorrow. “Yes, I definitely would have felt many pangs.” She took another delicate sip.
Gnarl’s anger crawled up to the point where he might fly apart. “You are a poor trade partner, Nicolette Larsen! You left me profitless!”
The listening crowd gasped. This was, Atlanta gathered, a strong insult in trading circles.
“We had no agreement,” Niko said. “You forced the partnership, and then complain that there was no profit in it! That I might have led to your ship’s demise is laughable. Anything that happened, you would have brought upon yourself. But you did not perish.”
She smiled and added with bright cheer, “Thanks be to Sky Momma that such a terrible thing did not befall you, and here you are! Hearty and hale, celebrating the Gathering with us. Come, Atlanta.”
She pulled the girl with her and moved to another part of the hall, where three jugglers tossed balls of lemon-colored light back and forth, eating an occasional one as they flew past.
“So,” Atlanta said after a few moments of watching the balls fly in a pattern that never seemed to repeat itself. “I gather Gnarl is alive and well.”
“An understatement, certainly,” Niko said. “Alive, well, and intent on revenge. Perhaps that is what Lassite was trying to warn me about.”
“I felt something odd, just before. A pang.”
“Interesting. Like a warning?”
Atlanta nodded.
“I’d listen to that, whenever it happens.”
Vomasi had been watching all of this with interest, trying to figure out what was happening from the body language. Niko and her … servant? aide? ward? seemed unfazed by Gnarl’s hostility, although the girl had faltered at first.
She was not the only person watching them, she thought. A tall woman near one entrance eyed them but took care not to be noticed. Vomasi wouldn’t have noticed, in fact, if she had not been directly across from her in her field of vision.
Were there others? Certainly this captain seemed to have stirred up more than her share of gossip. That was a very expensive ship she was operating, for one, and rumor held that the ship was intelligent and aware, which most people shied away from, for another. Interesting that this captain hadn’t wanted her ship fettered.
Further, there was speculation that she knew the station mind, somehow. Vomasi, who had never been in Biboban’s presence, mentally pronounced the name with a touch of awe and wonder. To go before it was something she had dreamed of, once or twice. She’d do something grand—save someone from a terrible fate, perhaps, although she wasn’t exactly sure how that part would play out. Biboban would summon her. Praise her. She shivered with a touch of delight. That would be very splendid.
Then there was a flurry of activity as they unexpectedly ran out of spicy exploding dumplings. No one had, somehow, anticipated that the Myaji would love them to the point of stuffing them surreptitiously (sometimes not so surreptitiously) in every available pocket. She hurried to the kitchens to check on the possible replacements, which lay waiting for just such situations.
As they moved away from the jugglers and toward a table laden with tubes containing single heads of golden grain, Niko told Atlanta, “You do not go one step from my side.”
“What if I need to…” Atlanta began.
“Then you tell me and we go together. I’m not kidding around about this. I don’t want Gnarl kidnapping you and making you part of his crew.”
“I wouldn’t…”
“The skies you wouldn’t. Once he got done conditioning you, you’d do whatever he wanted.” She grimaced. “Like braving a space moth to come fetch him.”
“I wouldn’t,” Atlanta said stubbornly, and felt it true to the core of her being.
Niko gave her an odd look. “Perhaps. I think he wouldn’t have had much luck conditioning Roxana. Still, let’s not put any of this to the test.” She watched the crowd for a moment. “Keep your ears open as you move around. Never know when you’ll pick up gossip.”
As an afterthought, she added, “Don’t make any trade agreements.”
“Trade agreements?” Atlanta said.
“Particularly…” She dropped her voice, forcing Atlanta to lean forward. “About seeds.”
She laughed at the girl’s blush and reassured her. “I’m teasing. Have a good time. But do listen for gossip. Ninety-nine percent of it will be worthless, but every once in a while, you find out something of use.”
Atlanta strained her ears obediently but garnered nothing of interest. Everyone loved Biboban, it seemed like, and praise for how smoothly station life ran was a major topic of conversation, surpassed only by discussion of the food. Niko spoke to a little cluster of captains, telling some story, it looked like, from her gestures. Atlanta hoped it didn’t involve her seeds but suspected it might. Everyone was laughing. Atlanta looked around.
A table of glittering drinks enticed her over. She took the last purple one just as another hand reached for it and looked up to see one of Gnarl’s bodyguards, apparently collecting food and drink for their master.
The guard was small and lean, a reptilian species, but significantly broader through the shoulders than Lassite. A set of plates, each bearing a metallic edge, ran along the crest of the guard’s head and down along the spine, their color a dark violet in contrast to its yellowish skin.
She released the stem of the glass. “You can have it,” she said. “Plenty to choose from.”
They gave her a suspicious glance and took it. Then paused. “Thanks,” they said. “If he doesn’t get what he wants…” They let the end trail off.
“Have a good evening,” Atlanta said, finding herself meaning it. It must be hell to work for Gnarl.
They gave her another look, this time with less suspicion in it, and then nodded courteously.
“And to you,” they said, then vanished back into the crowd in search of Gnarl.
By the time Vomasi returned, it looked like Captain Niko was making a last circle of the room, still trailed by the girl, the sort of rounds you made when you were getting ready to go. This surprised her. Festivities had just started and to stay such a short time—implying that you had done it only out of duty—was rude. The Festival would not launch until the ancient “midnight” hour. Leaving before that moment was tantamount to not taking part at all.
What could you expect from a Trader and a visitor, though? Here on the station, everyone had much better manners.
She hastened to refill another display. She did notice Gnarl leave soon after Niko did. Would the quarrel be continued elsewhere? Best that it did. Best that things ran smoothly here, because that predicted the success of the Festival, or so station superstition held. So far, it looked like it would be one of their most successful.
Life was so much better with Biboban running things.
Stepping out into the antechamber, Atlanta paused to look back. From the doorway, she could see just a slice of the room and the glitter of its inhabitants, hear the last strains of music and chatter.
“Does it make you miss court?” Niko asked.
Atlanta shook her head. “No, I don’t know any of these people. At court, you knew everyone and their ways, and they knew you in turn.”
“Sounds like a hotbed for drama.”
“It was. I like the ship better.”
“Me too.”
Captain and crew grinned at each other, fist-bumped, and went on their way.
Gnarl sipped the drink Karoni had brought him, but his anger was still a physical thing in his core, pressing on the inside of his skin, burning him internally. He would get even, he would see Niko Larsen get her comeuppance, and get it good, get it in a way that stripped her of everything she prized, tangible and intangible. He was good at revenge—half his crew were people that had once wronged him—and he could wait for his. But not too long.
Going to see Biboban, was she? Rekindling an old friendship that would end up netting her favors and special privileges, no doubt.
Well, there were ways to make sure that didn’t happen. Biboban was rumored to have some interesting tastes. So there might be ways to make things very complicated for Captain Niko Larsen and her fancy ship and fancy costume. He glanced down self-consciously at his own serviceable wear. He hated these sorts of gatherings and had opted for plain clothes as a statement, but had regretted it the minute he’d walked in and seen everyone glittering and strutting.
He’d show them, and everyone else. This station had already welcomed Niko, and by the time he was done, he meant to make it so no station, no matter how small, or far out, or obscure, would let her and her ship near them.
At the same time, he’d offload some very precious, highly illegal cargo that he’d been saving for a moment like this. That’d help rebuild his coffers as well, since they were dangerously low. He’d had to put everyone on half pay for now. They knew once things were better, he’d go back to full. They also knew better than to cross him in the interim.
“Come!” he snapped at his guards, then walked out without waiting to see if they followed. They did.
Vomasi shrugged, watching the departing Gnarl, trailed by his bodyguards. Let him exercise that temper somewhere else. But now her feet did hurt, and she was less charitable to her fellows than she could have been. She snapped at one to fix a table, denuded of pastries, and scolded another for failing to present their serving tray at the proper angle. People swirled and eddied around her, and she devoted herself entirely to her job.
Near the midnight hour, the crowd’s mood changed to anticipation. People took their last drinks, readied themselves, found a place to stand where they could see and be seen. At a minute till, the countdown began, a vast bell-like gong sounding across the station to mark the last moments.
Her feet burned, but she wouldn’t have sat down for all the wealth in the station. Together with the crowd, she shouted out the numbers, and then everywhere across the station, lights flashed, musicians played their first few notes, and vendors started unveiling their booths, having assembled everything possible ahead of time, just waiting for the moment to happen.
Festival had begun.