Paison’s work party, like Paison himself, seemed sensible and willing; they and Ky’s crew managed to get all fifty meals to the passengers in one trip. Predictably, Kristoffson was furious that the golden-eye raspberries were being shared with everyone. Lucas wasn’t thrilled with the discovery that his ship’s expensive deli cuts were being shared, but it was clear he didn’t want to look like Kristoffson, so he claimed he’d told Ky that, of course, all his ship’s rations should be shared.
Finally they were all eating, and Ky had time to chat with Quincy about the plumbing work to be done. Quincy and her engineering crew, with the help of the environmental techs, had been working on the backside plumbing, from the environmental system to stubs with a separate set of cutoff controls.
“Thing is,” Quincy said, “If they ever forgot and all showered and flushed and washed clothes or whatever at the same time, it definitely could overload the system. We could just hook up one shower, one toilet and one tub, but that would be really inconvenient. What I thought was, we could have it set up so that only two showers could go at once, one in each hold, with a timer on so they couldn’t just stand there for an hour.”
“I know one who probably would,” Ky said, thinking of Kristoffson. “Good thinking, Quincy.”
“We could also do a max water flow for the whole system, but that would mean drops in water pressure in every outlet when anyone used anything. So I decided against it. Mitt’s added another two units of culture, so he says in twenty-four to thirty-six hours we should be able to maintain maximum throughput.”
“How’s it going to work when they leave?” Ky asked. “No—sorry—I should ask Mitt that.”
“Already done,” Quincy said, grinning. “Twenty-four to thirty-six-hours to cycle down, and then we’re back on normal usage.”
“So how do you want to organize the work crews?”
“I’ll supervise one, and Beeah can supervise the other. Very basic stuff, just sticking pipes and seals together and then connecting them through the bulkhead to the stubs we have. Shouldn’t be more than two hours’ work, max.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ky said. “I’m going to my cabin for a bit—”
“Er … Captain, I’m sorry, but your cabin isn’t … exactly what it was. Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Oh.” In the flurry of activity, she had managed to forget about Skeldon’s attack. “I still have things I need in there …”
“Well—if you need to switch cabins, we section firsts can move into yours and you can have number two.”
“I’ll be fine,” Ky said. She hoped she was right. Now that she thought about it, she really didn’t want to go back in there. But she had to.
“I’ll come with you,” Quincy said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Ky said. “I’ll have to get over it someday.” She stood up. “In fact, someday is now.” She headed down the passage with a wave; Quincy trailed her.
Her cabin, the hatch neatly closed. What would she find inside? She didn’t know. She took a deep breath and opened the hatch. At first glance it looked just the same. She had a moment of dizziness, a visceral memory of being shoved, of pain, of falling. She stood still, waiting for it to pass. Next she saw the state of the deck carpeting. Paler and darker blotches, the palest near the hatch … It looked as if someone had splashed bleach all over it and then stirred with a mop. Cabinets on the bulkheads looked streaky rather than smooth blue-gray.
“They used something their ship sent over,” Quincy said. She had come up behind Ky. “Supposedly, there’s no chance of contamination now, and no toxic residue.”
“Good,” Ky said. “But it’s a good thing we aren’t trying to sell this ship as a yacht or anything.”
“So … we’re back to selling the ship for scrap?”
“Right now we’re back to staying alive as long as possible,” Ky said. “Let’s not complicate matters.”
“Yes, our situation is so simple,” Quincy said. Ky looked at her.
“You must be feeling better; you’re back to being ironic.”
“Ky … we’re just so happy to see you alive and … and well.”
“Me, too,” Ky said. She thought about telling Quincy that she’d had a memory mod download, but decided against it. “I did remember to tell you that my implant’s nonfunctional, didn’t I? In fact, they took it out.”
“Yes, but I thought those things were supposed to be indestructible,” Quincy said.
“Unless someone takes them apart,” Ky said. “Which apparently they had to do for some reason, such as—I would guess—making sure I was who I said I was.”
“Does that compromise anything we care about?”
“Possibly, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, not until I can notify Vatta home office. Luckily, I had only the most basic package: this ship, this voyage, the first-level contact codes, standard contract format, that kind of thing. No company strategy, no other trade routes or conditions.”
“Good, then. I’ll leave you—it’s about time to get those working parties working.”
“Call if you need backup,” Ky said. Quincy waved, and Ky was left to look around her cabin alone. She opened and closed the cabinets and drawers—yes, clearly they’d been searched, but most things seemed to be in place, even Aunt Gracie Lane’s fruitcakes, their flowered paper messily taped down. She didn’t see the ship model, but the box was there, and it rattled. Probably the model had been broken; she didn’t feel like looking at it right then. Her logbook was still in the desk drawer; she ruffled the pages. None were missing.
She checked out her private facilities—clean, ready to go—and plugged into the ship’s system to check on shower availability. Only one shower was in use; she stripped and showered quickly, then changed into an informal jumpsuit while running her uniform through the ’fresher. She yawned, shook her head, and then realized she had been up and working for two full shifts. She called the bridge, to let Lee know that she would be going to bed.
Bed, however, did not bring sleep, tired as she was. She lay first on one side and then on the other … Her head felt strange, without the implant. She’d gotten used to that at the Academy; she knew she would get used to it again, but … it still felt strange. She had no real traumatic memory of the fight, because she’d been knocked out so fast, but she had all too clear a memory of Skeldon’s face before she fell, distorted with fear and desperation. What had he thought he was doing? Why had he been so stupid?
And was she really such a sucker for handsome young men who acted stupid or helpless? Or … for anyone she deemed in need of rescue? No. But people thought she was.
It was not a soothing thought. Mandy Rocher, Caleb Skeldon … all the way back to various children she’d protected from siblings, parents, classmates. In the silence of her cabin, she could remember every person who had given her advice on the subject … but most of the time, they’d assumed her motive even when that hadn’t been the motive at all.
Yes, she’d pushed Mina Patel to protect Mina’s little sister. But she had gotten in a scrap with her older brother Han because he’d booby-trapped her sports locker, not because he was picking on the gardener’s son. It had been merely happenstance that when she attacked him, he’d been shoving Kery around … yet the adults had assumed she was trying to protect Kery. She hadn’t argued with them, not at that age. Maybe she should have, but her cut lip had hurt too much to talk and she’d been glad to eat ice cream and keep quiet.
She had not trusted Cal Skeldon; she had not been attracted to Cal Skeldon; she had done nothing to him or with him that any reasonable captain would not have done. No special favors, no melting glances, nothing. He’d done what he’d done for reasons of his own, and it was unfair to blame it on her.
Mandy was different. She had trusted him—at least, to be telling the truth when he said he needed a chaplain. But he had been a duty assigned, not someone she had chosen for herself. She’d been told to help him. Clearly he thought he was good-looking and attractive, but she hadn’t found him so. She’d helped him because it was her duty. Yet in the end, it all became her fault, and the image of softhearted, softheaded Ky Vatta had another layer painted on.
Why did people keep making this mistake? What was she doing that gave the impression of a gullible idiot?
Major Harris’ advice to run the other way when she felt someone’s need assumed the same motivation. Anyway, that might work for mercenaries, but she wasn’t a mercenary. She had taken in the four Slotter Key spacers because that’s what good ship captains did when their embassy asked them for help. Standard procedure, not a quirk of hers. She wished she’d been clearheaded enough to tell him so at the time.
But what if he was right? What if the others were right? What if her motives weren’t what she thought they were, and she actually attracted the lost puppies of humanity, setting herself up for trouble? Instead of the practical, problem-solving, energetic young woman she saw in the mirror, could she really be a dreamy, fog-minded fool?
She drifted from self-examination into sleep without realizing it. She woke to the intercom; a glance at the chronometer told her she’d been in bed, nominally asleep, for only four hours.
“Captain’s here,” she said to whatever emergency had arisen.
“We have a message from the Victor.” It was Lee’s voice. “They’re advising that they will be out of contact for at least one standard day, maybe more.”
“Did they say why? Ask for a reply?”
“No to both. But I thought you should know. In case you have anything you want to tell them.”
She wanted to tell them to hurry back safely, relieve her of her passengers, and deliver payment. That was not a message they wanted to hear, she was sure. “Right. Thanks. Just send ‘received,’ and log it.”
“Yes, Captain.” The intercom clicked off. This time Ky lay awake wondering what was actually keeping the mercenaries out of contact. Were they going into action? Had another ship come into the system? And what, if anything, could she do about it?
She rolled over and went to sleep, waking at the shift-turn signal.
The ISC ship Cosmos released a stealth drone, programmed to make a low-vee downshift into Sabine’s system and report via a tiny onboard ansible. One-channel ansibles, tuned to the repair ship, could not be detected by other ships unless they knew the code.
The jump itself required only a few hours, and the ansible’s return signal related information about the system, with the scan delay of its passive scans. The low-vee downshift meant minimal scan blur, but ensured that information about the inner system would not be obtained for some hours. Its location was a solid seven light-hours from Sabine Prime.
But in eighteen hours, the drone had transmitted the ID beacon signal of every ship in Sabine system, including that of the Glennys Jones.
That report reached the desk of Lewis Parmina at the ISC home office within another ten hours, and he found it when he came in to work at seven A.M. local time. He looked at it, and wondered whether to contact Vatta now or later. The report said nothing about the safety of Gerard’s daughter, only that the ship was transmitting its ID from a location far from Sabine Prime. No other communication related to it had been received. The existence of the ship did not mean the existence of the captain.
But he himself would have wanted to know even that much. He clipped out the location data, and sent a brief note: “Glennys Jones is still in the Sabine system, no longer docked at the Sabine Prime orbital station. We have no information about personnel at this time.”
Gerard Vatta had set up his office system to ping his implant at any contact from ISC; his implant woke him at three A.M. local time, when he was, for reasons he never understood, dreaming about dancing fish. He signed off the ping, and heard the message in the impersonal voice of the office AI.
So the ship was there, and whole, its beacon still transmitting its identity. But Ky—? He didn’t know. He also didn’t know if he should tell the family yet. The secret had been hard to keep, but it would be harder to listen to them all wondering about her, when he had no more news.
He rolled out of bed cautiously, not waking his wife, who had not slept well lately. He’d been aware of that, wondered if she had dreams of Ky, and had not asked. She still did not know … He wandered out to the kitchen. He didn’t want coffee; he didn’t want tea. He wanted Ky home safe. He looked in the cooler twice before making himself pour a glass of juice and drink it. From there to his office, and onto the secure line to Stavros … no. Better to look at the newsfeed.
The newsfeed, full of the details of the latest dispute about the export tariffs, did not help either his mood or his insomnia. He tried sports, and arts, and finally admitted that it was now almost dawn and he might as well get up properly. He entered the master bath from the hall side, and stood under the shower a long time, eyes squeezed shut against the spray, trying not to think.
He came out of the shower into the bedroom only to find his wife sitting up in bed looking at him.
“Don’t try to tell me there’s nothing,” she said. She had pulled the flower-patterned wrapper around her shoulders; she must have been sitting up for some time. “It’s Ky, isn’t it? I looked all over the newsfeed yesterday and couldn’t find anything about Belinta or Leonora or Lastway. So—what is it? What’s happened to her?”
He scrubbed at his head with the towel, trying to think of some way to divert her, but he knew it wasn’t going to work. Once on the trail, she wasn’t easily distracted.
“Ky’s in Sabine system,” he said. “She took a contract from Belinta, and went to Sabine.”
“The Sabine ansibles,” she said. Even in the dim light of the bedside lamp, he could see that she had paled, her eyes suddenly darker against her skin.
“Yes. We don’t know what’s happening. I called in every favor I could with ISC—you remember Lewis Parmina; he’s probably going to be their next CEO—and I just got a message from him. They have a drone probe in the system, and the Glennys Jones is still transmitting—still there, still whole. But nothing about Ky.”
“I’ve had dreams all the past week,” she said. “But this morning when I woke up, I felt better.”
“We have to hope,” he said, not sure he could.
“At least she has the right things to wear,” she said. And then, scowling, “I know you’ll think that’s trivial, but it’s not. The right things to wear just might make the difference.”
“I hope so,” Gerard said. “I sincerely hope so.”
“When are you telling the others?”
“Stavvi knows. He was there when we first got the word, and we already knew she was in Sabine system. The com watch at headquarters … but that’s it.”
“And now?”
“I think we should wait,” he said.
“I think we shouldn’t,” she said. “Not everyone—just the family—but they should know.”
“A secret shared is no secret,” he said. “I don’t want the media to get hold of this, not after the Academy mess.”
“Yes … I see your point, Gerard. All right. What can I do?”
“Nothing more than I can. Wait. Pray. At least the ship is there in one piece. Was there, when the drone reported …”
“Is there,” she said very firmly. “It is there. And for all Ky’s blunders, she’s had the habit of surviving.”
Ship’s morning brought a rash of complaints from Kristoffson that conditions were intolerable and he would hold Vatta Transport responsible for a laundry list of deficiencies. Ky looked up relevant portions of the Interstellar Universal Commercial Code to reassure herself that she was not making the company liable for vast damages and then reminded him that in time of war, which this was, passengers were obliged to cooperate fully with ship’s officers.
“I am cooperating,” he said. “You are simply being unreasonable in your demands.”
She was tempted to ask if he thought he could do it better, but he certainly did think that, and she wasn’t going to give him the opening. Her job wouldn’t be easier if he thought she could be manipulated that way.
“You will have ample opportunity to make a formal complaint later,” Ky said. “In the meantime, you will simply have to accept the reality of the situation.”
He clicked off and managed to make that mechanical sound into something snippy. Ky shook her head at Lee, who was back in the pilot’s chair. “He’s trouble,” Lee said. “I’m glad you’re not one of the temperish Vattas.”
“I am,” Ky said. “But four years at the Academy taught me to handle it.”
“How are you feeling?” Lee asked.
“Better than I could have expected,” Ky said. “From what the medic said …”
“You looked dead,” Lee said. “We were all scared. Those horrible people—”
“It was Skeldon,” Ky said. “If that idiot hadn’t tried to be a hero, Master Sergeant Pitt wouldn’t have hit me.”
“But there was no reason to hit you … You hadn’t done anything.”
“Protocols,” Ky said. “Just typical military; I don’t blame her.” Now that she thought about it, though, she was being remarkably calm about it. Had they tweaked her memories? Her personality?
“You’re more forgiving than I would be,” Lee said.
“It’s not forgiving, it’s understanding,” Ky said. “They figure that the captain is the key to the ship, and responsible for everything that happens. That’s in the law, too. If you suddenly went crazy and I didn’t manage it, it would be my fault.”
“So—if they blamed you for Skeldon, why didn’t they kill you, too?”
“I’m not sure,” Ky said. “But I’m happy about it, and I’m not going to annoy them.”
“This thing with the passengers … is it really a contract or did they just dump them on us?”
“It’s a contract. Strange, but a contract. A good one, too.” No reason to tell him about the clause she had insisted on adding. “I hadn’t realized that mercenary companies are … just a business, really. The contract for haulage looked just like the ones we use for regular cargo, only specifying passengers.”
“But why us? They have the other ships they’ve interned.”
“I don’t know. If I were guessing, it’s that they have a use for the other ships, or that they wanted all these individuals away from their own ships for some reason.”
“Will we make anything from it?”
“If they pay—and their credit rating is excellent—it will more than cover the cost of the sealed unit and installation. Assuming there’s anyplace to get a sealed unit and someone to install it. I asked about that, and they said, ‘Not now’ in the tone that means ‘Don’t bother us.’ But surely, when ISC replaces the ansibles, we’ll be able to communicate with home, and with Belinta …”
Gary Tobai came onto the bridge. “Belinta’s going to be furious,” he said without preamble. He looked older in some way.
“I know,” Ky said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t fight warships. We can’t jump out. We can’t call and explain. They undoubtedly know the Sabine ansibles are out, and should grasp that whatever’s happened is a genuine emergency. What we can do is survive the next few days—and hopefully it will only be a few days—get rid of our little friends, pick up our cargo, go back to Sabine, and fix the FTL drive. That shouldn’t take long if the repair yards are still there. At least we know they have the size unit we need, and there can’t be that many ships needing that size.”
“Probably not. I just hope they’re honest.”
“As honest as they can be, was my assessment,” Ky said. “And I was on their ship and met one of their officers. We do have the contract, in writing.”
“Ten days … what can they hope to accomplish in ten days? You can’t win wars in ten days. You can only lose them that fast.” Gary still looked worried.
“Which means the other side won them,” Ky said. She shrugged away speculation about the war. “My concern is the passengers’ security. With Kristoffson being such a pain, and the way they outnumber us …”
“We keep them locked in,” Gary said.
“We can’t keep them locked in all the time,” Ky pointed out. “We have to feed them, and we have only one galley. It’s my fault; I didn’t think to ask the mercs for a field kitchen.”
“I suppose you’re right. Are they all like Kristoffson?”
“No, not at all. He’s the worst, and I think he’s got a small group that he’s inciting to difficulty. But the others aren’t nearly as bad. There’s one, Paison, who’s quite sensible. I’m thinking of talking to him, seeing if he’ll monitor the situation for me.”
“One of us should do that,” Gary said.
“Why? I think it’s captain-to-captain stuff myself.”
“Well … you’re the captain. Still. Just don’t get yourself nearly killed again.”
“Not planning to,” Ky said. Unfortunately, her background gave her no insight into the management of fifty unwilling passengers in a cargo ship only roughly converted to hauling them.
She wondered if anything in the Commandant’s private library would have helped … If she’d picked out the right logbook, would she now know exactly what to do?
Probably not.
The rest of mainshift passed with little difficulty—work teams came up to the galley with clean dishes, warmed meals, took them back, washed the dishes. Captain Paison, she noticed on the monitors, was leading his crewmen and some others in calisthenics. Better than sitting around being bored. Mitt watched the environmental system closely, monitoring every slight change in values, since it was functioning near its design limits. The first surge changes had all settled down at the new equilibrium points, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Quincy, with nothing much to do since the insystem drive was shut down, came into the bridge several times to discuss the needed repairs.
After a second check around her own crew, Ky decided to interview the other captains one at a time, leaving the difficult Kristoffson for last. Paison, who had been so helpful already, she put first and asked him to come to the galley.
“Captain Paison,” Ky said. He smiled at her.
“Captain Vatta—how are things?”
“Fine so far,” Ky said. “All systems nominal at this time. And you and your crew?”
“We’re fine. I appreciate how difficult this is for you, Captain—all these passengers in your ship, and your cargo out there in vacuum. Tell me, is this your first voyage?”
“As Captain, yes, it is.” Never mind that it was only her second voyage overall. “Not exactly going the way it’s supposed to.”
“You seem to be handling the stress well, though. I confess I’m impressed with your calm.”
“Panic never helps,” Ky said, grinning. “And I have a very good, very experienced crew.”
“Ah. But not experienced at this, I suspect.”
“No. Just good.” Ky paused, then went on. “Captain Paison, I realize you may not want to answer this, but—what is your impression of Captain Kristoffson?”
“Jake? Known him for years. A hothead … not a bad guy but definitely a hothead. He is so proud of being the Rose’s captain—and he’s acting like a total idiot right now, which you know already.”
“My concern is that he might convince others that they should …” Ky tried to think of the right word.
“Do something stupid? Mutiny of the passengers or something?” Captain Paison laughed, a friendly laugh and not a scornful one. His eyes twinkled. “I doubt it. Jake might want them to, but I don’t think they’re that panicky, and he’s not really that brave. As long as the gravity stays put, and the air, and so on.”
“No reason it shouldn’t,” Ky said. She hadn’t really thought of mutiny, just constant complaints and harrassment, but now that Paison said the word, her stomach tightened.
He cocked his head at her. “Do you want me to keep an eye on him for you? I can understand your concern—you and your crew are outnumbered by a large margin—and if it would ease your mind I could keep a weather eye out.”
“Would you?” Ky asked, relieved that he’d suggested it himself. If he knew Captain Kristoffson that well, she hated to ask him to spy on the man.
“Sure. I truly don’t think Jake’s going to do more than whine and moan and demand special treatment—he was livid about those golden-eye raspberries, but I think you did exactly the right thing—still, you don’t need anything else to worry about.”
Paison clearly understood her various dilemmas. She was tempted to ask his advice about some of her other problems, but she knew she should keep a decent separation between herself and her passengers. She only hoped she hadn’t overstepped it already.
“Thanks,” she said. “This is not one of the situations they teach you about in—” She cut that off. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want the passengers to know about her Academy training; she was only sure she didn’t.
Back on the bridge, she found Quincy, who had taken over as third-shift watch officer, hunched over a complicated-looking readout. “How’s the cargo doing?” she asked.
“Fine,” Quincy said. “Just hanging out there the way it should. I still think we should have tethered it, just in case, but as long as nobody turns the drive on we shouldn’t have a problem.”
“Nobody’s going to turn the drive on. Anything else?”
“Engineering’s fine, except for that FTL drive. I’m a little concerned about the fact that we have five senior and three junior engineers aboard—if they wanted to mess us up, they could. I’ve made sure we have someone on watch each shift, looking for intrusions.”
“I think Kristoffson is our one bad apple,” Ky said. Ship sabotage was something else she hadn’t thought of. “And Paison’s going to keep an eye on him.”
“You asked him to?” Quincy raised an eyebrow.
“No, he volunteered. Says he’s known Kristoffson for years, thinks he’s just a blowhard, but he’ll let me know if it gets serious.”
“And you’re sure Paison is trustworthy?” Quincy sounded doubtful.
“I certainly hope so,” Ky said. Her stomach twinged again. If he wasn’t, her record for trusting the untrustworthy would have another notch. “How are you getting along with the new crew? How upset are they about Skeldon?”
“They’re fine, Captain. They’re upset, of course, but he never did really fit in with them … The ship that left them behind had a crew of twelve hundred or some such. None of them had met Skeldon before that shore leave anyway—it was a random drawing, who went when. And the military cleaned up his body and your quarters, so they didn’t have to see—” Quincy’s face tightened and her voice trailed off.
“You did, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Quincy shook her head, looking away. “It wasn’t pretty …”
“No.” Ky had been shown vids of postbattle cleanup at the Academy, and she could imagine the mess. The stains left by the cleaning methods showed how extensive the mess had been. She forced that thought aside. Already Skeldon’s face was blurring in her memory. “Well, I’d better do another interview.”
Captain Lucas, with no Kristoffson to spark his hostility, seemed a pleasant enough officer. Pepper-and-salt hair pulled back into a short thick braid, dark eyes difficult to read. His Insinyon accent had mellowed to a pleasant brogue, and he professed himself satisfied that Vatta Transport was doing the best it could for its passengers.
“Of course that fool of a passenger captain, that Kris—whatever”—Lucas waved his hand—“that sort always think they deserve special treatment. All he does is complain. But I am happy to cooperate. Though forgive me for mentioning it, but you seem rather young for a captain—unless of course you’re a humod variant I’m unfamiliar with …”
That was fishing. Ky smiled at him. “I first went to space as crew at thirteen,” she said. “Age and experience are independent variables.”
He laughed, a quick bark and slow chuckle. “Well said, Captain Vatta. I hope you will be able to keep us informed, as the mercenaries inform you, of the progress of their plans. Despite all else, the sooner I’m back on my own ship, heading out on my own route, the happier I will be.”
“True for all of us, Captain Lucas,” Ky said. “I appreciate your cooperation at this difficult time.”
Captain Opunts of Bradon’s Hope seemed quiet and contained after Paison and Lucas; he had no questions, he said. He made no complaints. No suggestions. Nothing … Ky tried repeatedly to get him to open up, but he deflected all her questions and comments with a perfect shield of calm unconcern. It was like talking to a block of polished stone. He was sure everything would be all right in the end; he said that several times. She watched him head back down the corridor and hoped very much he was right.
Aspergia’s Captain Jemin, by contrast, had a wild bush of bright red hair and conveyed suppressed energy. He was talking fast before he even got to the seat Ky pointed out to him. “This is such an unusual situation—unprecedented in my experience and I daresay in yours. I can hardly wait for the ansibles to get back up so I can check that out. Whatever the mercs said, they must have blown them—who else could? Although, there was that case, was it eight standards ago? The one at Hall’s Landing? Just agricultural chemicals, didn’t they say? And your cargo was something agricultural, wasn’t it?” He had a high, slightly breathy voice and spoke in a rapid monotone that conveyed urgency in every phrase. Bright gray eyes, an almost fixed stare.
“Tractors,” Ky said. She spoke slowly, deliberately, trying to calm the man. “Implements, not chemicals.” Were the man’s pupils a normal size, or was he on something? She didn’t know; she didn’t like having to consider that.
“Well, but we have to do something, don’t we? I mean, we’re all civilians, traders … There’s no reason for them to intern our ships, is there? Can’t you just run us up to jump and get us out of this system, someplace we can file a complaint?”
“The mercenaries have two warships,” Ky said. “This ship has no weapons … trying to outrun them would be a very bad idea.” He didn’t need to know their FTL drive was inoperable.
“Oh. Well, I can see that. Yes. All right, then, I suppose we’re just stuck here for ten days. Of course, I don’t mean to cause you any trouble, Captain Vatta, but really—that Kristoffson person—he’s constantly talking, whining, complaining. It gets on my nerves …”
Jemin was getting on her nerves. “I’m sure it’s a difficult time for all of you—for all of us, actually,” Ky said, striving for an even tone, as if soothing a nervous animal. “Captain Kristoffson is probably concerned about his passengers.”
Jemin laughed harshly. “That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about sleeping on the floor, and having no private room, and how the rest of us are so uncultured … and anyway there’s nothing to do …”
“I’m sorry,” Ky said. “Though there’s always Captain Paison’s calisthenics group.”
“Oh, him,” Jemin said. “He’s so … so hearty. I was just wondering if you had any entertainment cubes … something relaxing, maybe? I have my portable reader, but they rushed us so to leave the ship that I left behind my collection of cubes …”
Jemin needed relaxing, that was obvious, but she didn’t think her collection of technical data cubes relating to this ship and Slotter Key commercial law were what Jemin had in mind.
“Sorry,” Ky said. “I will ask my crew what they have, when we have time.” She pushed back from the table and stood; Jemin clambered up slowly.
“I just wanted to say … this is really very inconvenient,” Jemin said, and then shambled away down the passage.
Ky agreed completely. Inconvenient barely covered it. And now she had Kristoffson, an interview she could predict would be unpleasant.
Sure enough, he came in haughty and annoyed, and left in the same mood. In between, he managed to complain about everything. The food, the water, the limitation of showers, the lack of privacy, the lack of entertainment, the attitudes and behavior of the other passengers, on and on. Ky listened until he ran down.
“It’s a difficult situation for all of us …,” she began.
“You can’t pretend it’s as bad for you,” Kristoffson said. “You at least have your own cabin—I suppose even on this tub the captain has some privacy …” He thumped the table with his fist. “It’s outrageous, that’s what it is. Ten days! What if the mercs just run off and leave us to the untender mercies of the ISC?”
“Why would they do that?” Ky asked.
“Because they don’t want to be held responsible for blowing the ansibles,” Kristoffson said promptly. “Look—if they go—you have to get us out of here—”
“It’s much safer to do as we’re told,” Ky said. “They have weapons; we don’t.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Kristoffson said, throwing up his hands. He stamped back to the passenger hold without saying more, but Ky could almost see the unspoken words hovering over his angry head.