“How long must we consider for?” Quill asked. “How long do we even have to consider?”
“We’re in good standing,” the captain said. “Sands knows us and she’s a woman who prefers what she knows.”
“Only because that last run turned up,” Nel said. “The other crews won’t have missed that, knowing the reason or not. Sands said as much, already got other people queuing up for this job if we don’t want it. Name is what we got going, because Sands heard we made port. But she won’t wait forever.”
“She must have other jobs,” Hounds said. “Reputation is coin, we just want a different direction.”
“There is more to life than earning coin, Miss Hounds,” the captain told her.
“Maybe so,” Hounds said. “But for me that’s where it is. I’m the new hand here, I don’t forget that, but you all know where my thoughts are at so there’s no point saying no more. I’m for town. If there’s other jobs to be had then great, but if not . . .”
“We’ll talk it some more,” Nel said. “Let you know.”
“Just don’t talk for too long, Skipper. Shifting tides and all that,” Hounds said on her way out. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground while I’m out, but this run . . . don’t care for the hooks on it.”
There was a knocking on the door, followed by the door being opened and Violet rushing through it with little more than a breath between all. The girl pulled up to an abrupt stop, narrowly avoiding running into Hounds.
“Oh, Miss Hounds, was looking for the captain,” Violet’s voice came as she twisted trying to see around Hounds, who made no particular effort to get out of the way. “Captain . . . hi Skipper . . . oh, everyone’s here, you’re all here.”
“Now’s not so good, lass,” Nel told her, pulling a series of maps out and placing them on the table. “Is it urgent? Can it wait?”
“Urgent . . . uh, well, no, that is. Didn’t think you’d all . . .” The girl trailed off.
“Tell me all about it, little one.” Hounds turned Violet around and steered her towards the exit. “These folk have talk to make and that don’t include us. Come on, now.”
Hounds shut the door behind her, leaving the three of them alone. No one spoke for a while.
“I vote we do not take the job,” Quill broke the silence.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that, Loveland?” Nel said.
Quill just snorted in response.
“What other options do we have?” The captain reached down to the chart table, unrolling one of the maps Nel had placed there. It showed a sparsely detailed view of the Free Lanes, at least those within a month’s sail. Significant though were the trade routes marked on it, two dozen names and contacts, some crossed out or covered in wine and ink stains. A collection of barely legible scrawled notes and incomprehensible pictograms. Even to those who could decipher the clues it did not make for easy reading.
“From Vice we don’t have many options,” Nel said, tracing a ring around the planet. “Vice imports. Everything here is for sale.”
“There’s always something.” Horatio leaned over the map. “Always. We brought ice into port, that wasn’t such a bad job.”
“Because ice is in demand here. There’s almost nowhere on this floating mountain it will form naturally. It’s not a two-way route, Captain.”
“I understand that, Nel,” the captain waved her off. “If not ice then silk. Incense. Salt and pork rinds for goodness’ sake.”
“None of which Vice exports,” Quill growled. “This is a waste of time.”
Horatio sat down in his chair, spreading his hands over the map. He looked as though he might sulk.
“Vice is a staging point, if anything,” Nel reminded them both. “A place to transfer where people don’t ask too many questions but won’t stick a knife in your back. We should be looking to pick up a second stage run here, take it on to wherever some other ship isn’t headed.”
“Such as a shipment of Draugr headed for the High Lanes,” Quill muttered. “Or has this hive suddenly become the home and birthplace of those wretched things?”
“No,” Nel said, frowning. “No, it hasn’t.” Quill makes a good point. Where the hells did all the damned Draugr come from? If they were all being shipped into the High Lanes . . .
“What is in that?” Quill stabbed at the Guild letter with one clawed finger. Horatio still hadn’t opened it; the seal unbroken.
“That is the mystery of how our cargo made it to Vice all by its lonesome self,” Nel said.
“If it is more Guild business, we should burn it and forget we ever saw it,” Quill declared.
“I agree, for once,” Nel said. “Are you going to open it, Captain?”
For a moment it looked as though he would, the captain tracing the intricate seal with his thumb.
“No,” Horatio said firmly. “I am not.”
Nel and Quill exchanged a look.
“Do either of you have something to say?”
They shook their heads.
“Excellent, then we are all agreed then. Perhaps a round of drinks to celebrate? No, perhaps not.” Horatio took one last look at the sealed letter, placing it between the pages of his journal. He shut the heavy book and pushed it aside.
“We still have the issue of whether or not to take the job,” Quill broke the silence.
“Port Border was bad, Captain,” Nel found herself saying. “Battered ship, fragile crew. If there’d been work to run to I think most of them might have jumped then. If we hadn’t been seeing old hands sleeping rough in the streets they might have anyway. As it was,” she shrugged, “we ended up being the ones people ran to. We need to keep working. Crew’s only as good as the next run.”
“You have a suggestion then?” Horatio asked.
“Need a few days in port anyway, Captain. Restock, take the black chill out of the timbers. Fix the damned hull again.”
“Was not the last repair guaranteed?” Quill mentioned.
“It was, except that breach didn’t come from no fault in the repairs. Came from someone taking an axe and a really big rock to her. A fine point but one I’d expect Troshka to argue.”
“Perhaps worth a try,” Horatio said.
“Perhaps,” Nel said. “If we’re careful about how we explain it.”
“I would inspect this potential cargo,” Quill said, to Nel’s surprise.
“You? You would? As in yourself?”
“Yes.”
“By cargo you’re meaning Draugr. Shifting ballast of the kind we’ve had a world of pain on account of.”
Quill shrugged.
“Fine, but not alone,” Nel said.
“You do not trust me?”
“Hells, Quill, you really have to keep asking?”
Another shrug. “Then let us stop wasting words and be about it.”
“YOU ARE AWARE of what the crew says about you?”
The thing about you, Quill, can’t tell if you’re making a point or asking a question. Is that a thaumatic thing? Folk can’t tell which way the wind is blowing because you’re the one making it blow?
“So long as the crew do what I say I don’t much care what they have to say about my saying it.”
“You obfuscate when you are unwilling to address a subject,” Quill said.
“And you use big words to try and look smarter,” Nel shot back. “You might have more luck with a hat. Make you look better too.”
“Perhaps.” He didn’t seem offended. “But what the crew says, what they have always said, is that you are a hard woman. I have never believed this. I find it more implausible the longer I know you.”
“Still got a hard boot, Kelpie. Heel and toe.”
“And if your temperament were as hard as your footwear I would not be seeing this.”
“And what are you seeing?”
“A heart. Breaking.”
“I will maroon you here, Quill, black take us both, if you continue to test me.”
Quill shrugged. Inscrutable. It was s
omething Nel believed he worked at for times like this.
Breaking. Is he right?
The two of them stood on a raised walkway overlooking the pens. Nobody had outright called them pens but it was what Nel likened them to. Corrals made of timber and iron separated the standing merchandise into files, neatly lined up like toy soldiers. The corrals led back to wooden buildings that resembled dormitories, expansive enough to hold several thousand billets.
More, maybe. We packed them in like silver spoons to get them off of Thatch. They could be doing the same here.
Only these Draugr weren’t like the ones they’d shipped with. There was no awareness in the glassy eyes, no spark of intelligence or life. Barely so much as a reaction as they stood rigid as soldiers on parade. Potential buyers walked up and down the fence. Every now and then a gate would be opened, a dozen or so Draugr would be led away. Their fellows never reacted.
“This isn’t right,” Nel heard herself say.
“How is it not right?”
“These aren’t like the ones . . . the ones . . .” She found she couldn’t finish.
“No, they are not.”
“But remember those from the Glassy Run? All torn up and frostbit? I wouldn’t treat a dog that way, and never something that looked and moved like a person.”
“But are they?” Quill asked her intently. “Are those down there people? Would you point to anyone of them and say that one is a person, like yourself?”
“No. But that don’t make this right.”
“The one named Stoker did not believe it was such a travesty as you make out.”
“Then maybe he’s wrong.”
“Most would argue he would know better than either of us.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time that most were wrong, Quill.”
“Do you know what I think of most people?”
“Very little,” Nel said. She watched as some silk and perfumed fop led away a half dozen Draugr. It was the smallest sale she’d seen so far; a minimum number was required. This buyer kept his distance, directing others to manage the goods. She could only imagine what distasteful services they’d soon be performing. Something beneath their new owner, no doubt. Silent, uncomplaining labour. The new symbol of wealth and prestige.
“That most people prefer not to think. Few have given much thought to Draugr since they have become known. Certainly none have bothered to think of their well-being or mind their distress. They perform the duties most consider beneath them and those they would rather not consider.”
The fop’s silks were getting dusty, much to his own dismay. The cloud was kicked up by the Draugr’s marching.
Saw a world that drowned in dust. Can’t stand it since. Guess us two have that in common. Now there’s an unwelcome thought.
“If I knew where they come from I’d be more inclined towards them,” Nel said. “Not knowing doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Did you ever wonder that before?”
“No.”
“And now that you see them as potentially people, as individual persons even, you wonder. You care.”
Nel glared at him.
“Curious. How an experience can make you question how you view others. Would you be happier knowing that Stoker was right? That all Draugr across the lanes are unthinking, unfeeling automatons, no different from a steam powered construct other than form and function? Would that make you feel less guilty?”
“You think I feel guilty?” Nel growled.
“I think you feel many things. But yes, guilty is one of them.”
“Then keep the rest of those thoughts to yourself.”
“Where do Kitsune come from?”
“What? The hells does that have to do with this?”
“You wonder where Draugr come from. You wonder because suddenly it is relevant and important to you. Where do Kitsune come from?”
“How is that . . . ” Nel sighed but gave it up as lost before she even began. “From their homeworld, I guess.”
“Which is where?” Quill pressed.
Nel frowned.
“We have travelled far, you and I. Together and alone. And yet between us neither of us can say where the girl is from.”
“What does Violet have to do with anything?” Nel was starting to get angry. Starting, hells, she was ready to throw down.
“Name anyone else on the ship and I could name the world they call home. Point out to me anyone between here and the ship and I could plot us a course to theirs. Yet for the Kitsune . . . I could not even give you a direction.”
“So?”
“This bothers me.”
“Why?”
“At first, because when she first came aboard it seemed to me the simplest way to rid myself of the girl. In a way that would be acceptable to both you and the captain. If not sooner then later we would find ourselves near her world, a slight detour and we would be rid of her. Home to whatever kindred might favour her. Imagine my consternation when I could not discover such a fact.”
Clever, Quill, might even have worked. Must rub you raw.
“And in the time since I have yet to uncover an answer.”
“Kitsune might be a touch recluse, Quill, but they’re not lost or mythical. Seen whole towns of them, enclaves in cities. Even a ship or two.”
“But no world. The ships, these do not surprise me. If one wishes to keep a world secret then one must jealously guard the means of travelling to that world.”
“Fine, so the Kitsune world is a precious family secret. And?”
Quill gestured to the pens. “You wonder where Draugr come from. I wonder such about the Kitsune. Perhaps the two are linked. Perhaps they are not. But they are of a kind.”
Nel snorted her derision at the idea. “Quill, you took the longest route to the most ridiculously tenuous answer. If anything, the Kitsune world is probably remote, maybe in the Far Lanes. Maybe they keep it secret, maybe you just haven’t found anyone who knows. And Draugr must come from some alchemical factory somewhere. Some old timer whose eyes have gone white from quicksilver fumes. As close as anyone will ever get to the transmutation of lead. If they’re lucky they’re not too senile to enjoy what it brought them.”
“And we will be partaking in this transmutation of that which is base into that which is gold?” Quill asked pointedly. “By accepting this run?”
“The hells we will, Quill,” Nel shook her head.
“As I said before,” Quill said. “You are not nearly so unfeeling nor as unflinching as you would have the crew believe.”
“Keep that one to yourself.”
“As you wish.”
“And buy me a drink before we head back.”
“No.”
“Why the hells not?”
“Because you have just turned down a significant amount of coin. We cannot afford your indulgences.”
“Rather be indulgent than a teetotaller like you, Quill.”
“If not for the fact that you perform your duties better when under stress I would indeed recommend you partake in such a lifestyle. It has that happy middle ground you seem unable to balance, forever climbing the mountain and falling down the other side.”
“No wonder your own people hate you.”
“They do not hate me. They disagree with me.”
“The difference being?”
“Hate does not require reason. A difference of opinion requires some appreciable thought into one’s motivations.”
“You sound like Piper.”
Quill glared at her.
“Still can’t go home, can you, Quill?” Nel reminded him.
“And who amongst us can?”
Damned Kelpie.
“Ah, and speaking of those who are far from home,” the disagreeable Kelpie said. “I saw more of your former brethren in their pretty uniforms.”
“There’s plenty of Kelpies in the Allied Worlds too, Quill,” Nel told him stiffly.
“Yet they are no kin of mine. How many of your famil
y still make their way wearing such gaudy apparel?”
“Most of them,” Nel conceded. “None who’d be pleased to see me.”
“I would say the same of those down there. Tell me, do they appear . . .”
“What?” Nel asked.
“They appear to be looking for someone.”
Quill was right. There was a handful of Alliance sailors down in the Draugr pens. Except they weren’t merely sailors. From the way they moved and the weapons they carried, they were marines. And they were assuredly looking for someone.
“Us, maybe?” Nel muttered.
“Should we be concerned?” Quill didn’t sound concerned. Somewhere between annoyed and irritated. “Who would think to look for us? Who would think to look here?”
Nel squinted at one of the marines below. They were definitely on a mission to find someone, or something. It was a blessing that few people ever chose to raise their eyes and look above themselves. A strange truth but a truth nonetheless. She’d seen something on one of the marines—a bared arm, and a familiar tattoo.
Something that nagged at her.
“Let’s go,” she said. “No sense in us tarrying here.”
And she wanted a word with someone back at the Tantamount.
“DO YOU TRUST me?”
It had seemed an odd question to Violet. Did she trust Hounds? She liked the woman, she knew that much. She hadn’t expected to forge much of a connection with any of the new crew, so she was surprised at herself. Hounds’ team, for the most part, had embraced life aboard the Tantamount, never shy to join in or include the other sailors. Hounds herself reminded Violet greatly of the skipper, from the time before their run out of Cauldron. More fun, less sombre.
She liked Hounds. Did she trust her advice when it came to a new tattoo? That was a different question entirely.
Her face must have said all this.
“A fox?” she repeated, trying not to sound insulted.
“Why not a fox?” Hounds asked. Her face was straight set but the light dancing out of her eyes suggested hijinks.
“Be like you getting one of your lot tattooed on yourself,” Violet pointed out, something that seemed blindingly obvious. Hounds apparently didn’t see it the same.
“Happens all the time,” she shrugged. “Denzel, show her the dancing lady.”
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