Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  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.

  “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 …”

  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 ne
ws 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.”

  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. Wyne 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.

  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.

  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.