Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  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?”

  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 fa
ce 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.”

  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.

  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.

  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 its 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 wavin
g, the sign for them to make the last lines fast and return to the sail locker.

  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.