“The guilds know about this, then.”
The man looked at Marce like he was an idiot. “They don’t want to know. A ship goes in the Flow and doesn’t come out and they say, oh, pirates got them before they could report in. Or there was some problem shaping the bubble inside the Flow and they just disappeared in it. There’s always an explanation that doesn’t mean the Flow is the problem. They don’t want to believe it. And if they don’t believe it, then who is going to tell the Interdependency? You? Me? Like they’re fucking going to believe us.”
“They might.”
“Well, you try it and let me know. What I’m going to do is go home. I got kids. I want to see them again.”
There was a thump and the shuttle landed in the Yes, Sir’s bay.
“You’re not worried that something might happen to this ship on the way out,” Marce said, while they waited for the air to be pumped back into the bay.
“I figure this ship is safe. I didn’t want to hang around after that.”
“Why not?”
“My friend on the Tell Me’s heard that this stream—the one out of End—is getting shaky.”
“How so?”
“How do I know? It’s a rumor, man. They don’t come up with a science report. But my friend is anxious about it. He even considered jumping ship and coming with us. But the Tell Me’s whole crew is grounded for legal depositions and he didn’t know where to get reliable forged IDs. It’s hard to fool the biometrics.”
“I’ve heard.”
The man nodded. “So he’s stuck. And he’s worried he’s going to be stuck here forever.”
“There are worse places to be stuck than End,” Marce said.
The man snorted at this. “An open planet is no place for humans. Give me a decent ring habitat any day.”
“Earth was an open planet.”
“And we left it.” The door to the shuttle opened and the new crew began to file out.
“What’s your friend’s name?” Marce asked the man. “The one on the Tell Me.”
“Why? You going to send him a condolence note?”
“I might.”
The man shrugged. “Sjo Tinnuin. And I’m Yared Brenn, in case you’re at all curious.”
“Kristian.”
“No, I’m with the Interdependent Church. Mostly.” Brenn shuffled off before Marce could correct the confusion.
An hour later Marce had what passed for an orientation and was assigned his quarters, a tiny, sealable bunk in a room with fifteen other crew members. Each crew member had their own bunk and locker, with a common lavatory and living space, the latter of which couldn’t possibly fit all sixteen of them at the same time. As the newest crew member, he got the worst bunk, the highest of four nearest the lavatory, at the same altitude where the lavatory fumes gathered.
Marce slipped into his bunk area, which had barely enough room to sit up, and connected his tablet to the ship’s system. There was already a message waiting for him, informing him where to report to his new superior, and when, the latter being a half hour from then.
Marce opened up an app that would allow him to text anonymously and securely and pinged Vrenna. This is your friend Kristian, he texted.
I already said good-bye to you. Now you’re ruining the moment, Vrenna responded.
Marce smiled at that. I need you to look up someone. A man named Sjo Tinnuin. He crews on the Tell Me Another One. I need you to do it before the Yes, Sir hits the Flow shoal.
All right. Why?
Because he’s heard a rumor about that thing that I’m interested in.
I love it when you’re vague.
Particularly the thing I’m about to deal with. Vague enough?
Perfectly.
Good. It would be helpful to know where he heard the rumor. It’s a very weirdly specific thing to have a rumor about.
I’m on it. How is the ship?
I’m in a bunk the size of a dresser drawer.
Jealous. All I have is my massive bed back at the palace, in a room the size of a small village.
I hate you.
Hate you too, Kristian. Be safe. I’ll ping the ship with a message when I get news.
Thanks— and here Marce almost typed “sis” but stopped and just added a period instead. Then he turned off his tablet, sealed up his bunk, and spent a few minutes in the uncomfortably close dark, having the first twinges of homesickness.
Chapter
11
“You said you wanted to be informed if something unusual happened on our way out from End,” Captain Tomi Blinnikka said, to Kiva. They were two days out from End, and another day out from the Flow shoal that would have them heading toward Hub. Kiva and Blinnikka were in the captain’s private room, off the bridge of the Yes, Sir, along with Chief of Security Nubt Pinton. The room could comfortably fit two people tops, and Pinton was exceedingly large. Kiva felt like she could actually taste his sweat particles.
“What is it?” she asked.
Blinnikka activated a tablet and showed it to Kiva. It featured a live feed of the Yes, Sir’s position in space, along with the logarithmically mapped position of other objects and ships within a light-minute of distance. “We’ve got a ship coming toward us.”
“Toward us? Or toward the shoal?”
“Us. We plotted its course and it’s going to intercept us in about fourteen hours. When we first saw it and saw its course, I made the assumption it was also running to the shoal and just wasn’t paying attention to our position. I boosted our velocity by half a percent, to get us clear of each other. They didn’t respond immediately, but over the last couple of hours they’ve boosted their own velocity to match ours. We’re definitely the targets.”
“So, pirates.”
“Yes.”
“Stupid pirates.” The best time to nab a ship was when it was exiting the Flow, not trying to get to it; inertia would send a target ship into the Flow shoal regardless. Pirate ships were usually relatively small, relatively fast, and almost always local—which is to say, with no equipment to shape a time-space bubble around their ships. If they entered the Flow, they’d die. A pirate attacking an outgoing ship would likely have only a very small window of time to attack successfully, board, unload cargo, and disengage.
“Stupid or they have a plan we don’t understand.”
“We can handle them, right?” The Yes, Sir came with a full complement of defensive weapons, and a small contingent of offensive weapons as well. The offensive weapons were technically illegal for a trade ship to have, but fuck that, when you’re in space, sometimes you have to shoot first and lie about it to a guild inquiry later.
“The ship is too far away to get a good look at its true capabilities, but if the thrust signature is correct, it’s a Winston-class freighter. It’s probably modified all to hell but no matter what they’re still small, which limits their offensive capabilities. We can probably handle them. If their intention is to pirate the ship.”
“What other intention would they have? They want to invite us to tea?”
“We don’t know. Right now our posture is to watch and monitor.”
“You can outrun them to the shoal. Power up now.”
Blinnikka shook his head. “The second we boost velocity more than trivially we give away that we know we’re being tracked. They’ll boost as well, probably to intercept earlier. If we plan to outrun them, we do it as late as possible, and when they’re close enough for us to target with those missiles we’re not supposed to have. But again, that’s if they are attempting the usual piracy.”
Kiva found herself getting irritated. “What the fuck would unusual piracy be in this case?”