“We don’t know, and that’s the point. They’re coming at us from the wrong direction and they wouldn’t have enough time to fully unload even if they didn’t have to burn time fighting us. But they should also know that we don’t have anything worth stealing right now. Pirates have spies at stations, who give them information about ships and their cargo manifests. It’s how they decide who to target. But they wouldn’t even have to be crafty to know that the only cargo we took on at End was people, since we didn’t make a secret of that. And unless they really want haverfruit concentrate, we have nothing of value.”
“They know we have nothing they want or can use and they’re coming at us anyway.”
“Yes. This is what worries me.”
Kiva nodded. “Fine. What’s the second thing?”
“One of our passengers is acting strangely,” Nubt Pinton said.
“All our passengers are rich assholes,” Kiva said. “Acting strangely is part of their so-called charm.”
Pinton smiled slightly at that. “I will take the lady’s word for that,” he said. “However, in this case, the problem is not the passenger being eccentric, but the passenger methodically casing the ship.” Pinton picked up his own tablet and sent video to the one Kiva was holding. In the video, a man was walking through the ship corridors, looking around.
“Oh my God, this man is walking, let’s kill him,” Kiva said.
“It’s not that he’s walking, it’s where he’s walking. He’s not wandering the ship randomly or generally. He’s going into areas relating to engineering, propulsion, and life support management.”
“So, only to those places?”
“No,” Pinton said. “He goes other places as well. But these are the places he’s come back to. He doesn’t come in far and he never stays long. But he comes back.”
“Why don’t you have the passengers on a fucking lockdown?” Kiva asked, setting down the tablet. “We don’t need these assholes wandering the ship anyway.”
“That was our original plan, and in fact our passengers have already been given a list of areas they are absolutely not allowed to go into.”
“Which this guy ignores.”
“No, but he’s come close. But he’s not focused, say, on Engineering directly. He’s focused on places on the ship where it might be easy to disrupt engineering systems.”
“Which brings me back to my first fucking question, Pinton.”
Pinton waggled the tablet he held in his hand. “We didn’t lock them down entirely because one of our crew recognizes this man, and we wanted to see what he might be up to.”
“Which rich asshole is he?”
“That’s just it. The crew person says he’s not a rich asshole. He’s someone who works for a rich asshole.”
“Which crew member said this?”
“A new purser named Kristian Jensen. I understand you know him.”
“And who does he say this dude worked for?”
“Ghreni Nohamapetan.”
“Get him in here now,” Kiva said.
*
“So, I used to work for the family of the Count of Claremont,” Jensen began.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kiva said, exasperatedly. “Lord Marce, everyone in this room knows you’re you.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Marce said.
“Well, now you are, so get on with it.”
Marce nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of contact with Lord Ghreni, but I’d see him sometimes at court functions at the duke’s, and other events and parties where the presence of a noble was considered a plus. Ghreni was one of those nobles who would travel with an entourage of friends and employees.” He pointed at Pinton’s tablet. “This was one of the employees. Former military, working for Ghreni as a bodyguard.”
“You’re sure about that,” Blinnikka asked Marce.
“I’m sure,” Marce said. “Vrenna pointed him out to me once. He and she were in the same unit for a while. Said he was a competent solider but a shit human being and that at one point she nearly fed him his testicles because he kept propositioning her in the barracks. Every time I saw him since I imagined his own balls in his mouth.”
“That’s a lovely image,” Kiva said.
“When I saw him in the passenger ring section, I checked in with security.” Marce nodded to Pinton.
“I assume this asshole is traveling on fake documents,” Kiva said, to Pinton.
“Yes,” Pinton confirmed. “For our records he’s Tysu Gouko. Bear in mind we gave him that particular fake identity, so we can’t really hold it against him. But he presented himself as a franchisee of the House of Sykes, when he came to us. Name of Frinn Klimta.”
“Is there a real Frinn Klimta?”
“Maybe? We didn’t check. We didn’t believe you cared, ma’am, as long as their money was real, and it was.”
Kiva turned to Marce. “What’s this asshole’s real name?”
“His personal name is Chat. His family name I think is Ubdal. Or Uttal. One of the two.”
“Any idea why he’s here?”
“I have no idea,” Marce said. “But if he came to you with an already fake identity, I think that’s enough for you to be suspicious.”
“When did he book passage?” Kiva asked Pinton.
“Just before we left. He was one of the last people we booked. Magnut charged him a late fee of a quarter million marks.”
Kiva pointed at Marce. “So that would have been after you were kidnapped.”
Marce nodded. “Yes.”
“He one of the guys who grabbed you?”
“No. I definitely would have remembered that.”
“So he doesn’t know who you are right now.”
“I don’t know. Probably not. He hasn’t responded to me yet.”
“But he would recognize you out of this disguise.”
“Yes.”
Kiva reached over to Marce, grabbed his hair, and tugged. Marce yelped in pain and surprise. “Stop it! It doesn’t just come off. You have to dissolve the glue.”
“Where is this asshole now?” Kiva asked Pinton.
“He’s in the passenger ring section,” Pinton replied. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to find out what he’s up to.”
“The Yes, Sir is underway,” Blinnikka reminded Kiva. “Whatever you plan to do, I have to approve. I don’t want this asshole damaging the ship.”
“It’ll be fine,” Kiva promised. She turned back to Marce. “So this asshole is a marine.”
“Was a marine, yes. Is now a bodyguard.”
“You think you could take him?”
“What? No.”
“Does this asshole know that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, good.”
*
They waited until Chat went on a walk and then positioned a couple of security crew at the end of a corridor they knew he was casing, giving every appearance of just having a conversation with each other. Chat saw them, decided to consult his tablet about something, and then headed back in the direction which he had come from, to find two other security crew there. He stopped and appeared to be calculating his odds when Marce stepped into the corridor, his Kristian Jansen disguise removed, and walked toward him.
“Hello, Chat,” Marce said, and that was as far as he got before Chat materialized a blade out of fucking nowhere and rushed directly for him.
And then was on the floor half a second later, twitching, three stun bolts in him.
“Did you pee yourself?” Kiva asked Marce ten seconds later, when the all clear had been given. She and Pinton had been waiting a bit down the corridor and had been watching through the corridor camera, feed piped into a tablet.
“Maybe a little,” Marce admitted, looking at the downed Chat, who was now being bundled up by security.
“There’s no shame in pissing yourself like a goddamned fire hydrant when a trained killer is about to knife you in the throat.”
“Can we change the subject?” Marce asked, plaintively.
“Why don’t you take the rest of your shift off and shiver in your bunk,” Kiva suggested. “In your shoes that’s what I’d do.”
Marce motioned toward Chat. “What are you going to do with him?”
“I’m going to encourage him to talk.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“You know nothing of my methods.”
“He’s trained not to talk.”
“He was also trained to kill, and look how he fucked that up.”
“I want to be there when you question him.”
“No you don’t.”
“I really do.”
“Let me put it another way, Lord Marce. Fuck you, go away.”
“He almost killed me. I think I deserve to know why.”
“And maybe I’ll tell you, later. But for now, if you don’t fuck off, right this second, I’m going to stab you myself. And none of these security guys are going to put a bolt into me, I guarantee you that.”
Marce looked like he was going to say something else, then shook his head and walked off.
“Your people skills are admirable,” Pinton said to Kiva.