Captain Uisine said, in reply, “I can only apologize to the ambassador for whatever misunderstanding has brought her here. I am of course pleased to be of service to the Geck ambassador to the Presger, insofar as I am able. But I am a citizen of Tyr, and the most excellent ambassador does not have the right to interfere in my affairs. I have no doubt that if she examines the treaty, she will discover this is true.”
“Impudent child,” whispered the spider mech. “I know the terms of the treaty better than you know yourself. You are no citizen of Tyr. And that ship, you stole. Where are the others?”
“I am a citizen of Tyr,” repeated Captain Uisine. “And my title to my ship is clear.”
The spider mech turned, laboriously, one leg at a time, as though it was thinking carefully about where to put each claw, and then stepped away, toward the hallway beyond the bay entrance. “Ambassador!” cried the Enforcement official, and followed.
The Chief Executive said to Captain Uisine, “A moment’s trouble, as you say, excellency, prevents a month of tears. It’s a very good thing you have been so conscientious about your document registration, or you might have had quite a lot of difficulty today.”
“As you say, Executive,” replied Captain Uisine.
“Although I rarely deal with such matters directly,” the Chief Executive continued, “it is one of the duties of my office to guard the legal and contracted rights of our citizens. Conscientiousness like yours makes my job easier, so I thank you for it. But I strongly advise you not to come to my attention again anytime soon.”
“I won’t if I can help it, Executive,” replied Captain Uisine.
“Good,” said the Chief Executive, and turned and left the bay, the two patrollers turning to follow her. A quiet whisper in Ingray’s ear told her that the noodle shop she liked was open. Her access to the station’s information feeds had been restored.
Captain Uisine turned around. “What are you two staring at?” he asked.
“You said we could come see,” said Garal.
“I did, didn’t I.” Silence. And then, “I’ve got a bottle of very good arrack on board, and I intend to open it tonight. Feel like a drink? Because I definitely do.” And without waiting for an answer, he walked around them and into the airlock.
In the tiny galley, Captain Uisine set out three large, white, handled serbat cups and poured a slosh of arrack into each. Drank his own at a single gulp and poured himself another.
“So,” said Garal, not touching eir cup or even looking at it, “you did steal the ship. You stole it and used it to flee the Geck home system, apparently.”
“I suppose there’s no point denying it now, considering,” said Captain Uisine. “I stole three ships. Once I sold the other two I had enough for citizenship here and a very good set of documents legitimizing my ownership of this one.” He drank off his second cup of arrack. “And a refit.”
Ingray sipped her own. It was very strong and, as the captain had promised, very good, sweet and stinging. “How do you steal three ships?”
A spider mech scuttled into the galley doorway from the corridor. As Ingray leaned aside, suppressing a startled cry, it grabbed the edge of the table, levered itself up with two of its legs, and waved another one. Then it picked up the bottle and poured a fresh slug of arrack into Captain Uisine’s cup, set the bottle down, and scurried away again.
“You’re Geck,” guessed Ingray, willing her heart to settle, just managing not to stand and brush herself off. “I mean, you’re one of the humans who live with the Geck. So how can you be a citizen of Tyr?”
“I’m not Geck,” said Captain Uisine. “The Geck were accepted into the existing treaty largely because of their close association with humans.” He gave a small breathy laugh. “But that presents a problem. Do those closely associated humans count as humans or as Geck, under the treaty? And the Geck aren’t the only ones to have that problem. The way the treaty deals with it is incredibly weird and complicated—it was drafted by the Presger translators, after all—but in my particular case the upshot is, if I voluntarily take citizenship with a human polity, then I am human for the purposes of the treaty.”
“Which means the Geck have no right to interfere with you at all, unless it somehow touches on the treaty,” Garal said. Captain Uisine made a small, still-seated bow in eir direction.
“Wait.” Ingray was more bewildered by the answer, not less. “So anyone can just declare that they’re human or Geck or Rrrrrr or whatever?”
“Not just anyone,” said Captain Uisine. “I told you it was complicated.” He turned to Garal. “You should let me cut your hair. It looks like you hacked it off yourself with a dull knife.”
“I thought even the humans who lived with the Geck didn’t like leaving their homeworld,” observed Garal, as though the captain had said nothing at all about eir hair.
“They don’t,” agreed Captain Uisine. “It’s very stressful for them.”
“That was a mech, right?” asked Ingray. “Not the ambassador herself?”
“That was a mech,” Captain Uisine agreed. “The ambassador herself is … very different.”
“So what happened?” asked Ingray, after a short silence and another sip of her arrack.
The captain picked up his cup. Took only a sip this time, and set it back down. “My gills never developed. Don’t look at me like that, it’s a very big deal there. Without gills you can’t swim down. And if you can’t swim down by a certain age, you can’t stay on the planet.” Ingray considered asking what he meant by swim down but decided any answer would probably just puzzle her more.
“You could walk into a mod shop and lay down your money today and walk out with perfectly good gills,” Garal said.
“Too right,” Captain Uisine agreed. “Although it’s not actually as simple as buying gills. You’d need a few other changes to accommodate them. Still, you’re right, I could do that. But where I come from, if they don’t come in on their own, that’s a sign you never belonged in the first place, so there’s no point. Or so we’re always told. Once I got to orbit I learned that actually, there’s some room to maneuver. Some people who need a little helping along will get it. Not me, though.”
“Why not?” asked Ingray, and then remembered the ambassador’s whispered You did not understand why. You asked and asked.
“It was suggested to me in orbit that I was too good a mech-pilot to keep onworld. Pretty much every intrasystem ship there is remotely piloted, and while they do like to have access to trade and to system resources, even looking through a bio mech is upsetting, when it’s offworld. They’ll do it if they have to, but otherwise they leave it to the exiles in orbit.”
“So why steal a ship?” asked Ingray. “You could have just left. A good mech-pilot can always get a job.”