Captain Uisine continued. “If you lose your job, can’t you just go to the public registry in Hwae System and put your name in for employment? How bad could that be? You
probably had an excellent education, you’ll have met people. You probably have the sort of skills that get someone a nice office job, at the very least. I bet if you sent a few messages, you’d have something lined up pretty quickly.”
“Maybe.” Without a family to help her, without contacts to speak up for her, her prospects would be limited. And it was entirely possible that if Ingray disappointed Netano sufficiently and was sent away, any office might refuse to hire her just to avoid offending Netano Aughskold.
Captain Uisine continued. “And, excellency, I know this is a delicate subject for quite a lot of people, but it seems to me that if your mother is going to turn you out of the house for not impressing her sufficiently, well, maybe you’re better off on your own.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ingray.
“Doubtless I don’t,” replied Captain Uisine, evenly. “In the meantime, I’ll send out for some supper. My treat this once, you’ve had a difficult day. You can sleep aboard if you like. Why don’t you stow your things, and I’ll send the crate to the cargo entrance.”
“I don’t care about the crate,” said Ingray, leaning over to pick up her sandals and her bag, and the errant hairpin. Another one dropped to the floor beside her foot.
“It’s a perfectly good crate,” said Captain Uisine. “And the suspension pod looks new. You can sell them when you get home. Every little bit helps.”
Ingray straightened, and hurried into the airlock without answering, hoping he wouldn’t see her fresh spate of tears.
There were two passenger cabins, each with two shelflike bunks, one on top of the other. And actually “cabin” was being generous—they were little more than niches in the wall of the ship’s narrow main corridor. Dismayingly cramped, and the single narrow corridor was a scuffed and dingy gray. On the other hand, the air didn’t seem to have that half-stale, recycled smell that sometimes even the big passenger liners could have. Captain Uisine must have invested in a very good air recirculation system, and not cared much about the way the ship looked inside. And at least the bunk seemed clean and comfortable, and the one above was high enough that she could sit up straight. She stowed her bag under a lower bunk, ungirded her skirts, and sat down. Considered putting her sandals on, but found she didn’t want to. She stowed her sandals and began to pull the remaining pins from her hair.
She’d done her best. It wasn’t her fault—or, apparently, anyone else’s—that she’d failed. And maybe Captain Uisine was right, and she’d be better off without Netano, without any of the Aughskolds. Netano had always been outwardly kind and generous to all her children—all of them adopted. But Ingray had known from the day she’d joined the household that her future well-being depended on not disappointing her foster-mother. All of them, including Danach, who everyone knew was Netano’s favorite, were there to support Netano’s political ambitions. At the very least, to be a happy, well-behaved, and well-dressed family for the news services, and ultimately for the voters. But that was the very least. Netano wanted all of her children to be extraordinary. They had, after all, been specially chosen to join her family. Fail Netano’s expectations, and you were out. It had never been said aloud, not by Netano, not by anyone in the household, but even Danach knew it, and maybe that was part of why Danach was Danach.
Ingray had always felt like she didn’t belong, as though at any moment her foster-mother would discover this fact, that Ingray never would have the kind of daring brilliance Netano Aughskold prized. Oh, sure, she was competent. She could remember who was who in the districts of the Third Assembly, who held what influence, who was likely to donate to a reelection fund and why, knew the pet concerns of various influential supporters, knew what to say and what not to say depending on who was listening. Ingray was one of several people in Netano’s Arsamol District office who spoke directly to district residents who had complaints or concerns or requests, and these days Nuncle Lak, Netano’s chief of staff, trusted her to help organize events and meetings with district residents, and she hadn’t made any disastrous mistakes, not even during her first terrifying inexperienced year at the job. But competent was not brilliant. Brilliant was taking all that knowledge and those contacts and finding a way to use it to advantage. To come up with a plan, a scheme, to bring Netano more influence, more support, or really any sort of political advantage. Ingray would never be able to do that, no matter how hard she tried.
Danach certainly hadn’t been deceived. He’d known from the time they were both children, and never tired of telling her that. It was a wonder Netano hadn’t discovered Ingray’s fraud yet.
She laid her handful of green-tipped pins on the bunk beside her, and counted them. One missing, probably fallen out on the trip from Gold Orchid to the docks.
If only. If only she really was what she had been trying so hard to be all this time. If only it hadn’t been so disastrously expensive to bring Pahlad Budrakim out of Compassionate Removal. She was increasingly convinced that it wasn’t Pahlad who’d walked out of the bay. Increasingly convinced by eir bitterness, and that steady conviction as e’d said that e didn’t even know who Pahlad was.
Well. There was nothing she could do about that now. Best consider the future. She did have skills, and connections. She could support herself, she could pay her debt off, even if it took decades. She just had to get through the next few weeks—to face admitting her failure to Netano, and face Danach’s contempt. If only there was some way to avoid that. Or better yet, to strike preemptively at Danach, to humiliate him the way he constantly tried, time and again, to humiliate her.
But wait. What if she could do exactly that?
She gathered her hair and shoved a few pins in to hold it. Got out of the bunk and went down the corridor to the ship’s tiny galley. The table was folded out from the wall, and Captain Uisine sat watching the doorway, as though he had been waiting for her.
“Captain,” she said, from the corridor, “I wonder if you could delay processing the refund of … of my friend’s fare. Until I’ve had a chance to talk to em again.”
“Had an idea, have you?” Since she had first met him, not two hours ago, his dark, square face had shown nothing but calm seriousness. That didn’t change now, but something about his manner seemed edged. Tense. “I’ll delay if you like. But maybe you should eat first. Our supper should be here soon. Though I must warn you, I’m in a difficult mood just now.”
“I’m … sorry to hear that, Captain.” Ingray wasn’t certain what else there was to say. It probably wasn’t wise to ask what the problem was.