“You’re right,” I say. “This map isn’t quite as good as the one in my cabin. Let’s keep looking.”

  We return to the cabinets. Even though the ship grinds on below us, I can hear the smaller sounds we make, the sliding of drawers, the rustle and flick of our fingers through the maps.

  I get into a kind of rhythm as I’m going through the papers, and I almost miss the map that I’ve been looking for. I flip right past it and then have to stop and go back. A spot on the map matches up with the back of the note left in my bag. There isn’t a piece cut out of this one but I’m almost certain it’s a print identical to the one someone left in my bag. I recognize the contours and curves of the land replicated here, and the paper feels of a similar age.

  I take it over to the table and spread it out, and when I see the whole thing, I realize I’m looking at a map for the Cutwater River, the one I dredged with Call. I didn’t recognize it before, because the note only showed a bit of water and land.

  They’ve given me a piece of a map that marks the place, or close to it, where Call died.

  I laugh.

  Eira looks at me, surprised.

  I lift up the map of the Cutwater and, in doing so, I accidentally move her drawing of the ship and reveal another sketch underneath.

  It’s a drawing of people looking toward a golden sun. Some kneel. A few shield their eyes. And in front of the sun—almost as if it’s pulling the sun along, bringing it to them—is the dredge, which also shines like gold. On its deck, among the armor, stands the upright figure of the Admiral.

  It’s a draft of a mural.

  Eira’s talent is undeniable in the dredge picture, but this drawing is different. It’s highly stylized, like every other piece of Outpost art. Even the dredge, which she drew so beautifully in her other piece, is inflated and bloated, not intricate and accurate, like her other work.

  Eira takes the mural draft from me.

  “That’s a commission I’m working on for the Admiral,” she says, her voice perfectly level. She reaches for another paper, and as she pulls it away I see yet another drawing. It’s a person, lined in, almost featureless in its conformity as the type of figure shown in murals. But I recognize the stance, the braids.

  It’s supposed to be me.

  Eira’s eyes meet mine.

  “You’re hard to draw,” she says.

  “Why would you try?”

  She puts the drawing of the mural back down on the table next to the sketch of me. “Here’s where you’ll be,” she says, pointing at the crowd. “I’ve left a spot to add you in once I get the draft right.”

  “As long as I’m not one of the people kneeling,” I say, and she looks at me with a flicker of amusement in her eyes.

  “Where will it go?” It seems that the sides of every building in the Outpost are already covered with murals.

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  It looks like every other mural, I think again, my eyes running over the figures.

  Almost too much so.

  Almost like a parody.

  “Thank you,” I say to Eira, rolling up the map of the Cutwater River to take with me. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says. I’m willing to bet that after I leave she’ll go over and note which map I took. She’ll know I lied to her, since the Cutwater River is nowhere near here. I wonder what she’ll think of me then.

  I close the door and put the map under my arm. I can’t be sure, but something about the way she drew that mural makes me think that Eira is not the Admiral’s watchdog.

  So. Does she sympathize with the raiders?

  Did she leave the note?

  CHAPTER 8

  A KNOCK ON MY DOOR in the middle of the night. I twist onto my stomach, my woolen blanket tangling up in my legs, and reach for the lantern on the dresser. It glows softly in my hand as I answer the door.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Captain,” Naomi says. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  I dress quickly and pull on my boots. My hair is loose and I braid it as I walk, following Naomi down the tight, twisting metal staircase into the depths of the dredge.

  The mining crew waits for me. Things have been going well enough during our first week on the ship. We’ve had no incidents aside from the one with the would-be deserter the first night. Some of the workers smile when I meet their eyes.

  The news must be good.

  “Look, Captain,” one of the men says.

  Even in the lamplight, even before the haul has been through the trammel for sifting, I can make out the dull sheen and color of gold. I’ve never seen a haul like this. There’s so much gold you can spot it among the rocks.

  “How long has it been this way?” I ask.

  “For the last hour,” Naomi says. “We’ve taken on more in that time than in the rest of the voyage.”

  “And the quality’s good?”

  “Very.”

  The ship’s chief miner, Noah Warren, holds out a map in front of me. “We’re due to keep to the left soon,” he says, and I look where he’s pointing. We’re nearing what’s called a braid, when the river splits into several different channels before coming back together again miles later. “But our best guess is, that with the way the gold is deposited in the bed of the river, we’re more likely to keep up this kind of success if we go up the channel on the right. We’re requesting your permission to divert our course.”

  Noah has to shout to be heard down here, but something about the situation still feels quiet, intimate. Knowing that it’s dark outside. The gold. All of us up in the night on the water. We’re far enough down the river that our ability to communicate with the Outpost ended days ago. This call is mine to make.

  I run my finger down along the map. I’m sure many are wondering if I’ll stay loyal to the path the Admiral set out for us to follow. I wonder if the person who left the note is trying to lure us off course so the raiders can attack. Maybe this much gold is a trap.

  “When do we need to decide?” I ask.

  “I’d guess we have about two hours before we’ll reach the fork,” Noah says. “Give or take.”

  “Let’s see how much more gold comes in over the next hour,” I say. “If it runs out, the point may be moot.”

  “Should I wake you again when it’s time?” Naomi asks.

  “No,” I say. “I’ll stay up. But have someone take Brig’s place at the helm. I’d like to talk with both of you about what we should do.”

  “I will,” Naomi says. “Though I have no opinion to offer, myself. It’s your decision to make.”

  That surprises me some.

  I climb up to the platform in the mining deck again, dismissing the guards for a moment so I can think. I look out over the back of the dredge through the opening at the end of the stacker, making sure the night lighting is working. That was another dilemma—when it gets dark, do we light up this part of the dredge so that we can see who might be coming on? If so, we also make ourselves impossible to miss. The Admiral and I decided that it was better to keep the ship lit during the voyages. The noise gives us away, anyway. You can’t miss the dredge coming up the river.

  Footsteps behind me. Too heavy to be Naomi’s, but not without grace. Someone who could make themselves stealthy, quiet, but who has chosen not to.

  Brig comes to stand on my left, so that my line of vision includes both him and the stacker. “Naomi said you wanted to see me.”

  “Did she tell you about the gold?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  It’s hard for me to get the words out. It was easier to ask Naomi. “I’ve already talked to Naomi. Do you have an opinion about which part of the river we should take?”

  “I’d stay with the course we were given at the beginning of the voyage,” Brig says. “But I’ll answer to the Admiral with you if you decide to deviate.”

  The first part of his answer doesn’t surprise me, but the second part does. If this goes wrong, answering to the Admiral is no small thing. Is Brig serious? He looks it. One of the lanterns swings overhead with the motion of the dredge, and his features seem narrowed, then shadowed in the moving light. I don’t know him well, and I know him even less like this.

  I look past Brig to the stacker, but I can tell his eyes are fully focused on my face.

  “I was glad to be chosen for this voyage for several reasons,” he says. “One of them was because I’d get to see the armor in person. It’s even more impressive than I imagined.”

  It’s a compliment. I could thank him.

  “Tell the guards to come back up to their post,” I say.

  Alone again. I find myself glancing for a moment at the metal plate hanging on the wall. There was one exactly like it on the other ship. The dredges are so old they predate even the Union. Those long-ago crews scrawled down codes on the plate for the bells they used to communicate over the noise of the mining equipment. One short ring means stop the trammel. Two short rings means start it back up again. Three means there’s an emergency and to cut the motor and sound the main alarm throughout the ship. Call and I used to wonder about that.

  “Shouldn’t it be one short for an emergency?” I asked. “If a raider were cutting your throat, you’d want the signal to be quick.”

  Call shook his head. “You’re so bloodthirsty.”

  It was a joke, then.

  I could change the warning system now, if I wanted. I’m the captain.

  With the threat of the raiders dispelled, the most likely emergency is that we’ll need to stop the dredge because the ship has taken on something that could grind and break the gears, or because someone has fallen into the mining equipment on the inside.

  The raiders aren’t the only ones who can kill. One person could shove another into the machinery, send them out through the stacker along with the tailings.

  * * *

  • • •

  Time’s up.

  The gold’s still coming in fast.

  Crew’s quiet, eyes on me, waiting for my decision.

  “We’ll keep to the right,” I say to Naomi. “Let Brig know.”

  She nods and heads up the stairs. I stay down with the crew. “May I?” I ask Noah, and he drops a few of the nuggets into my cupped hand. Their lumpy shapes remind me of tiny fossilized hearts, heavy and dead.

  CHAPTER 9

  GOLD, GOLD, AND MORE GOLD. In three days, we harvest more than any other previous voyage has on its entire run.

  “You running out of places to put it?” one of the crew asks Noah as we break for lunch in the ship’s cafeteria.

  “We’ll throw you overboard if we need more space,” Noah jokes back. The atmosphere is so different from the first day of the voyage that everyone in earshot laughs. No one is offended, no one can imagine wanting to leave, not right now.

  “If you run out of space, you can fill my room,” someone else calls out. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping on a pile of gold.”

  I have a moment of gladness because they’re all so happy, because they’re smiling, but it doesn’t last.

  This isn’t our gold. It’s the Admiral’s.

  “Think we’ll sink under the weight?” Tam asks.

  It’s true that the motor is working harder—we have a heavy cargo and a long way yet to go. We may have to return early if we reach our storage capacity before we get to the planned turnaround point in the river.

  And then what? Will the Admiral send us back out? Or will we have brought back enough for whatever it is he has in mind?

  “We’re fine for now,” I say. “Have you been on the mining deck again?”

  “Yes,” he says. “They need the help. And you gave me permission to assist.”

  “As long as the food doesn’t suffer.”

  “It hasn’t,” Tam says.

  “That’s true.” I eat every bite of the meals Tam serves. My plate is always as clean as if it had been licked by a cat. “But when do you sleep?”

  “I don’t,” he says. Then, hastily, “I do. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  “Remember,” I say, “the Admiral’s not here for you to impress.”

  “I’m not trying to impress the Admiral.” Tam looks at me. His hazel eyes have flecks of gold. There’s something there. Is it worth mining deeper to find out what it is?

  “It’s interesting,” Tam says. “The more gold we get, the more grim you look.”

  He’s right. The wealth, the ease, the success of all this puts something inside of me even more on edge. I feel like the ship has changed form. Now it’s not a sleek wild cat with claws and teeth at the ready, hair standing on end. It’s plump and sated, curled up in the sun, waiting to be gutted.

  * * *

  • • •

  When I walk into my quarters after supper one night, I know instantly that someone’s been there. Nothing is ransacked but everything is slightly askew. The chair, not quite tucked in under the desk. The edge of my blanket, pulled out a bit from the bunk.

  Someone wanted me to know they were here. Wanted to scare me.

  Who could it be?

  I have the only key to the room.

  That’s not true, I think to myself. Clearly, someone else has another.

  Did the Admiral give someone a key so they could keep an eye on me? What else do they have keys to? The mining deck? The bridge? The firearm lockers on each level?

  I fold my arms and look around, not touching anything, trying to memorize all the differences. Only when I’m sure I’ve noticed everything do I walk over to the bureau, which has a drawer ajar.

  That’s where they’ve put the note—on top of my folded shirts. It seems personal. I don’t like it. This is an even bigger violation than putting something in my bag.

  This is not your gold, the note says.

  I crumple the paper in my hand.

  Enough is enough.

  I walk out in the hall to the nearest alarm box and pull the handle down. The ship begins to wail.

  CHAPTER 10

  I DON’T FLINCH.

  It makes sense that I can handle the sound. Call died before the alarm, when the ship stopped. That’s the sound that I don’t think I’d be able to bear. For me, the sound of Call going gone is the sound of the ship going quiet.

  The crew knows the protocol. If the alarm sounds, they’re to report to their assigned spots in one of the ship’s two largest areas—some to the cafeteria, some to the mining deck. Naomi’s over the deck and Brig’s in charge of the cafeteria. I’m supposed to secure the bridge, leaving Ophelia Hill, the navigator, in charge. Once I’ve done that, I call to my first and second mates on the ship’s communications system.

  “All here,” Naomi says, yelling to be heard over the noise of the trammel down on the mining deck.

  “All here,” Brig says.

  “Good,” I say. “I’ll come to the mining deck first.”

  Some of the crew are wearing pajamas—it was their shift to sleep. They watch me, eyes wary. Do they trust me? Should they?

  “The dredge itself is stable, and you are in no immediate danger,” I say, “but there is a raiders’ sympathizer on this ship.” I hold up the crumpled paper. “This is the second note they’ve left for me. We can’t risk anything on this voyage, particularly with everything going so well.”

  The openness I’ve seen on everyone’s faces over the past few days has disappeared. Eyes narrow, faces go blank or angry or worried.

  “I’m going to search the ship before they have time to hide anything,” I say. “Everyone stays here until I give the all clear. Watch one another. Naomi, make sure that no one leaves.”

  Members of the crew shift their feet. Someone clears his throat. The goodwill we’ve had on the ship sifts out like the slicken and slips overboard.

  “You should take someone with you when you search,” Naomi says, leaning close to my ear. “So you have a witness to back up whatever you find.”

  She’s right.

  Who?

  I look out at the crew. They are tired and gray-faced from lack of light. The trammel turns and the gold keeps coming in.

  Tam, I think. Everyone likes him. Everyone trusts him. He was right about the food—it makes a difference in the morale on the ship. They’ll believe the person who feeds them.

  “I’ll take Tam,” I say to Naomi, and she nods.

  Up in the cafeteria, Brig has his group standing at the ready. Tam’s with them. I repeat the speech that I gave the crew on the mining deck. Brig’s expression flickers, and I think I see a hint of anger there. And betrayal. I didn’t tell him about the notes.

  Because he’s one of the suspects. He should know that.

  Someone raises a hand, but I shake my head. “I’ll answer questions later,” I say. “Right now, time is what matters. I don’t want to hold you here any longer than necessary. We have a ship to run.” I face Brig. “Make sure no one leaves.”

  Brig lifts his chin in acknowledgment. “Yes, Captain.”

  “I need you to come with me,” I tell Tam. “I want someone to witness the search, and I need my first and second mates to stay where they are for now.” I nod to Brig. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Tam’s quiet as he follows me down the hall. I know from glancing at my watch that it’s nearing dusk outside.

  Dusk was the time Call liked best in the Outpost, when we’d finish up work at the scrap yard and have a few moments of our own. It’s strange. I almost feel like if I could get up to the deck, I’d see him.

  That makes no sense, I tell myself. Call is dead. He’s not on the deck. He was never even on this ship. Never on this ship, never on this river.

  Tam starts to say something and then stops.