“I meant wealthy legitimate clients.”

  “Legitimate rich people are just criminals successful enough to manipulate governments and bribe lawmakers,” Clec said. “Sagasa is practically a government of his own.”

  “We could take a vote,” Ashont said.

  “You two always vote together,” Heuvelt said. “You only own half the ship, so you should only get one vote anyway.”

  “Then we’d always have ties,” Clec said. “We’d never get anything done. This way is much better.”

  “I vote yes,” Ashont said.

  “Me too,” Clec said.

  Heuvelt sighed. “I suppose it’s unanimous, then.”

  “I do so like it when we’re unified in purpose,” Clec said.

  •••

  A basic tenet of the freight business held that there was nothing worse than traveling with an empty hold, so they picked up some replacement parts for decommissioned Hylar vessels from a nearby wholesaler trying to clear out a warehouse. If nothing else, Sagasa would pay them slightly more than the parts had cost – enough to cover the fuel it took to get to his scrapyard, anyway.

  The trip to Vega Major required a jump through a wormhole, and Heuvelt always got nauseated during those – space-time distortions were bad for his digestion – so he hunkered down in his cabin while Ashont and Clec handled the transit.

  Heuvelt stared at the bulkhead above his bunk and thought about the future. He didn’t want to be a smuggler. He wanted to see new things, stand on planets that no human had ever seen before, smash open alien crypts and plunder the contents, make first contact with new species – do something important, exciting, and meaningful. As a child he’d had every material comfort, but he’d grown up feeling empty and without purpose. Losing those material comforts hadn’t suddenly imbued him with any sort of suffering-based enlightenment, though; now he was just empty and purposeless and poor, which was even worse. Was it so much to ask, to be rich and feel like your life had a purpose?

  Ashont and Clec never seemed to worry about such things. They just got on with the job at hand. Heuvelt would have to try and do that too. Focus on the now, and the future would come… or maybe, at least, he could stop thinking about it so much.

  “We’re here,” Clec called on the comms.

  Heuvelt made his way to the front of the ship and gazed out at what appeared to be the aftermath of a vast space battle, but was, in fact, just Sagasa’s scrapyard: hundreds of ships ranging from seemingly intact to blackened wrecks and every state in between. He’d never seen so much broken metal in one place. “There’s a space station in the middle of all that?” he said.

  “Quite a nice one, too, from what I hear,” Clec said. “But we won’t be visiting it today. Sagasa is sending a ship out to meet us, take our spare parts away, and deliver our package.”

  “There’s one interesting thing,” Ashont said. “When Sagasa heard we were traveling with you, he said he’d throw in a complimentary refuel, ‘as a way of making things square between us.’”

  “What does that mean?” Heuvelt said. He’d never had any dealings with the Disciplinarian.

  Clec replied. “He also said, ‘Tell Angriff I thought he was dead when I sold his ID to those pirates.’”

  Heuvelt widened his eyes. “Sagasa stole my identity?”

  “We told him the whole identity theft issue was still causing you problems,” Clec said. “Sagasa offered to purge your name from the remaining criminal databases as a bonus if we complete this mission early, and with the fuel he’s giving us, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Oh, I see,” Heuvelt said. “He ruins my good name, but he offers to fix it, as a reward! Isn’t that nice.”

  “By the standards of Sagasa the Disciplinarian, that is beyond nice,” Ashont said. “I told him we would be most grateful to accept his offer.”

  “Your name wasn’t all that good to start with anyway,” Clec said. “At least you’ll be able to get a proper credit account again.”

  “Then I could begin my legitimate courier business!” That was a happy thought.

  “There’s more money to be made being illegitimate,” Clec said. “Especially if we get more jobs from Sagasa.”

  “Which means we could go on a treasure-hunting adventure that much sooner,” Ashont added.

  “But whatever you want,” Clec said.

  “We’re easy,” Ashont said.

  Heuvelt recalled his recent decision to focus on the present. “Let’s just complete the job in front of us. What are we delivering, anyway?”

  “Sagasa just said ‘biological materials’,” Clec said. “We’re taking them to a space station run by a member of the Yin Brotherhood.”

  “Huh,” Heuvelt said. “‘Biological materials’ could be a euphemism for so many horrible things. And as for the Yin, I have to confess, I know it’s an irrational prejudice, but I find clones a little bit creepy. Don’t you?”

  They shared another one of those information-rich glances, mostly inscrutable to Heuvelt. “You should probably let us handle client relations on this one, then,” Ashont said.

  Chapter 10

  The interior of the shuttle was just one long room, with a pilot and co-pilot seated up front, two rows of three seats each in the middle, and bulky storage lockers running along the walls on either side. Voyou was already seated in the front row, strapping himself in. “Stow your gear there.” He pointed to an open locker. “I’m pleased to see you didn’t bring any livestock with you.”

  “You seem very cheerful, Undercommandant.” She put her bag into the bin and secured the compartment – it latched just like the feed bins at home – and then sat down in the same row, with the middle seat empty between them. The straps here were different from those used in the trailrunner, of course, but the design was intuitive enough: you slipped a metal tab into a slot and there was a click when it locked, with a simple button-push to release it.

  Voyou nodded. “Have you noticed it’s never properly dark on your planet, Lady Malladoc? The sun… well, I was prepared for the sun. We have a special lotion to protect us from its rays, my uniform hat has a brim, and I have lenses in my eyes that adjust to keep me from being blinded. But I thought, when the sun went down, there would be something resembling darkness – not the case. Those moons! Three of them. Far too many moons, and all shining, all night long.”

  “Sometimes just one or two are visible, and there are a few nights when they’re all below the horizon at once,” Bianca said.

  “Do your people revel in blessed peace then?”

  She shook her head. “Those are festival nights. We light big fires. Part of an old ritual, I think, meant to call the moons back? But now it’s just an excuse for a party.”

  Voyou shuddered. “I cannot understand such an impulse. To be surrounded by darkness is to be safe and secure and home. Do you like the dark, my lady?”

  She was neutral about the dark. There were times it was nice, and times it was inconvenient. “My favorite part of the sky is the blackness between the stars.”

  The undercommandant was quiet for a moment, and then he barked out a laugh. “Perhaps you really are Letnev.”

  “So I’m told.” The shuttle began to hum, far more muffled from the inside than the outside. She looked around,wishing for windows – the only ones in the ship were those up front. It would be nice to see the world shrink beneath her. The Letnev, it seemed, were not keen on looking outward. The shuttle lurched, but after that there was no sensation at all.

  After (presumably) rising in silence for a few moments, she said, “Is it true there’s no sun on your world? A friend of mine told me he’d heard that.”

  “The homeworld of the Barony, Arc Prime, has no star. We are not bound to a single system, locked in orbit, as other planets are. We are free to go wherever our ambitions take us.”

  “How do you live on a planet with no star? Isn’t it cold?”

  “Rather,” he said. “We do not live on the surface, as a rule – it is inhospitable, even for a people as hardy as ours. We live in vast caverns underground, warmed by our planet’s core.”

  “What do you eat? How do you breathe?”

  “Oh, we have immense fungus farms, of course, and these days we have colony worlds to supply other resources. As for breathing, there is a plant called Ao, a blessed wonder, that grows in great profusion throughout the tunnels and caverns, supplying ample oxygen.”

  “I can’t imagine living in such a place,” Bianca said.

  “You needn’t necessarily settle on Arc Prime, my lady. There are many colony worlds under the Baron’s care, and while I find most of them inhospitable, they might be more to your liking. You don’t even have to live in the Barony, though once you see all we have to offer, I can’t imagine why you’d want to live anywhere else.”

  “Where are we going now?” Bianca asked.

  “Our immediate destination is known only to the captain,” he said. “But I gather we’ll be returning to civilization soon, and the restoration of your birthright will shortly follow.”

  “So, you aren’t in charge of the ship, the Grim Countenance?”

  He grimaced. “You flatter me, lady. No, I am merely one of several undercommandants sent to ensure a smooth transition of power during the annexation. I was given stewardship of the eastern half of this continent, though I have been reassigned to assist you instead. Perhaps I might someday command a vessel as fine as the Grim Countenance. Bringing you home should help my career immeasurably.”

  “What’s the captain like?”

  “Complicated,” the undercommandant said. “Only a few members of the crew, the senior officers, have even seen her. She relays her orders remotely, or through subordinates. She prefers a level of anonymity. Some say she likes to dress as a common soldier and mingle with the crew, so she can see what’s really happening on the ship.”

  “Wouldn’t that sort of thing make everyone nervous and paranoid?” Bianca asked.

  “I prefer to think it fosters an atmosphere of continual excellence.” He craned his head, apparently checking to see if the pilot and co-pilot were paying attention, and then leaned over to whisper in Bianca’s ear. “We hear rumors about her, though. They say she once ran a research facility, and when a leading scientist tried to defect to the humans she led a commando team to recover the traitor. When recovery proved impossible, the captain killed the traitor personally, and then kidnapped a scientist from the Federation of Sol to replace her. They say her favorite training exercise is to clear an entire deck of a ship and lock herself down there with a soldier, one armed with the best in Letnev technology, while the captain has only a knife. If you survive the experience, she puts in a good word for you with her superiors. As far as I know she hasn’t organized any such exercises since I joined her command, but then, the annexation schedule has been very demanding.”

  “She sounds… formidable,” Bianca said.

  “All the Letnev are formidable. The captain is something else again, if the stories are true.”

  “I don’t suppose I’ll meet her?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. She did instruct me to tell you that you are most welcome on board. That’s not a sentiment she ever extended to me.”

  “How kind of her.” Bianca’s curiosity was piqued, but life would probably be easier if she didn’t meet someone Voyou clearly found intimidating.

  Voyou pointed toward the front of the ship. “There, look through the viewport, and you’ll see the Grim Countenance, one of the many glories of the Barony.”

  Bianca turned her head and watched as a large, dark shape loomed larger still against a backdrop of blackness. “It looks like a muddy caprid,” she blurted, and Voyou reared back as if she’d slapped him.

  “Why in the dark do you say that?”

  Bianca put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “I’m sorry, I just – it has all those, what, those curly bits–”

  “Those are spikes.” His voice was as cold as winter mud. “Our thorn ships strike terror into our enemies and ensure proper respect from our vassals.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything, it’s just, well, our caprids have that curly wool, you know, and sometimes there’s a storm and they get all muddy, and then the sun comes out and the mud dries, and they end up covered with all these curving spiky sort of things and… well… it just struck me, that’s all. The resemblance.”

  “I would refrain from mentioning that comparison to anyone else, my lady.” Voyou sounded less affronted now, and more resigned. “The rest of the crew might not understand your charming country ways. Oh! Speaking of which. When we dock, I’ll throw a cloak over you, and we’ll rush you to your room, hidden from sight.”

  That sounded like something you’d do to a criminal, not a princess. “Why?”

  “You are a lady of the Letnev aristocracy, a distant cousin to Baron Daz Emmicial Werqan III himself, and when the officers first get a glimpse of you, you should appear suitably regal, don’t you think?”

  Bianca looked down at herself. She was in her best Halemeeting dress, flowy white with little blue flowers stitched around the hem, and it was as clean as it could be. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “Nothing at all, from the local perspective. But you are now entering a world where the perspective is different. Wider. Unless you don’t want new dresses and jewels and shoes?” He gazed at her with wide-eyed innocence, not an expression his face was suited for.

  “I suppose I can at least look at them,” she said.

  •••

  Because of the cloak – it was more of a blanket, really – thrown over her head, she didn’t get to see much of the Grim Countenance’s hangar bay, which was too bad, since her knowledge of spacecraft came largely from novels and most of those were extremely old. As Voyou and the co-pilot guided her blindly along, each holding one of her elbows, she could hear banging, thumping, sizzling, grinding, and shouting, which suggested the hangar bay was a busy place, and not much fun.

  Then again, maybe there was no fun to be had on the whole ship. She had delivered herself into the hands of people who put heads on spikes to make a point. She’d seen the Letnev as a means to an end, a way to escape Darit and set off into the galaxy (and, eventually, reach that dark spot in the sky that called to her), but she hadn’t dwelled on the fact that she’d be in their custody and care for an indefinite interval. The Letnev were less a stepping stone and more of a way station. She’d just have to keep her head down and her eyes open, learn what she could, and wait for her moment to leap free if their true plans for her turned out to be unacceptable.

  A tiny part of her hoped against hope that they were going to take her to a palace on her very own moon. Surely the world could be like stories sometimes, couldn’t it?

  Her escorts led her into a quieter portion of the ship. She hoped they’d reach their destination soon and that it wouldn’t turn out to be a dungeon or something. It was hot under the cloak, which smelled like engine oil. “I must say, you’re navigating the gravity here very well,” Voyou said, his voice only a little muffled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The artificial gravity on the ship is set at a slightly higher intensity than Darit’s. I was afraid you’d find it uncomfortable.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she supposed she was working a little harder to walk than usual, but it was no more strenuous than making her way uphill, and she tended to leap up slopes anyway. “I’ve always been in good shape. Ma says I have enough energy for two girls.”

  “Oh, to be so young.” Voyou was puffing a little. “Those weeks on your planet made me soft, and I certainly feel the extra weight. I’ll have to get back to the gym soon. My exercise regime has suffered lately.”

  “I’ve heard of exercising,” Bianca said. “I think the burgher’s son used to stretch, and lift buckets of rocks and things? The rest of us… we just work, mostly. That seems like exercise enough.”

  “You need never work again, my lady,” he said. “You can simply relax in splendor and comfort for the rest of your days.”

  That sounded awful. Bianca liked having things to do. Oh, it would be nice to be able to choose which things she did, and if she never had to shovel another heap of dung that would be fine, but a lifetime of indolence didn’t appeal. She wanted to go places and do things. “How nice,” she said.

  “We’ve arrived.” The co-pilot whipped the cloak off her. They stood before a gray metal door set in a gray metal wall. The light here was grim, with a lot more red in the spectrum than she was used to. She looked left and right, and saw more doors set at intervals along a narrow corridor in both directions. The overall effect of the place was claustrophobic. They live in caverns, she thought. Being all squeezed and cramped probably makes them feel at home.

  “Touch the door, please – just press your hand against it, anywhere at all,” Voyou said.

  Bianca did as she was bid, the metal cold beneath her skin. The door made a grinding sound and then gave off a chime.

  “There, now it’s keyed to you,” Voyou said. “Simply touch the door, and it will open to you.”

  “No one else?” Bianca said.

  “Almost no one else. The security team has access, and the political officers, and of course the captain, but none of them would come in uninvited unless there was an emergency. Why don’t you go in, familiarize yourself with your room, and get some rest? I’ll be along to fetch you when it’s time for breakfast. I’ll bring your bag to you then too.”

  “Why can’t I have it now?” There was nothing in the bag she really needed, but on the other hand it contained literally everything she owned.

  “Luggage from the surface is subject to mandatory inspection. Your planet is full of filth and parasites and such, after all.” Voyou bowed, then turned and walked away, co-pilot at his heels.