Spacer Page 7

  Well, he’d always wanted more of her, and thought there might be, at the end, when he’d gone aboard the school’s boat to flee. There’d been no chance to contact her, though, and he’d had nothing to offer her if he could. Nothing to offer, and the fear that she might, if she knew of his circumstances, offer him some place in her own family’s company. A thing he couldn’t accept — both because it would be a charity he couldn’t stomach and as it would keep him from pursuing his revenge against the Marchants.

  Now she was here, though, and his plans were all upended.

  How is she here, and how do I keep her from recognizing me?

  Even as he thought that, it became useless. Kaycie was speaking, thanking the crew for their welcome — a bit of applause Avrel only dimly noted — and saying how pleased she was to be aboard one of the Marchant’s finest ships. Her eyes scanned the crew, Avrel ducked his head, but kept his eyes on her — it had been so long since he’d seen her and she did look so fine in her uniform, as he’d always known she would.

  Her eyes locked with his, lowered head and all, and he couldn’t hide from her, no matter the cost. He raised his head and she stopped speaking, frowning.

  Be clever, my girl, as clever as I know you to be, he prayed.

  Kaycie resumed speaking, kept scanning the crowd, but her eyes returned to Avrel’s time and time again.

  “Thank you all again,” she said, her eyes locked with Avrel’s now as she finished. “As second mate has charge of the crew, I’ll be meeting with each of you privately to learn the ways of the ship.”

  Morell’s and Turkington’s brows raised at that, as well as no few of the crew. That wasn’t the norm, but a new officer would have her ways — only Avrel suspected the real reason, and blessed her for it, knowing that she must suspect he had some reason for being aboard this ship and not under his own name.

  IT WAS A WEEK, though, before Kaycie’s promised meetings took place. A week of hard sailing where officers and crew alike were too exhausted — and too likely to be called back to the sails — for any hope of meetings.

  Minorca sailed the day after Kaycie’s arrival, but once in darkspace found the system winds were strong, blowing heavily toward the system’s primary.It was day after day of tacking against them before the ship was out of the system, away from those effects, and into the more variable winds between systems. Only then did the calls of all hands to the sails cease and the crew was able to get a proper rest when they were off watch.

  True to her word, Kaycie called each of the crew to her cabin, and — if puzzled by the new experience of a tot of rum and a bit of a chat in a Marchant officer’s cabin — they seemed to take to it.

  Of Avrel’s mess, Detheridge was the first to be called.

  “She’s a right one, if I’m any judge,” she said upon her return and Grubbs’ call. “Pours a full measure, in any case, and not of any swill, neither.”

  Avrel squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. He suspected he’d be next, and in no more than a quarter hour, as that seemed to be the time Kaycie was spending with each member of the crew. Unless she called on Sween next, in which case he’d have a full bell to sweat on it and wonder what she’d say. Would she turn him in to Captain Morell? He didn’t think so, not after he explained himself — but there was still her working for the Marchants in the first place, which he couldn’t fathom. Might she have changed so much in the years since school? He didn’t think so, wouldn’t credit it — not Kaycie. She was a solid mate, she’d not —

  “What’s in you, Dansby?” Detheridge asked. “You’re squirming like a lad at his first brothel.”

  “I —”

  Grubbs came out of the companionway hatch, with the slight list and owl-like expression he always had as he adjusted the first bit of drink in his hold.

  “Dansby! She’ll have you next.”

  Avrel swallowed and stared at the hatch as though it was the gate to hell itself.

  “I’ll go again if you’ve no mind to,” Detheridge said. “I’d not say no to a second wet.”

  He took a deep breath and walked through the gate.

  THE SECOND MATE’S cabin was small, by any measure but the space each of the crew had aboard Minorca. Compared to the tiered bunks and drawers of the crew’s berth, the two-meter square compartment was palatial.

  As the hatch slid shut behind him, Kaycie rose from the thin-backed stool she’d been seated on at the fold-down corner desk. Her bunk was folded up against the bulkhead for more space and a second stool sat in the corner opposite her desk.

  Avrel had no more time to take in the surroundings, though, for after a single moment of staring at him, Kaycie flung herself across the small space.

  Her arms wrapped around him and her face buried itself in his chest.

  “It is you,” she whispered again and again, her breath hot through his ship’s jumpsuit.

  “Kaycie, I —”

  She cut him off by squeezing him harder, almost leaving him unable to breathe. His own arms went around her.

  She pushed herself away from him. Away and then she backed to the far bulkhead, close as it was in the tiny compartment. She put her back to it and crossed her arms, as though trying to get as far from him as she’d just been pulling him close.

  “I thought you were dead!”

  Avrel winced and flushed hot. There was so much pain in her voice. Pain and accusation.

  “There was no word,” she whispered. “Not for so long. Both Wynne and I thought …” Her face twisted with pain and anger. “We thought we’d helped you to your death in the Dark!” She swiped at her eyes. “And then the boat was back on the school’s quay and nothing said about it, so we knew you’d made it somewhere. And still there was no word!”

  Avrel’s gaze fell to the deck. There was so much hurt in her voice. He hadn’t thought of what his friends would think, what they’d wonder at when there was no word from him. He’d been so focused on finding a way to hurt the Marchants — and then, once aboard a Marchant ship, there’d been no safe way to tell them.

  “There was —”

  “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare say there was no way to get us a word — not one single word? Not when you arrived at Greater Sibward? Nor while you were there? Nor once in the last three years?”

  Kaycie grasped the back of her stool, spun it toward her, and fell heavily onto it, head bowed as though all the strength had been taken from her.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  Avrel resisted the urge to go to her and lay an arm over her shoulders. He felt she’d not welcome that. He sat in the other stool, shoulders slumped, as weary as Kaycie looked.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think —”

  Kaycie’s head shook.

  “Of course not, you were being Jon Bartlett.” She sighed. “You had some plan, I imagine. Some bit of business, and thought nothing of anything but that.” She wiped her eyes, still looking down, then only raised her gaze when they’d been thoroughly scrubbed of tears and the only evidence Avrel could see was their red rims. “So, what was it, then?”

  “What?”

  “Your plan. What you’ve been about. Tell me.”

  And just as though the last three years hadn’t happened, though Avrel suspected he’d not heard the last of it from her on that, he was with Kaycie again. No Wynne, of course, but it was so much like being back at Lesser Sibward and planning some bit of fun again that his heart lightened — perhaps for the first time since that awful moment in the headmaster’s office when he’d learned of his family’s ruin.

  He told Kaycie all that had happened. From leaving school, to finding there was nothing for him on Greater Sibward, to signing aboard ship. He left out the bits about Eades in the telling, and his plans for the Marchants, as well. Those were things Kaycie oughtn’t know about. No matter how much being with her again might feel like school, this wasn’t some prank he was about and he’d not drag her into it.

  “Why?” she asked when he
seemed to be finished.

  Avrel shrugged.

  Kaycie frowned.

  “No, I can see you feeling you had no place and signing aboard ship. I can even understand your wishing a new name, though how you managed it I note you put a shine on … but why a Marchant ship? For god’s sake, Jon, of all the shipping companies about, why would you sign with Marchant if you thought they were behind …” She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “Of course. What else would Jon Bartlett do but play the fool after vengeance?” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you about, Jon? This isn’t school anymore, this is a real ship a’sail in the Dark. Your pranks could have real consequences out here, and hurt real people.”

  Avrel flushed. She was speaking to the Jon Bartlett she remembered as a schoolboy, not the Avrel Dansby who’d been three years aboard Marchant ships doing a man’s work and making his plans. She’d grown, herself, in those three years to become an officer aboard ship, but gave him no credit for the time.

  “I’m not about any pranks,” he said.

  “I imagine not, but you’ve vengeance in mind, I have no doubt either — and whatever sabotage you have in mind could harm the ship or crew. What is it?”

  “Am I speaking to my friend or Minorca’s second mate?”

  Kaycie looked pained. “Your … friend, Jon. Always that.” She swallowed. “I’d not see you hurt, nor regret hurting others.”

  Avrel nodded. There might be something else in her voice, something he couldn’t place, but he believed her. Whatever might have brought her to the Marchants instead of her own family’s ships, she was still his friend.

  “I’m planning no sabotage,” he told her. “Not of the ship, at least.”

  And so, he told her of Eades and their arrangement. Of passing along what information he had to Eades’ agents when approached, and what Eades had done to get him his new identity.

  Kaycie’s brow furrowed while he spoke and she frowned heavily.

  “Foreign Office? Are you certain of that?”

  Avrel shrugged. “As I may be. The identity he supplied is solid and his network of agents make me think he must be. He’s his fingers into nearly everything, in any case, and knows too much not to have some government support behind him.” He shrugged again. “For the moment, our interests are aligned, regardless of who he may be.” He paused. “You’ll have to call me by my new name, you know?”

  Kaycie nodded. “Where the crew might hear, I will. In private you’ll always be my Jon, and I’ll not change that.”

  Avrel smiled. He still wished that might be true in fact, but doubted she meant it the way he might.

  Kaycie was silent for a time and Avrel took the opportunity to ask his own question.

  “And you? What’s happened with you since school? What brought you aboard a Marchant ship instead of your family’s?”

  Kaycie chuckled but there was no mirth in it.

  “I spent the year after school aboard family ships. It was a quite happy time.” Her face hardened. “But the Overfields have no ships any longer, Jon, we were bought out last year.”

  “Bought out?”

  “It was a fair offer, though not one the family would have accepted in other circumstances.”

  A chill went through Avrel at her words.

  “They did manage to arrange for our ships’ officers to be taken on by the new owners. All were transferred to other ships almost immediately, of course, so that there’d not be Overfields commanding former Overfield ships — that wouldn’t do, I suppose.”

  She met Avrel’s eyes and he saw the same hard look she’d had when she drove her foot into York Scoggins’ fork.

  “And so, you’ll understand, Jon, when I say that I should like to meet your Mister Eades at the gentleman’s very earliest convenience.”

  MINORCA MOVED on from Penduli into the Barbary.

  For Avrel and the other spacers, without access to the quarterdeck and the navigation console there, little changed. Their work outside the hull in the featureless expanse of darkspace went on as usual.

  Their arrival at Kuriyya was much like any port, though certainly more like one of the Fringe’s younger colonies than any Core world, as there was no station circling above Kuriyya for them to make fast to. All of the goods from Penduli must be brought down to the surface in Minorca’s boats and unloaded in-atmosphere at the planet’s main town. On a landing field with half its surface still dirt and grass, no less, and that far better for their boats and work than the jaggedly cracked expanse of paving left on the field.

  “Bloody barbarians can’t pave a bloody field,” Detheridge muttered, as they stumbled their way across the rutted field. Minorca’s anti-grav cart might keep itself level over the terrain, but their boots had no such advantage. “And why’s it all the bloody cargo on this bloody world?” She grunted and heaved a shoulder against the cart to slide it away from a low berm the sensors had decided was too steep to navigate.

  Avrel shared a look with Sween and both hid a grin. With Detheridge’s mood and punctuating her words with ‘bloody’ so much, she’d be taking out her frustrations when Minorca’s crew was done and had an evening’s leave. She’d leave someone bloody, sure enough, whether she spent her time in a pub or brothel, they knew.

  Her question had merit, though, and Avrel was pondering that very thing. He’d been brought up to measure a cargo’s worth, and the goods Minorca’d carried from Penduli would certainly have more value deeper into the Barbary. To sell it all at their first stop and rely on locally produced goods for the rest of their trip to Hso-hsi made little sense to him. Better to spread it out, or travel far deeper before selling — Kuriyya was just on the periphery, after all.

  Detheridge stopped, stretched to ease her back, and wiped her brow.

  “Bloody planets,” she muttered. “Never the same bloody temperature twice in a row, how they stand it I’ll never bloody fathom.”

  FOR A BLESSING AND A CURSE, there was no boy pulling Avrel’s hand and prattling about pears as Minorca’s crew exited the boat for their leave. He caught Kaycie’s eye and shook his head slightly, letting her know that there was no chance of her meeting Eades on Kuriyya — and now likely no chance until their return to New London space.The man himself wouldn’t travel deep into the Barbary or to Hso-hsi, and his agents would have neither cause nor authority to trust Kaycie.

  So, they went their separate ways for the evening’s leave. That was a disappointment. Other than the one private meeting in Kaycie’s cabin, there were no opportunities for them to speak privately aboard Minorca. Such contact between an officer and crewman would be remarked on, and no matter how private they thought themselves, the cramped quarters aboard ship would always provide that someone would overhear or see.

  Neither could they be seen together on leave. On a larger world or station they might make arrangements to meet far from the landing field or quay, but Kuriyya’s port town was so small that there was too much risk of being seen.

  Instead they wandered separately, Avrel following along behind a group of Minorca’s crew, but not really part of them. His own messmates had split up as well, Detheridge having other interests than Sween and Grubbs.

  The town’s streets were dimly and variably lit, the streetlights’ solar panels being old and ill-kept.

  The sewers were equally ill-kept, it seemed, for the street — such as it was, having its deteriorated paving mostly torn up to expose bare earth — ran with refuse and worse.

  Someone had invested more than a little in Kuriyya once, for it to have such things at all, but whatever the source of those funds had been, they’d clearly disappeared long ago. Odd they didn’t keep things up, though, as there were enough ships in-system even now that a bit of a landing fee would pay for the upkeep well enough.

  All of the pubs and other establishments had ample customers, and the streets, though not crowded, were certainly not empty themselves.

  The last of the group Avrel followed turned into a pub, but Avrel kept on.


  An odd melancholia fell over him — or perhaps it had been there for some time and he only now became aware of it.

  His thoughts turned to what his life might have been, if the Marchants had not destroyed his future. Perhaps he’d be walking on some world with Kaycie Overfield now. Not officer and crew aboard a Marchant ship, but officers of their own families’ fleets — equals and having no fear of being seen together and caught out.

  They might even, he fancied, come to some understanding. The spark of interest he’d noted when she saw him off from Lesser Sibward, and the degree of concern when she thought him dead, made him think there might be something to her feelings for him other than mere friendship. He knew his own feelings ran deeper.

  One of the pubs had opened a window onto the street, selling out-sized mugs of their wares and Avrel stopped to buy one. It wasn’t anything he’d seen before, but tasted of rum and what he suspected was some local fruit.

  She was such a clever girl. Just look at how she’d caught sight of him for the first time aboard Minorca and not cried out as some might, then put together a plan on the spot for how to speak to him privately. He might have come up with the plans for pranks back at school, but she was always the best at refining them — teasing out the details so that there was less risk.

  He wandered aimlessly, though instinctively keeping to the spacers’ quarter and away from the darker alleys or less-travelled routes. Those on the streets around him grew more boisterous as the night went on — and as the air grew cooler, Avrel noted with some relief. Detheridge had been spot on in that complaint, and Avrel shared her inability to fathom how those in-atmosphere stood the variations.

  He noted that many of the pubs had open windows selling wares, and that his mug was empty, so he stopped at the next. It was a different drink, but he turned over the few coins-cost without asking its contents. His mood had not improved with the first mug, but that was no reason to cease trying.