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  His thoughts returned to Kaycie, and his head filled with images of her even as his second mug emptied.

  Her upturned nose. Her hair, cut short now, but flowing long back at Lesser Sibward — and both, if he were to be honest, quite fetching in their own way. The little furrow between her eyes which told one she was cross and not to be trifled with on some matter. The feel of her arms around him and her breath hot against his chest.

  He drained his mug, noted it was not quite the same as what he remembered his second to have been, wondered at that a bit, but spied another window which yielded a refill of some sort.

  What had he been thinking about again? Oh, yes, Kaycie. He’d had it bad for her at Lesser Sibward, he had to admit, but he’d reconciled that she didn’t want him. Then there was that kiss as he’d left, which left him all in irons — but nothing for it, as he’d likely never see her again. Until now — and still, no chance for them. Not aboard ship, not with him in the crew and her a ship’s officer.

  The night had turned chill somehow and the streets were less full than earlier. He had no idea of the time, but Minorca wasn’t due to leave until the following afternoon. The crew merely had to be aboard by the end of the forenoon watch and that would surely be no difficulty.

  He sighed. This wandering was doing him no —

  A man’s voice drew Avrel’s attention. He stood before a dark building with shrouded windows. Deep red light leaked around the windows’ edges and the silhouettes applied to the glass made the establishment’s purpose clear.

  The man said something else incomprehensible, then squinted at Avrel.

  “Londoner, yes?”

  Avrel nodded, eyes on the establishment’s door, struggling with a sudden urge.

  “‘Have a go,’ yes? As you say, yes?”

  A deep draught from his mug emptied most of it, then another to finish it off. He nodded and returned the man’s smile.

  “Aye.”

  Inside a woman met him, scantily dressed but past her prime for such a place and now set to greeting until a client with that particular fancy came about.

  She took in Avrel’s dress and read his ships’ patch with a practiced eye.

  “Welcoming,” she said with a wide smile. “What it is you like, yes?”

  Avrel wondered for a moment how many languages she and the man outside might speak. The Barbary was ostensibly part of Hanover, so many of the settlers would be German, but it also drew the flotsam from whatever ships passed through and whatever men must flee so far away. She’d likely learned enough of as many languages as she needed to serve those who came.

  He broke off his musing as his eyes adjusted. The interior was darker than the street, even with it being night and the streetlights so dim. Now he could make out more than shadows and saw a half dozen girls, all clad to draw the attention they catered to.

  They lounged about, each watching him and posing to catch his eye.

  “You wish?” the woman asked, gesturing to the girls.

  Avrel set his mug on the side-table near the door, it was empty now.

  “Yes,” he said, “someone …” He swallowed. “Someone slight.” No bloody pears tonight. “And … hair to here.” He brought his hand to his head to show her, flushing as he did so. This was … not right, somehow, but some part of him pushed forward regardless. “Perhaps a nose that turns up, just a bit and a crease just —”

  A girl coming down the stairs drew Avrel’s eye. She was close — so close. Not exactly, but she’d do.

  Make do. Minorca to make do for my own ship, revenge to make do for a family, and this … her … He nodded to the girl on the stairs and smiled as was expected of him. She’d know, of course, what he was doing. That was part of the arrangement, after all, and there was something of a higher service in that. She’d do her best to fill one of the holes that Minorca, vengeance, and she, never truly could.

  The greeter smiled wider, seeing he’d made his choice. She gestured him toward the stairs even as the girl smiled wider as well and cocked her head coyly.

  Make do.

  MINORCA’S HOLD was echoingly empty despite the mass of men and bustle of activity. The scent of hot thermoplastic permeated the air, both from the carpenter’s shop, aft, and the work being done forward, where Avrel was, with the rest of the crew, transforming the vast open space of the hold.

  That scent was making Avrel’s stomach churn — at least that was what he blamed it on, and not his drinking of the night before. The echoing shouts of the crew and their ongoing work was also making his head pound, and his arms ached from lifting the heavy bulkheads and holding them in place.

  Nearly all the crew was working on the task, with the quartermaster and his mates, as well as Kaycie, overseeing the work.

  They had large sheets of bulkhead printed by the carpenter and his machines, and were busy erecting them to form compartments all down the length of the hold. Each was a bit less than two meters’ square, with a solid, locking hatch.

  After the bulkheads were hefted into place, they were welded to the deck and overhead — then another crew entered with long, narrow planks of thermoplastic and welded them as some sort of shelving to the interior of the new compartment.

  It was perplexing Avrel, because nearly all cargo came aboard already in its own chests and containers, usually sealed by the shipper — or Captain Morell himself if it was a cargo he’d bought for company profit. He’d never seen anything that needed its own compartments and shelving, especially such odd shelving, for these ran the full length of the compartment and from deck to overhead, with less than a third of a meter between them. The space in each compartment’s center was barely enough for a man to enter and turn around in.

  He sighed and lowered his arms as the last of the preliminary welds were completed on his current bulkhead. It would stay in place now, but it was time to move on to the next.

  He closed his eyes for just a moment, jaw clamped tight against the nausea and willing his head to stop its pounding for a just a moment, if it pleased.

  “Mister Hobler!” Kaycie called out.

  Avrel hoped it might be a bit of a break, though it was early for that, but Kaycie had a kind heart and she’d know many of the crew were feeling poorly after their night’s liberty on Kuriyya’s surface. Avrel himself had found himself bundled up by Hobler’s mates as they made the rounds of the port to collect any of the crew who’d overindulged the night before.

  He remembered going upstairs with the girl and then there’d been more drink and … well, what one did with such girls … he supposed … the whole of it was a bit blurry in his recollection, if he were honest.

  The morning — afternoon, really — was clear. He’d been fast asleep, in one of a row of chairs in the house’s kitchen, propped between two other spacers who’d not had the wherewithal to leave on their own when their business was done. Luckily it was Hext in charge of the party collecting him and not Bridgeford, for Hext had a bit of a heart. He’d not had any of his crew deliver an extra blow or two as they dumped Avrel onto their antigrav cart with two other moaning Minorcas and trundled the lot back to the landing field.

  Other than that, the night before was a jumbled mess of images, half-remembered sounds, and more than a few sensations he really did wish he could remember better …

  He flushed at what memories he did have, though, for there was a fuzzy image of nuzzling into warm, soft skin while murmuring Kaycie’s name. The girl’d been understanding, playing along as he was sure she’d done a thousand times with others, but it was still an embarrassing memory for him to —

  “See to it that man understands the time for his daydreams was on leave and not while there’s ship’s work to be done!”

  “Aye, miss!” Hobler called.

  Avrel yelped as something struck his head with a dull thud.

  He opened his eyes to find Bridgeford grinning at him, his starter — a short length of ship’s line, knotted at one end — raised for another blow. />
  “Not to the head, Bridgeford!” Kaycie yelled. “That one’s addled enough as it is!”

  Avrel took in Bridgeford’s glee, Hobler’s stern glare, and, perplexing as to why, Kaycie’s own narrowed eyes and thin lips. Bloody hell, but what’d he done to upset her so and have her set the quartermaster’s mates on him?

  He yelped again as Bridgeford’s starter thudded into his backside.

  “Aye, miss!” he called, and hurriedly moved on to where the next bulkhead waited to be put into place. “Working, miss!”

  LUNCH with his messmates was a surly, growling affair.

  Avrel’s stomach alternated between rumbling demands for food and balking as each bite arrived, the clatter and muted voices from the other messes did nothing for his head, and his back and buttocks ached from more than one well-placed blow of Bridgeford’s starter. He seethed a bit at that last, for Kaycie’d seemed to take a perverse glee in pointing him out every time he slacked or slowed in the work.

  And truly he hadn’t slacked that much after the first blows. He’d kept his wits about him, but she’d called him out for every bit of a breather he’d taken, and Bridgeford’d made it his mission to be well-placed for the calls.

  What the bloody hell had he done to displease her so? It was not as though they’d so much as spoken since that first meeting in her cabin. Other than orders and niceties there was little reason for common crew such as himself to have words with a ship’s officer, certainly not private ones, so their contact had been necessarily limited.

  Yet all day she’d been glaring at him every time he glanced at her and setting him a beating at every opportunity.

  He took another bite, chewing slowly in the hopes his stomach would take the warning that more was coming and prepare itself better than the last.

  Opposite him and Grubbs at the narrow table they shared, which folded down from the bulkhead on which their narrow bunks were stacked four-high, Sween and Detheridge bumped elbows and Detheridge swore as a few drops of her grog ration spilled from her cup.

  “Watch yourself!”

  “You watch yer own bloody self!” Sween shot back.

  Detheridge swapped her mug to her off hand and drove an elbow into Sween’s side.

  “I’ll watch you buggered if you don’t mind your space!” she said.

  Sween turned toward her on his share of the bench and looked to draw his arm back for a real blow.

  “What’s into you two?” Avrel demanded. “Knock it off — I’ve had enough attention from Hobler’s mates today, damn you!”

  Detheridge and Sween turned their ire across the table.

  “And aren’t we painted with your idling brush, as well?” Detheridge asked. “You think Bridgeford’ll not be watching all of us, now he knows you’ve gone and pissed in the little miss’ grog?”

  “And how’d you manage that, lad?” Sween asked. “She’s been fair as can be since she come aboard, but now she’s started a shit-list, sure. And it’s your name all the bloody way down.”

  “I wish I knew,” Avrel muttered.

  “Well find out and fix it, boy,” Detheridge said. “Things are bad enough without we’re splattered with your leavings.”

  Avrel frowned.

  “What’s bad enough?” he asked. “And what’s got into you two, as well, with your squabbling?” He turned to Grubbs, who’d spent the whole of the meal with downcast eyes, shoveling food into his mouth and speaking nary a word. “And you, you’re silent as well.” His whole mess was out of sorts and had been for the entire day. He, at least, had the excuse of far too much drink the night before, but the other three weren’t known for excess in that. He’d never seen them come back from leave so out of sorts before. “What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” Detheridge hissed.

  Grubbs raised his head just long enough to say, “He’s not sailed the Barbary with a Marchant like this before, Deth. He don’t know what to look for. Look around — half the crew don’t know, and half’re happy as clams to be in it.”

  Avrel did just that, looked around and saw that many of the crew were as sullen and downcast as his mates, while others were grinning and chiding them for it. Still, the larger number was those who looked perplexed at the whole business.

  Detheridge eased in her seat, though she still looked angry. “Aye, I’ll allow that — so, you see, boy, it’s —”

  “Can we say?” Sween asked, cutting her off. “I mean, the contract —”

  “The contract says we’re not to talk about Marchant business off the ship,” Grubbs said.

  “Well, we’re not off the bloody ship, are we, and he’ll know soon enough.”

  Avrel just looked from one to the other as they spoke, becoming curiouser. He assumed they meant the contract they’d all signed to come aboard, which had provisions for keeping Marchant business private. None of them were to speak of it to anyone off the ship — not their cargoes, their destinations, nothing — on pain of their shares being forfeit, or even clawed back years later, after they were paid off. Those shares were why spacers sailed with Marchant, in large part, and why Marchant had so few spacers leave for greener pastures. A piddling percentage of each cargo, to be sure, but large in comparison to a spacer’s wages — and paid only when each contract was up.

  Subject to forfeit if a man didn’t serve out his full term or, as Sween pointed out, if he violated any of the terms — discretion about Marchant business being foremost.

  Avrel had paid little attention to that clause when signing aboard.

  As I’ll bring every bloody word of their business I may to Eades and hope he chokes them with it.

  “So, what is the matter?” he asked. “And how can you be so sure, as Captain Morell’s made no announcement about what’s to come?”

  “There’s only one cargo needs compartments like that,” Detheridge muttered.

  Sween nodded.

  “Minorca’s going bloody slaver.”

  PART THREE

  THREE

  AT FIRST AVREL couldn’t quite believe their revelation.

  He’d heard that slavery was still practiced in the Barbary, of course, but hadn’t really credited it. There were all sorts of stories about the Barbary, after all, just as there were all sorts of stories about some of the odder Fringe worlds — many might have a grain of truth, but were likely exaggerated for the most part.

  Still, he couldn’t quite see how it could go on here, surrounded as the area was by New London, the French Republic, Hso-hsi, and even Hanover — there were stories enough about the latter, too, but nothing to suggest they’d condone such a thing in what was, ostensibly, their own territory.

  Then there was the economics of it. His own training at Lesser Sibward and aboard his family’s ships had taught him what a powerful motivator money was, but also that there were some things there was no money in. Or little enough to make it not worth the trouble.

  Just look at the shipping alone. For Minorca to fill her hold and sail across the Barbary, it’d be the same cost whether the cargo was men or machines — less, for the machines wouldn’t have to be fed or guarded. He thought about the sheer logistics of having a hold full of people and balked at the cost. Machines could do any labor far more efficiently, so why bother with men?

  He shook his head.

  “This makes no sense,” he said. “To what purpose? Machines to do virtually any work would be more cost effective and less trouble, even leaving off the risk of it becoming known.”

  His messmates were looking at him oddly.

  “I mean, it’s horrible, of course,” he said, and felt that, but his first thoughts were to how this information could harm the Marchants and what use Eades could make of it. He wanted to be certain of the matter before rushing to message Eades, as well. “You’re not speaking of indentures?”

  The fringe worlds’ indenture system might look like slavery to some, but it was really more of a debt system — and, except convicts or those taken up fo
r debts already owed, it was voluntary. One sold several years of one’s labor for the upfront cost of transport to a colony world in need of one’s skills, or simply more population. It was no different than borrowing the money for property or an aircar, really.

  “No, not indenture, boy,” Detheridge said. “It’s outright chattel for these folk.”

  “But … why?”

  “The Barbary’s got worlds more isolated than the farthest Fringe planet,” Sween said, and the others nodded. “Kuriyya was just the edge of it, close to others, even. Most of this space has so little to offer there’re few who’ll wish to go.”

  “And less to be brought back,” Grubbs said. “Not much in the way of coin in the first place.”

  “A proper machine, for nearly any work, would take up less space in the hold than twice as many men,” Avrel said. He still couldn’t help but think they were wrong — or overreacting to something quite a bit more innocent than they described. “Where’s the value in —”

  “Some machine has the cost of a hundred men,” Grubbs said, “but one part breaks and there’s a hundred men’s labor gone.” He shrugged. “One man breaks and there’s still ninety-nine at the work.”

  Sween nodded. “Some company like Marchant comes in and they have the coin to do a thing right from the start, but a couple miners with a hard-scrabble claim far from it all?” He shrugged as well. “May not be the smartest, but it is what it is.”

  Detheridge glared at her plate and said, quietly, “Then there’s the things men don’t want no machine for.”

  Sween laid a hand on her shoulder, which surprised Avrel, as he’d never seen her take comfort from one of them like that, nor the others offer it.

  “We’ll hope it’s none of that,” Sween said.

  Detheridge shook her head. “There’s always some of that.” She drained her mug. “I may be off next leave, lads.”

  Minorca was due to stay in orbit around Kuriyya until the work in the hold was complete, and then it’d been announced they’d have one more night’s leave on the surface before she sailed. This had puzzled Avrel from the start, for it wasn’t in any shipper’s interest to stay idle around a planet longer than necessary. The work in the hold could have easily been completed while underway in darkspace.