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  “There’s more than one won’t come back,” Grubbs agreed. “Lost shares or no.”

  Avrel frowned. “How does no one know about this? The government wouldn’t stand for such a thing, Barbary or no. A New London flagged ship would never —” He broke off. There was nothing the Marchants wouldn’t do, he suspected, if there was a farthing in it for them, and he well knew the influence they could place on those in government. Money talked in many places.

  “Which of us’ll speak out, even if we did run?” Detheridge asked. “You? Have you read your contract? Libel, slander, defamation, a slew of other things all come down to keep your bloody mouth shut or the Marchants’ll ruin you — damages on top of they’ll claw back every share you’ve ever been paid if you speak of company business. It means debt and indenture for your whole bloody family, just for the fees to defend the bloody case and never mind who wins. Who’ll risk that?” She drained her mug. “Pay’s good, though.”

  “Aye,” the others agreed, but with dark looks. “There’s that.”

  THE WORK on the hold finished, Morell announced, as Avrel’s mates predicted, a further night’s stay in orbit around Kuriyya and leave for all the crew. There were darker looks and fewer cheers than had greeted the leave granted when Minorca first arrived.

  Avrel scanned the crowd when he exited Minorca’s boat. For once, he wished to see some peddler-boy single him out with Eades’ codeword, but there was none — only the same offers as when last they’d landed.

  He caught sight of Kaycie at the boat’s forward ramp, exiting with Morell and Turkington, but though she glared at him, he couldn’t seem to catch her eye enough to indicate he must speak with her. Hard as it was to speak privately aboard ship, she seemed to be almost deliberately avoiding him these last few days — at least when she wasn’t setting Hobler or his mates after him for some imagined slacking.

  He’d given little thought to what might have got into her, though, as he pondered how to get a message to Eades. They’d not set up any sort of method for that, relying on Eades’ network to contact Avrel instead. There’d been no indication until now that Avrel might have information on the Marchants that couldn’t wait to be communicated — now, though, if Eades could get word of what Morell was up to to some authority, perhaps the Royal Navy, then Minorca could be found, stopped, and caught red-handed at something the Marchants wouldn’t be able to buy their way out of.

  There was his tablet, of course, which he could use to send a message, but that was tied to Minorca and his transmission would go first through her systems. He couldn’t think of what he might send to relay the information that wouldn’t give him away if it was monitored by Morell or Turkington — and he was certain all the crew’s communications would be monitored now.

  Nor could he encrypt a message, for that would be suspicious in and of itself.

  There’d be little use in that, anyway, as any message he sent via Minorca would be weeks reaching Eades. It would be copied onto every outgoing ship bound in the direction of the message’s destination, and copied from each of those to any others going the same way — whichever got there first would deliver it, and the process of marking it so and deleting all those copies would begin.

  All of which meant Minorca would be done with her dirty business long before Eades was even aware of it.

  No, he needed a faster method, and that meant a dedicated packet — or at least a fast one, bound in the direction of his message to begin with.

  Those weren’t cheap, though, and he had little coin — less than usual, truth be told, after his expenses of the previous leave. The house hadn’t emptied his pockets entirely, but they’d taken more than the cost of the girl’s hire for the trouble of getting him downstairs and parking him in the kitchen overnight. He’d not begrudged it at the time, but now he felt the need for every pence.

  Not cheap, no, and neither were such things for hire in the common spacers’ district.

  They’d put down on Kuriyya at midmorning, leaving the crew with a full afternoon and night’s leave, and Avrel’s search took him well away from the pubs and brothels nearest the landing field, past the more genteel establishments catering to the ships’ officers.

  Here, though much the same services were on offer, the environment was more refined. There were no burly fellows or half-dressed girls hawking a place’s wares on the street, no mugs sold through the pubs windows, and any advertising as to an establishment’s purpose was quite a bit more subtle.

  Avrel scanned the storefronts. A bank, he thought, or a gentleman’s club, would either have what he needed or point him in the right direction — if they didn’t throw him out before his first word. His ship’s jumpsuit clearly didn’t fit in with the attire on display in this district — even the rattiest captain at least gave the illusion of being a gentleman.

  Then, his most creeping fear was realized, and he spotted Morell and Turkington, in conversation with another captain, coming his way.

  If they saw him in this district, they’d wonder at it, and Avrel wanted no attention brought to himself at this time. He ducked quickly through the nearest doorway, hoping they’d not seen him and weren’t bound for there themselves.

  The door clicked shut behind him and Avrel had a moment to both bless and curse that the place he’d ducked into had no windows at all. Morell and Turkington wouldn’t see him here, but neither could he be sure when they’d gone past. He’d have to count time in his head and make the best of it.

  A clearing throat made him turn, and he took in the room for the first time. Dimly lit and well-appointed, it was a rather more upscale version of the place he’d spent his last leave.

  I’m developing a disturbing habit of finding myself in brothels …

  The difference here, though, was that none of the girls appeared too enthused by his entrance. They all stared at him with varying degrees of distaste and hostility.

  “Have you come to deliver a message?” an older woman, clearly the house’s greeter, asked.

  “Ah …”

  A large man stepped out of the shadows behind the woman, with a look for Avrel that was no friendlier than those of the women.

  “Yes, now?” the woman asked. “If you’ve a message, tell me who it’s for. We’ve not much custom this early and I’ll not have you driving what there is away by hovering about.”

  “A message … yes … ah, for Captain Morell, of Minorca, if you please.” Avrel squared his shoulders and tried to look confident, he needed just a few minutes’ time for Morell and Turkington to pass by.

  The woman frowned, then shook her head. “No — no Morell here. And none off any Minorca.” She narrowed her eyes and the man behind her followed suit, as though their brows were connected. “You’ve a look about you — what are you up to? Whatever it is, I’ll not have it in my house, you hear?” She said something to the man behind her in another language.

  “Up to? No — I’ve a message. Is this the wrong house? Captain Morell said he’d be here, and —”

  The brows narrowed further, and a second man stepped from behind the first, his brow mirroring the others. It was the size of the second man that made Avrel realize just how large the first was, as the second was … quite large, but had been hidden all entire. Now all three brows advanced on Avrel.

  “He’s up to something,” one of the watching women called out.

  “He is,” another agreed.

  Damn me, but why’d it have to be a house? If there was one thing he’d learned watching his shipmates in port, it was that the ladies of a house could spot deception before it had its boots off.

  “You leave,” the bigger man said, as he stepped around the woman’s left, his partner mirroring his motion to her right.

  “I was just thinking that,” Avrel muttered.

  “Now,” the smaller man said.

  Avrel reached behind him for the door latch and backed away slowly.

  “Yes, of course. I have the wrong place, I see. Different str
eet entirely, is where I’m bound. I’ll just —”

  The men reached for him and Avrel felt a pain in his right ear as something grasped it. Which was quite odd, since the men hadn’t reached him yet and he was backing toward the street.

  The pain intensified as he was yanked backward through the doorway — a blessing as it got him out of the way of the two men and a curse as he was spun painfully around by the grip on his ear, then shoved to thump against the building’s stone front.

  He clapped one hand to his ear and the other to his chest where Kaycie had shoved him.

  “Did you learn nothing from being carted back to Minorca like so much baggage?” she asked, glaring at him.

  “I —”

  “I thought better of you, Jon, I really did. Carousing like a common spacer!”

  “But —”

  “And as though you’d have coin enough to pay for such a place. Were you planning to run out on what you owed, as some of the men do?”

  “Never! I wasn’t —”

  “Oh, tell me no stories. I heard you spin your tales for a dozen teachers, remember?” Her gaze darted to the doorway behind him, then down to the ground. “I suppose that’s how you’ve spent these last three years, then? Running from one house to another, having your fill?”

  “I never!” He flushed. “Well, I mean … not so often as that.” He hurried on as Kaycie’s eyes flashed up to him again and she opened her mouth to speak. “I wasn’t! Here, I mean.” He held up a hand to forestall her. “Look, Kaycie, it’s not like that. It’s … there’s something coming aboard Minorca and I need to get word to Eades instanter.”

  “And your Mister Eades spends his time in bawdy houses, does he? Is that where you picked up the habit?”

  Avrel’d had enough. He didn’t like to see Kaycie upset, but this was beyond reason, and getting his message to Eades was too important for him to be delayed any longer. Besides which, what hold did she have on how he spent his time?

  “Lord, Kaycie, I’d never taken you for such a prude. The Dark help your crews if this is how you’ll set on them for a bit of sport!”

  Now it was Kaycie’s turn to flush. “I’d not!” Her gaze darted from Avrel to the doorway then back again. “It’s only that —”

  “And besides, what’s happening aboard Minorca is more important. Look, we have to get word to Eades.”

  Kaycie frowned. “And what exactly is happening aboard Minorca? Captain Morell and Mister Turkington have been treating me quite oddly since I came aboard — as though my very presence were some great inconvenience. That’s why I was following them.”

  “Following them?” Avrel only now glanced around and found that they were the focus of much attention on the street. No one was so close that they could hear much of what was said, but enough that he realized it was time to move along. Luckily there was no sign of Morell or Turkington, so they must have been far along before Kaycie dragged him out of the house. “Look, let’s move this along elsewhere, shall we?”

  KAYCIE LED him some distance away from the direction Morell and Turkington had been heading, then stopped in a less traveled part of the district.

  “All right, then, what’s this all about?” she asked. “You seem to know more about it than I do. What’s got Captain Morell and Mister Turkington so unhappy with me?”

  “It’s likely they weren’t expecting one of the officers to be replaced — not with what they have planned for this trip.”

  He went on to explain what Detheridge and the others had told him about the purpose of the compartments in the hold and his plan to get word to Eades.

  Kaycie’s expression grew more and more unhappy as he spoke, but she nodded along.

  “It explains why they were unhappy with me from my very arrival,” she said when he’d finished. “If they weren’t expecting Mister Carr’s emergency leave, then it must have come as an unpleasant shock. Likely they plan to inform me once we’ve set sail and present it as a fait accompli, much as they will to the crew — those who don’t already know.” She nodded again. “Right. Your message is the best course, I think — let’s be about it.”

  The day was wearing on with visits to four different banks before they finally admitted that the cost of a message with the priority they deemed suiting wasn’t exaggerated by the first they’d spoken to.

  “It’s bloody usury,” Avrel muttered as Kaycie swiped her tablet to transfer the funds. He glared at the banker, who was tapping his own tablet to acknowledge receipt. “It’s a few bits of storage in the ship’s core, we’re not buying the bloody packet.”

  The cost had been more than both of them together had in coin, and more than Avrel had even in his accounts. It was only the luck of Kaycie joining up with him that allowed the message to be sent at all.

  The banker shrugged, his full beard making his face unreadable, but his eyes showed amusement.

  “The ship goes to where you wish first.” He shrugged again. “For this, you pay.”

  Kaycie nodded and gave Avrel a little kick to the ankle. “Of course,” she said, “and thank you.”

  She rose and gestured to Avrel. “Let’s get back to the ship, Jon.”

  EVEN WITH THE message to Eades away, Avrel felt no better about things aboard Minorca, as there was no guarantee it would help.

  Though he’d truly pinned all his hopes on it, the message would first have to make its way to Penduli, a long journey, despite having paid for it to be the packet’s first stop, and then there was no surety Eades would still be there. If he were, some plan for intercepting Minorca would have to be arranged, and they’d been unable to so much as suggest where the ship might be bound. Neither he nor Kaycie had any idea, other than their eventual destination of Hso-hsi, where the ship’s next stop might be.

  Avrel had to resign himself to the likelihood that they wouldn’t actually be able to stop Minorca’s trading in slaves, only bear witness after the fact. At least he, and he was confident Kaycie, would do so, despite the risk of being sued by the Marchants. After all, Avrel had nothing more they could take from him and his only wish was to see the bastards torn down.

  MINORCA SAILED with no more than one in five of her original crew left behind on Kuriyya.

  Some of those might have honestly missed the ship’s sailing, too drunk or otherwise occupied to note the time, but Captain Morell sent no quartermaster’s mates to collect them. Most, given the grumblings Avrel heard, had left because they had no stomach for what was to come.

  He noted that those who remained were nearly evenly divided on the matter, with a third seeming enthusiastic about their coming sail, a third angry, but not so angry as to give up their pay and shares in Minorca’s journeys, and the last third seeming not to care one way or the other.

  Of his mates, none stayed behind on Kuriyya, but none were happy about what was to come.

  “It was an almost, I tell you,” Detheridge muttered, as they settled in for the noon meal shortly after sailing. They were all sweat-soaked and tired from working the sails to tack their way out of Kuriyya’s winds. She kept her voice low, so that those at the next mess tables couldn’t hear, as the whole berthing deck was far quieter than usual, both from the missing crew and that none felt too jubilant. “There was a schooner out of Hanover taking on hands and offering fine rates.”

  “I’d not sail with the Hannies for any price,” Grubbs muttered and spat to the side.

  “Better than go a bloody slaver,” Detheridge shot back.

  “And you come back aboard, dint you?” Grubbs glared at her across the mess table.

  “Only as I’ve a family to care for!”

  Detheridge’s voice was no longer kept low and they were drawing looks. Avrel and Sween glanced around, and Sween made a shushing motion with his hand, but the other two were having none of that.

  “Oh, and my reasons are black as pitch, are they?” Grubbs rose from his seat, palms flat on the table and looming across. “While your family’s all shiny? Will they st
ay so when it’s this coin what puts bread in their craws?”

  Detheridge rose as well, putting her face just centimeters from Grubbs’ across the table.

  “You leave my people out, Kalen Grubbs, or as the Dark’s my witness I’ll —”

  Grubbs gave her no time to finish, instead he drove his right fist up from the table in a vicious arc into the bottom of Detheridge’s jaw.

  Detheridge was straightened and fairly lifted off the deck by the blow, knocked back to fall over her bench into the backs of the mess behind.

  They straightened and turned, shouting, but took in the scene in a moment. Instead of anger, they grinned and steadied Detheridge on her feet. Those at the other mess tables stood as well, filling the narrow aisle between tables. There were shouts from farther forward and Avrel recognized both Bridgeford’s and Hobler’s voices, but the quartermaster and his mates were blocked, at least for a time, from making their way down the deck.

  Detheridge shook her head, then shook off the hands of the men holding her up. She narrowed her eyes at Grubbs, spat to the side, then worked her mouth and spat again — this time something clacked against the deck where she spat, and she grinned.

  Without a word, she lunged forward. Grubbs dodged the blow but not the grapple and found himself pulled forward, off balance, so that his face crashed into the table.

  Detheridge stepped back and it was Grubbs’ turn to shake his head and spit. Blood poured from his nose, which was skewed off-center.

  Avrel and Sween stepped back from the two, merging with the crowd.

  Grubbs and Detheridge glared at each other for a moment, then, as if they’d reached some unspoken agreement, lunged for each other simultaneously.