Why Snow felt compelled to confess to her, Nika had no idea. “You must have had better quarters at the docks.” The two-story apartment above her studio on Salamander Street had been large. The studio itself had been made up of the small studio, the main studio, a consulting room where she walked customers through her designs, two large storerooms, and three smaller ones. True, she had turned half her apartment into a lab—she’d built the exchanger there, and countless other mods—but there was still plenty of room.
“It was just a shop,” Snow said. “I slept on the storeroom floor. I didn’t have anywhere to stay.” He chewed at his bottom lip. “Banjo must have wrecked it by now.”
“Probably.” There was no point denying the truth.
Snow nodded. They sat in silence for a moment.
“This ship is not safe,” Snow said. “If a company’s after you, there’s no escape. We shouldn’t have run from Banjo.”
Nika sat on the other end of the bed. “You didn’t have any choice, Snow. I dragged you along.” She didn’t regret running, but Snow had never been up against the likes of Alejandro, Wickmore, or Tamati.
Tamati’s body would still be rebuilding. The first of her clients would have arrived and found the doors locked. Would they do anything about it? If they went to the police, what would the police do? They’d think Alejandro was back.
“You saved me from getting beaten up.” Snow drooped. “But I don’t have anything now. No shop, no machine.”
She was going to have to get him back into a body more befitting his age. These sudden mood changes didn’t go with the thirty-five-year-old casing. “Studio, Snow. Studio. Shops are for those cheap places along the docks.”
“I wasn’t cheap.”
“First lesson in modding, Snow. You want to be a respected modder, behave like you’re one.” The docks might be a good place to learn the trade, but it was a career killer all the same. “You should have apprenticed yourself to one of the big names.”
“You have to pick a good modder. Someone you admire.” Snow paused. “I sent a request to Nika Rik Terri. She didn’t answer.”
Of course she hadn’t. “She gets”—had got—“a hundred requests every term for people asking to do an apprenticeship. She doesn’t take apprentices. Pick sensible targets, Snow. SaStudio takes on an apprentice every year.” Sa’s version of immaculate teeth was spreading across the galaxy.
“She was the only one.”
Talking about modding didn’t solve their immediate problem. Should they run again, or stay on The Road? How much trouble was the ship in?
“What’s this Hassim they keep talking about?”
Snow turned his incredulous gaze to her. “You don’t know what the Hassim is?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.”
“You have heard of Goberling, though?”
“Some old explorer who found a big source of transurides.” Roystan had named his ship after him. Was that a coincidence?
Snow sighed. “That’s like saying a Songyan is just a genemod machine. He didn’t just find transurides, Nika. He found the biggest haul of it ever. In the whole history of the galaxy no one has found a source like it.”
“What’s that got to do with the Hassim?” Goberling was long dead. She’d learned about him as a child, in history. And later, in modding, which benefited from the use of the transurides Goberling had brought back. The current glow to her own skin came from dellarine, which was a transuride. And it was an essential part of the exchanger.
Gino Giwari, the modder Nika’s first boss had been so enamored with, had used them with abandon. Back then everyone had believed Goberling’s find was the start to a cheaper supply.
Snow sighed again. “Goberling disappeared without telling anyone where his lode was. The Hassim was searching for it.”
“And?”
“The Hassim has a record of everywhere it’s been. Unexplored worlds. That information is a treasure trove on its own.”
“But they haven’t found the transurides.” Everyone would have heard if they had.
“Not Goberling’s lode, no. But they found new worlds. Unexplored worlds worth billions of credits on their own. You sell the location of these worlds to a company, and live comfortably for the rest of your life. If you’ve a good lawyer, you can negotiate a percentage of profits from the world, as well.”
Company lawyers, Nika had found, could bypass any legal contract.
“Taki Feyodor was a company lawyer before she went exploring. There are smaller companies that have gotten rich just from managing what the Hassim sold previously. The Hassim hasn’t sold anything for years. They haven’t needed to.”
Nika didn’t get the logic jump between Goberling and the Hassim not needing to sell anything, but Snow apparently thought it obvious.
“Maybe they don’t have anything to sell.” Even Nika knew how hard and expensive it was to find new worlds. How many worlds could one ship find in a lifetime?
Her own world, Lesser Sirius, had started out as a company world. The company had gone broke. The residents—Nika included—had bought shares in it.
“There’s at least one world.” Snow stood up to pace. “Everyone knows about it. Well, maybe not you, but everyone else does. You should get out more. Feyodor was negotiating with XGRC.”
XGRC had gone broke two years earlier. Which was why the Big Twenty-Eight was now the Big Twenty-Seven.
“Rumor is Eaglehawk sent them broke, then bought the bankrupt company.”
Nika couldn’t stop her shiver at the name. She well believed they could send another of the Big Twenty-Seven companies broke. Eaglehawk played dirty.
“They tried to get Feyodor to honor the deal, but she refused. The contract hadn’t been signed.” Snow’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Just that one world would make you rich.”
“What if the world turns out to be a waste of money?”
“A company will pay for it, regardless. But she was asking a lot for this one.
“So they think Roystan’s got the location of this world from the Hassim. But he hasn’t.”
“He might be lying.”
He might be, but even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter when you were up against Eaglehawk. They’d tie up any loose ends. Especially if the crew of The Road had witnessed what they’d done on the Hassim.
They were still safer on the ship. Roystan had said he would take them where they wanted to go. Nika thought he’d honor that.
“When this is over, Snow, I’ll buy you a studio. With whatever brand of mod machine you want in it.”
“You don’t have to patronize me.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“I’ll make my own way.”
“Snow, you were right. You didn’t have to run. I did. I’ll replace what I helped you to lose.”
Snow flung himself back onto his bunk. “Banjo would have trashed my shop no matter what. Probably destroyed the Netanyu. We both know that. I was going to lose everything.”
Nika leaned back. “Where would you like your new studio?”
He stared at the bottom of the bunk above him. “Salamander Street. Right next door to Nika Rik Terri’s.”
Nika had news for him. Nika Rik Terri didn’t practice on Salamander Street anymore.
Why not? He was a good modder. “Sure.”
Snow raised himself on an elbow. “Do you know how much the rent is on Salamander Street?”
She didn’t. She’d owned her studio, and owning shares to Lesser Sirius gave her benefits noncitizens didn’t have. Like not having to pay rates. On a new world, she’d have to worry about things like that. And decide what to do with the studio on Salamander Street. Rent it out, she supposed.
“We’re not going back to Lesser Sirius.”
“No.” He flopped back onto the bunk. “
I suppose we’re not. Let me see. I want a Songyan, of course.”
Songyans had to be custom-made. It took experience to know what you wanted. “Maybe you should start off with a later-model Netanyu.”
“They’re no good. You have to buy too many add-ons. You’re better off buying a 3501, like I had.”
Nika smiled. “My first-ever machine was a Dekker. Older even than the one on the ship here. Awful machine, and not just the calibrator.” She shivered, remembering the time she’d come awake early.
Snow raised himself up again. “I’d never heard of them before yesterday.”
Yesterday. Tamati had another seven days in the machine.
The tiny cabin felt oppressive, suddenly. Nika stood up. “Let’s go back to the crew room.”
14
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Josune fast-forwarded the memory to the Hassim’s last hours, set it to play, and promptly fell asleep.
A lancing pain around her eye woke her. Her stretched-tight skin throbbed, her head ached, her eye burned. She couldn’t think.
She struggled to sit up and slowly became aware of an unfamiliar voice on the screen, and Feyodor’s voice answering. It was the Hassim playback, still going. Feyodor was talking to the company man Pol had killed.
She should go back and listen earlier, to see how they had got onto the ship, and what had happened then, but right now, she didn’t care.
The company man’s voice was cultured and pleasant. Provided you didn’t listen to the words.
“We will track your crew down and kill them, one by one. Including the one who’s missing. So why not give up this farce and call for them to surrender.”
He wouldn’t keep his word. Josune clenched her fists.
A red haze of pain engulfed her. She barely heard the next words.
“As if you would keep your word.” Feyodor’s voice was cultured too, evidence of her own background as a company lawyer. She put the accent on different syllables, though, and pronounced her i’s and e’s differently. “If they surrender, you will shoot them. I know that. They know that.”
The company man laughed. “Today I am feeling generous. Just tell me the whereabouts of Goberling’s lode.”
“If I knew that, would I still be here?”
“But you’re closer than you have ever been.”
Feyodor didn’t deny it. “And I’m wondering how a company man like you knows that.”
So did Josune.
She switched cameras to see who else was in the room. Her eyes blurred, then cleared. Jervois and Dani were dead. Dani had a knife in her back. Thrown, at a guess. Ricaro and Chen were silent, arms above their heads. She looked at the two men holding weapons against them, then looked at the weapon the boss held at Feyodor’s throat. Plasma guns. One hit would melt a person—and half the bridge—into a heap of slag.
Feyodor should have called their bluff. They wouldn’t use guns like that near the backup memory. Then she looked at Jervois’s melted face. Wrong. They would use them.
It took skill to use a plasma gun. What sort of skill did it take to use one and only take out the person you used it on, rather than the whole area?
She checked the other cameras. Watched as two company men fought it out with Sammy. He was good, but these two were professionals.
Watching him fight, hand to her mouth, helpless, Josune understood what her crewmates must have known. These people were specialists. Her presence would have made no difference. The crew of the Hassim was outclassed. Roystan’s team should have been dead, would have been if she hadn’t fired first, hadn’t known the ship, hadn’t had her bioware.
Josune felt a surge of grim satisfaction. These were the two she’d shot when Roystan’s boarding team had first gone across. Roystan was lucky he’d arrived so late. Lucky she’d known the codes.
One of the men punched Sammy. His head rolled back, his neck at an impossible angle. Almost certainly dead.
They dragged Sammy down to the rec room, where nine of her crewmates were already tied up. Peng wasn’t moving, would have been flat on her back except she was wedged tightly between two other crew.
The person with Feyodor, presumably the boss, called then. “Time to make an example. You’ve a full ten down there.”
It wasn’t a question. He knew where his people were. “Kill them.”
“Do that and none of us will cooperate,” she heard from Feyodor.
“But you weren’t cooperating anyway, Captain. This lets you know just how serious we are.”
The two men in the rec room took out blasters.
Josune closed her eyes as they executed her friends.
“It’s always so boring, shooting them while they’re tied up,” the one who’d killed Sammy said. “A good fight is so much more fun.”
She wanted to kill them all over again.
The other man grunted. “Dead is dead. It’s just a job. I like mine easy. Besides, there’s ten more to kill. You’ll get your fun.”
Josune wished she had a weak stomach, like Roystan. She wanted to purge the sight—the memory—of what she had seen. She bookmarked the feed and turned the link off. She couldn’t watch any more, and her headache was burning a hole in her brain.
* * *
• • •
They nullspaced when she was halfway to the crew room. A smooth jump, with no firing of the rockets after. She guessed Nika was at the calibrator, and Roystan the pilot. Indeed, by the time she’d made her way down to the crew room—it was hard work, and she had to stop often for her panting to subside—Roystan and Nika were coming down from the bridge.
“Josune,” Roystan said. “Should you be up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Which was the truth.
Nika came over. “Let’s look at you.” She touched a hand to Josune’s skin, pressed gently. “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?” Of course it hurt.
Nika nodded. “That’s good. Second-degree burns. You’ve still got the nerve endings.”
Right now, she rather wished she hadn’t.
Nika looked at her face and frowned. “It means that when we put you in the machine, you won’t be in there for weeks having a complete skin repair.” She looked at the dendritic pattern on Josune’s arms. “Nice design, though. I wonder if I could use it.”
“Nika.” Roystan sounded like Snow. Or maybe it had been Snow, for he was standing in the doorway behind them.
The two women exchanged sudden, companionable grins.
“Ideas are everywhere,” Nika said.
“But not in someone else’s misfortune.”
“If you can’t drag beauty out of pain, what can you get out of it?”
“Don’t judge most modders by Nika,” Snow said. “She’s odd, by anyone’s standards.”
Odd, maybe, but as Roystan himself had said, a damned good modder. Snow should have heard of her. And, from her reaction when Snow had mentioned Nika Rik Terri, he probably had.
Carlos came in. “You look awful. Should you be out of bed?”
“No,” Roystan said.
“I couldn’t sleep.” If they sent her back to bed she’d scream. Or tear her eye out, which was burning a hole in its socket.
“She probably smelled the food cooking,” Nika said. “I did.” And everyone, blessedly, shut up about whether she should be up and made room for her at the table.
In this new order of seating—Pol, Qiang, and Guardian gone, and Nika and Snow here—she found herself sitting beside Roystan. He was comfortable, and quiet, and his deep voice rumbled against her sensitive skin when he laughed once, but she missed being able to look into his eyes.
He glanced at her occasionally, and was ready with a hand every time she moved, but he didn’t say anything.
Most of the talk was about the cargo exchange. “We can’t a
fford the docking fees,” Jacques said. “Nor can Kahurangi, unless she’s making a lot more credits than she used to. We should do a space-to-space transfer.”
Roystan didn’t look at Josune. She knew it was deliberate. “We’ve got hurt crew here, Jacques.”
“But we—” Jacques buried his face in his hands. Josune watched as he struggled to compose himself. He finally looked up. “Sorry, Josune.”
Josune reached across and touched a hand to his. “It’s your job.”
Jacques flinched. He turned Josune’s hand over. “Does it hurt?”
Right now, the thing that hurt most was her head, for she was working up to a headache to beat all headaches. She shrugged. Even that hurt.
Jacques let Josune’s hand go and stood up. “I suppose we should be grateful you forced us to Atalante instead. Despite my slaving down there in cargo for hours before anyone remembered to mention that.” His voice was harsher than it normally was. “Atalante should let us run a tab, at least.”
Roystan flushed. “Sorry, Jacques. But I had to be sure Kahurangi could do the job first.”
Jacques moved to the galley and patted the stove top. “At least I can rely on you. You’ve never let me down. Roystan, you’d better put us straight onto that cargo door. You know as well as I do how awkward our lock is when it’s on an angle.”
“Have I ever docked badly before?”
“Last time. Remember?”
“In his defense, he did have the use of only one arm at the time,” Carlos said.
Jacques brought a coffee over and placed it in front of Josune.
She looked at him, surprised. Jacques only ever waited on Roystan.
“You look like shit. You probably couldn’t get up to get a coffee if you tried.”
“Thanks.” The smell of the coffee made her headache worse, but she smiled anyway, and hoped Jacques put any weirdness in her expression down to her sparker burns.
She closed her eyes and sat back, listening to the banter, which had a forced edge to it. Maybe she should go back to bed. Before her headache got so bad she couldn’t move.
She didn’t notice Nika talking to her, or feel the hand on her arm. Not until Roystan leaned over. “Josune?”
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