Ghost Ship

by Kathryn Hoff

  “Two hours,” Kojo said. “We’ve been hanging around this bit of space for two hours. And it’s getting cold.” We’d put power on skinny mode to reduce our energy signature.

  Hiram scowled into the scanner. “He’ll be here.”

  Tinker rubbed my ankle and settled into a good licking session near my feet.

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” I said. “The fifty thousand sovs was tempting, but probably too good to be true. Let’s just forget the warning coin and head for the jump gate and Saipan. We can sell the cargo, replenish our funds, and figure out what to do from there.”

  “Nine days’ travel to the gate, and if they’ve barred us from jumping…” Kojo began.

  “We don’t know the Settlement Authority sent that coin,” I said. “It just doesn’t seem like something they’d do. I think we should take the chance and get as far away as we can now, before the Authority really does close the jump gates to us. Far enough to make it inconvenient for Ordalo to come after us if his buyer finds the tag on the synthreactor.”

  Ancestors, I didn’t relish the idea of hiding for the rest of my life, never knowing if Ordalo might show up. Or the prospect of being barred from the star corridors and stuck in sublight for the rest of our days. I yearned to get back to normal, working our way from system to system, picking up cargo and passengers, the way we always had.

  Damn Kojo for getting us into this mess.

  “Have a little faith,” Hiram said. “Davo will be here.”

  Kojo drummed his fingers. “One more hour. If he’s not here by then, we run for the gate.”

  Thunk. A bang on the hull made me jerk.

  Tinker hissed and ran for the passage.

  The hailer blared, “Hiram? You old scow jockey. You gonna open the hatch or not?”

  “Where the hell?” Kojo stared at the scanner—still no blip of a ship.

  Hiram wheezed laughter. “I told you he’d be here. Well, go on, lad. Open the hatch.”

  Davo’s skimmer was there all right: Mudpuppy was grappled to Sparrow’s hull, her hatch married to ours.

  “How the hell did he sneak up on us?” Archer asked, peering out of the engine room. “I was watching the scanners and didn’t see a thing.”

  That was something I’d like to find out myself.

  After checking the seals to the linkage, I opened the hatch. Davo’s twisted frame stepped through, as proud as if he captained a burzing freighter. I peeked into Mudpuppy—an elderly Terran hull, scarred and bare inside, made for short intra-system hops. It might have room to carry four people, if they weren’t too big and didn’t have much luggage.

  “Cute trick,” Kojo muttered.

  “Ah, don’t get your pecker in a twist,” Davo said. “Just an old smuggler’s ploy. Kwame would have sussed us out soon enough.”

  Kojo’s jaw tightened. It was going to get real old, real quick, Davo holding Papa up like some kind of paragon that Kojo could never live up to.

  As I closed the hatch, a squawk sounded from the other side.

  “What d’ya mean, shutting me out? I go with my captain.”

  I reopened the hatch. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

  “Then you must be blind as a bladder-worm’s back end.”

  A young woman stepped aboard—a girl, really, she could hardly have been old enough to leave school. Slender, with a heart-shaped face, golden skin, and black hair gathered into a long, tidy braid. She was pretty enough to turn heads.

  The dirty old dog. Davo was old enough to be her father.

  Kojo looked her up and down with a grin. “Is this your crew, Davo?”

  “He’s Captain Davo, to you,” the girl snapped. The sleeves and legs of her too-big jumpsuit were rolled up and she’d belted it at the waist to take up the slack.

  Davo stepped up to Kojo with a scowl. “That’s right. Charity here’s my crew. And she’s my daughter, so keep your eyes where they belong and treat her with respect.”

  Kojo looked from Davo’s scarred face to Charity’s flashing eyes. Twitching a smile, he said formally, “Welcome aboard, Captain Davo and Mzee Charity.”

  As Kojo escorted Davo to the command deck, Charity turned to me, arms crossed, chin up. “So, you think this old hauler is up to the job?”

  Kojo had welcomed her aboard, but that didn’t mean I had to take sass from a jumped-up junior apprentice. “Sparrowhawk can manage a hell of a lot more than your skimmer. What kind of name is Mudpuppy, anyway?”

  “Daddy says it’s some kind of salamander. Fast, hard to find, and harder to get hold of. Let’s see what your ship’s got, then.”

  I laughed. A slippery creature that hides under rocks was an apt description for Davo. “You want a tour? Come on.”

  On the command deck, we couldn’t do more than peek into the wheelhouse—it was already crowded with Hiram, Davo, and Kojo as Sparrow pulled away from the radiation field.

  Charity paused at the wardroom’s closed door. “What’s this, then?”

  “It’s private, quarters for captain and pilot. Watch out!”

  The wonky gravity turned sideways for a moment as Sparrow banked to port. I was getting used to the grav generator’s lag, but Charity stumbled and would have fallen down the companionway stairs if I hadn’t caught her.

  “Don’t you got no stabilizers?” she yelped.

  “Better hold the rail, dear,” I said, my voice dripping honey. “If you’re not used to turbulence…”

  Her face flushed red. “I can handle turbulence. I been sailing with my daddy since I was a little tyke.”

  “Really?” I eyed her ill-fitting jumpsuit and the way she clutched the rail.

  “That is,” she said stiffly, “he used to take me out in his skimmer sometimes.”

  That sounded more likely. I led her down the main deck passage. “Salon and galley are forward, passenger cabins aft.” Her eyes widened at the couches and entertainment consoles. They must have seemed luxurious compared to the skimmer.

  “Carpet’s a bit worn, ain’t it?” she sniffed.

  Tinker warily poked her face out from under the couch.

  “Ooh, you have a cat!” Charity lowered a hand to Tinker’s level, cooing, “She’s a pretty kitty.”

  Tinker sniffed at Charity’s outstretched fingers, then rubbed her face against Charity’s hand.

  Charity grinned. “See, she likes me!” I didn’t bother to tell her that Tinker was scent-marking her, claiming her as “property of Tinker.” She reached for the cat, but Tinker had the good sense to slink away and up the companionway.

  “Tinker spends most of her time below, hunting bilge mice,” I said, leading Charity down the aft steps. “The lower deck is mostly holds: storage for provisions, cargo holds, and cold storage for power mods and jump cells.”

  “I’ve never made a jump. You ever go all the way to the central sectors?” Her head pivoted as she took in the profusion of shut doors and hatches.

  “We could, of course, but the trading’s better in the outer sectors.” If Mudpuppy lived up to her name by being slippery, Sparrowhawk made her name by being small and fast, able to snatch a living by running between small ports on the fringes of settlement.

  “What about Lazuna? You ever been there?” she asked.

  “I went to flight school there to get my star corridor license.” That was one of Papa’s more generous gifts, making sure Kojo and I weren’t just seat-of-the-pants scow jockeys, but officially licensed for passengers and cargo in the faster-than-light star corridors as well as the Selkid and Terran sectors.

  Charity stopped in the corridor, sucking in her lower lip. “You went to the Lazuna school? That’s what I aim to do. Daddy’s teaching me the fundamentals, but once we salvage this derelict, he’s gonna use the money to send me to flight school.”

  “You want to have your own ship?” I had to shout over the throbbing of the engines. “Sail the Gloom like your dad?”

  “Hell, no!” she yelled back. “The Gloom scares the crap outta
me. I want to pilot the ore freighters—they make money like a Selkid shits grass.”

  Sensible girl. I might have liked her, if she wasn’t Davo’s daughter.

  Archer greeted her with puppy-like enthusiasm, eager to show her the intricacies of main propulsion, maneuvering rockets, thrusters, and jump drives, but I herded her back toward the passenger deck and out of his way. I followed, making sure the cargo holds and storage rooms were locked. We weren’t carrying anything particularly valuable, but strangers aboard always made me cautious.

  “I’ll be in my cabin,” I told her. “You can use the consoles in the salon, if you want, and the crew shower if you need it.” She wasn’t a paying passenger and she wasn’t a member of the crew, but I figured Mudpuppy’s facilities were probably rather basic.

  Once in my cabin, I relaxed a bit. Charity seemed a nice-enough girl—if she was a little prickly on coming aboard a better class of ship than she was used to, that was understandable. But Davo had made my back hairs rise. Maybe it wasn’t fair to regard her with suspicion just because I didn’t care for her father, but when was the universe ever fair?

  According to the scanner, we were heading well away from the beacons that marked the route to the distant jump gate, using an ill-marked route that would eventually take us to the meandering current known as the Ribbon Road. The latest beacon had held no messages for Sparrowhawk—if the Settlement Authority had any instructions for us, they weren’t using the normal communication channels. As for our usual customers, we’d been away so many weeks they must have thought we’d gone out of business.

  The public news feeds were filled with local stories: a Kriti alderman’s political troubles, the outer settlements complaining about Settlement Authority restrictions on terraforming—and the Kriti garda trumpeting arrest of a ring of tech smugglers, including the notorious Ordalo.

  The Kriti prosecutor had appeared before the news-feed imagers. “This time, we’re closing down this dangerous trade for good!” he promised. “Tech smuggling is more than a few evaporators or hydroverters being diverted away from deserving, legal agricultural colonists. Criminals like Ordalo undermine the rule of law, extorting outrageous sums from desperate people by promising their little moon or asteroid will be transformed into a paradise. And what do they get? For every promising farm outside the protection of the Settlement Authority, there are a dozen outlaw gangs waiting to take over. These wildcat colonies, upsetting the stability of the frontier sectors…”

  In the wardroom, I found Kojo lounging on his bunk, Tinker curled up at his side.

  “Yeah, I saw the feed,” he said. “This won’t be the usual slap on the flipper for Ordalo—that prosecutor wants to make his name by putting him away for good. If Ordalo doesn’t go for the goods, we’ll get our releases once the twenty-eight days have passed, but…”

  “But we can kiss the amnesty goodbye. We don’t dare go for the jump gate now—the Corridor Patrol will be watching for us.”

  Everything we went through getting that damn synthreactor to the edge of the Gloom, all for nothing.

  Kojo slumped on the bunk. “If we can’t use the gate, we should scope out Barony when we get there, see if it’s a good place to stay out of circulation for a while. It’s far enough off the star corridors that the Patrol doesn’t bother going to that system. Once we collect for the salvage, we could change Sparrow’s identity, stay away from the jump gates, and carry cargo locally.”

  “Hauling junk between moons? With Barony ready to go to war with Troy at any time?” What a depressing prospect. “Hiram wasn’t too keen on Barony, and Davo wasn’t, either.”

  Kojo’s mouth tightened. “You don’t like that idea? How about this one: junk Sparrow on Barony, buy new identities for ourselves, make a new start somewhere else.”

  “Junk Sparrow? Hell, no.”

  “We don’t have many choices, Patch. If you come up with a better one, let me know.”

  I just stood there, silent and miserable.

  Kojo touched my hand. “Don’t give up hope yet. Maybe Ordalo will find a way out of trouble. His kind always does. And when he picks up the synthreactor”—I noticed he said when and not if—“the Authority will follow them to wherever the terraforming site is. We’re not out of the game yet.”

  Davo settled into the wheelhouse with Hiram, swapping tales about the old days while guiding us toward the Ribbon Road with Mudpuppy clinging to Sparrowhawk’s side like a canker.

  Charity parked herself in front of one of the entertainment consoles in the salon. Not feeling like company, I retreated to my cozy cabin to worry.

  We’d be all right for a few days. The Ribbon Road was well off the Corridor Patrol’s beat, so we should be able to finish Davo’s job and put some money in our pockets.

  And after that?

  Kojo might have a gambler’s optimism that our bad luck would eventually turn good. I had no such faith. Call it indentured servitude, call it prison, to me it was all the same: slavery. I would not let myself be taken by the Authority or by Ordalo.

  But Kojo was right, our options were limited. We could jettison Sparrow’s transponders and sail rogue, our ship nameless and stateless, our hard-won licenses abandoned, haunting the pirate ports and the sublight backroads. Hiram and Papa had started out that way and worked their way into respectability with years of mostly legitimate work. It shamed me that it had taken only a few months for me and Kojo to squander Sparrowhawk’s good name.

  But keeping our ship sailing under any name would need both me and Kojo. My brother had no love for the day-to-day headaches of owning a business—he’d been saying we should sell out ever since Papa died. My trust for Kojo was paper-thin already; I doubted we could hold our relationship together for long in the hardscrabble orbit of sublight shuttling.

  And the alternative: find some no-questions-asked dealer to buy Sparrowhawk.

  Kojo had talked lightly about selling Sparrow, but for me, it would be like losing Papa all over again. She’d be stripped down to parts. My homey little cabin, the helm where Hiram spent his days, the engines Archer was so proud of—they’d all be ripped into bits like the junk Archer welded together and sold as antiques.

  The thought made me sick. I loved Sparrowhawk, with her wheezy engines and clunky grav generator. For me, she was home and comfort and freedom and my strongest tie to Papa.

  And what about after? With an arrest warrant out for us, we’d have to buy black-market identity implants. Start a new life with no ship, no home, no history.

  Kojo would find a berth easy enough—a good pilot, even one with a dodgy implant, could always find work.

  For me, it would be much harder. A pilot’s berth would be too conspicuous—hybrids weren’t common anywhere and were always regarded with suspicion. On some little Terran world like Barony, hiding would be impossible.

  My best hope would be to find some big city with a mixed-race population to get lost in. Spend my days working for somebody else, buying and selling their goods instead of my own. Staying quiet and out of sight, lost in the crowd, instead of striding proudly down the street of some frontier world as the owner of my own ship.

  Planet-bound, watching other ships come and go. Yearning to sail the stars, knowing I’d never again have that freedom.

  I’d been born a slave, and I’d sworn that I would never be enslaved again. But there are different kinds of bondage—and being tied to a planet, kept away from space, was a kind of bondage, too.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ghost stories

  Charity sidled into the narrow galley. “What do you eat on this ship?”

  “We eat fresh when we can get it, rations otherwise.” I unlatched the lid of the soup cooker and stirred a chopped onion into the beans-and-carrot stew.

  Charity stared hungrily at the steaming pot, chewing on her lower lip. “That smells good. Daddy’s got nothin’ but rations—the cheap ones that all taste the same.”

  I should have known Davo and his “crew” would
end up freeloading on us.

  “All right,” I said. “You can share supper tonight, provided you clean the dishes.” I dumped more beans into the pot.

  “Thanks! I’ll set the table.” Her sunny smile made me feel dowdy. “Where’s your spoons?” She popped open lockers, peering at the contents and getting in my way.

  I withdrew bowls and safety covers and pushed the lockers shut. “We don’t bother with the table unless we have passengers aboard—paying passengers. I just take food to whoever’s on duty in the wheelhouse, and the rest of us serve ourselves.”

  “At home, we always sit to table for supper. My mama’s real strict about that—says a family ought to eat together and be grateful they’ve got one another. Where do you eat, then?”

  I shrugged. “While we’re at sublight, I keep Archer company in the engine room. That way, he can have a chance to eat while I monitor the engines.”

  “I’ll eat with you two, then. Unless…are you two bunk-thumping? You want to be alone?”

  “It’s all right, you can eat with us.” Her chirpiness put my teeth on edge. Maybe the noise in the engine room would drive her off.

  Archer seemed happy enough to see her, sitting down with her and asking about her family.

  I left them to it, standing at the consoles to respond to the pings from the helm, keeping the propulsion balanced between bites of stew while they ate and chatted. That is, she chatted about her life in a Kriti recycling commune while Archer smiled and nodded.

  The scanner flashed with warnings about sailing so close to the Gloom. Our heading was taking us toward a distant beacon whose weak signal sputtered as the Gloom’s ether tendrils drifted into our path. With each bounce and course correction, the gravity adjusted a second too slow—if it weren’t for the cover on our bowls, the stew would have hit the deck. If the course stayed this rough, we’d be back to sucking rations through spouts.

  I wasn’t really listening to Charity’s blather until she looked up, suddenly serious. “They’ll still be there, won’t they? The dead ship’s crew?”