Sophie scooped a hefty portion of rice as Tisker examined the different meats Talis had brought back. He placed the paper-wrapped parcel down on the table beside his setting with a solid clunk, then nibbled a small crisp end that had fallen loose of one skewer, with his help.
He closed his eyes and savored the bite. “Haven’t had this in ages. Gods, I missed that place.”
It would be fair to say that Talis had gone a little overboard. Usually the four of them would split an order of meat with a portion of rice and vegetables for each. Cheaper that way, though it wouldn’t leave any leftovers. Today, in her elevated spirits, and shopping hungry, she had gotten more orders of meat than mouths to feed, and not the cheaper selections. It was enough food for twice as many people, but she trusted they’d find a way to make it disappear.
They’d been living on nonperishable ship rations, forced to skip a full grocery run on their last refuel because of the cost of the salvage overhead. So there had been food but nothing that inspired much enthusiasm: dehydrated meat and tins of boiled vegetables eaten standing at the prep counter, not even worth setting a place or pulling out a chair for. She’d taken in her belt two notches, as it happened. She planned on correcting that, easily, with this meal.
The mood in the galley was as palpable as the savory smells rising in curling tendrils of steam from the spread. Talis hated to squash it, but she couldn’t let Tisker’s careless outing stand unquestioned. And she had been so looking forward to revealing the contents of that crate. To silencing Sophie’s complaints and Dug’s questions of her judgment.
It would open up an entirely different line of questioning about her judgment, but she was braced for that already. Dug in particular was not going to be happy with her, but she planned at the very least to enjoy seeing her own surprise echoed on their faces when she flashed that alien money at them.
Dug returned with an unassuming wooden crate hefted over his shoulder. He had to duck to enter the galley with it. Zeela had done her job making it look like a standard transaction. Battered recycled panels formed the crate, old labels covered with the new customs forms, locked with a padlock, and nailed shut with enough tacks to make even the most by-the-books custom agent think twice about putting forth the effort to open it. As long as no one jostled it, it wouldn’t seem worth the trouble.
Swinging the load off his shoulder and down, Dug placed it before her chair. It hit the deck between her and her plate with a thud and a faint jingle from within. Dug laid a sally bar on top. The meaning there was clear enough. Answers first.
Exactly her thought. First answer she wanted, though, was what Tisker had run off for, and why Sophie had lied about it.
She put a foot up on the edge of the crate. Looked hard at Tisker. “Where’d you go? Ship’s on high watch and you gotta run off into the thick of Subrosa?”
Tisker’s gaze darted to the parcel on the table. Looked like he wished he’d put it somewhere else. “You know I’m fine out there, Cap.”
“Nothing’s fine out there today. You hear we were attacked before you run off? That Jasper’s dead? Spill it.”
Sophie cleared her throat and took a big bite of food. Dug still hadn’t parked himself in his seat. He stood over them, arms crossed. Tisker shifted, moved his utensils on the napkin. Then picked up a set of tapered nimblesticks from the pile that came with the take-out.
“Yeah, I knew. Sophie told me what happened to Jasper and how there wasn’t going to be a payout for the ring if you—we—couldn’t find someone else. Wanted to help,” he said. His words sounded small, almost childish. “You know. Use my connections to find a buyer for it.”
Talis felt heat under her collar and over her cheekbones. She picked up the cup of water Sophie had set at her place, suddenly too warm in the small room. “You went out there flapping about our business, with all the trouble Sophie’d just finished telling you about?”
“I grew up here,” he said, a little loudly. “I still know people.”
“I don’t think we really know people at all, sometimes.” Talis left open who she was referring to.
“Anyway,” Tisker pushed on, picking up food with his nimblesticks but not eating. He moved the pieces around on his plate, but wouldn’t look at her. “I didn’t need to ask around about it at all. Wasn’t even to the old stomps before someone’s alley rat came up to me about it.”
Prickles went up and down Talis’s arms and legs. “Whose rat?”
“Kid wouldn’t say.” He looked at her then. “And I sure didn’t. I’m not careless, Cap. They ask about something, directly, before you get a chance to offer it? I battened down and dropped all notions of telling anyone about it. Seemed like the news was all out, anyway. But it wasn’t on my account, Cap. I tell you that.”
His grin had flatlined. He looked downtrodden all over, like that kid who begged his way onto her ship. More like that kid than she’d seen in Tisker for a long time, in fact. She squinted at him.
“You went out without your flash?”
Tisker’s hand shot to his earlobe, the empty piercing where the ever-present twinkle of a diamond earring should have been. More than that, Talis noticed. The torque at his throat, the bronze wrist cuff, a couple silver rings.
“Tisker?”
He pushed the parcel across the table and the weight of it scraped against the wood.
