Gods damn it, this contract would solve everything. Whatever came after, her crew would be taken care of. Even if they didn’t want to be her crew any longer.
“Hartham to Fall Island,” she told him, referring to the point of the border on a direct path between those two. Hartham on the Cutter side, Fall Island and Illiya on the other, in Bone territory. “Border stations are far apart there, on account of the storm center. We’ll pass through the cloud just to be sure.”
Tisker threw his head back and laughed. Colder than his usual good humor, but it was an improvement. “And let Wind Sabre be struck by lightning. You are aimed to meet a god, aren’t you?”
“It’s not a problem. We’ve made the run before.” She turned around, unwilling to let his judgment attach itself to her back. How many questions did she have to tolerate on account of the fortune in coin sitting right there in the room? “All comes down to the skill of the pilot, doesn’t it?”
Tisker went silent.
Sophie was busy examining the wood grain of the tabletop, but she managed a coy smile. “Saw a mermaid in the clouds, once.”
Tisker tossed the gold bar onto the center of the table. It landed with a single clomp against the wood, then rolled until the uneven end where he cut it stopped its momentum. “Well, Cap, you know I’m game for anything reckless. Border run sounds like a straight good laugh, and I’d like to meet your old drinking buddy.”
Sure, now that their share of a million presscoins is in question, everyone’s suddenly in line again. But she’d take it. She would never admit it to them, but this wasn’t something she wanted to do on her own.
“Sophie?”
“Will the aliens fly with us?”
Talis shook her head. “We’re escort. Them in their ship, us on ours.”
“So we won’t get to talk to them much, then?”
Talis laughed involuntarily, thrown off her prepared arguments by the unexpected question. “You want to get your hands on their tech, you sly imp.”
The girl’s freckled nose wrinkled above her smile. “It crossed my mind.”
“I’ll see if they’ll give us one of their language pads. Or two, maybe, in case you can’t put the first back together again. In the morning you can even climb aboard their ship with me.”
There was only Dug left to voice actual assent. She looked to him. The vote, if there was such a thing, was three to his one if he dissented. As first mate, though, his word had more heft than an equal part. If he backed out of it, the younger Cutters would balk. He’d opened the door to making the run but hadn’t formally thrown his lot in. If he refused, she didn’t know if she could go through with it.
Chapter 17
Dug took a deep breath through his nose that inflated his chest, and let it out again in a slow exhale.
“You have already decided, Captain?” The words were a quiet rumble, a tone he reserved for his enemies.
She sat back down, returned the plate to her setting, and pulled her chair closer to the table so that she could lean on her elbows. “Yeah, I have.”
Dug moved for the food. Scooped rice and vegetables onto his plate, topped the mound with a cluster of skewered meat. Slower than she had. But then, his anger always did burn lower and longer than hers. Then he stood, with the serving in his hands.
“Someone should keep watch up top. Captain.”
He left the galley.
Talis took a deep breath. It hadn’t been insubordination. Quite the opposite. He’d deferred to her judgment, even though she knew he might have argued to the point of bloody knuckles. He obeyed his captain. She felt unease settle like a chill between her shoulder blades.
Sophie spoke when Talis did not. “Should someone—”
“He’ll be fine.” Talis cut Sophie off. “Come on. Food’s getting cold.”
The three of them ate in silence until Tisker broke the tension with a wisecrack comment and Sophie joined in his banter. The atmosphere of the room brightened again as the two talked about the aliens. They made deliberately ignorant suppositions about their strange anatomy and culture, laughing until their eyes teared up. When that played out, Sophie pontificated, for a long rambling stretch, about how their ship worked.
Talis had meant to ask Sophie more about the designs, whether the planks of an airship could be similarly fitted and sealed to make safer salvage dives, but found herself unable to pay attention. She sat in her own fog. Wanted to go talk to Dug about the border crossing, about taking aliens to meet his goddess. But she knew her friend had walked off because he needed to be alone. So be it.
For a bit. She wouldn’t let him stew too long.
Dug was sitting on the starboard engine house when Talis climbed topside to find him an hour later, carrying a honeyed ginger and turmeric tea as a peace offering. She’d left Sophie and Tisker to wrap up the substantial leftovers, trusting them to stay busy long enough to allow her a private word.
He accepted the tea with a silent nod, and she hoisted herself up beside him. The space between them thrummed with potential. The right words could cut through and reach him, but she had to pick them carefully.
“I didn’t take the decision lightly,” she started, but winced at her voice. She sounded pitiful.
“No, the coffer was quite heavy.”
She leaned against the engine house. The metal was warm, still, in the cooling air of the docking bay. “Come on, Dug, give me a break. That money takes care of everything. Think of a life with that kind of wealth. No more of this running.”
“I like this life.”
That was a
