She nodded. Afraid to say anything else careless, she just sat with him.
She could leave it at that for now. The guilt would settle back into its usual place soon enough. One day she’d make it up to him. But today she was asking more of her friend than she had any right to.
After they’d been silent awhile, Tisker came up to collect his plate, and Sophie to take over the watch on deck. So they’d been listening from below. Talis waved a hand at Sophie’s attempts to send her off to bed.
“This one’s on me, Soph,” she said. “We’re leaving at the first touch of gold, before Hankirk decides to make a move. Take some money from the coffer. Get our refuel moved up to priority. Tisker got you that part you asked for, and don’t forget what you owe him for that. Get back here fast and put it where it belongs. Tisker: prep what you can. If there’s anything we haven’t loaded on, get me a list and I’ll see it filled by breakfast. When you’re done with that, you’ve got my leave to go see if you can buy back any of what you sold. But don’t give me time to wonder if you got lost.”
The pair scurried off to carry out the orders. They’d been reasonable, after all. If one could focus on just the next step, and the next… Talis turned back to her brooding first mate.
“I do need you on this one, Dug.”
He stayed where he was for a short while but said nothing else. A solid dark silhouette against the too-yellow light of the docks. Talis didn’t try to push him. After a minute, he slipped off the engine block and went below without a word. The drafts coming in through the open bay swept in from where he’d been sitting. Shivering, she pulled up her collar and tended her watch.
As Talis monitored the activity on the docks, her mind offered up anxious thoughts. She tracked any movement. She wouldn’t sleep until they were out of there. Couldn’t have even if she wanted.
Across the multi-tiered levels of the bay, workers moved crates, refueled tanks, and loaded supplies. They would work through the night. Machinery hummed and clunked. The bay doors moved up and down for a few more ships, both arriving and leaving. Hydraulics whined and systems banged away at their tasks. The movements were the business of an insect hive. Everyone with a job, everyone moving, not wasting time. It was the normal pulse of Subrosa, nothing out of the ordinary. She felt the tension in her sinews start to let up.
But then there was a prickle on her neck. A lone, still figure caught her eye. Two levels above, on the promenade of a dockside bar. Hankirk sat at a small table overlooking the docks. Watching her.
Chapter 18
It was a long night. Though Sophie came back to relieve Talis of her watch just after midnight, there was no rest to be had. She had supplies to restock and angry suppliers who didn’t like to be rushed, even if they ran their businesses straight through the night for customers just like her. She agreed to more priority fees getting tacked onto her account than she’d have tolerated if she had the energy to argue.
All the while, Hankirk was up there. Doing nothing. The nothing was worse than an outright attack.
Talis tried to catch an hour of sleep once all the deliveries had been arranged and there was little else she could do until they arrived. The end of Sophie’s watch toned on the ship-wide comms. Talis heard light conversation outside her cabin: Dug taking over, Sophie bidding him goodnight.
She spent an hour pretending there was any hope of falling asleep, but the menace of the nothing pervaded the quiet of her cabin until it finally drove her out of bed. She selected a new pair of pants from the drawer beneath her bunk, because the previous day’s clothes were smudged with dirt and needed beating, potentially washing. She slid into a short, sleeveless shift that she could wear beneath her clothes later that day and then padded, barefoot, to the galley. The earthy scent of coffee led her to a full pot on the hob, the steel carafe still hot. Freshly brewed.
“Peace offering?”
Talis whirled around at the unexpected voice. Sophie stood in the galley access, one hand clutching the other wrist in front of her hips. Her face, streaked with coal dust, was uncomfortably formed into a questioning smile. But her eyes were still guarded. Defiant.
“Huh,” said Talis. She was exhausted, stretched too thin, not sure she could be trusted to speak. Anxiety hadn’t put her in any better a mood than the last time she and Sophie had faced off in the galley. She swallowed against the memory of the words they’d exchanged and the acid it brought up in her throat.
Sophie brushed past her, fetched two ceramic mugs out of the cupboard near the stove, and poured them each a cup of the steaming bitter drink. Talis lowered herself to the padded bench along the bulkhead, taking Tisker’s seat rather than her own at the head of the half-folded table. Across from where Dug and Sophie usually sat. It had the second-best view of the door, which made her feel slightly less cornered.
There was no sign of the previous night’s dinner. The manifests were out, a pen neatly tucked into its inkwell nearby. Talis picked up the book and skimmed the log. As she’d trusted, Tisker and Sophie had it covered. Sophie’s barely legible handwriting inventoried the engine part. Tisker’s tiny print recorded the fuel, water, groceries, and sundries taken on. Talis saw that a couple of the deliveries she’d arranged herself had already arrived and been put away. She took a deep breath.
Sophie sat and picked up the pen. Talis pushed the log book back over. Sophie made a couple of quick marks next to
