“Sure, once,” she said. “This planet look to you like it can all just go back to the happy fantasy time you and your fatcrat Veritor friends can’t let up about?”
The door to her cabin opened and Tisker entered. His eyebrows jumped at the sight of Hankirk. At his captain, half-dressed. Then, true to his character, he accepted the situation as it was, no questions. Unleashed that rogue’s grin and crossed the cabin, taking her pistol so she could get her shirt on.
“This guy bothering you, Cap?”
Hankirk sat back in the seat, hands up in surrender. “All of history can be corrected,” he said in answer to Talis.
“Oh yeah,” Talis said to Tisker. “He most certainly is.”
Talis didn’t have the right combination of character deficiencies to outright murder someone, much as she’d fantasized about Hankirk’s death lately. If she did, she might have saved herself the trouble and offed him back in the Tined Spoon District of Subrosa. Or let Dug finish him off back when he’d first overtaken them on The Serpent Rose.
Instead, they left the bastard alive again, albeit unarmed and without shelter, on the rain-washed island they’d moored to for the night. He was drenched only moments after they pushed him down the gangway to shore, destined for pneumonia if the mermaids didn’t get him first.
No, not murder. But her character did have deficiencies enough to take more than a slice of pleasure in leaving the man behind.
It occurred to her that they could have tied him up and carried him along in the brig. Probably would have made a bit more sense. Could be leverage later on.
She shuddered. Keep him that close? No, thank you. Better to have him well out of the way, unable to tangle himself in their knotted ’locks any longer.
Sleep finally came, once she crawled back into her bunk, and dreamed of Hankirk’s lost expression as Wind Sabre made her way back into the buoy lanes and left him behind.
“What do you think? Does she see us?”
Tisker handed the scope over, his eyes locked on the bright shape out in the dark.
Instead of looking at the border patrol ship that Tisker had spotted, Talis scanned the rest of the sky through the glass. The gold pumpkins glowing from port made her squint against their brightness. Nexus, green light source off their starboard side. She didn’t even have to look to know where that was. There was a dull ache in her head from the proximity to it, already, and that peculiar tightness in her chest was getting stronger. It felt like a weight being pulled out of quicksand, and her chest was the quicksand.
“Not yet. She’s only flashing reflections for us. We’re too far off and in the dark spaces between to catch that light.” She handed the scope back to Tisker. “Plus we’ve still got the storm at our back. But keep an eye on her. If she comes around, I want to know about it. Fly us on her dark side, low as you dare.”
“Little stray wisp of storm cloud,” he murmured.
She nodded. The glow station pumpkins couldn’t backlight them if Wind Sabre didn’t eclipse the patrol ship’s view.
Sophie came up to the deck, burdened with a tray of mugs. Scrimshaw walked beside her, xist hands empty. Talis chafed. Whether Sophie had declined help or whether it hadn’t occurred to the alien to offer was unclear. Sophie’s smile was easy as ever, though. It seemed the lack of selflessness in their guest was a point that only bothered Talis.
Steam rose from the four steel cups, and Talis felt her tensed jaw muscles relax in anticipation of the comforting drink.
“Border patrol ship,” she told them, gratefully accepting the coffee when it was offered. “Bone side, Bone make.”
Sophie traded the tray of coffees to Tisker, taking the scope in its place and having a look at the clinker-hulled sloop for herself.
Dug, who had given Tisker a break at the helm, accepted the remaining cup and leaned his hip against the wheel to compensate for taking a hand away. He’d been dangerously quiet since Scrimshaw came aboard, whether or not he was in the alien’s presence. Still obeyed commands, still took his duties seriously, but her friend was walled up behind those angry eyes, out of her reach.
He made no comment. Not about the Bone ship, not about being so close to home for the first time in so long. Talis had done her best to keep their runs in Cutter skies while he sorted out his sorrows. She hadn’t been looking forward to the day she knew was coming. Eventually business would drive them back out into the rest of the world. They’d have to pass through Bone territory to get to Rakkar or Vein islands, which were surrounded on all sides by the Bone, the only people with the capability to hold the Cutter encroachment at bay. The Cutter Empire had nipped at the edges of their territory for generations, and though they managed to overtake a majority of Peridot’s atmosphere, there was still enough of the world beyond Cutter skies and Talis knew they’d have to venture back sooner rather than later.
And sooner was here.
She took a thoughtful sip of the coffee. The leathery taste of whiskey stowed away in the bitterness of the brew. Good girl, Sophie. They were all bone-soaked from the storm and more than a little bit in need of warming.
With the relationship between the Imperials and Bone tribal leaders as strained as it was, a ship smuggling goods out of Cutter skies was more likely to receive a warm welcome from Bone border patrols. The sloops would intercept, make a show of inspection, and then generally stay aboard for drinks, maybe gamble on some dice for a bit, before sending the
