But she had Dug. She’d always figured that when the time came, they’d just dress him up in a shirt or jacket, maybe both. Keep those scars out of sight, and hope none of the border patrol crew recognized him. That had always been a long shot and a fool’s hope.
And now they had an alien aboard.
While the rest of the world bowed until their noses scraped the floor, welcoming the aliens diplomatically and with a greedy eye on their gleaming ship, the Bone had remained standoffish. The Vein employed Bone ships to guard their tight cluster of marble cities, so the Bone respected that the Vein were very interested in having the alien ship stop by to trade information. But then, not all Bone tribes were employed by the Vein, and those that weren’t chafed at that inequality. There might be some motivation to hassle the aliens on that account.
The Bone government, as much as that term applied, was a council of the tribal leaders. They were meant to come together and represent their tribes’ interests, and make decisions that would serve their common good. But there was no way to enforce that each tribe stand by the council’s decisions. There might be scuffles if the decision was heavily weighted in one direction and the opposition was limited to a single tribe. But if the matter was more divisive, it was almost impossible to back up decisions with the power to enforce them.
The Vein had a similar governing body. They called it a parliament, not a council. But the Vein lived in such close proximity to one another that their skirmishes were almost all political. Talis knew there were assassins among them, but the violence was on a much smaller scale than the Bone tended toward.
She watched Dug. Boiling beneath the surface with such malevolence. At a word from her, he’d dispatch Scrimshaw, and be relieved for it. No doubt if they met the Bone border patrol sloop, and that crew learned of the aliens’ intended destination, their reaction would be similar.
“Will it be a problem, Captain Talis, to ‘sneak’ by it?” Scrimshaw liked the word as much as xist captain had.
“Might be. Depends on what she does. We can fly below the horizon, or maybe far above. But if they’re any good at their jobs, they’re going to be looking out for a maneuver like that. For little ships with dark hulls that slip across off the traveling plane.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Scrimshaw said. Xe produced the glass tablet from a pouch at the back of xist waistband.
Talis turned to face xin. Another sip of the spiked coffee to steady herself. Couldn’t believe she was about to say: “Let’s hear it.”
The alien laid a pale hand on the dark screen. Its display activated, casting strange shadows upward over xist face, and xe deftly navigated a series of menus to activate the function xe wanted. The rigid tips of xist fingers made the barest tapping sound against its front and back. Talis tried not to marvel at the alien technology but did wonder if Sophie had ever gotten Scrimshaw to hand the tablet over for her inspection. Xe looked up.
“My vessel is not far away. Their presence might provide the border patrol ship with what they expect to see, allowing your ship to remain undetected.”
“A distraction,” Tisker said, and whistled. “You’re getting the hang of being sneaky, aren’t you?”
“Only the word is new to us,” Scrimshaw said, straightening xist back to stand even taller than xe already was. “The concept is not.”
Talis wished he hadn’t asked.
“What do you think, Captain?”
The scope was stowed along the wheel’s pedestal again. Sophie’s hands wrapped around her warm mug. Didn’t take much time on deck to get a chill.
Talis pretended to consider the alien’s idea. Pursed her lips between sips of coffee. Fact was, she was looking for another option. The alien’s was good. Easy. Likely to work. The Yu’Nyun were known for creeping silently through the skies, explaining themselves to no one. And they’d caused no real trouble so far, even with whatever they’d learned from the Rakkar about alchemy. With the casual threat of the cannon protruding from their underbelly, a single Bone sloop was unlikely to engage them unprovoked.
There wasn’t anything about the plan she could pick apart. But she should have been able to come up with something else on her own. On her ship, aliens—any strangers—didn’t get to make the plans.
But it was a good plan. And in its presence, she failed to conceive of another.
So she nodded, slowly. “Yeah, all right. We can give it a shot.”
“I will make the arrangements,” Scrimshaw said, and stepped away a few feet to send the transmission. Xist voice grated and popped, hissed and purred, as xe spoke to xist ship. The call was brief, thankfully. But long enough for the sound of their language to make her jaw tense again, working to further the headache she already had. She did pick up some of the words Scrimshaw had taught her and Sophie. Ship and go and other words that jived with the message xe said xe’d deliver. Xe also said sneak in Common Trade, apparently showing off the favored vocabulary to xist shipmates. She could see why they liked it. The way the letters ran together did sound at home among their snake-spider linguistic noises.
“It is confirmed.” The alien returned the device to xist back pouch. “They will distract the patrol ship, and then Wind Sabre should fly at a distance beneath, to the previously arranged coordinates.”
Dug laughed low and short. Shifted his position, took the coffee from its holder on the dash and took a sip. The wall was crumbling a bit. Talis narrowed her eyes at him. Was it relief at not needing to encounter the crew on that ship? His own people?
Not his
