“Proper?” Qole spat out the word like something disgusting, and looked as if she would stuff it back down my throat if she could. “What the hell would you know about any of that?”
While I didn’t have any working knowledge of how to Shadow fish, I had certainly studied the industry. “Only that containment holds exist that can, I don’t know, actually contain Shadow safely—no leaking, no degrading, no need for your crew to siphon it into different blasted containers”— I ticked off the qualities on my fingers—“and with one, your ship could carry your catch until you get to a processing station that could simply suck it out of the hold. I know that’s how Shadow is shipped off-planet.”
“If you actually knew what you were talking about, other than about what’s off-planet, then you’d know how few operations can afford that type of setup here. There are maybe two ships like that on all of Alaxak.”
Arjan had tried to tell me the same thing, but that didn’t change the fact that this was still a stupidly dangerous, inefficient way to do things. “Well, those two are the only ships whose captains value their lives over their catch, apparently. Working like a maniac doesn’t make anyone noble, it just makes them a maniac.”
Qole stepped closer to me, and for a second we were face to face as she stared up at me and yet stared me down. For the first time, I noticed something other than anger in her brown eyes—something dark that flickered at the corners.
Shadow. Literally, Shadow, flickering at the edges of her whites. Great Collapse, I’d heard the stories, but I hadn’t really believed it. This wasn’t Shadow poisoning—this was her affinity, active in her system.
I braced myself. For what, I didn’t know.
Then her eyes narrowed into normal anger, and she turned on her heel and disappeared from the hold.
I’m pretty sure we all blinked. Except for maybe Basra—I didn’t get a chance to catch him in the act.
Fantastic. I’d just thoroughly alienated the one person I’d needed to befriend. In fact, I might have just gotten myself fired by the one person I’d needed to befriend.
I resisted the urge to rub my forehead and give away how unnerved I was. Facing an infuriated Qole had been bad enough, but the new realization trickling into my stomach was worse: As we were running for Shadow, the best I could hope for was to hear her commands over the comm as I canistered my way to a stupid death.
I ignored Basra and Telu, who were both watching me, and began hefting the fallen canisters for something to do, knowing I’d be expected to restack them anyway. If I had a different position on the ship, if we had a moment to breathe, if we had more time planet-side…
Planet-side. At first, I hadn’t been able to wait to get aboard the Kaitan. But that was when I’d been thinking it would afford me the opportunity to get close to the captain. Other captains took time to repair, refuel, and recharge their crew in the villages. The situation would be different there, and surely, if nothing else, I’d be able to buy Qole a drink.
However, in spite of my brush with death, Qole showed no signs of quitting. She was probably even less inclined to stop now.
I eyed the canisters, feeling less bitter toward them. We might not need refueling at the moment, but we could easily need to address some other pressing issue.
I wouldn’t dare mess with something as dangerous as Shadow, but its volatility could serve me in another way. There were panels on each canister that displayed how full it was and how intact the lining was. Very simple electronics—but it would be a serious business indeed if they suddenly displayed imminent failure.
Serious enough to head back to Alaxak.
Next time, consider saving up for a proper containment hold….
The sentence echoed in my mind, getting louder along with sparking surges of rage, as I made my way back up to the bridge. Nearly every word brought on a new flare that made my vision blacken at the edges.
Next time…“Next times” were a luxury not all of us got in the Shadow fishing business. And Telu, Arjan, and I were facing other dangers, every day, that arrogant, self-assured piece of scat didn’t have a clue about.
…consider saving up…As if living day-to-day, keeping my crew well paid and well fed, and covering overhead costs that sometimes felt so huge as to crush me left me much room to just save up. Not to mention I might not live long enough to save much of anything. Such a na?ve offworlder.
…for a proper…What did that word even mean out here? It wasn’t as if I could go to the blasted Containment Hold Market. He knew absolutely nothing.
No, I thought as I stopped to brace myself in the doorway of the bridge, no, Nev—if that was even his name—knew much more than nothing. He had a familiarity with ships, even this type of ship, which was so customized beyond its standard, outdated model as to be nearly unique. I’d hired him in a hurry without the interview that Eton had wanted to subject him to, but then, most new arrivals on Alaxak weren’t eager to talk about their pasts. We’d needed a new loader after our old one left abruptly—the fifth to quit this year—and it was a position that didn’t require much know-how. No one with much brainpower wanted it, anyway. And yet he was far better educated than most, especially at his age—eighteen? Twenty?
And he didn’t look right. He wasn’t the usual rough and ragged type that usually tried to be a loader. He was too…nice-looking. His teeth were very straight and white, and his light brown hair was wind-tangled but clean. His gray clothes were the right color, but also clean and mostly synthetic. He had a lump on the bridge of his nose as if he had broken it in a fight, but his pale cheeks and jaw were too defined and smooth, and his brown eyes were too rich and sparkling to have been on Alaxak for a single winter.
The guy was proud. Wealthy too, judging by his clothes, and from one of the royal planets, judging by his accent. Eton had sounded a lot like him when he’d shown up a few years ago, and Eton had served as a bodyguard on one of the royal planets, though that was about all I could get out of him on the topic of his past.
So what the blasted hell was Nev actually doing out here? He was probably a tourist wanting a thrill, or worse, a runaway rich boy. In either case, something stank.
I took a deep breath and let my arms slide down the door frame with my exhale. I focused on the stars through the sweeping viewport half circling my captain’s chair, on the river of light made by the clouds.
I was doing everything I could. Wasn’t I?
The question felt bigger in my skull, bigger than the containment hold, reflecting the expanse of space outside. I was doing what Alaxans had done for hundreds and hundreds of years before me. This could only be the right path. It felt right.