“Weeks alone with an escaped, legally dead convict. You don’t even know what I did.”
Ingray had already thought about that. Couldn’t have avoided thinking about it. “If you did anything to Captain Uisine while we were in the gate, I don’t think you could pilot the ship.” E probably wouldn’t have to do any piloting at all while the ship was still in the gate, of course, but e would definitely have to know what e was doing once e came out into Hwae System and had to slow down, and deal with traffic, and dock. “And your identity won’t match the ship’s ownership documents, and while you just peacefully arriving and going about your business won’t raise any suspicions, well, turning up in a ship you don’t own and can’t pilot, with the captain and the other declared passenger dead or missing, that will set off quite a few alarms. I imagine you’d end up back in Compassionate Removal.” Nothing, not even the flick of an eyelid. Just a long silence. “Indenture contracts here are terrible.”
“They’re better than Compassionate Removal.”
“The ship leaves in a day and a half. Almost two days, really.”
“I have a better idea: you give me that identity that isn’t doing you any good, but will be very helpful to me, and then you walk away from here and leave me alone.”
“How is that better?” E didn’t bother to answer that. Obviously it would be better for em, and not good at all for Ingray. That identity had cost her money. And it was the only potential inducement she had that might convince em to do what she was asking em to do. She couldn’t just hand it over.
But what was she going to do with it, then? What possible good would it do her to hold on to it? True, the vesicle was empty, because as she’d told Captain Uisine, she hadn’t been able to get hold of Pahlad’s DNA. Instead she’d gotten a kit that would, she’d been promised, take a sample from whoever she wished and insert it into the documents. She’d already considered using it for herself, but the description was Pahlad’s, and Ingray didn’t think she could pass as a neman. Not for long, anyway. She sighed. “You’re right, the identity is no use to me now. You might as well have it. Come with me to the ship, and I’ll hand it over.” Silence. “You don’t need to worry that I’ll force you to come along with me. Captain Uisine refuses to take any passengers against their will. It’s the whole reason we thawed you out in the bay like that; he wouldn’t let me bring you aboard unless you were awake to say you wanted to go. So you’ll be able to leave again.” E did not answer. The silence stretched out. “Suit yourself,” she said finally, as calmly as she could, and rose and left.
Early the next morning a spider mech tapped its unsettling claw quietly on the doorframe of Ingray’s tiny cabin. “Excellency,” it said in its thready voice. “You have a visitor.”
There was, she was quite sure, only one person likely to visit her here, and now. “Thank you,” she said, and got out of bed, quickly pulled on her skirts and shirt, and twisted her hair up and stuck a few pins in—that would have to hold for the moment. She pulled her bag out from under the bunk, fished out the nondescript brown box that held the tabula and the vesicle kit, and headed down the narrow corridor.
Captain Uisine sat in the galley, eating a bowl of rehydrated noodles and fish. “Your visitor is in the bay, excellency,” he said. “It’s who you think it is. And I remind you that I will not take anyone aboard who doesn’t want to be aboard.”
“Yes. Thank you, Captain.”
The person who wasn’t Pahlad Budrakim stood a few meters away from the airlock, at an angle that let em also see through the wide door into the outer corridor. Wearing nothing, still, but the orange-brown blanket Captain Uisine had wrapped around eir shoulders the day before, eir unruly, unevenly cut hair pushed back but threatening to fall over into eir eyes. Ingray wondered where e had slept last night, or if e had eaten anything. “Good morning,” she said, and hefted the brown box. “You’re here for this, I think.” People variously dressed in lungis or trousers and tunics passed by in the corridor outside—a ship at a nearby bay must have come in recently, or one was nearing departure. And while lots of things were legal in Tyr that weren’t elsewhere, and the occupants of Tyr Siilas in particular were famous for minding their own business, she didn’t want anyone seeing that vesicle kit and guessing what it was. “Will you come inside?”
The person who wasn’t Pahlad hesitated, just a moment, and then said, “Can’t you give that to me out here?” E seemed unconcerned about the people passing in the corridor.
“I suppose.” She stepped forward and handed em the box. “You’ll want to put that under your … under your clothes, and find somewhere private to fill the vesicle. I think there’s a lavatory just down the corridor. Or you could still come aboard and do it. I know you don’t want to, I’m just telling you that’s an option.”
“Thank you, Ingray Aughskold,” e said. Garal Ket said, if e was going to be the person the tabula said e was. Which Ingray supposed had been the whole point of eir coming here.
“You’re welcome, Garal Ket.”
E almost smiled. Or seemed to, though it was just the slightest twitch of eir mouth. E inclined eir head, just a bit. Tucked the brown box under the end of eir blanket and turned to leave.
E took only three steps toward the corridor before a person in the red and yellow of an Enforcement official came into the bay, two patrollers behind em in yellow jackets, their red lungis girded up, stun sticks on their hips. “Your pardon, excellencies,” said the Enforcement official. “This bay, and this ship, are under interdict. No one is to enter or leave under any circumstances whatsoever. And I’ll see your identification.”
“We’ll have to go aboard to get our tabulas, excellency,” said Ingray, hoping her voice was steady despite the way her heart pounded with startlement and, she had to admit, fear. “I suppose Garal will have to make eir errand later.” She gestured the newly named Garal Ket toward the airlock. “Does Captain Uisine know about this?”
“He will when I tell him,” said the Enforcement official. Behind em, in the corridor beyond the bay entrance, a half dozen people walked by, looking at the Enforcement official and then quickly away as they passed.
“We’ll just let the captain know you’re here,” said Ingray, smoothly, with her blandest smile. Garal followed her aboard without a word or any change of expression.
Captain Uisine was finishing his breakfast. “Captain,” said Ingray, “there’s an Enforcement official and two patrollers in the bay. The official says your ship is under interdict, and no one can come or go.”
He slurped the last of the noodles and drank the broth off. And then said, “I’d better speak to this official, then.”