Amanda was lurking outside the elevator when it opened on the works level.
“Did you get her?” She demanded as soon as the doors opened. “Tell me you got her. Her tag is still onboard so you must have signed her.”
“Amanda, no," I groaned. “I can’t talk about this with you.”
“I can’t talk about this with you," she mocked me. “Do you know how illegal hacking someone’s service record is? Professionalism went out the lock a while ago, Jack.”
Ugh. “She’s thinking about it.” Amanda was always like that. It made her a good second. She actively sought problems to solve, but it was because she liked the vindication of solving them. The flip side of that was that she didn’t have one patient bone in her body. “I loaned her a bunk for the night and we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Are you serious?” Amanda pulled on her hair, which was in two braids down her front and a very tame style for her. Her whole look was sort of tame, come to think of it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her in a soft suit. It might well have been the day I hired her.
She must have dressed down so as not to scare off the new girl—only there wasn’t a new girl yet. No wonder she was pissed.
“After everything we went through, you’re going to let her think about it?”
“Yes, because I don’t want another Jace.” I circled around her, confident that she’d follow if only so she could keep yelling. I sent out a crew-wide ping from my implant and requested a staff meeting in the lounge.
“Fine," Amanda huffed. She of all people didn’t want another Jace, which was why she’d helped me so much to get Sin on board. “What were you doing in Medical?”
“Doc gave our prospective crew member a health check.”
That sobered Amanda. She’d been the one to re-trace Mimir’s movements, after all. She didn’t talk about her past before Cassandra much, but I figured there was a reason why she didn’t like to be out of her armor. Maybe it was the protection offered by a hard shell, but it might also be the onboard atmosphere reserves.
“Is she okay? Was I right about the fuel point?” She asked, dropping her volume. We hadn’t shared that particular bit of news with anyone other than Doc.
“I don’t know.” I stopped and leaned against the corridor wall, just for a second. I felt like I’d just run a marathon. “I think so. She’s exhausted and underfed. Doc used the sniffer on her and she was clean. So I think we’re just looking at crew abuse, not any substance misuse or serious medical issues.”
Amanda pursed her lips. “I did some research on Mimir after you left the ship,” she admitted.
I looked at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “…and?”
“They logged a change of command at Fjord. Captain Eno Kavara allegedly resigned in favor of his Chief of Security, Saul Holliday.”
Well. That sounded potentially bad.
Amanda kept going.
“Captain Holliday has one of those Master’s Licenses you can buy on the Exonet for forty credits. It has an endorsement date of two days ago—and I can’t find any evidence that Captain Kavara is still alive.” She wrung her hands. “I couldn’t find him on the guild’s command registry with a new ship or in the archive of retired officers. He’s not listed on the Fjord labor board or the Guild Hiring list. His social media accounts had regular activity until about four days ago. I called our guild rep pretending to be looking for a reference and she wouldn’t connect me to him. It sounds like they can’t get in touch either.”
Wonderful.
“Mimir went dark.” I closed my eyes. That answered my lingering questions. Sin hadn’t been ditched. She’d escaped. No wonder Mimir didn’t dock at Fjord. Her new captain knew he’d hemorrhage crew as soon as he cracked an airlock, assuming he hadn’t killed everyone who wasn’t loyal to him or able to fake it. That at least wasn’t likely on a Leviathan. They were big and often badly designed. You needed too many bodies with human-level problem solving skills just to keep the lights on, but I didn’t know how smart this Holliday was. For all I knew, Mimir would be a floating coffin by this time next year. “Do you still have their beacon code?”
“Yeah. I put it on the watchlist. Assuming they don’t swap beacons, I’ll get an alert if they enter our sensor envelope.”
“Good. I don’t think Ananke is going to be a security risk, but I don’t want us sharing space with Mimir until there’s evidence that they aren’t the sector’s newest pirate.” I pushed off the wall and turned to her, smoothing down the front of my creased suit. “Okay, I’ve got to address the crew. Do I look all right?”
Amanda gave me a critical once over, waggled her hand at me in a so-so gesture, and said, “Eh.”
“Good enough," I sighed, straightened my collar, and went in search of my people.
For once they’d all shown up when I called, although Coro was lingering around the starboard hatch like he was hoping I’d forget I’d called all hands. He sighed as I walked through the portside entrance and dragged his feet back over to one of the couches. He didn’t sit down. He just parked himself behind Brando, who served as his human shield in social settings.
The rec room was a circular space chopped into sections with glass partitions. It served Cassandra as a combination conference room, mess hall, and entertainment room. Most of my small crew were on the two sofas closer to the starboard side where people tended to gravitate for our less formal get-togethers.
Brando spotted Amanda and I and frowned. “No driver?” He rumbled and looked even more bearlike than usual as he hunched his shoulders up in resentment of being pulled from enviro. “I thought this was a meet and greet.”
“Next time maybe," I promised. “Depending on how this talk goes.”
That shut Brando up. I looked past him towards Taj, Doc, Coro, and Elaine. “We need to have some real talk here, people. I got us a driver lined up. She’s competent and has a history with Cryogen bots, but she and I have some safety concerns before she signs on with us.” I paused and looked them all in the eye one after another. “Normally, I don’t like to inquire about your personal beliefs. I figure I’m your boss not your keeper. The only time I’m going to worry is if it might concern the safety of a crewmate—or a potential crewmate, if you get my drift. Consider this the only time I’m going to ask; would any of you have problems serving on the same ship as somebody with a cursemark?”
Silence was my only answer for ten long seconds. I had the sense that they were waiting for a punchline that wasn’t going to arrive.
Taj got it together first. His big brown eyes were wide as he tried to settle on a smile or a frown. “Babe, are you serious?”
“I am.” I kept my captain face on. Despite the pet name, Taj hadn’t been asking his husband. He’d been asking his boss.
He sat back and squinted at me, his handsome features scrunched up in confusion. “I’m confused. Did we go backwards in time?” He looked away from me, seeking reassurance from the rest of the crew.
Coro reached out and whapped him upside the head. It was a bare brush of fingertips against Taj’s hair, more of a gesture than a strike, so I didn’t let myself bristle. “Hey, cursemarks are a big deal in gray space," he hissed. “You step out on the wrong port with one and you could find yourself floating home.”
Somehow I wasn’t surprised by that. Gray space colonies were weird.
The original settlers had deliberately avoided the big corporate target zones and lived outside the space lane network in self-sufficient biomes. According to the few exiles I’d met, grey colonies could range from happy socialist utopias to extreme eugenicist dictatorships with little in-between and they differed only in their particular brands of crazy.
The only thing all gray colonies really had in common was the determination to keep the big corporations out of their territory. They didn’t have a lot of contact with the rest of humanity either, but sometimes their misfits and outcasts found a way back to the bright parts of the galaxy. Coro had been with me for four years and aside from moments like this, I’d had no issues with him.
Doc ignored them. “I don’t have a problem with it," Xe stated. “I like her. She has excellent bones.”
It was a testament to how long I’d worked with xe that I took that as a compliment on Sin’s behalf.
“What, my bones aren’t enough for you?” Amanda asked as she plopped down next to her partner. Doc settled against her side without hesitation.
“The more the merrier, my dear," Doc replied, patting Amanda’s thigh.
“I suppose," Amanda sighed. “For the record, I don’t care either. I’d put up with worse to get our crewshare back up to where it was.” She paused and made a show of thinking. “Oh wait, I have. She’s not Jace and has a documented history of minding her own business. That is all I want out of life.”
“Goodness, what a change that would make," Taj drawled. He’d had problems with Jace too, although nothing I’d been called on to intervene with as either husband or employer. “Of course, I don’t have a problem with it. I just can’t believe this is a problem we have to address.”
“What kind of mark is it?” Brando asked in an uncharacteristic hush and I focused on his grim face.
“I don’t know if I can answer that," I chose my words with care. “She didn’t give me explicit permission to discuss it.”
“Is it a hand print?” Brando held out a hand with his fingers splayed out. “Green or red with four fingers and a triangular palm?”
I relaxed although I had no idea what he was talking about. “No, I can tell you that much.”
Brando nodded. “All right. That’s the only one I’d be worried about.” He looked at Coro. “What about you? You’re the grayspacer.”
Coro was quiet. His gaze had turned inwards. He had his hip hitched up against the arm of Brando’s seat and his arms crossed over his chest as he thought it over. “I mean, it helps to know a witch didn’t touch her," he said at last, sounding unconvinced. “Is she spaceborn?”
“Space raised, at least.” That was in the public record and I could talk about it. “Her record originates with one of the Mars social contract crèches. It’s still in operation.”
Coro’s expression cleared. “Oh, well that’s all right. It’s probably not even a curse in that case. Sometimes it’s just a birthmark.”
I suspected that everyone with a curse just had a birthmark, but it wasn’t the right moment to make that observation. This wasn’t about my safety, so I couldn’t be flippant, and Coro made it sound like Sin had something to be worried about.
“All right. So everyone’s agreed that we’ll have no problems going forward.” I stared hard at them, willing anyone who was on the fence to break.
“Not about this," Brando said. His tone was as serious as I’d ever heard from him. “Amanda’s not the only one missing the crew share we got while the cryostasis chambers were running.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it.” I opened my hands. “All right, people. Go forth and sin no more. Just so you know, we’ll have an overnight guest. She’s in the supercargo cabin for now. If she signs then I’ll put her in Jace’s bunk. In the meantime, please remember your company manners. Okay?”
“You heard the man.” Brando lumbered to his feet. “No orgies or knife fights in the corridors tonight. Keep it in your quarters.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dismissed.”
Taj hung around as the rest of the crew dispersed. He waited until the hatches hissed shut before coming over to offer me a hug. I sank into it with relief. As loose as the professional standards were aboard Cassandra, we tried to keep the ‘public’ out of our displays of affection. “You okay, babe?” He murmured into the top of my head.
“Yeah, I just got reminded of my luck today," I sighed. I’d seen old Earth depictions of plague skeletons that had more meat on their bones than Sin had. If I’d been an erg less fortunate, that could have been me.
“That’s rough.” Taj squeezed me tighter. “Good thing you can pay it forward. I heard you say she was a crèche kid," he observed. “Old friend?”
“Nah, she one of the cool kids from the upper classes that everyone in my year group idolized. She wouldn’t know me. Good reputation, though, and she looked after the littles.”
“Stars know we need a babysitter," he laughed.
I hid my smile against his chest. Taj always knew how to stabilize my trajectory. “You’re right.” I hugged him back and then patted his side so he’d let me go. “All right, back to work. I’ll see you after the end of shift, okay?”
Taj nodded and made his way towards the cockpit to finish his watch rotation. We didn’t really need to maintain watch while in port, but Taj liked knowing what was going on around us. That habit had paid dividends often enough that I didn’t argue with him.
Amanda entered as Taj left. She’d changed back into her armor and I noticed, with some trepidation, that she had a biohazard kit under one arm.
“Was there an accident?” I asked.
She shook her head and hefted it up onto her hip. “Nope. It sounded to me like we’re going to have a new crewmate and, I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell didn’t swab out Jace’s quarters after he left. Did anyone?”
“No.” I thought about it. Had I ever even been in any of the crew cabins? I was certain that I hadn’t, not while they were occupied. Rack inspections had irritated the hell out of me when I was an ensign and I’d written them out of the schedule for every ship under my command once I got my master’s ticket. At most, I’d been in there maybe once or twice during the last retrofit to sign off on repairs and pick paint swatches.
Well, Jace was a spacer. His work area might have been a little cluttered, but he’d taken everything in his mass allotment with him when he left. There couldn’t be much more than some dust in there so I shrugged. “We’ll clean it out now. How bad could it be?”
Bad, as it turned out.
The faceplate on Amanda’s helmet clicked shut in a judgmental punctuation note as we stared at the cave of garbage before us.
“I was afraid of this," she sighed as we took in the stacks of discarded meal trays piled up on every surface. There were dozens and dozens of them; days or even weeks worth of trash. “I noticed some disparities in the recycler’s output. It wasn’t enough to get upset over. It’s not a critical system and the numbers would periodically adjust. It’s why I decided to take the chutes apart for inspection when you said we were going to be docked for a while. It didn’t occur to me until you mentioned putting the new girl in here, but the soft metals and plastics we were missing were just about equal to a single person’s output from meals during the last week or so of Jace’s tenure. I knew he didn’t like eating with us, but I thought he just took his meals when no one was in the rec room. Guess he was eating in here instead and would clean it all out every so often.”
He clearly had not bothered with that last clean up.
I watched my plans for the rest of the shift circle the drain as I rolled my sleeves back. When I’d graduated from the merchant’s academy, the keynote speaker had gone on and on about the dignity of command. At the time I’d been certain he’d never been off planet and now I knew it for sure.
“Give me the gloves from your kit and hold the bag open," I told Amanda. “We’ve got work ahead of us.”