“Some of the Old Believers,” Esmay said. “If you mean the idea that some are born naturally good and others naturally evil.”
“Exactly,” Simon said.
Goonar shrugged. “Some apples taste better than others—what’s heretical about that?”
“Ahhh,” Simon said, with a gleam in his eye that Goonar recognized just too late as that of an enthusiast. “Now: did God make one apple sweet and another bitter?”
“I’m not God, Simon, so I don’t know,” Goonar said, ducking quickly away from what promised to be a voyage-long theological exercise. “What I am is a ship captain with—up to now—a clean record in the Familias Regnant and adjoining territories. Not anymore, thanks to you. If what you say is true—”
“It is,” Simon said.
“Fine, then . . . then you are just the sort of political refugee my seniors warned me about, but at least not criminal in this jurisdiction. You understand I will have to make a report—no doubt a long and tedious report—about you to both my seniors and whatever officialdom shows up at Castle Rock?”
“Of course,” said Simon. “I hope it isn’t too much trouble.”
“It is,” Goonar said, “but it has to be done. I don’t suppose you know anyone in our government who could expedite this for us?”
“I’m sorry, but no,” Simon said.
“Then perhaps you and Sera Suiza can thrash out the theology, while I get busy on the reports.” Goonar stood up, and winked at Esmay, who was looking startled. “Only if you’re willing, Sera, but he might be interested in your world’s beliefs.”
“Please,” Simon said. “If your Old Believers are related to the Sinatians . . .” They left together, Simon talking eagerly. Goonar wondered if there was any counterbalancing profit he could show to make up for what this was going to cost.
Basil knocked. “Find out anything more?”
“Yes. I still want to wring your neck, but he’s certainly no common criminal. He’s a religious nut.”
“He is? He seems quiet enough.”
“Don’t get him started on good and evil and something called special election.”
“That sounds like politics.”
“No . . . he was about to drag me into whether God made apples differentially sweet or they just came that way—”
Basil’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh dear.”
“Yes. He’s a heretic to the Benignity, a nut to me, and God knows what the Patriarch would think of him, but I’m not going to keep him around to find out. We dump him on the government at Castle Rock and steal quietly away.”
“Well, then. By the way—” Basil had switched to his casual voice; Goonar snorted at him, and Basil switched back. “Our hero of Xavier is making Bethya nervous.”
“Why? What’s she doing?”
“Bethya says she’s having nightmares and won’t talk about it.”
“Good grief, Basil, the woman’s military—of course she’s not going to talk to a . . . an actress. And how does Bethya know she’s having nightmares, anyway?”
“Women have their ways,” Basil said. “Thing is, I was wondering if we should notify anyone.”
“Who, for instance?”
“Oh . . . her family, maybe. If she needs help, they should know. And Bethya said she didn’t have time to contact them back at Trinidad.”
“Well . . . I suppose when we get into Zenebra we could offer to place a call for her. But I’m not going to do it behind her back. We don’t have the right.”
At Zenebra Station, Terakian Fortune crossed paths with Terakian Favor, with a solid fourteen hours of cargo exchange under the eyes of the Station customs officer. Favor had the route down the length of the Familias on that border; Goonar picked up cargo for Castle Rock, and she picked up his for Mallory, Inkman, and Takomin Roads. Goonar was glad enough to have his extra crew helping. They had removed their costumes from the fashion containers and returned the mannequins to neutral programming, so the designs could travel on to the backwoods towns awaiting them. Then both unloaded their Zenebra cargo—a matter of an hour or so for that—and Goonar, as the newer captain, invited Elias Terakian, captain of the Favor over for dinner.
“Well, Goonar, you’re doing well, it looks like.” Elias, twenty years a captain, had the assurance of that experience; in another decade he might retire to the Fathers. “You’ve a smart crew, the way they got that cargo shifted so fast.”
“I have a message for the Fathers,” Goonar said, “that needs to go by some other route.”
“Ah. Well, let’s hear it.”
Goonar explained the whole long complicated tale, as he knew it, and Elias said nothing. When he’d finished, Elias shook his head. “You’d have done better to have a dull first run, Goonar.”
“I know that,” Goonar said.
“But—you’ve done as well as you could, I think. What about this theatrical troupe? Do you think they’ll use us again?”
That hadn’t occurred to Goonar. “I don’t know,” he said. “Bethya—their manager and star—has talked about settling somewhere and giving up touring.”
“Ah. She’s the redhead, isn’t she?”
“Yes . . .” He knew what was coming.
“Handsome woman. Not that old. You really need to find another wife, Goonar, someone to make you comfortable between trips.”
“I’m not looking for a wife,” Goonar said.
“You say that now, but when you’re retired . . .”
“Elias, please. Enough.”
“All right, all right, I won’t say any more. I’ll take your message to the Fathers, and I won’t mention your . . . the . . . redhead. You do know she likes you?”
“I know no such thing,” Goonar said. He could feel himself reddening. “She’s polite to everyone.”
“None so blind . . .” Elias murmured, applying himself to his dessert.
“Do you want to meet the heretic?”
“No. What do I know about theology? Now if you’d extricated a specialist in olive genetics . . .”
Goonar laughed. “I’ll tell Basil that, shall I? If you must take in fugitives, make sure they have salable information?”
Elias gave him an enigmatic look. “As a matter of fact, Goonar, that’s exactly what you should do. Policy is, we don’t take fugitives or mix with politics. Practically speaking . . . if you must take in a fugitive, make sure it’s someone whose passage profits us.”
“Um. I don’t think we’ll make much off this theologian—but perhaps there’s a hidden treasure in the theatrical troupe. I’ve got that lighting in the shuttle bay now . . .”
Remembering the ease with which crew got drunk and spilled secrets, Goonar didn’t permit his illicit passengers to debark at Zenebra. He offered Esmay a chance to send word home to Altiplano, but she declined at first.
“But they should know,” Basil said.
“They’ll just worry,” Esmay said.
“Of course they’ll worry,” Basil said. “That’s what they’re supposed to do. You say they knew about the marriage—”
“That’s what the captain of the ship we were on told us, yes.”
“And then you just disappeared. They could think you’re dead. And they could help you.”
“I don’t think so,” Esmay said. She looked stubborn.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” Goonar said finally. “I feel almost like a thief, as if I’d stolen you away.”
Esmay snorted, then laughed aloud. Her laughs were rare, he’d noticed. “Not likely . . . but if you insist, Captain, I’ll call home and let them know I’m fine.” She was not fine, he could see that—she was kilos thinner than she had been when she came aboard, despite what he knew was a good galley, but he wasn’t going to argue that. Let her family take care of her.
He would have paid for the call, but Esmay insisted on paying the toll herself. The estimated delivery time, for a regular ansible relay from Zenebra to Altiplano, was surprisingly long.