“With all that methane production, we have plenty of onboard power generation,” one of the others explained. “And we have to carry extra water anyway.” Plenty of hot water for showers, an exercise room used mostly by bridge officers (everyone else got plenty of exercise caring for the animals), even a small swimming pool. And in sixteen days, Brun left the ship at Baskome Station. They would have taken her farther—she was hardworking and stayed out of quarrels and she wasn’t afraid of the larger animals—but they weren’t going where she wanted to go. She got actual pay—less than her private allowance for the same period, but the first money she had ever earned in her life. She turned in the credit strip the ship’s paymaster handed her at the first bankstation she saw, and got back a cube representing her present balance in a newly opened Baskome Station account. It did not escape her notice that if she didn’t have to spend more than that in her time here, she would not have to touch her own accounts, which might be under surveillance.
Baskome Station looked like real civilization. Besides the bankstation, which had both automated booths and a couple of windows with live tellers, the first concourse she came to had logos of all the standard travellers’ organizations and credit services. She had her cards, of course, but if she used them . . . no. It would be a challenge, as well as prudent, to make it to Rockhouse without alerting any watchers. She wouldn’t try to use a fake identity, but “Brunnhilde Charlotte Meager” without her usual wild clothes and credit cubes might be anyone. She didn’t think anyone would be looking for her in the hold of a livestock hauler, for instance.
So she bypassed the expensive sectors of Baskome Station, the luxury hotel, the fine restaurants, and got a room at a hostel for transient crew—people who lived on such jobs as shoveling manure and running forklifts in warehouses. She ate at the little cafe two doors down, and washed her clothes in a smelly little laundry where the washing machines overflowed at least once a shift.
The transient crew hostel had its own version of the status board, with listings of crew openings and comments by those who had worked for different ships. Brun discovered she had a reputation which had preceded her (how, she couldn’t figure out)—someone on the Bucclos Success had spread the word that she was a hard worker and trouble-free, so she had offers posted to her mail slot by the time she thought to check it. The rest of her reputation she didn’t know about until later.
She picked what seemed like the fastest way to Rockhouse Major, a bulk hauler carrying fish protein meal. Two shifts out of Baskome Station, she discovered that “nice kid” was not the label to carry among people who thought “nice” meant “naive and helpless.” And while she wasn’t all that helpless, in proving it she broke the wrist and nose of the permanent crewman who tried to rape her. In a dispute between permanent and transient crew, transients are always wrong. Brun found herself facing an angry captain, while the first mate pored over her identification and other belongings.
“I suppose you can explain why someone named Brun Meager, if that is your real name, would have credit cubes and strips that belong to the Carvineau family? Brunnhilde Charlotte Meager-Carvineau, which according to my database is Lord Thornbuckle’s youngest daughter. Or do you want to try to tell me you are Lord Thornbuckle’s youngest daughter? The one who appears in society papers as Bubbles Carvineau . . . admittedly she is blonde, and so are you, but that hardly seems adequate . . . did you kill her for her papers, or is she wandering around someplace trying to convince a thickheaded planetary militia that she’s not some farmer’s daughter?”
None of the answers that came first seemed likely to help the situation. Brun wondered what Captain Serrano would have done if (as seemed most unlikely) she’d ever been in a similar fix. One thing, she wouldn’t make any jokes, such as that her father was a farmer, among other things. A family saying she’d heard since childhood—When in doubt, tell the truth—came to mind. It might work.
“Those are my papers, sir,” she said. Respect costs nothing, and pays a high dividend, she had heard from her grandmother. She hadn’t believed it then, but she had never been at the mercy of someone as angry as the captain looked.
“So you are claiming to be this . . . uh . . . Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Care to explain why you’re travelling on a freighter carrying fishmeal and working your passage when you could buy the whole damn freighter, according to your credit rating?” Blast. If they’d done a credit check, then anyone watching might pick up where she was. Nothing to do about it now; she had more urgent problems. The first mate’s expression was as forbidding as the captain’s, and she’d already heard about his propensities from the relief cook.
The truth, but not the whole truth. “Sir, I . . . I wanted to prove I wasn’t just a fluffhead like they said.”
A snort, not amused. “The way you broke Slim’s wrist—” The nose, it seemed, wasn’t worth mentioning—“I wouldn’t think anyone would call you a fluffhead. Hothead, maybe. How’d you get a reputation as trouble-free on the Winter? I thought Jos Haskins was a better judge of character than that.”
Brun felt her ears heating up. “Nobody on that ship tried to drag me into a bunk and rape me.”
“What’s so bad about Slim? Does he have bad breath, or what?” That was the mate; the captain quelled him with a look.
“The point is, I have trouble believing Lord Thornbuckle would let his daughter go off working transient crew jobs halfway across Familias space. Does he know where you are?”
“Well . . . no, sir.” He would have found out from the yacht’s crew where she had been, with Lady Cecelia; he had expected her to stay there. She suspected he wouldn’t be entirely pleased to know where she was now . . . and as for her mother . . .
“My mother would have a cat,” she said, thinking aloud. This time the captain’s snort was amusement. She eyed him, wondering if she could take advantage of that momentary lapse in his anger. Probably not.
“Tell you what,” the captain said. “We can’t afford legal trouble, of any type. I don’t really care who you are, but if you’re who these papers say, you’ve no business pretending to be a commoner, and if you’re not—” He looked down his nose to read the full thing, “—Brunnhilde Charlotte Meager-Carvineau, then her family needs to know someone else is using her papers. This is something for law enforcement to sort out. I’m confiscating your ID and your credit cubes until we arrive at Rockhouse; I’ll turn them over to the Station militia. Do you happen to know the balances of the accounts?”
She hadn’t looked at them in some time. “Not really, sir. Why?” That admission, she saw, shook his conviction that she was an imposter.
“Because you and I and my mate are going to certify the balances as of this date, so you can be sure—or the real Brunnhilde Charlotte’s family can be sure—that I haven’t run off with some of it. And if you’re the real Brunnhilde Charlotte, I will allow you to send a message to your family, if you wish. Charged as an advance on your salary.”
Did she wish? She tried to think what the date would be on Rockhouse—the local date, not Universal. Her father might be there for the biennial Council meeting—Uncle Serval would be, anyway—and even Buttons might be there. But what could she say? Could she phrase a warning so they would understand it, and not get themselves into worse danger? And she really did not want the Crown Minister or his sister Lorenza to know she was on her way.