“I think so.”
“’K. I gotta get back up to Control. If there’s a problem, just ask Gregorovich and he’ll let us know.”
Then the kid hurried off back the way they’d come.
Kira took a breath and then pulled open the door to the starboard cargo hold.
CHAPTER II. WALLFISH
1.
The smell was the first thing Kira noticed: the stench of unwashed bodies, urine, vomit, and moldy food. The ventilation fans were running at full speed—she could feel a faint breeze moving through the hold—but even that wasn’t enough to disperse the smell.
Next was the sound: a constant babble of conversation, loud and overwhelming. Children crying, men arguing, music playing; after so long in the silence of the Valkyrie, the noise was overwhelming.
The starboard hold was a large, curving space that, she assumed, mirrored the port hold, like half a donut nestled around the core of the Wallfish. Thick support ribs arced along the outer wall, and D-rings and other hard points studded the deck and ceiling. Numerous crates were bolted to the deck, and between and among them were the passengers.
Refugees was a more appropriate term, Kira decided. There were between two and three hundred people crammed in the hold. It was a motley collection—young and old, dressed in a bizarre assortment of outfits: everything from skinsuits to glittering gowns and light-bending evening suits. Spread across the decking were blankets and sleeping bags anchored with gecko pads and, in some cases, rope. Along with the bedding, clothing and scraps of trash littered the hold, although a few people had chosen to clean their areas—tiny fiefdoms of order amid the general chaos.
The place, she realized, must have turned to shambles when the ship cut its engines.
Some of the refugees glanced at her; the rest either ignored her or didn’t notice.
Stepping carefully, Kira made her way toward the back of the hold. Behind the nearest crate, she saw a half-dozen people strapped to the deck in sleeping bags. They appeared to be injured; several of the men had scabbed-over burns on their hands, and they all wore bandages of varying sizes.
Past them, a couple with yellow Mohawks were trying to calm a pair of young girls who were shouting and running in circles, waving streamers of foil torn from ration packs.
There were other couples as well, most without children. An old man sat against the inner wall and strummed a small harp-like instrument, singing in a low voice to three glum-looking teenagers. Kira caught only a few lines, but she recognized them from an old spacer poem:
—to search and seek among the outer bounds,
And when we land upon a distant shore,
To seek another yet farther still.—
Near the back of the hold, a group of seven people huddled around a small bronze device, listening intently to the voice that emanated from within: “—two, one, one, three, nine, five, four—” And so forth and so on, counting in a calm, even drone that neither hastened nor slackened. The group seemed transfixed by the voice; several of them stood with their eyes half-closed, swaying back and forth as if listening to music, while the others stared at the floor, oblivious to the rest of the world, or else looked at their companions with obvious emotion.
Kira had no idea what was so important about the numbers.
Close to the group of seven, she spotted a pair of robed Entropists—one man, one woman—sitting facing each other, eyes closed. Surprised, Kira paused, studying them.
It had been a long time since she’d seen an Entropist. For all their fame, there really weren’t that many of them. Maybe a few tens of thousands. No more. Rarer still was to see them traveling on a regular commercial ship. They must have lost their own vessel.
Kira still remembered when one of the Entropists had come to Weyland when she was a kid, bringing seed stock and gene banks and useful bits of equipment that made colonizing a planet easier. After the Entropist had finished his dealings with the adults, he had walked out into the main street of Highstone, and there in the fading dusk, he’d delighted her and the other children with the sparkling shapes he somehow drew in the air with his bare hands—an impromptu fireworks display that remained one of Kira’s favorite memories.
It had almost been enough to make her believe in magic.
Secular though the Entropists were, a tinge of mysticism hung about them. Kira didn’t mind. She enjoyed having a sense of wonder in the universe, and the Entropists helped with that.
She watched the man and the woman for a moment more and then continued on her way. It was difficult to find a free spot with any privacy, but in the end Kira located a narrow wedge of space between a pair of crates. She laid out her blanket—sticking it to the deck with the gecko pads—sat, and for a few minutes, did nothing but rest and gather her thoughts.…
“So, another bedraggled stray Falconi scooped up.”
Across from her, Kira saw a short, curly-haired woman sitting with her back against a crate, knitting away at a long, striped scarf. The sight of the woman’s curls sparked a palpable sense of envy and loss.
“I suppose so,” Kira said. She didn’t much feel like talking.
The woman nodded. Next to her a piled blanket stirred, and a large, tawny cat with black-tipped ears lifted its head and eyed her with an indifferent expression. It yawned, showing impressively long teeth, and then snuggled down again.
Kira wondered what Mr. Fuzzypants thought of the intruder. “That’s a pretty cat.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“What’s his name?”
“He has many names,” said the woman, pulling more yarn free. “At the moment, he goes by Hlustandi, which means listener.”
“That’s … quite the name.”
The woman paused her knitting to unravel a snarl. “Indeed. Now tell me: how much are Captain Falconi and his merry band of rogues charging you for the privilege of transport?”
“They aren’t charging me anything,” said Kira, slightly confused.
“Is that so?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “Of course, you’re a member of the UMC. It wouldn’t do to try to extort a member of the armed forces. No, not at all.”
Kira looked around the hold at the other passengers. “Wait, you mean they’re charging people for rescuing them? That’s illegal!” And immoral too. Anyone stranded in space was entitled to rescue without having to pay beforehand. Restitution might be required later, depending on the situation, but not in the moment.
The woman shrugged. “Try telling that to Falconi. He’s charging thirty-four thousand bits per person for the trip to Ruslan.”
Kira opened her mouth, stopped, and closed it. Thirty-four thousand bits was twice the normal price for an interplanetary trip, and nearly as much as an interstellar ticket. She frowned as she realized that the crew of the Wallfish was essentially blackmailing the refugees: pay up or we’ll leave you floating in space.
“You don’t seem particularly upset by it,” she said.
The woman eyed Kira with a strangely amused look. “The path to our goal is rarely straight. It tends to turn and twist, which makes the journey far more enjoyable than it would otherwise be.”