Chapter 8

The ship had three hardsuits for spacewalking, only one of which fit Remma, and that one wasn't working. He spent most of a day helping Torru, informally the ship's engineer, make the necessary repairs.

"Hasn't been used since the last time you were out in it," Torru said. "How'd you fry the circuits this badly?"

"I didn't," Remma protested. "Something must have happened to it in storage. It was working fine last I knew."

"Mice," Torru said. "Space mice."

"For all I know! I've been off-ship for more than a year, you can't blame me for whatever's happened in the meantime."

"Hmm." Torru folded his arms. His mouth was twitching. "I suppose you have a point."

"Thank you," Remma said, and went back to his soldering.

He had two major objectives, which he mulled over as he worked. The first was to survive this job in Yesserchao. The second was to convince Denna to head back to Mirolasor system afterward, and subsequently to convince him to return Sol to his colony. The problem was how to do that. If he gave Loden enough warning, she could maybe get a loan from another colony, but he didn't know how to give her the advance notice she needed without tipping his hand to Denna. Loden was smart, so maybe she wouldn't need any warning. Denna's initial efforts to extract a ransom from her would be enough to let her know what was going on. By the time the ship landed, she would have made arrangements.

Hopefully. He had to hope.

He met with Denna about the logistics of the job, a boring presentation to the members of the crew who would be most involved. Remma forced himself to pay careful attention. Missing some minor detail was how even the most thoroughly planned jobs went awry. This one seemed straightforward enough. Freighters had some defenses and usually some armed guards on board, but nothing Denna's pirates couldn't handle. None of that was Remma's problem. His only task was making sure the bomb worked.

"Your suit will be dead in the water from the EMP blast," Denna said to him, drawing looping circles on his presentation screen that signified nothing, as far as Remma could tell. "You'll have enough air left for about half an hour. Torru will send a shuttle out with a grapple to bring you home. Should be plenty of time."

"Half an hour doesn't give much room for error," Remma said. He did not want to get in that suit. Could not think of anything he would enjoy less.

"Scared?" Denna sneered. "I thought you'd welcome the chance to put your skills to use again."

As if Remma hadn't been doing anything of worth on Sol's moon, despite having received that assignment directly from Denna. "I'll be exerting my skills to make sure your cloaking device works. My skillset doesn't involve hanging out in a dead spacesuit for thirty minutes, praying my rescue arrives in time."

"That sounds suspiciously like complaining," Denna said. "Never thought I'd hear that coming from you, Remma."

Remma clenched his jaw. There wasn't anything he could say in response to that.

"I'll get you back, friend," Torru said to him. "Once I get you and the bomb launched, that's the only thing on my agenda."

"Just have the shuttle ready," Remma said, and nothing further.

* * *

"I might not beable to come see you tomorrow," he told Sol. "We've got a job."

"A job? I guess you won't tell me any details."

"Won't, can't," Remma said. "It's not very interesting. But I'll be busy, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take before I'm free again."

"Hmm." Sol's gaze searched Remma's face, bright with curiosity. He was sitting on the bed facing Remma, cross-legged, hands loose in his lap. "So is this what you do? Find people to rob, take their shit, and sell it?"

"How's it all that different from what you do? We're both profiting from someone else's misfortune."

"It's really not the same at all. Scrappers just take what we find. We don't go out actively looking for people to relieve of their valuables."

"I can't believe we're having a conversation about the ethics of scavenging," Remma said. "Is this really what you want to be doing with me?"

"I'm starved for conversation," Sol said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "I would happily talk about something even more boring. Like, um. How the oxygen recyclers on this ship work."

"I know exactly how they work, and trust me, you don't want to hear about it." Unable to resist, Remma raised a hand and brushed his fingers over Sol's cheek. "What would you do if you quit scrapping? Do you ever think about it?"

"What, like move planetside?"

"Maybe. Would you want to?"

Sol shrugged. "No. I like it moonside. Scrapping's a decent life. What would I do on Mirolasor? I don't want to work in some factory, always being told what to do."

"There's more than just Mirolasor. And more than just factories."

"Not for someone like me. I'm not educated past what I could learn from vids, and I wasn't motivated to learn much beyond the basics. Why bother, when I knew I wouldn't use it? I needed to know how to shoot a gun and how to evaluate scrap for value. I didn't need to learn advanced mathematics."

"Not even for your own edification?"

"I don't know what that means," Sol said primly, which probably wasn't even true. "Is that what you learned on Tozra? Fancy math?"

"I learned a lot of things. Math, astronomy. How to sing. How to build a boat."

"Build? There must be a lot of water on Tozra."

"You could say that," Remma said, thinking of the vast seas of his homeworld, the calm waters dotted with islands and teeming with pods of females and their young. He hadn't been back to Tozra in close to fifteen years and he missed it. Maybe it was time for a trip back.

If Denna would give him leave. That seemed unlikely. Denna would let them go stationside when they stopped somewhere, but he didn't permit vacations. He liked to keep his crew close at hand, well supervised. He was more suspicious than anyone else Remma had ever known.

And yet he wasn't interfering with Remma's visits to Sol. He knew about them, surely. The guards would give him full reports of whatever happened during their shifts. Denna hadn't said anything to Remma about it, though, which gave Remma a sense of a storm about to lower, or a rogue wave ready to capsize him. Whatever Denna's end goal was, Remma doubted he, Remma, was shrewd enough to outmaneuver him.

Still, even knowing that trouble was coming, he couldn't bring himself to stop his visits. What was the worst that could happen? Sol's death, and he'd managed to put that off so far. Denna could kick him off the crew, but that might not even be a bad thing. Maybe he was starting to be ready to leave. Maybe his year on Mirolasor's nameless moon had given him a taste of what else he could have in life. Now he was back home, with friends and familiar comrades, and it all seemed hollow compared to the warmth of his time with Sol.

That was a bad sign. He shouldn't be thinking about Sol that way, not when Sol didn't trust him anymore. It didn't matter what Remma daydreamed about, in a half unconscious way, when Sol wouldn't want those same things. Best to set all of that aside.

"Tell me about Tozra," Sol said, desperate enough for conversation and company that he would accept even Remma.

Remma settled into a more comfortable position, giving up on the idea of sex for now. "What would you like to hear?"

"Everything," Sol said.

* * *

After Remma left,Sol lay on the bed for a few minutes, debating with himself. He had enjoyed Remma's visit, but he was already on to the next thing, the secret project he couldn't stop thinking about.

He didn't hear any noises through the door. He never did, though; not conversation, not footsteps. The soundproofing was too good. That was to his benefit, he knew, but it also made it hard to get a sense of what was happening outside his room. As he'd learned, anyone could come in at any time with no warning. Every time the guards brought food it surprised him. He hadn't been caught doing anything untoward, except by Remma—yet. He had a feeling it was only a matter of time.

Still, after he cleaned himself of the mess Remma had left, he went to the knob on the wall beside the door. Helpless as a small child faced with candy left temptingly in reach, he raised his hand to grasp the ridged lump.

The ship's attention turned toward him, ponderous but immediate. Hello, human.

Hello, ship, Sol thought at it. Thanks for talking to me.

A ripple of amusement. So polite! How can I help you?

Sol still wasn't sure if the ship was an AI or an actual sentient being. The interior of the ship made him think it was at least partly organic; maybe it had a brain, and the brain was what was talking to him. Even if it was an AI, he couldn't imagine that it would hurt to treat it as a person. I don't really need anything, he thought at the ship. I'd just like to talk to someone for a while. If you don't mind.

I like to talk, the ship replied. Are you lonely? You stay in that room all the time.

They're keeping me here. I'm not allowed to leave.

Oh, the ship said. It sounded surprised. Is that why that man is always standing outside your door?

That's right. He's here to make sure I stay.

I don't know why they didn't just ask me to lock your door.

Well, they have to come in and out to bring me food and water. I would die otherwise. And maybe—Sol realized it for the first time as he had the thought, even though it was obvious—they want to make sure nobody tries to get me out.

Did you do something bad? the ship asked. To make them want to keep you?

No. They kidnapped me. They want to see if my people will pay money to have me returned safely.

That does align with what I know of these men, the ship said. They like money and spend a lot of time trying to get more.

I think a lot of people are like that, Sol said. His own included, but he was trying to present himself as a helpless victim, so he didn't share that thought with the ship. Everyone needs money to survive. If you don't have enough, it's natural to want more.

I'm glad I don't have to worry about those things, the ship said. Oh, excuse me for one moment. It was silent, then said, My apologies. My attention was needed elsewhere.

That made Sol think it wasn't an AI, because an AI wouldn't have a problem doing more than one thing at a time, even holding multiple conversations at once. Well, except maybe it was some navigational problem that required most of the ship's processes. He couldn't rule it out that it was an AI.

It didn't really matter. He was curious, that was all. It was a puzzle to occupy his time with. He had too much time. Remma's visits helped, but Remma didn't come more than once a day, which left Sol with many empty hours spent staring at the wall and trying to entertain himself. He did calisthenics and slept as much as he could, but there was a limit on how much one could exercise and sleep. The rest of the time he was alone with his memories.

You must be very busy, he thought at the ship. I don't want to take up too much of your time.

So polite! It's a nice change. These Tozren don't have any manners.

They're pirates. I would imagine other Tozren are polite.

I've never met any others. The ship sounded wistful. Before these Tozren, I had Relarkamené passengers, and they were so nice.

What happened to them?

Oh, the Tozren captured me in battle and stole me. They did, at least, put the Relarkamené on a shuttle to the nearest orbital, so I would imagine they all lived. But it's been a big change.

I can imagine, Sol thought, trying to convey warm sympathy. Have you changed passengers a lot?

No, and that's why it came as such a shock to me, I suppose. I'm a young ship, and the Relarkamené were only my second set of passengers after the Xerca who built me.

So it was a Xerca ship. Sol didn't know much about them. Technologically advanced, secretive, minimal contact with other spacefaring species. But he knew about their ships—everyone did. Sol wondered how the Relarkamené had gotten their hands on a Xerca ship, and whether the Tozren knew what they had. He thought they probably didn't, if they were casually sailing it around the galaxy using it for petty larceny and troublemaking.

Well. That might make things interesting.

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time of it, he thought. Is there anything I can do to help?

It's nice to have someone to talk to, the ship replied. It hesitated for just a moment before it added, It would be nice to have a friend.

I would love, Sol thought at it, to be your friend.