“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” The hologram shakes her head again and smiles.
“Never mind. Cancel.” Iri waves her hand at the hologram. “We don’t . . . cancel.”
The lines of symbols fade, leaving only the woman projected in the glass. “Thank you for considering Hyakutake Stellar Transit for your travel needs.” She freezes with her chin slightly tilted, smiling mouth wide.
We slink away. Iri’s eyes dart from ship to ship. No one manning the ticketing carrel of the midsized utilitarian carrier, only another hologram. A tall man with a shaved head glaring out at us from beside a needle-nosed transport. An older woman steeped in fuel and alcohol fumes sitting by the last ship.
Iri creeps up to the man, head bowed in respect. “Please, so, we could book passage?”
He chews something slowly, looking her over. “Can you pay?”
Iri opens a fold of her cloth bundle to display the treasures she robbed from the Parastrata.
The man plucks up one of the coins and rubs it with his thumb. A smudge of green wears off on his skin. He tosses it back to Iri with a look of disgust. “Credit only.”
“Please, so, those are bride coins,” I put in.
“Worthless is what they are,” he says. “What, you think I can fuel a ship on rags and moldy coins?”
Iri shrinks as though he’s slapped her. I start to speak back, but she loops her arm through mine and hurries us away. We stop in the center of the concourse. People elbow around us, dodge us as we stand like stone, Iri’s treasures cradled between us.
“We can’t go arguing, calling eyes on ourselves.” She shakes her head over the bundle. “I thought it was worth something.”
“Me too.” We’ve never not been able to get something through trade with the other crewes or one of the colony outposts. Could the people close in to Earth really be this different from us? How do you bargain with them? I look up, over Iri’s shoulder. The woman with the knife has her head cocked in our direction again, the scar down her face making her expression unreadable.
Iri sees me looking. She turns. “Her?” She spins back around to me. A smile picks at the corners of her mouth. “Perfect, Ava. Good watching.”
“No, wait, Iri.” Something about the scarred woman makes me uneasy. Mercies know what walking on the Earth has done to her, if it’s made her mind and soul as malformed as her face. In the oldgirls’ stories, you can always read the map of someone’s soul by her looks. I try to catch Iri, but she slips out of my grasp and strides up to the woman.
I hang back, unsure. The knife woman looks from Iri to me, back to Iri. Iri waves her free hand in circles, holds it out, pleading, and proffers the stolen bundle. The woman takes it, weighs its heft in her hand, and looks back at me.
Iri follows her gaze. “Ava, come.” She waves me closer, new hope simmering in her eyes.
I hug my arms across my chest, duck my head, and walk quick to Iri’s side. I scan the crowd for signs of the Watches and step light, in case I have to run again.
“This is Captain Guiteau.” Iri says. She puts her arm around my shoulders and speaks to the scarred woman. “You see, we’re neither of us much heavy.”
The captain hands the bundle back to Iri, but she keeps her eyes on me. “I don’t doubt it. But this is only a mail sloop, ladies. Now, if you’ve got packages, or you want me to take any of that down to the surface . . .” She nods at Iri’s armful of cloth. “That I can do. Certified delivery.”
When she speaks, only the right side of her mouth moves, the undamaged side. The corner sliced by the scar stays stiff, making her every word a grimace. It was some bad, whatever made this cut. I look away quick so she won’t see me staring.
“Please.” Iri tries again, quietly. “There’s a woman we know groundways what can give you more, if you only take us to her. Just a space on the cargo floor, that’s all I’m asking.”
Captain Guiteau shakes her head. “I can’t put live people in my cargo hold. It’s not temperature regulated, much less space tight. I’m not landing with two dead bodies mixed up in my delivery.”
“Please, so captain . . .”
The handheld clipped to the captain’s belt crackles to life. “Security alert . . .”
Captain Guiteau flicks her eyes down to the handheld. She looks at me and deliberately switches it off. “What’s down there you need so bad?” She folds her arms across her chest.
The words won’t leave my mouth. I look to Iri.
“Her . . . ” Iri searches for the word. “Her modrie. Her mother’s sister.”
My mother’s sister. I’ve never heard it put together that way, what the so doctor’s daughter was to my mother. My mind fumbles, trying to fit the words with my memories. My mother’s sister. My blood modrie. Maybe she come an’ snatch you ’way.
Captain Guiteau watches me. I look away and stare blindly at the crowd. Only a day or two ago, so many people pressed together made me feel near drowned, but now it’s easier to watch them flowing up and down both sides of the concourse, like fish moving together. I watch their heads bobbing. Bird’s-eye black and white and brown and red. I stop. Red. I try to tie my thoughts together. Red. A cluster of red hair surging along the edge of the crowd.
I clutch Iri’s arm. She follows my gaze and sees what I’ve seen. My father and Jerej, tense with purpose, and a whole party of flame-haired men fanning out through the crowd.
“Run, Iri,” I whisper. I grip her hand and tug.
“Wait!” the captain calls.
Iri hesitates.
No. Go, we’ve got to go. I pull her.
Captain Guiteau’s eyes flick from me to Iri, Jerej to my father, the Watches to me. I can see her mind making its final rotation, all the pieces falling into their lines.
In that moment, my father turns. He sees me, sees Iri. He shouts at Jerej over the steady shuffle and hum of the crowd. Some of the passengers slow and stare, more and more eyes snapping on to us. Any moment they’ll come shoving through the crowd and drag me and Iri back to the Parastrata’s coldroom, but Iri waits, her eyes locked on the captain of the mail sloop. Time slows. My father thrusts a gaping passenger aside. Jerej signals the other men with a wave of his arm.
The captain purses her mouth. Decides. “I can take one.”
Iri doesn’t hesitate. “Ava. Take Ava.” She thrusts the bundle of cloth at me and pushes me into the captain’s arms. “Run. Go now.”
“But—” I stare dumbly at the bundle.
Captain Guiteau locks a hand around my wrist. “This way.” She tucks her long knife inside her belt and pulls me after her to the latchdoor joining her ship to the station, wrenches it open. “Quick, now.”
I turn in time to see my father tackle Iri to the ground. Her chin smacks the floor hard, a sound like an egg cracking. “Soraya Hertz,” Iri shouts. Blood coats her teeth. “Your modrie, her name is Soraya Hertz. Don’t forget!”