Sporting Chance

Chapter Fifteen

Carly’s influence on the treatment team extended into the stable as well. Maris Magerston had been Cecelia’s hippotherapist from the beginning, when she had been slung over the horse’s back like a stuffed doll . . . she knew that wasn’t a fair description, but that’s what it had felt like to her. Although Maris had patiently explained why she was sprawled on a broad pad, facing backwards, she still hated it. In her mind she had composed one furious argument after another, shutting out Maris’s description of this and that muscle group doing important things. She didn’t want to be this way, an inert load on the horse’s back; she felt ridiculous, ugly, flabby, useless, old. She wanted to ride, and that meant sitting up and facing forward.

She arrived one day for her session to find an argument going on between Carly and Maris; Brun, pushing her hoverchair, guided it into the tackroom out of sight and let her listen. Maris sounded angry and defensive; Carly, as usual, sounded calm and cheerful, as she said she thought Cecelia was ready to ride properly.

“We start all our clients that way,” Maris said. “I’ve read those articles, thank you—” Carly must have handed her something. “We’re not quite as ignorant out here as you seem to think. But it’s dangerous to rush clients . . . and she’s over eighty . . .”

Carly took her up on the oblique attack. “Are you upset that I’ve been called in to supervise?”

“Oh, no!” Definite bitterness; Cecelia could imagine Maris’s expression. “We’re not bitter. We’re just local therapists on a backwoods planet, all so grateful for a chance to learn from the great Dr. Callum-Wolff.”

“You sound pretty upset to me . . . I probably would be, too. You’ve been doing a good job for a lot of people all your career here; you do what you’ve been taught, and people get better . . . and I come along telling you to change. Is that about it?” Carly’s voice held no anger and no defensiveness.

“Well . . .” Maris sounded much calmer. Then she actually chuckled. “Actually, I have your training cubes, up through three years ago. I’d have come to your presentations, if you’d ever come here before.” A long pause. “The thing is . . . Lady Cecelia’s really special on this planet, to a lot of people. And we were all trained as strict structuralists, Spinvirians. ‘When you know the electrochemical scan of a nerve, you know what it can do.’ Period. If I let her get hurt—especially doing something new—”

“Ah. Tough choice. I see your problem. Well, I could be bossy and overrule you—that’d give you an out—but I’d rather not. I do wish you’d let us try.” That tone restored—at least symbolically—Maris’s authority.

“Oh, why not? At worst, she’ll just fall off.”

Brun pushed her back out, as if they’d just arrived; Cecelia hoped her expression hadn’t betrayed a joy she wasn’t supposed to feel yet. This time they lifted her up into a proper saddle, facing forward. It felt entirely wrong: her legs were wrong, her back was wrong, her seat was wrong. She couldn’t see. She felt a warm hand on either leg: Brun, on the right, and the stable girl Driw on the left. They had been to every session; and Brun had told her enough about Driw that she felt she knew the groom well.

“We’re going to move, now,” said Maris. “Circling to the right.” NO, she thought, but she didn’t move her shoulder. Pride left her that much dignity. She heard Maris cluck; the horse moved under her and she sagged sideways. Brun’s firm hands propped her up. She could feel her legs flopping uselessly against the saddle; only the hands of her helpers kept her on the horse.

But she was sitting up, facing forward. Gradually, the saddle beneath her took on a familiar rhythm; she could feel the horse’s stride as its barrel bunched and lengthened, swung slightly from side to side. Maris began to talk, again explaining what the horse was doing to enforce movements Cecelia’s body must learn to make. Cecelia decided not to listen. Her back began to feel the horse the way it used to; she had no attention left for someone’s words.

“Good,” Brun murmured. “You’re doing better.” It didn’t feel like balancing better; her spine felt as solid as her luncheon custard. But somewhere between lurches from side to side, she felt for a moment that it was right again. Somewhere in each stride, she was riding.

“Think of halting,” Maris said. Cecelia tried to let herself sink into the saddle the way she would have, and felt herself slump forward as the horse halted. The helper’s hands caught her. “Good for you!” Maris said. “You halted her yourself. Now—think forward.”

Cecelia waited a moment, recovering what balance she could from the halt, and tried to remember how. She felt her spine lengthen, the pressure in her seat bones, a rising tension between her and the horse. Then the horse lunged forward into a trot, and for one instant Cecelia’s body responded, moving with the beat, just as Maris said “Whoa!” The horse slowed, but already Cecelia was off-balance, sliding gracelessly off the outside into Driw’s arms. Both of them fell.

“Are you hurt?” Brun sounded terrified. Cecelia quickly signalled no. She wasn’t hurt at all. She was exultant. She had stopped a horse. She had compelled it forward. Without the use of her arms or legs, blind, unable to speak, she had nonetheless controlled a horse again.

“That’ll be enough for today,” Maris said, closer. Cecelia jerked her shoulder, no. “We’ll have to check for damage. I was afraid of this—”

“She said no,” Carly said. “She’s not upset by a soft fall like that.”

“But she’s over eighty! And she shouldn’t have been able to get this horse to trot. I’ll have to switch to another—”

“Cecelia.” That was Carly, grasping her hands now. “Cecelia, you did it! You stopped her; you got her into a trot. Are you happy about it?”

Yes! Of course she was happy about it. She tried to remember their other signals; right now she was too excited to think. “More”—that’s what she wanted to say. Was she supposed to jerk her right knee, or her left? “Muhhh,” she heard herself say softly. “Muhhh . . .” and then the shoulder jerk for yes.

“More, yes? You want to ride more?”

YES! Why hadn’t she established a signal for “Dammit, you idiot!” Why hadn’t she established a signal for “reins?” She flexed her fingers in Carly’s, then pulled slightly.

“She wants to hold the reins, don’t you, Lady Cecelia?” That was Brun, bless her, who knew more about riding than Carly.

“Maris, I think she needs to try again.”

“All right.” Maris was resigned, not hostile.

It was going to work. She knew it. This time Cecelia ignored the need for helpers, ignored the internal voice that told her how ridiculous she must look. The saddle felt familiar this time. The nubbly surface of the reins against her fingers felt better than fine silver or silk. By the end of that session she had halted the horse three more times, and started her into a walk, all with no surprises. She felt as if she had regained herself.

Steadily, both her riding and her other therapies made progress. She could grip the special table tools (she did not consider them flatware) and get most solid foods into her mouth. With someone to remind her where they were on the tray, she could choose for herself whether to follow a bite of ham with a bite of toast, or eat all the fruit first. She could sit in a regular chair, if it had a straight back, and with leg braces on could stand supported, leaning against a chest support, to use a keyboard or scrawl with a crayon. She could push the buttons to control her hoverchair; she could, at last, use a keyboard. Bit by bit, her voice came back, though most words defeated her; she began to spell things out, as she did on the keyboard.

Now, for the first time since the dark months in the nursing home, she began worrying at the problem of what had really happened. Who had done this? Why?

She was dozing one afternoon, after the best ride she had yet had. Maris had taken her out into one of the big fields on a lead line, and they had ridden together in the open. The horse had a lovely long flat walk; she had enjoyed the longer stretches of straight movement, the sound of wind in the trees at the edge of the field and the feel of it on her face. A pleasant lunch, a relaxing nap . . .

In one white-light burst, memory returned. She was at Berenice’s dressed for that damned reception; she could feel the ivory silk smooth on her shoulders, the weight of her favorite necklace on her chest. Berenice had worn pale green, and the other ladies were much the same, a gaggle of old women in appropriate pastels, she thought sourly. It didn’t matter if some of them had had rejuvenation; they were still old. She remembered them as children; they remembered her the same way. She hated this kind of thing. Gabble, gabble, nibble and sip, sit listening to a mediocre string trio, and then make a donation to whatever cause. Simpler just to make the donation and go do what you wanted, but she was trying to get Berenice to come around on the subject of Heris Serrano, so she had agreed to “be good” at the reception.

At her elbow, that insipid twit Lorenza. Amazing that a man like Piercy could have a sister like Lorenza. Lorenza, of course, had gone for rejuvenation, early and often, but she had always cared more for her complexion than anything else. I am being nice, Cecelia reminded herself, and smiled at Lorenza. Smooth gold hair, fair skin looking thirty—but those eyes held all of eighty years of malice. It was unnerving, those wicked old eyes in that young face . . . exactly why Cecelia hated the thought of rejuv for herself.

“Dear Cecelia, I haven’t seen you for years,” Lorenza said. Cecelia shivered. It was a soft voice, insistently gentle; why did it grate so on her ears?

“Well, I run off a lot,” Cecelia said. She felt big and coarse next to Lorenza; she always had. As a child, Lorenza had been picture perfect, the quiet, well-behaved, clean and tidy girl to whom Cecelia had been compared when in disgrace. Why can’t you be more like dear Lorenza? had come from both her mother and Berenice, every time she’d broken something, or come home dirty and disheveled. “I just got back.” Her neck felt hot; she always felt she should say more to Lorenza, but she never could think what.

“I understand you took care of dear Ronnie for Berenice,” Lorenza said, smiling up at her. There was nothing overtly wrong with that statement, but Cecelia was sweating.

“Yes . . . he’s changed a lot. Fine young man.” Too late, she realized that admitted he hadn’t been. If Berenice heard, she’d be furious. Cecelia wished she were anyplace else—outside, by preference, and hoped she wouldn’t trip over her own feet. Dammit! She was over eighty, rich and famous in her own right; she didn’t need to feel like this about Lorenza. I am being good, she told herself again.

“You look hot, dear,” Lorenza said. “Here—have a glass of juice.” She produced a glass, snatched no doubt from some passing waiter, and offered it. Cecelia didn’t want juice; she wanted out. But she had promised to be good; she tried not to grimace as she sipped the tangy-sweet juice. Interesting flavor—spiced with cinnamon and something else, she decided. She turned to thank Lorenza, and found to her surprise that the other woman had disappeared.

Cecelia gasped. She was shaking, her heart racing, and someone had hold of her hands. She knew, after a wild moment of panic, where she was, and what had happened. Lorenza. Lorenza had poisoned her. And she knew why, or part of why. It made sense now. And she had to tell them, before Lorenza poisoned Ronnie and Berenice and Bunny’s family and the Mahoneys . . . and for that matter Heris and the crew and the prince.

“Cecelia! Tell us . . . try . . .”

Struggling, fighting her uncooperative body, she managed to spell it out. L.o.r.e.n.z.a. D.i.d. I.t. They didn’t have to ask her what; they understood that much. Brun’s voice cut across the others.

“The Crown Minister’s sister? That Lorenza?”

Yes. Back to the new signal system; it was faster than spelling.

“Why?” Brun asked, and put the keyboard into her hands.

Dared she tell now? What if Lorenza had an agent here? Panic shook her, but she had to try it. If she died, she had to save the others.

Letter by letter, she got it out; no one interrupted. “P.r.i.n.c.e. m.a.d.e. s.t.u.p.i.d. D.r.u.g.s. K.i.n.g. k.n.o.w.s. G.e.o.r.g.e. d.e.m.o. L.o.r.e.n.z.a. g.a.v.e. d.r.u.g. R.o.n.n.i.e. n.o.t.i.c.e.d. T.o.l.d. m.e.”

“And you told the king—Ronnie said that,” Brun broke in then. “He didn’t tell me about George . . . but I remember a joke about the term George almost flunked out of school. Was that it?”

Bless her wits. Yes.

“Lorenza did it because you know—because you told the king, and he must’ve told the Crown Minister who told her—and that means she might get the others. Ronnie—!”

Yes.

“His family?”

Yes.

“More?”

Yes. Of course, you idiot! When she finally could, she would give Carly an earful about what nonverbal people really wanted to say.

“Right, let me think.” Brun thought aloud, either from habit or courtesy to Cecelia; Cecelia could imagine her intent face. “Anyone Ronnie might’ve talked to. His family. Me. Maybe my family as well. And George! Of course, and George’s father. Heris Serrano, she knew, but I don’t know if anyone else knows that.”

Yes. The king would figure it out; he would already have told the Crown Minister. And didn’t Brun say something about Heris having a mission from the king, that apparent theft of the yacht?

“So what do we do?” That was Brun to the others, and the gabble of voices rose. Cecelia began spelling again; that silenced them for the moment.

“G.o. t.e.l.l. R.o.n.n.i.e. G.o. t.o. R.o.c.k.h.o.u.s.e. w.a.r.n. t.h.e.m.”

“Me?” Brun asked

Yes. They would listen to Brun; they wouldn’t listen to any of the others. “C.a.r.e.f.u.l.” she spelled.

“I’ll leave now,” Brun said in her ear. “I’ll be careful, and I’ll make sure no one else gets hurt.” With a quick hug, she was gone; Cecelia heard her quick steps on the stairs.

It was all very well to say “I’ll leave now,” but she could hardly walk to the nearest spaceport carrying her clothes in a sack. Brun rummaged through her drawers, trying to think of twenty things at once. She needed her papers, her credit cubes, enough clothes. How long would it take by commercial carriers? What were their schedules? Why hadn’t she kept the yacht here? That was easy—it had to go somewhere else and not be obvious about it. She didn’t even know where it was.

“I’ll drive you to the port.” That was Driw, the groom who helped with the hippotherapy. She had ridden out with Driw, times she wasn’t with Cecelia; she liked the tough, competent little woman.

“I don’t even know when things leave,” Brun said. Driw grinned at her.

“Here—the closest thing we have to a schedule.” A battered folder, listing every ship that intended to arrive at the port for a year at a time. Which meant not often. “Are you going to travel in that?” That being the shorts and pullover Brun had put on as usual that morning. With a startled look at herself in the mirror, Brun dove into the shower, then into something that wouldn’t instantly trigger suspicions. She hoped.

On the bumpy road out, she quit trying to read the schedule and instead tried to remember all the things Captain Serrano had told her. Cautions, things to think of—too many. Driw drove the way Cecelia had ridden in the horse trials: flat out, attacking every obstacle (curves, corners, other traffic) with utter concentration. When they reached the paved road that led to the port, Brun dared to say, “Are there any traffic laws?”

Driw chuckled. She had both legs extended, and one arm hanging out the window of the stable feed truck. “Yes . . . but not much enforcement. As long as I don’t kill anybody—” She paused, to swerve around a tractor hauling three huge round bales of hay. “—we shouldn’t have any problems. The port’s on our side of the city.”

Brun could just read the fine print of the schedule now; the truck only lurched occasionally. She had lost track of the date and had to ask Driw, who only knew it in local time: they had thirteen thirty-two day months, with names like Ock and Bir and Urg. For a moment her mind drifted to the possible language of the first settlers, then she dragged it back to the important stuff. If this was 14 Urg, then . . . damn. Nothing due for two days; she might as well have stayed at the stable.

“Except that there’s other stuff sometimes,” Driw said. “You know—casual, unscheduled stuff. It’s faster, I hear. Kareem got to the Wherrin Trials in less than eight days, while the shortest scheduled passenger time was twelve. ’Course, it’s kind of rough, he said, but I figured you were in a hurry.”

Brun nodded. She could always find a room at the port, she supposed. She didn’t remember much about it, actually, landing with Cecelia in the shuttle that one time. It had seemed small and bare, compared to the commercial ports she knew, but busier than the home port on Sirialis. She would just have to figure it out herself. That felt scary, but also exciting.

It was more scary and less exciting three hours later, after Driw had dropped her off at the shabby little shuttle terminal. The status board there showed nothing up at the Station but a bulk hauler headed for Romney—the wrong direction. Her schedule was out of date; the next scheduled passenger ship, also to Romney, wouldn’t arrive for four days. Unscheduled was, of course, unscheduled. The shuttle . . . the shuttle, she realized, meant there was only one . . . was on its way up, and wouldn’t be back until the next day. In the meantime, there was nowhere to sleep, because the people who ran the hostel were on vacation.

Brun put her gear in a locker and wandered outside. The shuttleport was also the regional airport; that terminal lay across a half mile or so of paved runways and scrubby grass. She could see aircraft moving over there, and wondered if any other terminal would do better. Probably not: there was only one Station aloft, and what mattered was its traffic. No wonder they hadn’t been found yet.

“Hey—you!” She turned to find the shuttleport clerk leaning out the door. He waved, and she strode back in. “You’re that friend of Cecelia de Marktos, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Brun said, wondering slightly.

“Where you going?”

Should she tell him? She hadn’t planned to tell anyone here, and buy her ticket on the Station. “Back home for a bit,” she said. “Rockhouse.”

“Mmm. Got money?”

“Some.”

“If you’re in a hurry—a friend of hers, y’know, is a friend of ours—might be there’s a fellow could help you.”

“Tell me,” Brun said, trying not to sound too eager.

“Private shuttle,” the clerk said. “Over at E-bay.” He pointed at a wall, beyond which was presumably E-bay. “I’ll tell him you’re coming,” the clerk said. Which assumed she would. But otherwise she’d just have to sleep on the floor waiting for the regular shuttle. Brun smiled her thanks, retrieved her duffle from the locker, and walked out again.

E-bay was neither bay nor hangar, but a large angled parking slot off the shuttle runway. On it was something that looked too small to be a shuttle. It looked, in fact, like one of the training planes Ronnie and George flew in the Royals. Its hatch was propped open, and someone stooped by it, tossing bundles inside. Brun walked closer, more uncertain the closer she got. The locals tended toward casual dress and behavior, but the young man in scuffed coveralls with shabby boots and a dirty scarf around his neck looked worse than Cecelia’s grooms. He glanced up as she came nearer.

“You’re that girl’s been over at the lady’s—you brought her, right?”

“Yes.” No use denying what eager gossips had spread.

“She better?” He had bright black eyes, and rumpled black hair.

“Much better,” Brun said.

“She sent you?” The eyes had intelligence, and some real concern for Cecelia. Brun wondered why.

“Uh . . . sort of, yes.”

“I’m going up. Then on to Caskar, if that’s any use.” Brun wasn’t sure, and she’d left the schedule in the truck. Her helplessness must have showed, because he sighed and explained. “Caskar—eight days—gets you a bigger port. Should be something going through each way within a few days. Here most everything’s going to Romney.”

“I noticed,” she said, but couldn’t help a doubtful look at the shuttle. Travel in that for eight days. He interpreted that look correctly.

“She’s little, but she’s stout. Get us there safely. If you don’t mind it being a bit rough.”

“No—no, that’s fine. How much?”

“Well . . . say . . . eight hundred?” That was ridiculously low; she started to say something and he was already talking. “I hate to say that, but see, I can’t afford the fuel myself. Not right now. I know it’s for the lady, but . . .”

“No, that’s fine,” Brun said. “I thought it would be more. Look—why not a round thousand?” He wouldn’t take more than the eight hundred, and had her insert the cube herself.

“That way you know I didn’t cheat you. Now—they’ll release the fuel . . .”

In the end she had to help him drag the fuel hoses over and start the pumps. The little ship held an astonishing load of fuel; Brun wondered if it would get off the ground once it started. Inside, she hardly had room to turn around.

“You fly?” the young man asked.

“A little.” Her Rockhouse and Sirialis licenses would be no good here; each world regulated its own pilots since the differences in atmospheres, gravity, and weather made specific knowledge necessary.

“Just sit there, then, and keep an eye out.” The copilot’s seat, up in the needle nose of the shuttle, gave her a great view of the ground going past as they trundled along the runway. It seemed they had gone a mile or more, and she was wondering if they’d ever get airspeed, when the vibration of the gear died away and they were airborne. With a suddenness she did not expect from the long run, the young man tipped up the nose, did something to the controls, and the craft acted like a real shuttle, shoving her back in her seat for long minutes as the sky darkened from light blue to royal to midnight.

“No . . . traffic control?” Brun asked, aware that she had asked this question in another context only a few hours before.

“Nah . . . not enough traffic.” The shuttle had minimal scans, she noticed. Minimal everything. “Do you really need to stop at the Station?” he went on. “I’d just as soon go straight on over—save us a few hours.”

“Fine.” Brun looked out the little port to see stars beginning to show as they reached the fringes of atmosphere. She could hardly believe she was riding in something like this, with someone whose name she didn’t even know yet, to go into deep space and spend eight days . . . she was terrified. She was blissfully happy.

“I’m Brun, by the way.” That seemed to have been right; he turned to grin at her and held out a calloused hand.

“I’m Cory. Stefan Orinder’s son. The lady helped my dad out a lot when he arrived. Just let me set up the course, here, and get the autopilot locked in . . .”

Eight days later, Brun debarked at Caskar Station in the same outfit she’d started in. Cory’s ship had no shower, although it did have a functioning toilet. Mostly functioning. She had had plenty of food (sandwiches, soup, tinned stew) and half as much sleep as she needed, because she stood watch with Cory. She knew all about Cory’s family, three generations backwards and out to third cousins by marriage, and why his family would do anything for Lady Cecelia, including forget that she herself had ever existed and taken a ride on Cory’s ship. She knew it would be an insult to tuck an extra two hundred credits into one of the cabinets, but she promised to tell Cecelia who had helped her.

Her first stop on Caskar Station was a public restroom, where she paid for a hot shower and sudsed herself thoroughly. She dumped her clothes in a washer and called up the status board on the restroom screen. Ah. A passenger ship headed for Greenland (which she knew from Cory’s tutoring was more—or-less the way she wanted to go) would be in the next day. She called up its schedule. Twelve days to Greenland, six more to Okkerland, ten to Baskome. At Baskome she could get direct service to Rockhouse Major, no stops, on a major carrier. That looked good, except that the ship from here got there one day late, and the next Rockhouse connection wasn’t for sixteen days. Damn.

Here she couldn’t use Cecelia’s influence . . . but—she looked at herself in the restroom mirror—maybe she could use her own. Or her wits. After all, even after these months, they might be looking for Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter. She didn’t want to lead them to Lady Cecelia. Not yet, not until she’d had another competency hearing, and regained her legal identity. Wits, then.

The status board showed five ships at this much busier Station. None were scheduled passenger ships, but Cory had explained that many freighters, scheduled and unscheduled, carried a few passengers. The big shipping firms had the better accommodations, but were pickier about who they took; the smaller firms—or owner-operator tramp freighters—would take anyone but an obvious criminal, especially if he or she were willing to do some of the less favored chores aboard.

Ten hours later, Brun was aboard the Bucclos Success, shoveling manure. Though most livestock was shipped as frozen embryos, some travelled “whole,” in its mature state. Such a ship was known to crews as a “shit shoveler” for obvious reasons. The oversized environmental system had been built to handle the bulk and nitrogen load, but someone had to get the stuff from the animal pens into the system. A human and a shovel worked as efficiently as anything else, especially when valuable animals had to be coddled. Brun’s stable experience got her the job—and a free berth.

A third of the cargo was horses, heavy drafters. Another third was hybrid cattlopes, their long straight horns cut short and tipped with bulky foam knobs for shipment. The rest were mixed medium and small: eight pens of dairy goats, seven of does and one of bucks; sixteen pens of sheep; fifty-eight cages of pedigreed rabbits, some of them carrying embryos of other species; sixty cages of small fowl and thirty cages of large. Brun had expected to be put to work with the horses, but as casual labor she was assigned wherever there was need. She learned to mix feed for goats and sheep, hose down the cattlope pens, change waterers and feeders for rabbits and birds. For sixteen days, she spent twelve-hour shifts caring for noisy demanding smelly critters, and eight hours of her shift off sound asleep in her surprisingly comfortable bunk.

“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.

She came down finally on the side of caution—both kinds. Caution with the captain (perhaps he’d see that an imposter would hardly send a message to a home that wasn’t hers) and with her family (so they couldn’t reveal information they didn’t have).

“I’d like to send a message, but I don’t want to tell them when I’m arriving. As you said, my parents would not approve of my . . . er . . . choice of conveyance.”

“I’m not prepared to lie for you, young woman.”

“No, sir. Could you send: ‘You were right; I’m on my way home,’ and then ‘Love, Brun’?”

“Tell me one thing—why do the society papers say your name is Carvineau when your papers say it’s Meager?”

“My mother’s name is Meager; all the children use the maternal last name on identification until we’re twenty-five. It’s supposed to be safer.”

“Ah. Well, Ms. Meager, consider yourself warned against any further brawling; you are confined to quarters except when on duty in the galley—I’m taking you off general duty and making you the cook’s assistant—and as I said, your identification and other materials will be turned over to Station militia when we reach Rockhouse. Do you have anything further to say?”

“No, sir.”

“Right then. Get to work.”

She had plenty of time locked in her tiny cubicle with its blank walls and hard bunk to realize how close she had come to complete disaster. And how close it still was . . . suppose the mate decided to come after her, too? He didn’t, but she slept badly the rest of the trip.