Page 6 of Fought and Found

“I would like to register a formal objection to the unauthorized boarding of this vessel,” the orb announces, bobbing once, sharp and indignant, then drifting to hover near the courier’s left shoulder. “Additionally, I would like to note, for tactical purposes, that theintruder’s heart rate has spiked twenty-three percent since entering the cockpit. Shall I deploy the airlock?”

The ship’s AI. Of course this ship has a sentient AI with a protective streak and access to my biometrics. There are fairy lights on the navigation console and a ceramic creature on the throttle and a sticker of a plant on the primary sidearm. Why would the artificial intelligence be normal.

Twenty-three percent. The number is accurate, and I want it removed from the air and ideally from the historical record. The spike is attributable to operational variables. The scent. The proximity. The deeply irregular behavior of the target. Standard adrenaline response to an unpredictable tactical environment. Nothing more.

“Sprout has standards,” the courier says, with the air of someone making an introduction at a dinner party she is hosting on a vessel I am attempting to commandeer.

“For the record,” the orb continues, settling into its protective hover, “I recommended declining this entire contract. I would like that documented for posterity.”

“Noted, Sprout.”

“SPROUT. Capital letters.”

“We’ve discussed this.”

I have questions about this vessel that I do not intend to ask. Primary among them: how does one live here? Not in the functional sense — the life support is adequate, the structural integrity is marginal. In the sense that I have boarded sixty-seven vessels and this is the first one that appears to have been arranged for the purpose of someone being content inside it. There are blankets. There are mugs with writing on them. The pilot’s chair has a groove that matches her body and the co-pilot’s chair has none and the asymmetry suggests years of a persontaking up exactly one person’s worth of space, and I do not know what to do with that observation, so I discard it, but it does not stay discarded.

“You’re inventorying,” she says. Not accusatory. Amused. As if my professional assessment of her operational environment is entertainment.

“I am conducting a standard environmental assessment.”

“You’re cataloging my fairy lights.” She tips the mug toward the ceiling. “That one’s called Mabel. The string by the nav display is the chorus — they flicker in sequence if you ask Sprout nicely.”

“I do not do anything nicely,” Sprout says from its hover.

“I have never encountered an operational vessel with named lighting.” This is a statement of fact. It is not an invitation to tell me more about the lighting. “It is a navigational distraction hazard.”

“So I’ve been told. Thirty-two times. They stay.” She settles deeper into the pilot’s chair and the blaster on the console shifts in the light, grip catching the warm-spectrum glow. The flower sticker. The holster on her hip is custom-fitted, the draw angle optimized for seated deployment. An operational detail at odds with the rest of this cockpit, which suggests either luck or training, and luck does not produce custom holster angles.

“What is the blaster’s name?”

The question is a tactical probe. Those who personalize their lights, personalize their other equipment and must be emotionally attached to their equipment. Emotional attachment is a lever. This is standard interrogation methodology. I am not asking because I want to know.

She grins. “Betsy.”

“You have named a standard-issue Kessler 7 Betsy.”

“Betsy deserves respect. She’s saved my life eleven times.” She pats the grip. “Harold’s in my thigh rig — he’s a stunner, don’t take it personally. And Gertrude —“ she glances toward her boot, “— is for emergencies. She’s shy.”

“You have named all of your weapons.”

“Seven. Would you like to meet them all, or just the ones I’m considering using on you?”

Seven. Named. Weapons. One of which is shy.

Director Trell would have her psych-evaluated. Director Trell would have her removed from active courier status and reassigned to ground logistics. Director Trell would be wrong, because this woman is resting her hand on a blaster with a flower sticker on it with the grip pressure of someone who can put three rounds through a moving target at forty meters, and she is doing it while offering me tea, and I have not yet decided whether this is the most unprofessional or the most dangerous person I have encountered in nine years of fieldwork.

Both, possibly. The combination is operationally inconvenient.

My tail twitches toward her.

The movement is fractional — a hair’s breadth of adjustment at the base of my spine, the tip angling left, toward the pilot’s chair, toward her. Any non-Xarthian would miss it. I do not miss it. I lock the tail against my left leg hard enough that the muscles seize from base to mid-thigh.

Tail discipline is taught at four. Mastered by six. I mastered it at five. The Proving Dens were explicit: your tail does not move without your permission. Your tail does not reach. Your tail does not seek. You are not an animal. You are a weapon. My tail is reaching.

The courier is looking at my forearms. At the velvety down that covers the skin between the heat-dispersal markings — the fuzz, asjuvenile Xarthians call it before they learn it is a thermoregulatory adaptation and not, despite its texture, an invitation to stare with open fascination as if you have encountered a rare textile at a market stall.

“That’s lovely,” she says. Not to me. To herself, or to the air, or to whatever part of her brain makes observations without checking whether they are tactically advisable.