"Spin that wheel," Aarhus yelled, pointing at a spoked metal ring that stuck out of the wall. I grabbed the wheel and heaved; it moved so grudgingly, I was not certain I was turning it in the correct direction, but one does not like to embarrass oneself by sheepishly switching to go the other way, so I just pulled the wheel harder. Much harder.

The floor lurched beneath our feet.

"Hey," Aarhus said, "take it easy!"

"I did not do anything," I told him, "I just turned the wheel."

"The wheel’s attached to gimbals," he said. "They change our orientation to match the direction of gravity on the other ship — the last thing we want is to step out of the airlock and plummet straight up toward the floor."

"Why are spaceships so complicated?" I grumbled. "If I were in charge of the galaxy, I would pass a law that all ships must fly flat and level instead of at odd angles."

But I spun the wheel more slowly after that. I could feel the airlock chamber rotating and rolling in accordance with the wheel’s revolution… but the direction of down continued to be more or less beneath our feet, as if gravity was continually rearranging itself to match our gyrations. Quite possibly, if I had been patient enough to move the wheel at a snail’s pace, we could have turned completely upside-down while barely noticing the change.

"You know," Aarhus said as he watched me work, "technically speaking, what we’re doing could be considered hijacking. Boarding someone’s ship without permission."

"Do not be foolish," I told him. "The Cashlings can follow us as soon as we have gone through."

"I know that. But what will the Cashling security systems think? When strangers show up unaccompanied, the ship might consider us illegal intruders."

Nimbus made a dubious noise. "In my experience with Cashlings, half the time they forget to activate security systems when they leave the ship."

"That leaves the other half of the time," Aarhus said. "The half of the time when the ship-soul incinerates your ass and stomps on the cinders. Anyone know what anti-personnel weapons are popular in the Cashling Reach?"

"Gas," Nimbus answered immediately. "Doesn’t hurt Cashlings because they adapt so quickly to airborne contaminants… but with humans, it makes you retch till you pass out from the dry heaves."

"Lovely," Aarhus muttered.

"Do you wish to go back?" I demanded. "Do you relish groveling before Lady Bell and apologizing for your rashness?"

"Nope," Aarhus said. "I just want to know what might happen when that door opens."

The wheel in my hands clicked and stopped turning. Aarhus smiled at me, then at young Starbiter inside the cloud man’s stomach. "I’m tempted to say women and children first," Aarhus murmured, "but AdmiralRamos would never let me hear the last of it."

He grabbed a lever on the airlock hatch and threw the door open.

Why It Is Good To Have Airlocks

For a moment, I feared we were under attack by some noxious gas — a foul stench assailed my nostrils, like midsummer swamp rot combined with the scent of skunks and boar feces. Of course I held my breath; but even without inhaling, I could feel the horrid reek pressing in upon my nose, like the sharp tip of a knife just waiting to plunge to the hilt.

"God damn!" Aarhus cried, throwing up his hand to cover his mouth and pinch his nostrils shut. "Holy fucking shit!"

He reached out to close the door again, but Nimbus said, "Wait." The cloud man’s top half separated into a dozen foggy ribbons, while the lower half of his body — the part containing baby Starbiter — retained a vague eggly shape. "Wait. Wait. Wait."

Nimbus swirled out of the airlock, his upper half combing the air in long strips, turning a full circle horizontally, then rotating back in the reverse direction. At first, I did not understand what he was doing… but then I remembered how he had originally sensed me as a "chemical imbalance" (hmph!) back on Starbiter Senior. His little misty bits must possess the ability to analyze the air for toxicity; now he was testing to determine if the smell was harmful or just foul.

After another two circles, the streamers of his upper body coalesced into his former egglike shape. "The air’s not dangerous," he told us. "Not in the short term anyway. It’s just putrid as hell."

"But why?" Aarhus demanded… though it is difficult to sound truly demanding when one is muffling one’s mouth with one’s hand. "Have they sprung a leak in their sewage recyclers?"

"No. Cashlings simply have an impressive capacity to counteract atmospheric pollutants. Their stibbek automatically compensate for extreme degrees of… uhh… odorous infelicity. Therefore, I’ve noticed — in the times I’ve served on Cashling ships — they don’t maintain high standards of sanitation."

The sergeant’s expression turned aghast. "You mean they leave garbage lying around?"

"Anything and everything. They simply can’t be bothered to clean up after themselves. If they’re eating something as they walk down a corridor, they’ll drop whatever they don’t want and leave it to rot. Then they’ll step over the mess for weeks afterward, rather than bend down and pick it up. As for personal hygiene…" A shudder went through Nimbus’s body. "You don’t want to know. Every few years, they have to dock their ships at an orbital station and get robots to scour all exposed surfaces. You and Oar should watch your step; personally, I intend to hover at least half a meter off the floor."

"Christ Almighty," Aarhus muttered. "Now I understand why the navy sends Explorers to enter alien vessels. We ordinary swabbies aren’t cut out for stomaching hostile environments."

"You are not the one with bare feet," I told him. Then I headed out the hatchway, my eyes most diligently watching the ground.

A Glimpse Of Unfettered Destiny

The Cashling ship Unfettered Destiny was indeed a most God-Awful Mess. Not only was the receiving bay besmirched with organic substances of disgusting provenance (discarded fruit turned spongy brown, hunks of desiccated meat, stains of spilled liquids in a variety of colors and degrees of stickiness) but the bay was full of bric-a-brac: possibly gifts or tribute from the prophets’ disciples, but maybe just foolish knickknacks procured on impulse and tossed aside two seconds after arriving on ship.

How else to explain at least thirty bolts of cloth piled haphazardly against the wall — with every bolt displaying the same pattern. (Jagged green and red zigzags moving jerkily across an electric blue background… and I do mean electric, since the cloth occasionally gave off sparks.) There were also statues lying about, some recognizable (trees, horses, arches) and some depicting objects that did not exist in nature… unless somewhere there is a spherical creature who has a habit of shoving both hands all the way down its throat until they come out the other end.

I will not bother to describe the other items heaped around the room — and there were many heaps indeed, including mounds of gold coins, stacks of data-bubbles, and buckets of glittery crystals that might have been genuine jewels — but I must note the cages, crates, and pens that once contained living animals.

Now those same containers held corpses, many in advanced states of decomposition.

I could not identify any of the species. Some were clearly alien — things with eight legs, or with shells shaped like flat orange octagons. Others might have been creatures I knew, but were too dried and withered to recognize anymore. Skeletons covered with shriveled skin. Mounds of decaying fur still pressed desperately against the wire of the cages where they had died.

All these animals perished from neglect: unfed, unwatered, uncleaned. I suppose they had been brought to the prophets as pious offerings, then simply ignored. They might have been nice pretty creatures — fluffy and gentle, or scaly and playful — but the Cashlings apparently could not be bothered to fill up food and water dishes. These "holy sacrifices" had suffered most horrible deaths from sheer lack of attention… and the sight made me sad and angry, both at the same time.