“Gold-eye raspberries,” muttered Kristoffson, now red in the face.

Lucas shrugged. “Good enough, but I prefer summerberries from Winterfast, lightly dusted with cinnamon.”

The two men were both looking puffy about the neck, and Ky could have laughed.

“Actually I prefer to find out what Captain Vatta needs from us to make this as comfortable as possible,” said another man—Captain Paison, she saw from the list. A good ten centimeters shorter than Captain Kristoffson, stocky, dark hair graying at the temples, and enough weathering on his skin to show that he didn’t spend all his time aboard ship. His ship, the Marie, was about the size of most Vatta transports. “If we haggle too long over kitchen affairs, Captain Vatta—who actually has a ship to command—might just decide to go back to work and ignore us.” He winked at Ky.

“But it’s—,” Kristoffson started. Paison held up his hand and Kristoffson was quiet.

“Captain Vatta, my two engineering staff are at your disposal. Perhaps after eating? I’m sure you’d like to get all the plumbing hooked up as soon as possible.”

“Yes, I would,” Ky said. “You’ll all be more comfortable when you have shower facilities and somewhere to wash up your things. As you know, this is a small ship, and this many personnel aboard puts us at the limit of our environmental system. Unfortunately, this means we must ration water use, especially in the first few shifts, to be sure that nothing unbalances the tanks.”

“But there are shower units,” another captain said.

“Yes, and I assure you I will be as generous as possible with the water allowance. The calculations our engineering staff made support a maximum of three fairly short showers per hour, which works out to one per twenty-four-hour day per person. However, for the first day, as the system adjusts to more throughput, I’m asking you to hold that to one shower per hour down here. My crew is also restricting use.”

“What about cooking and eating?” Paison asked.

“We’ll be flash-cleaning cooking and eating utensils, to conserve water and pressure on the environmental system,” Ky said. “Since we’re not under boost, we’ve trailed a Peterton line and that will provide enough extra power to cover it.”

“We were told to bring tableware,” Kristoffson said. “We were not told it had to be flash-proof.”

Ky was ready to let Kristoffson eat off the deck with his fingers, but she held onto her temper. “I’m sure your company can make a claim against Mackensee for whatever damage is done to your tableware, Captain Kristoffson. My main concern is that everyone on this ship have sufficient food, water, and air to survive until this is over.”

The others nodded, as if they agreed this made sense. Kristoffson looked around for support and found none.

“Now,” Ky said. “The meal’s almost ready, in the galley, but we need people to carry it down here. I’ve assigned that duty first to Marie… so, Captain Paison, could you assemble your work team, please? I’ll take them back to the galley with me.”

He nodded.

“The rest of you, please speak to your engineering personnel and let them know that after the meal they’ll be assistingQuincy Robin in hooking up the rest of the plumbing.”

Chapter Thirteen

Paison’s work party, like Paison himself, seemed sensible and willing; they and Ky’s crew managed to get all fifty meals to the passengers in one trip. Predictably, Kristoffson was furious that the golden-eye raspberries were being shared with everyone. Lucas wasn’t thrilled with the discovery that his ship’s expensive deli cuts were being shared, but it was clear he didn’t want to look like Kristoffson, so he claimed he’d told Ky that, of course, all his ship’s rations should be shared.

Finally they were all eating, and Ky had time to chat withQuincyabout the plumbing work to be done. Quincy and her engineering crew, with the help of the environmental techs, had been working on the backside plumbing, from the environmental system to stubs with a separate set of cutoff controls.

“Thing is,”Quincysaid, “If they ever forgot and all showered and flushed and washed clothes or whatever at the same time, it definitely could overload the system. We could just hook up one shower, one toilet and one tub, but that would be really inconvenient. What I thought was, we could have it set up so that only two showers could go at once, one in each hold, with a timer on so they couldn’t just stand there for an hour.”

“I know one who probably would,” Ky said, thinking of Kristoffson. “Good thinking,Quincy.”

“We could also do a max water flow for the whole system, but that would mean drops in water pressure in every outlet when anyone used anything. So I decided against it. Mitt’s added another two units of culture, so he says in twenty-four to thirty-six hours we should be able to maintain maximum throughput.”

“How’s it going to work when they leave?” Ky asked. “No—sorry—I should ask Mitt that.”

“Already done,”Quincysaid, grinning. “Twenty-four to thirty-six hours to cycle down, and then we’re back on normal usage.”

“So how do you want to organize the work crews?”

“I’ll supervise one, and Beeah can supervise the other. Very basic stuff, just sticking pipes and seals together and then connecting them through the bulkhead to the stubs we have. Shouldn’t be more than two hours’ work, max.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ky said. “I’m going to my cabin for a bit—”

“Er… Captain, I’m sorry, but your cabin isn’t… exactly what it was. Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Oh.” In the flurry of activity, she had managed to forget about Skeldon’s attack. “I still have things I need in there…”

“Well—if you need to switch cabins, we section firsts can move into yours and you can have number two.”

“I’ll be fine,” Ky said. She hoped she was right. Now that she thought about it, she really didn’t want to go back in there. But she had to.

“I’ll come with you,” Quincy said.

“You don’t have to do that,” Ky said. “I’ll have to get over it someday.” She stood up. “In fact, someday is now.” She headed down the passage with a wave; Quincy trailed her.

Her cabin, the hatch neatly closed. What would she find inside? She didn’t know. She took a deep breath and opened the hatch. At first glance it looked just the same. She had a moment of dizziness, a visceral memory of being shoved, of pain, of falling. She stood still, waiting for it to pass. Next she saw the state of the deck carpeting. Paler and darker blotches, the palest near the hatch… It looked as if someone had splashed bleach all over it and then stirred with a mop. Cabinets on the bulkheads looked streaky rather than smooth blue-gray.

“They used something their ship sent over,” Quincy said. She had come up behind Ky. “Supposedly, there’s no chance of contamination now, and no toxic residue.”

“Good,” Ky said. “But it’s a good thing we aren’t trying to sell this ship as a yacht or anything.”

“So… we’re back to selling the ship for scrap?”

“Right now we’re back to staying alive as long as possible,” Ky said. “Let’s not complicate matters.”

“Yes, our situation is so simple,” Quincy said. Ky looked at her.

“You must be feeling better; you’re back to being ironic.”

“Ky… we’re just so happy to see you alive and… and well.”

“Me, too,” Ky said. She thought about telling Quincy that she’d had a memory mod download, but decided against it. “I did remember to tell you that my implant’s nonfunctional, didn’t I? In fact, they took it out.”

“Yes, but I thought those things were supposed to be indestructible,” Quincy said.

“Unless someone takes them apart,” Ky said. “Which apparently they had to do for some reason, such as—I would guess—making sure I was who I said I was.”