“I knew nothing about it—my first knowledge of the attack came when I tried to make an ansible call and the ready light didn’t come on, and then the standby light went out.”

“Oh, my. We certainly hadn’t known you were making a call at the time. Do you have the records of that?”

“No,” Ky said. “My communications equipment, including the stored records, was damaged in the mutiny that occurred.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, let’s see. Now, you have some kind of records of the trip, don’t you? The court will want to establish whether or not your agreement with the mercenaries qualified as ‘cooperation under constraint’ or not, and whether the treatment you accorded the passengers was in line with the UCC.”

“Yes, I have those records. Do you need them in hardcopy, or do you have a filedump where I can send them?”

“A filedump will be fine, Captain Vatta. Thank you. And let me just say, I am so impressed. I really admire you—”

“Excuse me?”

Favor’s smile was brighter than ever. “I mean, I always wanted to go out in space and have adventures, but I didn’t know how… My family’s always gone into government service. I really admire someone who goes out and does things.”

Ky opened her mouth to say it was nothing much, and adventures weren’t as much fun as they were made out to be, but Favor rattled on.

“I mean, I’ve been to the adventure resorts and things, you know, with mountains and snow and all that, but space… it really is different. When I think about you, all alone out there in the empty dark and cold and all and running out of food, it just gives me the shivers. I mean, I know I could never do it.” That finished on a note of near smugness. She was clearly absolving herself of the need to move out of her own comfort zone.

“I suppose not,” Ky said, instead of the half-dozen other things she wanted to say. She hadn’t intended the sharp tone, but Favor stopped rattling and looked at her.

“I suppose you think I’m silly,” Favor said.

“No,” Ky said. “But I didn’t get into this for the adventure.”

“Really? Why did you, then?”

It was a reasonable question. “My family trucks cargo in space ships,” Ky said. “Like yours goes into government service.”

“You mean—they just expected you to? It wasn’t that you wanted to get away, get out into space, see other planets?”

She did not want to talk to this person about her past, about her dreams. “Pretty much,” Ky said instead. “And for the most part, it’s not all that exciting. Seeing other planets, sure. But the rest of the time it’s just business.”

“Oh.” Favor looked disappointed. “I suppose, if you’re used to it—”

“Right.” Ky was tired of this detour. “If you don’t need anything else, I have other appointments, and it’s getting late—”

“Oh. Of course, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I was just interested, it sounded so exciting—”

When she had twittered her way out, Ky shook her head. “I’m probably not being fair—”

“To think she’s a fluttery featherhead? Possibly not, but she’s a good imitation.” Quincy had come onto the bridge, and now shook her head.

“And I still have to cope with Captain Furman.” Ky let the resentment come into her voice there. Quincy looked at her.

“Didn’t you apprentice on his ship?”

“Yes. It was not a happy experience.”

“Apprenticeships rarely are. What’s wrong? Is he still treating you like a child?”

“Yes. You saw part of it. He’s going to want to drag me back home like a trophy failure…”

“You need something to eat,” Quincy said. “Garlan, go get her something to eat.” Garlan nodded and left the bridge.

Ky started to say You’re not my mother, but her stomach growled and she realized she was feeling hollow.

“All right,” she said, sinking back into the seat. “I am hungry.”

When they were alone, Quincy leaned forward. “Ky—is there more to that message your father sent?”

“Yes,” Ky said. She felt her muscles tense and tried to relax. “Said he was sending a new implant out with a Vatta ship. I suppose that’s Furman.” She could hear the sharpness in her own voice. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to let Furman take our cargo to Belinta. It’s my job—my contract—and I’m quite capable of doing it.”

“I agree,” Quincy said.

“And I don’t need the implant,” Ky said.

“I wouldn’t want to do without mine,” Quincy said. “Makes it a lot easier.”

“The implant…” Ky stopped, unable to articulate her feelings about it. She tried again. “The implant is Vatta, in a way. The Vatta connection: the codes, the propriety databases, the protocols, all preloaded for me. Yes, it’s easier to have it all available internally. I really like parts of it. But… when I rely on it… I’m not really thinking for myself. I can miss solutions I might otherwise come up with. We didn’t have them at the Academy… We had to learn to learn, remember, analyze, plan, all with our own brains.”

“You were doing fine before you were shot,” Quincy said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. It was always whispering to me, shaping what I knew… and with so much in there, I wasn’t as likely to look outside for more information, was I? And after, without it, did I do that much worse?”

“No,” Quincy said. “I have to admit you seemed just as competent without it. But everyone has one…”

“Most people, certainly spacers, yes. If I could have an empty one and choose what to put in it—”

“You could,” Quincy said. “But it seems a waste to me. You need the Vatta protocols.” She paused; Ky said nothing. “By the way, are those mercenaries trying to recruit you?”

“Why?” Ky asked, trying to conceal a guilty start.

“Well, Beeah went dockside, to try to link up with some equipment suppliers, and he told me he ran into one of them who said something about how you’d end up in their pockets.”

“Not likely,” Ky said. “I have a contract to fulfill.”

“What are you going to do if Furman orders you to turn over the ship and give him your cargo?”

“I—don’t know.”

Quincy shook her head. “Now that’s not true. I think you know perfectly well. My real question is, are you going to stop with defying Furman, or are you going to break with Vatta as well? Is that the real reason you don’t want a Vatta-programmed implant?”

“Break with Vatta? I hadn’t even thought of that.” But even as she said it, she knew she had… at some level.

“The thing is, if you decide to break with Vatta, you need to let the crew know. Those who want to stay with Vatta would probably rather leave now, and go with Furman.”

Without the Vatta component of her crew, she had only three crew, the ones she’d picked up here. And even they might not want to stay with her. She thought about them. Two experienced environmental techs, one with some bridge experience. One drives maintenance technician. Hard to run a ship with that. Impossible to run a ship with that, with no pilot, no cargomaster, no…

“Oh. Well, I hadn’t planned to leave Vatta…”

“Can you commit to that beyond Belinta? You don’t want to leave anyone stranded.”

Of course she didn’t want to leave anyone stranded. Her head ached. It was all so blasted complicated. Contracts for this, contracts for that, personnel problems.

“Here, Captain,” Garlan said, bringing in a tray. Ky’s stomach rumbled at the smell of a hearty soup. She ate quickly, aware of Quincy’s worried gaze still resting on her like a heavy weight. When she finished, the problem was still there, and her stomach knotted around the soup.

“I’m not going to abandon my crew anywhere,” Ky said. “But I hear what you’re saying, that some of the Vatta people may want to go back with Furman.”

“As long as you understand…”

“What about you?” Ky asked. “Do you want to go back?” Losing an engineering chief would be bad but not impossible, as long as she didn’t take all her supports with her.