This Is How It Is.

This is how it is.

Noise you don't have time to recognize and then before you even know that what you should be feeling is fear there are shapes, shapes you can barely tell are human in their slick, faceless armor.

Light and then dark and then light again, someone screaming, short and barking.

A hard hand on your arm, your feet barely brushing the floor, then flying, landing in a pile of other bodies, warm and squirming and stinking with fear.

Dark again.

Your heart hammering so hard it shakes your whole body, acid bile in your throat.

You make yourself breathe deep and slow, fighting for calm, and thinking to yourself that it's a mistake, they can't keep you once they know you're a free woman.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.


This is how it is.


When the light comes again it blinds you, blinds everyone.  There's shouting and pushing as hard-faced men and women separate everyone into two groups.

You're in one group, with all the other young women. Everyone else is pushed back into what you can see now is a container in the cargo hold of a ship.

When you try to tell them you're a free woman of the Republic and they have no right to do this, one of them hits you in the small of the back so hard your vision goes white with pain.

At first you don't understand why they're making all the girls take off their pants or pull up their skirts and then the doctor reaches you with her cold probe and cruel fingers.

Some of the girls get a red band fastened around their wrists before they're shoved back into the container with the rest.

Even then, it isn't until you're on your back pinned down by the sweaty weight of a man three times your size that you realize what the red band means. They're the virgins; you're already spoiled.

Fair game.

The pain rips you open and splits you apart and separates you from everything you know as yourself. You close your eyes and think about the wide plains of home, try to hear the soft susurration of the wind across the grass in the harsh panting of the man on top of you, against you, in you.


You tell yourself that they have your body, skin and bones and flesh, but not your mind, not what's really you.


It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.




This is how it is.


They move you in a long line, one hand attached to the person in front, one to the one behind, with thin, tough fabric straps too tough to break but soft enough to leave no mark.

Out of the hold of the one ship and across the hangar towards the next.

You see a uniform, the woman wearing it is Amarr but there are laws, there are rules, even in the Empire.

Shouting as loud as you can to her, because she has to listen, it's her job, there are laws.

She looks.

Money changes hands.

She looks away.

It's one person, one customs officer. There will be others. And someone must have heard you shouting. Someone must have.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.


This is how it is.


Row upon row, packed shoulder to shoulder, ankles and wrists strapped to the pole running from one end of the hold to the other, level after level. In the dark, the only proof you have that you're not alone is the warm shoulders pressed to yours and the moaning breath of a thousand others above you, below you, around you.

No one talks.

You're there long enough for your muscles to cramp, tightening up into knots of fire. Someone near you is crying with the pain, then someone else, and then the whole hold is filled with sobbing, blending together into one single constant howl of despair, as heavy and thick as the darkness.

Eventually someone can't hold onto their bladder any more and a warm splatter of urine drips onto your hair from above and runs down your bowed back.  There's no reason but your no-longer-relevant dignity but you try not to follow suit. The shame and relief when you fail bring tears to your eyes.

The smell gets worse, sweat and piss and then shit.  People start retching and there's a new note to the stink. Your stomach flips and twists and you swallow back the vomit that burns in your throat, again and again.

The rest of it doesn't matter, the fact that you're tied hand and foot in the dark, that you've lost control of your bowels.  You gag and swallow, gag and swallow, telling yourself that there's still something you can control, even here, even now.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.



This is how it is.

They make you crawl, forcing long-cramped muscles to move, through a spray of antiseptic water so cold and hard it stings your skin like a lash.  It takes away the smell, though, and you're blindly, burningly angry with yourself when you notice that you're grateful.

There are metal prods with sharp, shocking ends to get you to your feet, bent double at first, to get you stumbling and then jogging as your legs start to work again. A long corridor, a bright, open space, shouting, more shocks.

When you're all herded into smaller groups, yours has only other young women without red bands on their wrists.  After some pushing and shoving you find yourself standing with three women who could be your cousins, same height, same hair color, same skin.

A matched set, one of the men with the prods calls you.

You'll be worth more.

What they can sell you for and what you're worth are not the same thing.  You're a human being, your value can't be measured in money.  

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself.

Over and over.



This is how it is.

Diamonds Beneath Her Feet

"Hey, m'ser! Hey!"

Lethi made her face into the same shape as the kids in the holos, the ones everyone liked. Widened her eyes and smiled. Kini said she looked real cute when she did that and it sure worked on the marks on the Boulevard.

"Hey, m'ser! M'ser! Nice shoes!"

Rich-looking homme strolling with a pretty girl, always a good target. Sex makes people stupid, Kini always said.  These two were not so smart to begin with, Lethi figured, him with the latest fashion in skull-mods that made people look like some kind of fish and her with her dress matched in color to the tiny tendrils growing down her arms and waving gently in an imaginary breeze.

Lethi skipped ahead of the two of them, years of practice letting her keep her footing on the hard, cold diamond cobblestones in bare feet.  She pirouetted and turned to face them, walking backwards, smiling, smiling. Smiling worked, made the marks less likely to notice her stains on her dress and the scabs on her legs. Lethi made sure to keep well enough away from them so they couldn't smell her, either.  "Nice shoes, M'ser, real nice. Bet you a centime I can tell you where you got 'em!"

The woman laughed, and Lethi knew she was in.

"C'mon, M'ser," she wheedled. "Bet you I can, too!"

He looked from her to his girl, back to Lethi, and began to smile. "Oh, you're that clever, are you?"

"I have the sight, M'ser! I can tell you where you got your shoes!"

"Mmhmm."  He felt in his pocket, took out a centime bit, and held it up. "Where, then?"

Lethi screwed up her eyes like she was concentrating hard. "Ummmm ... right here in Caille?"

Rich-boy shook his head. "No, not even close. Now you have to pay me, right?"

"Wait, wait!" Lethi said. "Best of two, M'ser! Double or nothing!"

She was poised to run when Rich-boy glanced at his girl again and nodded. Showing off, Lethi thought. Smug fils de pute de merde.  He's sure he's got me.


Probably got them on some off-world jaunt, he did. Rich con like that. 


She made her best thinking face again. "Ummmm .... you got them in Algogille!" It was the only other system name she knew, gleaned from the title of her favorite holo-series, Adieu Algogille. It wasn't, as far as Lethi knew, somewhere shoes came from, but she had to say something.

"Wrong again, little girl. Pay up."  Rich-boy's smile was genial but there was something underneath it that Lethi didn't like.

She took a hop-and-a-step further away, out of arm's reach. "Wait, wait, wait! One more time, M'ser! Double or nothing, again!"

He looked her up and down. "You don't have four centimes, do you? How are you going to pay me when you get it wrong again?"

Lethi dug in her pocket and produced the four little coins that she never, ever spent. Don't spend your seed money, Le-le, Kini had told her. Like eating your seed corn. Might help right then, but you've got no way to make more.


As always when she remembered that bit of advice, Lethi wondered to herself what corn was. Kini hadn't been able to explain it either. Still, the advice made sense. You need money to make money.


"Look, see, I do so have four centimes!" she said. "C'mon, M'ser, give me one more chance!"

She'd been right about him. Rich, greedy, a little bit cruel. He eyed her coins, less than he'd spend on getting the shoes they were betting over shined, and smiled again. "Sure, little girl. But this is the last time."

"D'accor', d'accor," Lethi said. She made sure she put the coins back in her pocket before she went on, in case she needed to run. "Ummm.... you got your shoes .... on your feet!"

The girl laughed. The homme didn't. Lethi saw the brief flash of rage that crossed his face and sprang up on her toes, balanced, ready to run. "You little - "

She smiled and giggled. "Oh, c'mon, M'ser, I'm right, aren't I? Aren't I?"

"She is right, Jacques," the girl said, smiling. "And very clever, too."

Jacques. Trust Rich-boy to have a name like Jacques. People with ident-cards and numbers and proper places to be had names like that, like Jacques and Luc.  Lethi was a crotte and she didn't have an ident-card, or a number, or a name except one she'd picked off Adieu Algogille, and she thought she'd done well, even if nobody'd call her by all of it, Lethiandianasanni. Just Lethi, was all they'd bother with, even Kini.

That was how it went, Lethi supposed, when it was just something you picked off a holo. 

"I'm not giving you a cent for that," Rich-boy said.

Lethi let her smile go, made her eyes huge and sad. "But I was right, M'ser! Wasn't I?"

"Oh, come on," the girl said gently. "She's earned it."

Rich-boy shook his head. "Non. Now get out of here, you little brat, before I call the cops on you."

Merde con pute salaud baissez moi ... A waste of time, he'd been. Lethi skipped backwards, ready to run, hesitating, casting her best tearful glance at the girlfriend.

"Jaques," the girl said reproachfully, and Lethi had to work hard not to grin. Her grin, Kini said, was not cute.

As Rich-boy glared, the girlfriend opened her tiny beaded purse and took out -

Baissez moi. Lethi didn't need to try to make her eyes go wide as wide. The woman was holding, not a centime piece, not even a cinq-cent, but a note.  "Here you are, sweetheart."

"Anita!" Rich-boy said. "Look at her! Give her that and she'll probably spend it on drop or something!"

Generous-girl hesitated. "What would you do with this if I gave it to you, sweetheart?"

"Give it to Maman," Lethi lied promptly.

"Your mother ought to be in jail, letting you run around harassing people," Rich-boy said.

Lethi ignored him and spoke straight to Generous-girl. "She has the cough, M'selle, real bad. Can't work."  And that was only partly a lie. Maman had had the cough, Kini said, that was what she'd died of when Lethi was a baby.

"Oh..." Another note joined the first.

Rich-boy grabbed Generous-girl's hand. "Anita, I'm not letting you do this. She's a thief and a con-artist and if you really want to help her you should report her to Services so they can get her into Rehab and Restitution."

"Then what would Maman do?" Lethi said. "Without me to help her, and Sichi only two, too..."

"Let go of me, Jacques," Generous-girl said, and Lethi recognized the coaxing note in her voice as one she herself used when a thin day left her no choice but to work marks coming out of the bars late at night, liquored up and dangerous.  Merde, m'selle, she thought. You got the money to make yourself a pretend-sea-lady and you still hanging 'round where you ain't safe?


Kini was right, no doubt about it. Sex makes people stupid. It had made that homme who worked in the holo store stupid enough to let her come in and watch the screens when it was too wet to work and eat the candy from behind the counter, all in exchange for sitting on his lap for a while and letting him do things to her.  That was pretty stupid, as far as Lethi was concerned, especially since it got him sacked when the manager found out.

She'd gone there one day when the sky was drizzling down so much water that the only people out on the Boulevard were moving way too fast for her to get their attention and the homme she knew was gone, and there was a different man there. He's spoken to her nicely and offered her some food, but Lethi was no fool. She'd seen the nets and the bars in his eyes, like she could see them in Rich-boy's right now, as if ReRe was written on his forehead.

Rehabilitation and Restitution. For the crotte, like Lethi, like Kini.  If they caught you and shipped you off to ReRe you didn't ever come back.

No way they were getting Lethi, that was for sure.

Rich-boy let go. Lethi guessed he wanted Generous-girl more than he wanted to punish Lethi for embarrassing him. Sex makes people stupid.

Generous-girl held out the notes and Lethi darted in and snatched them, careful to keep out of reach of Rich-boy. "Fortune bless you, M'selle!" she said, looking straight at Generous-girl as she said it, so none of the blessing would splash over on Rich-boy. Fortune fuck you, she thought spitefully as she balled the notes up in her hand and skipped backwards.  

She didn't stop to look at them until she was a good four blocks away, having dodged through the crowds on the Boulevard with enough twists and turns to shake off anyone who'd seen her get the money and thought of following.  There was an alley Lethi knew, where the rubbish skips leaned together to make a corner that was safe from prying eyes, and once she was sure she wasn't being watched she made for it and crawled inside, then unpeeled her cramped fingers to take a look at the money.

One of the notes was a ving. The other ...

Lethi stared at it. She'd never seen all that money in one place, let alone in one piece.

A cinquantième.

Very, very carefully she folded the two notes up as small as she could make them and turned up the hem of her dress to slip them into the secret pocket there that Kini had made for her.  Then, with another wary look to make sure she was unobserved, she slid out of her hiding place.

Make sure no-one ever follows you, Kini always said.  ReRe for all of us if they find out we're here.  Never run here, if you're being chased. Always run away. Even if they getcha. Better they get one than all.


But they wouldn't get Lethi. Not ever.

She began to jog-trot back along  the Crystal Boulevard to the broken fence that led to the route home.


Kini would be angry she'd come back early, until Lethi gave her the money.  Then she'd be happy, maybe even happy enough to give Lethi a second helping of whatever was cooking on the fire tonight. I hope it's something from the bins, Lethi thought, and not something someone caught. There were lots of things living in the old basements and abandoned warehouses and disused sewers that you could eat.

If you were fast enough to grab them. 


And hungry enough to ignore the taste.

Lethi  imagined that what was waiting for her was saved from the skip outside a fancy restaurant, and not too old, either.  Kini would give her two helpings, and smile, and put the notes away, like she always put the money away, one for all of us and one for your investment, Lethi.

Lethi wasn't sure what 'vestment was, but it seemed to mean Kini putting money in a special box that no-one was allowed to touch. She didn't make sense about it when Lethi asked, either.

It's an investment in your future, kiddo. For when you need it, later.


Lethi'd rather have it now, thank you, when it could be spent on candy and those stuffed pastries with casein they sold from the stalls in the warehouse end of town.  But she nodded when Kini said that, and tried to make her face look like she knew what Kini meant.

Kini was funny like that, sometimes. She got to talking craziness. Lethi figured it was because whatever sickness she had that made her face look like one of the crawlies from the sewer was growing out of her eye was growing into her brain, too.

Crotte didn't have later, even Lethi knew that.

Didn't matter, though, today.  Kini'd be happy when she saw the money, and there might be something tasty to eat, and that was all today owed her, as far as Lethi was concerned.

She smiled at the thought, and gave a little hop and a skip as she ran, her seed-money coins jingling in her pocket, the secret pocket in her hem slapping against her bare legs, hardly even feeling the bruises on her heels left by the hard bite of the diamonds beneath her feet.

Pretty Faces, Foolish Hearts

"So," Capitaine Elienne Desorlay said, tapping a cigarette free from the pack she held. "I talked to your podder friend."

Lieutenant Charles Etay regarded her mildly. "Which one?"

Which one. Fortune fuck me, it's come to that, when my partner has to ask 'which one' about the podders he knows. "The fruit one."

"Amieta."

"Yeah." The lighter caught on the third click and Elienne busied herself with getting the end of her cigarette burning, not least to have a reason not to look at Etay right at that moment.  First name terms ... Somewhere in the back of her mind was a vague conviction that there were things it was better not to call by name.

In case they hear you.

And come.

 "Why were you talking to Amieta?" Etay asked.

Elienne glanced up at him, trying to read his expression. No luck. Whatever Etay was thinking was hidden behind an expression of such studied neutrality it could have done double-duty as the Yulai Accords. "I haven't had much luck talking to you, have I?"

A slight thinning of the lips, that got her, a downward glance. That was all. "Eli ..."

She flicked ash from the end of her cigarette. "Relax, farmboy.  I should've told her you've a string of girlfriends and a suspicious rash and to keep her sister out of your way, but I guess I'm going soft in my old age.  I told her you deserved better than to be some capsuleer's pretty plaything for a week, and she didn't argue."

Etay sighed. "Eli ..."

"She seems to like you, for some reason.  Said you were solid, which shows she's not a fool." Elienne exhaled smoke. "Thinks you're smart, too, so her judgement's not that good."

Etay blinked as the smoke drifted into his face.  "And what else did you two discuss?"

"This'n'that," Elienne said, and shrugged.  "She said she wanted her sister to be happy, closer to a normal  human emotion I ever would have thought a capsuleer would have, and I don't think she'd look kindly on anyone made her sister unhappy, so you watch yourself, farmboy. You hear?"

"Watch myself?"

Elienne dropped her cigarette to the ground and trod on it. "Yeah.  She thinks you might be good for the girl.  Something about her having a bad time." She snorted. "Guess all that murdering was rough on her."

"I think maybe it wasn't quite like you're thinking it was," Etay said, his slightly hoarse voice even quieter than usual.

"I think maybe it wasn't quite like you're thinking it was, farmboy, but that's beside the point," Elienne said. "The point is, much as you've made yourself an annoyance to this woman, she did her best to sell me on the idea that this girl you've got moon-eyes for, and don't insult me by pretending you don't, that this girl isn't a walking plasma-leak of trouble for a boy like you."

Etay looked at her sideways with his usual faint smile of wry amusement. At me, at the absurdity of a cop and a podder playing at matchmaking like two old ladies in one of Krenshaw's stories, at the Cluster, maybe. Or all of them.  "And?"


Elienne shrugged. "She wants you to get to know her sister, you want to get to know her sister, you're pretty enough not to need any more help than that. Just ... watch yourself, Charlie.  These pilots, they might seem like normal people, but ..."

He studied her. "She's just a girl, Eli."

"A pretty girl," Elienne corrected, and saw the faint color rise in Etay's cheeks, and sighed.

Pretty faces.


Foolish hearts.

That's where all the trouble starts. 

Podders or not.

Conversations on the Fortune's Fire: Twenty

Luisa Kamajeck, XO-as-was, eyed the reflection the polished chrome doors of the lift showed her. Her uniform was pressed until the creases could have cut the unwary, her boots polished to a mirror gleam. Look as hard as she could, there was no speck of lint or stray hair needing to be brushed away.

Ready.

Ready to face the men and women Pilot'd left to take care of her hangar here in Torrinos when she'd kited off to the Republic, getting on for ten months ago now.

Men and women who'd known her as the XO, their XO.

Past is past, Lulu, Luisa told herself. Can't be picking and choosing when it comes to working or not working. And the cool metal of the doors showed her a woman who was no longer young enough to be on anyone's list down at Labor Hire.

As was blindingly obvious to anyone who had eyes to see.

And Pilot, silly, sweet-natured Pilot, was foolish, but in some ways was no fool.

So Luisa Kamajeck got a charity job back in the State, make-work keep-busy, supervising the engineers who had nothing but routine maintenance to do on the old Duty's Call, the Fortune's Fire, and the Fleet Fortune, keeping an eye on cargo-crews stacking discarded ammunition in piles and moving it to the other side of the hangar and then unstacking it and starting again.

Better than she could have expected, given how things had gone, even if the charity stuck in her throat.

Learnt long ago, Lulu, when something sticks in your throat there's nothing to do but swallow hard and choke it down.  


Only way to get on in this life, that was. And there was Jamie to think about.  Like to leave that boy with more of a start in life than I got.  


If I can do that, I've done all right.


So she'd swallow Pilot's charity and like the taste.

And do a damn better job than she could expect, too.


The lift doors hissed open and Luisa strode out onto the hangar deck, not giving her knees a chance for any Spirits-damned complaining.

"Fore!"


Something small and white whizzed past her face too fast to be identified, shot into the lift and bounced off the back wall to roll to a stop at her feet.

Luisa looked down at the golf ball and then up at the man hurrying towards her holding what she thought, from her limited holo-viewing of the sport, was probably some sort of five-iron or ten-iron or Ancestors-fuck-me-iron for all she cared.

There were others behind him, holding golf sticks as well, a litter of little white balls at their feet, and beyond them Luisa could see what she thought was probably a land-car, or had been, before someone had turned it on its side and taken the wheels off and prised out the engine to spread over the deckplating. That wasn't entirely unexpected. Engineers. Have to keep them busy or they get into all sorts of trouble.


Cars, shuttles, the Chief Medical Officer ...


The man with the golf-stick came to a stop and gave what Luisa judged to be a grade-A half-assed salute. "Ma'am," he said. "Sorry about that. We did put up a sign saying - "

Luisa gave him her best stare, the one she reserved for Chief Engineers caught shtupping the CMO or for the perpetrators of half-assed salutes, and his voice trailed away. "You put up a sign, did you?" she said dryly.

"Ma'am, yes'm - "

"Stand at attention when you talk to me!"


That got every one on the deck standing up straight, Luisa noted with sour satisfaction.

"Get those things out of my sight and - not you! You, Corporal ... " She had to peer to read the tag stitched over his pocket and cursed, once again, the impartial humiliations of age. "Corporal Massek! You will come with me to the hangar office and show me what I am sure will be immaculately maintained records."

Ten minutes later, Luisa reflected that it was a good thing she hadn't been expecting the records to be immaculate. Because I'd sure as shit be disappointed.


The haphazard filing and the significant gaps were no more than she'd expected.  The papers she discovered in one of the drawers with the neat letterhead of what claimed to be a private security company, contact frequency the very office she sat in, were more of a surprise.

The porn stash in the filing cabinet she took for granted.

"You've had a lot of latitude here, Corporal Massek," Luisa said flatly. "Hasn't been anyone paying much attention to the Torrinos hangar in quite some time."

Massek, Luisa was pleased to see, was still rigidly at attention, eyes fixed on the wall. "Yes'm!" he said.

She slapped the folder in front of her closed.  "That's over now."

"Yes'm!"

"I want the whole crew here assembled on the deck in fifteen minutes, on duty, off duty, I don't care. If they don't fall in they can pack their gear, understood?"

"Yes'm!'

Luisa looked at him, eyes narrowed. "Well?"

"Uh ..." He glanced at her nervously. "Well, uh, what?"

"Well snap to it, Mr Massey!"


Massey left so fast he careened off the door-frame.

Alone in the office, Luisa permitted herself a small, a very small, smile.

Make-work charity job, hey?


We'll see about that.


Three hots and a cot is nothing to turn your nose up at, not at your age, Lulu.


And it's still better than you ever thought you'd have, once upon a time.


Swallow hard. Learn to like the taste.


She levered herself to her feet, cursing her knees, and headed for the door.

After all, it's only charity ...


If I don't earn it. 


And Lulu Kamajeck had earned everything that'd come to her in her life.


Good and bad.

Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

Debreth was a very pretty city, Capitaine Elienne Desorlay thought, despite the grey sky and cold wind that cut through her coat like a knife through sandwich spread. The buildings were pretty, in their matching yellow stone. The river was pretty, if a little frightening as it churned its way under the bridges. The trees were pretty, even without their leaves. And the people were pretty, too, not in the uniform way of the holoreels but with clear eyes that were used to seeing sky and an easy way of walking that said they were used to having enough space to finish a stride without stepping on the heels of the person in front of them.

Could be Farm-boy's home town, come to think of it.


Lieutenant Charles Etay's home town, maybe, but not Elienne's. The gaping open space above her head gave her the creeps, for one thing, and she had no idea how anyone could have a preference for living in a place that had no working temperature control.

Nice enough to visit, well, anywhere was nice enough to visit for a day or so, and Elienne hadn't said no when Charlie had suggested they put their names in the pool to see who'd get sent on the consult request from the local force.  And they'd gotten lucky, or else Charlie's star was on the rise again, even if his big war-crimes arrest had ended with the file marked 'deceased' and not with a trial.

Closed is closed, that was the rule.  And closing a case got you anything from an slap on the back to a promotion, depending on just how big and ugly and political the case had been and just how neatly you'd tied all the ends together.

Charlie had got a trip to Annelle XI, on expenses, which Elienne judged meant the case against Sarakai Voutelen fell somewhere in the middle of the range.

The case here hadn't even been a bad one, financial fraud, not even properly Crimes-Against-Persons except an accounts clerk had gotten a nasty bump on the head when he'd stumbled over the perp working late in the office. Enough to scramble his memory, sure, but not enough to break his skull.

No blood, no deaths, no kids.  That's what I call a good case.


And Charlie had been fast-tracked for a reason, before he got up the noses of the higher-ups.  Boy reads bank records like they're kids' primers. It hadn't taken them more than a few hours to wrap up the case and give it to the locals, all but with a bow on top.

Leaving the rest of the day for sight-seeing.


There were churches, apparently, old ones, that Charlie thought were worth looking at. Elienne had wished him joy of them and trudged off into what the locals had assured her was the right part of town for shopping.

Nothing that she'd have called a shop, not really, just poky little rooms no bigger that Elienne's own living room crowded with shelves and tables of things for sale.  Most seemed to sell only one sort of thing, too, which made for a lot of unnecessary tramping into the little hot rooms and back out into the chilly wind that funnelled through the narrow alleys and blasted up through the wooden walkways, as Elienne tried to find something to take home for Robert that was cheap enough for what was left of her travel allowance, nice enough not to be obviously cheap, and small enough not to get her stuck with an excess baggage charge on the Interbus home.


The last requirement was the hardest. Dirtsiders don't spend much time thinking about mass-lift costs, obviously.

Pausing in her search to buy a crisp sugared pastry baked in a cone, Elienne was eating it while looking in the window of a little shop that sold nothing but shoes when a familiar pretty face appeared reflected next to hers.

She swallowed a mouthful of sweet dough. "Find your church?"

Etay's reflection smiled. "More or less.  Find your souvenir?"

"Not yet," Elienne said. "Look at those shoes. You ever see anything like that? The soles are are some kind of stone, sparkling like that. You'd go slipping all over the place if you tried to run in them."

"I don't think they're for running," Etay said.

Elienne snorted. "Hardly anyone thinks their shoes are for running when they get dressed in the morning, Charlie.  And then you and me are standing in an alley somewhere looking down at some poor cow, and shaking our heads, and thinking that a little bit more speed and none of the three of us would have needed to be there."

The corner of Etay's mouth twitched up slightly. "There's a cheerful thought to have when looking at dancing shoes."

"You're a romantic, farm boy, that's your problem."  She turned to looked at him, and paused. "Had time for shopping after all, did you? That's a nice looking coat."

"It's a ..." Etay looked down, brushing at the rich fabric. "A loan."

"A loan. From one of the local boys?"

He shook his head wordlessly.

"So a complete stranger just walked up to you and lent you a coat, then? A nice one like that?" Elienne asked dryly.

"No," Etay said quietly. "Not a stranger."

Elienne sighed, but not aloud. Seeing two sons through adolescence had given her plenty of practice prying information from young men. Never let them sense your impatience. She looked back at the flimsy shoes with their silly high heels and impractical soles. "So who else do you know in Debreth?"

"I ran into someone," Etay said.

"And who would that be, then, Charlie?"

Etay's reflection looked away from hers.  "Amieta."

It took Elienne a moment to place the name.  "Your fruit woman?"

He smiled a little at that. "Yes."

Elienne made her voice neutral. "The one with the sister." The podder sister.


The pretty, podder sister.


"The very same," Etay said mildly.

"And she gave you that very nice coat," Elienne said flatly.

"Lent, not gave," Etay corrected.

"And why would she do that, Charlie?" Elienne asked.

He shrugged slightly.  "It's cold out?"

Elienne did sigh aloud at that.  Oh, Charlie.  "I don't suppose it was much of a surprise to you to run into this woman here, was it? Given how quick you were to volunteer us both for this little trip?"

"Not all that much of a surprise, no," Etay admitted. "Did you know syrup comes from trees?"

"No, but I always thought it tasted funny," Elienne said. "And don't change the subject, Charlie. We're partners, remember? If you're neck deep in the shit, so am I.  And - " She turned and tipped her head back to look up at him.  "My nose is closer to the ground than yours, farm boy.  So do you think that when you're next planning an interstellar trip to stalk a capsuleer you could let me know what you're dragging me into?"

Etay regarded her mildly. "Stalking seems a little strong."

"Stalking is what it'll say in the complaint, if she makes one.  It's not like you've got any official business with her, is it?"

"No," Etay admitted.

"Is she going to make a complaint?" Elienne asked.

He shook his head. "I don't think so. She gave me tea. And lent me her father's coat."

"Wait, the pilot lent you the coat?" Elienne said.

"And gave me tea."

Oh, Fortune fuck me with feathers. She's pretty and she's kind enough to give a man a warm drink on a cold day.

It wasn't that much, all in all, but then, it didn't take much when it came to young men and pretty girls, in Elienne's experience. Or pretty boys,for Tomas.  A polite smile was as good as a declaration of love, a basic acquaintance with the inside of a textbook was a sign of genius, the ability to walk across a room without tripping over the furniture was the hallmark of incomparable grace ...

And elementary hospitality is no doubt proof this podder is as kind and virtuous as all eight graces, as far as poor Charlie's concerned. 

Elienne shivered, and tugged her coat tighter.  That's where all the trouble in the world starts, she thought.

With pretty faces and foolish hearts.

"Charlie," Elienne said carefully. "She's a capsuleer and a confessed murderer and she's richer than sin-cake and twice as deadly. You do remember all that, don't you?"

"Sure," Etay said. "Sure, Eli. I remember all that."

Elienne studied him, squinting against the cold wind whipping up the alley. Her heart sank a little at what she saw.

Sure, he remembers, she thought.

Care, now.

That'd get me a different answer.

Not one that would do either of them any good, though.

Elienne dusted the sugar off her hands and shoved them in her pockets with a sigh. "Come on, farm boy.  I still need to find something to make Robert forgive me for running off with a pretty boy like you after twenty-seven years of marriage."

Etay laughed, just a puff of air. "There's a shop by the river that might have something," he said.

"Oh, yeah?" Elienne turned in that direction. "Your fruit woman tell you that? Or her pretty podder sister?"

Etay fell into step beside her, shortening his stride to match hers. "The sister," he said. "Ciarente."

Elienne hunched her shoulders against the wind. Ciarente.


First name terms with a capsuleer. 


Not a wise place to stand.


Not a safe one, either.


She glanced at Charlie and bit back the words.

Can't make his mistakes for him, any more than I could make them for Jules or Tomas.


He'll find out soon enough.


Find out that there were cold days no cup of tea could proof a man against.

No borrowed coat, either.


Even one as fine as that.


Elienne took one hand from her pocket and tucked it through the crook of Charlie's elbow as he walked beside her.  Can't make his mistakes for him, no. But with, now ... that's something else.


Partners are partners. And what's his is mine. Poisoned fruit, podders ...


And mistakes as well.