Jerd stood to one side, watching the activity. Her face was pale. Despite Jerd’s frequent patting of her belly and posturing, she was not showing much of her pregnancy yet, save in her temperament. She had become unpleasantly bitchy to everyone of late. She had near-constant morning sickness and complained of the way the boat smelled and the food tasted and of the constant motion. It would have been easier to be sympathetic to her, Thymara thought, if she were not so insistent that everyone else’s concerns should give way to her whining. If her pregnancy were typical of the state, Thymara wanted nothing to do with childbearing. Even Greft had begun to weary of Jerd’s constant nipping at him. Twice she had heard him reply to her roughly, and each time Jerd had been both furious and tearful. Once he had turned on her almost savagely, asking her if she thought she was the only one in pain from a changing body. Alum had stood up and Thymara had thought he would interfere. But before it came to that, Jerd had run off wailing, to cower in the galley and weep while Greft had sourly declared he’d rather face a gallator than “that girl” right now.

The crew of the ship had changed almost as much as the keepers had. Thymara had become more aware of both Skelly and Davvie as people. It was often obvious that they longed to socialize more with the keepers; they were, after all, of an age with most of them. Captain Leftrin had tried to keep those boundaries intact, but there had been some breaches. She knew that Alum was infatuated with Skelly, and that both had been rebuked for fraternizing. Davvie’s growing friendship with Lecter appeared to be tacitly ignored by all, which did not seem fair to her. But then, she thought with a wry grin, Captain Leftrin rarely consulted with her on what she thought about how he ran his ship.