The girl had zero hard info. I shoved through the rubberneckers, looking for someone who might. A row of enforcers blocked the entrance, making room for the lift haulers and the medics to work. Between muscled-up elbows and arms, I saw a scary number of stretchers go by, and way too much blood, red and gleaming.

“How many?” I asked one of the guys holding me back.

“Seven wounded, two dead.”

“Dead? No . . .”

“You heard me.”

He looked as stunned as I was. We hadn’t had a fatality since Rube’s friend Vanya.

“What happened?”

“Unclear.”

And there was Rousseau, his brow rumpled, bellowing for a clear path, hurrying the stretchers indoors, vanishing after them. The enforcers followed, as a rear guard, and we all piled in behind.

Inside, Main was a babble of misinformation. Names of the dead circulated until there were four, six, seven, eight. More than one returning crew member found himself prematurely mourned, then welcomed with hugs and cheers.

But the celebrations were brief. Rousseau stayed up with the medics, so the harbormaster, Tito, climbed the ladder at the duty board with a hunk of chalk. He was a dour, sturdy little man with a rolling sailor’s gait. He took his work very seriously and felt most of us did not. But as he wrote ‘Injured,’ an uneasy silence settled in the hall.

As I stood waiting for the bad news, an arm curled around my elbow.

Jenn whispered, “C’mon! I’ve got the best news!”

“Not now!” Tito’s hand was poised to start a second list.

“We can see from upstairs. C’mon!”

I tried to ease free, but she had me fast. “Tell me here.”

“Can’t.”

“Didn’t you hear? Some guys were shot!” I turned on her, but the scold died in my throat. Her face was flushed, her eyes as bright as beacons. She was hauling on me like a child who won’t take no, knocking us into people right and left. Not good. Maybe she’d located her Midwest relatives? More likely she was off the edge again. I let her drag me along, snatching looks over my shoulder as Tito wrote ‘Confirmed dead.’

The crowd thinned some by the stairwell door.

“Far enough,” I insisted, swiveling so I could read past her head. “So, tell me!”

She let me go, but only so she could fold both arms across her chest and bounce girlishly on her toes. “Guess what?”

Anyone else, I’d have snarled, “People are dead! Don’t you care?” But she’d have no clue what I was talking about. In a manic phase, it was all about her, and chewing her out only made it worse. Normally, I’d strong-arm her to the medics, but right now they’d have their hands full with shot-up denfolk. Best I could do was let her play it out.