‘Speaking of the squawk,’ said the famished-looking woman, ‘there’s a ship bleeding out in the Sunwards. Nothing we or anyone else can do about it, neither.’

‘When did you hear about this, Surt?’ Trusko asked.

‘Just now. Couple of minutes gone. General squawk, emergency channel. Reached half the ships in the Congregation by now. Not that there’s a chaffing thing any of them will be able to do.’ The woman – Surt – turned to the pipe man. ‘Do me a favour, Tindouf. We ever start bleeding out like that, all our lungstuff whistling away, you rig them ions to blow up so we get a quick and easy exit. I ain’t suffocating.’

‘If suffocating’s a problem,’ said the snide man. ‘Maybe you ended up in the wrong line of employment.’

‘We’re all in the wrong line,’ said the lopsided woman. ‘Wouldn’t be teaming up with a weasel like you if I had any choice in it.’

‘Where did this ship end up in trouble?’ I asked.

Surt gave me a chilly stare. ‘Near the twins. The Daughters of Blood and Milk.’

‘They’s baubles,’ the pipe man said, pausing to tap his clay utensil against the table. ‘One’s red, one’s white. Orbits each other, they does. Got swallowers in the both of ’em.’

‘My information was correct, then, Captain Trusko. Surt said the report just came in. We’d have been in the bone room, so there’s no way I’d have heard that squawk ahead of time.’

Trusko worked his lips. He looked up and down the length of his table. Some of his crew were hanging off his next words. Others could not have looked less interested if quoins had depended on it. The lopsided woman was using the end of a knife to lever something out of her teeth. ‘I tested her with a general send from another ship,’ Trusko said. ‘She got that. She also picked up a secondary send coming through on the same node. My initial reaction was that it couldn’t be real, but . . .’

‘She’s that good,’ Surt said, ‘you should sign her up.’

‘There’s more to a new crew member than just being able to do a given task,’ Trusko answered. ‘Her skills are still debatable. We can run some more tests, certainly. But there’s a cut about her that makes me doubt she’d fit in.’

‘And we are, after all, such a happy family,’ the snide man said. ‘Wouldn’t want some scowly one-hand coming along and ruining that, would we?’