‘Burned my hand on that fluid once,’ Prozor answered. ‘Got a main hydraulic leak, squirting right back into the core of the ship. Figured if it didn’t like me, it probably wouldn’t like the Kill Star.’ She paused. ‘But if you had other ideas about dealin’ with it, you were welcome to share ’em.’

‘Whatever’s left in that tankard,’ Trusko said, ‘I want it destroyed. Along with anything left in those boots.’

‘Gathing’s going to need burying,’ Surt said, without much enthusiasm, still holding onto the vacuum boot. ‘Anyone ever ask him which world he came from?’

But it turned out no one knew, and no one cared. When they dumped his body into space there was a bit of ceremony, some fine words, a forced tear or two, but no one’s heart was really in it. Deep down they were thinking of the quoins he’d meant to keep for himself. There were a lot of things that a crew could forgive, from cowardice to incompetence, but being cheated out of an honest profit wasn’t one of them.

Not that Gathing had cheated anyone – to our knowledge.

But that was going to have to be my and Prozor’s little secret. And if one day I noticed that there wasn’t a star-shaped scar halfway down her back, where once there’d been one, I knew to keep that observation to myself.

Some things were best left unsaid.

20

20

We hauled in twenty-one days later, swinging into a circular orbit around the smooth, bone-coloured pebble that was our target. The bauble field had dropped weeks ago, according to the auguries, but if anyone had been here in the meantime there was no trace of them. Privately, Prozor assured me it was unlikely that we had been beaten to our prize. For most crews the Fang would not have been an enticing target, with its high vaults cleaned out and the deeper levels too much trouble to bother with. ‘But they didn’t have Mattice to get through the doors that stumped ’em,’ she said.

‘Nor do we.’

‘The problem on this ship isn’t Strambli. I’ve sniffed around her and I reckon she knows her trade – and what she doesn’t, I’ll be able to fill in with what I gleaned from Mattice.’ I thought she was done, but she added: ‘And Githlow, too. He was our Assessor, but on any good team, an Assessor and an Opener aren’t leagues apart.’

She had been willing to utter the name of the Fang since we joined Trusko’s crew, but this was the first time the name of her husband had come out of her lips.

‘You’re planning on going into it, then,’ I said.

‘I’d have sooner never seen the place again, Fura. But if we’re going near it I may as well put some ghosts to bed.’