Chainlinks run back down from my collar, and connect to another pair of ankle hoops in front of me, tight around Salt’s huge shins. It’s the warden’s insurance; if Salt tried to make a run for it, the line would pull tight around my throat and drop me to the deck face-first. Assuming he didn’t topple in the process, he’d have to carry me, deadweight and dragging, gagging on my collar. On another convict, that would be a problem, but Salt’s nearly twice my size, and heavy even by colonial standards; he’s got muscle enough to drag me for several K in any direction he decided to go. I’m lucky. He chooses to be here, as much as anyone chooses to be anywhere. Looking at him, you know they wouldn’t have gotten him into shackles unless he’d meant them to.

Even now, he could snatch a warden before the others caught up, snap a spine or crack a skull before they could do anything to haul him short. And he knows it, and knows they know it too. He knows to save the threat for when he needs it, and spends the rest of the time walking to the same tune as anyone else; carefully, and with a little extra chain in one hand. The slack comes from the part of the line that joins his feet to my neck, gathered up loose and wrapped around his fingers. If something snagged when he took a step, he’d let it swing, and save me from scraping myself up off the floor. I do the same for the con behind me, and he does the same for those behind him. The links go both ways; you do what you can, and the others won’t go tugging at your feet.

“Chain gang,” comes the call from up ahead, “halt!”

We’re tethered throat and ankles, the first strung forward and the other one back. There is no stop—not any more than there’s a go. If we want to walk, we have to work our way up to speed, and wind our way down again before we come to rest. Even with a cliff edge up ahead, momentum would carry us four steps and change before we could stop ourselves, and that’s without the little hobble at the end.

The jackets wait us out, but they’ve done this all before. When we’re finished dragging our feet, they herd us tight together, and someone shuts an airlock behind us, one of the sergeants testing seals on a door up ahead. We’re pressed tightly now, and I can’t see much past Salt’s shirtless back. I watch his ink instead.