“I’m sorry,” Kiva said. “I got distracted thinking about sex.”

Vrenna smiled. “We still have the problem of getting Marce onto your ship,” she said. “Ghreni Nohamapetan still plans to have people on hand at Imperial Station in order to grab him.”

“Ghreni is looking at the front door,” Kiva said. “He’s not looking at the servants’ entrance.”

“What does that mean?” Marce asked.

Kiva looked at him. “That means you’re not coming onto the Yes, Sir as Marce Claremont, you’re coming on as Kristian Jansen, crew member.”

“How am I going to do that?”

“I imagine that when you booked passage Gazson Magnut tried to sell you some forged travel documents.”

“He did. I didn’t need to get them.”

“Well, now you do. More accurately, they’ve been gotten for you.”

“For which you’ll no doubt charge me,” Marce said.

“I’m charging you at cost, not the ridiculous fucking markup we’re charging everyone else.”

“Travel documents aren’t going to be enough,” Vrenna said. “Crew on trade ships have to have biometrics as well. With all due respect, if Nohamapetan is willing to pay three million marks to get Marce, he’s going to be checking the servant entrance as well, and that includes getting into Imperial Station’s biometric database.”

“You act like this is our first time smuggling someone on as a crew member,” Kiva said. She turned back to Marce. “Shave your head, you’re getting a dermal wig with cultivated hair. Scalp and beard. If anyone plucks a hair out of your head, the DNA would match Kristian, not you. You’ll get contacts to fake iris and retinal patterns, and you’ll get a thumb pad with the correct thumbprint and DNA. We’ll put lifts in your shoes. You won’t look like you. Unless they take a blood sample you’ll be fine.”

“And if they take a blood sample?” Marce asked.

“Well, then, I guess you’re fucked, aren’t you? But they don’t do that.”

“No one will notice you’ve manufactured a human out of thin air,” Vrenna said.

“ ‘Kristian’ has worked for us before,” Kiva said. “We have one or two of these for every system we work. So does every other house.”

“Why?” Marce asked.

“Because sometimes someone important fucks up and has to leave town in a hurry before someone like her,” Kiva jerked a thumb at Vrenna, “catches up with them and sends them into a hole. It’s entirely possible Ghreni will be using one of these himself soon, at the rate he’s going.”

“So I’ll have to be ‘Kristian’ this entire trip.”

“That’ll be your name, yes. Once we get into the Flow you can ditch the fake parts. We’ll update you in the system. One catch: You’re going to have to be an actual crew member the entire trip.”

“Why does he have to do that?” Vrenna asked.