“We’re already gifting the Earth folks lots of other technology,” Rigney said. “We don’t want to start looking like we’re offering reparations. And anyway, the governments of Earth are suspicious of us. They’re worried that we’re offering up Trojan horses to them. If we make them pay for this ship, they’re more likely to trust us. Don’t ask me about the psychology here. I’m just telling you what they tell me. We’re still giving it to them at a sharply reduced price, and mostly in barter. I think we’re selling it mostly for field corn.”

“We’re selling it to the Earth folks as a way to get our foot in the door,” Coloma said.

Rigney rolled his hand toward Coloma. “Precisely,” he said. “And so we come to you and your crew. It’s perfectly reasonable that you would see a temporary assignment to a decommissioned ship as punishment for what happened at Danavar. But in fact, Captain Coloma, Commander Balla, what we’re asking you to do is a task that’s of great importance to the Colonial Union. Your job is to highlight the ship, to make the Earth people feel that it’s going to be of benefit to them, answer all their questions and give them a positive experience with the Colonial Union. If you pull it off, you’ll be doing the Colonial Union a service. A very significant service. One that means you’ll be able to write your own ticket afterward.”

“I have your word on that, Colonel?” Coloma asked.

“No,” Rigney said. “But that’s my point. Sell this ship and you won’t need my word.”

“Understood,” Coloma said.

“Good,” Rigney said. “Now. Tour the ship, check out the systems, tell me what you need, and you’ll get it. But do it quickly. You have two weeks from today before the Earth delegation arrives to see what this ship can do. Be ready for them. Be ready for us.”

*   *   *

“Here’s the problem,” Marcos Basquez said, pointing to a series of tubes in the engine room of the ship. He was yelling over the din of his crew banging away at updates and repairs.

“I see tubes, Marcos,” Coloma said.

“You see power conduits,” Basquez said.

“And?” Coloma said.

“We have two types of engines on a spaceship,” Basquez said. “We got the conventional engines, which push us through normal space, and we got the skip drive, which punches holes in space-time. Both of them are powered from the same source, okay? These days, because we know what we’re doing, we can seat the engines and the skip drive in the same place. Fifty years ago, when this pile of shit was put together, we had to separate the two.” He pointed to the power conduits. “These are the conduits that send power to the skip drive from the engine.”

“All right,” Coloma said. “So what?”