On her overlays, Kira looked up the definition of wallfish. Apparently it was A regional term for “snail” in the country of Britain on Earth; presumably of Anglo-Saxon origin. She eyed Falconi, again thrown askance by his sense of humor. He’d named his ship the Snail?

The crew continued debating possibilities, while Kira sat and thought.

Then she went to Falconi and bent close to his ear. “Can I talk with you for a moment?”

He barely glanced at her. “What?”

“Outside.” She motioned toward the door.

Falconi hesitated, and then to Kira’s surprise, shoved himself out of his chair. “Be right back,” he said, and followed her out of the galley.

Kira turned on him. “You have to get me onto one of those Jelly ships.”

The look of incredulousness on the captain’s face was nearly worth everything she’d gone through. “Nope. Not going to happen,” he said, and started back in.

She caught his arm, stopping him. “Wait. Hear me out.”

“Get your hand off me before I remove it for you,” he said with an unfriendly expression.

Kira let go. “Look, I’m not asking you to charge in guns blazing. You said the UMC has a chance of fighting off the Jellies.” He nodded, reluctant. “If they disable one of the Jelly ships—if—you could get me on it.”

“You’re crazy,” Falconi said, still half in the doorway of the galley.

“I’m determined. There’s a difference. I told you; I need to get onto one of the Jellies’ ships. If I can, I might be able figure out why they’re attacking us, what they’re saying over their comms, all sorts of stuff. Just think of the possibilities.” She could still see reluctance on Falconi’s face, so she kept talking: “Look, you’ve been flying around the system right under the Jellies’ noses or whatever the hell they use to smell. That means you’re either stupid or you’re desperate, and you might be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

Falconi shifted. “What’s your point?”

“You need a payday. You need a big payday or else you wouldn’t be risking your ship or your crew like this. Am I wrong?”

A hint of unease flitted across his eyes. “Not entirely.”

She nodded. “Okay. So, how would you like to be the first person to get your hands on info from the Jellies? Do you know how much my company would pay for it? Enough to build your own hab-ring. That’s how much. There’s still tech on the Jellies’ ships that no one has been able to back-engineer. I could get specs on their artificial gravity. That would be worth a few bits.”

“Just a few,” he murmured.

“Hell, you have a couple of Entropists in the hold. Ask them to come along in exchange for a copy of any interesting discoveries. With them helping me”—she spread her hands—“who knows how much we could find? It’s not even just about the war; we could jump-start our tech level by a hundred years or more.”