She said, “Captain—”

“I see them. That makes two … no, three new Jellies.” Falconi’s glacial-blue eyes cleared as he pointed at Trig and snapped his fingers. “Get Ms. Kaminski down to the hold and make sure everyone is secure. We might have to make an emergency burn.”

“Yessir.”

The captain and the woman disappeared down the corridor together. Trig stared after them until well after they were gone.

“Who was that?” Kira asked.

“Ms. Nielsen,” said Trig. “She’s our first officer.” He hopped off the counter. “Come on, then.”

“One minute,” said Vishal, opening a drawer. He handed a small container to Kira. Inside it, she found a pair of contact lenses floating in liquid-filled capsules. “You can use these to go online while you wait for your implants to be repaired.”

After so long without any overlays, Kira could hardly wait. She pocketed the container. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

The doctor bobbed his head and smiled. “My pleasure, Ms. Kaminski.”

Trig bounced on his heels. “Alright, now can we go?”

“Yes, go, go!” said the doctor.

4.

Trying to ignore her sense of foreboding, Kira followed Trig into the narrow, brown-sided corridor. It curved in a gentle arc, forming a ring around what was, no doubt, the midline of the Wallfish. The deck looked as if it had once rotated to provide artificial gravity when the ship wasn’t accelerating, but no more; the orientation of the rooms and furniture—as she had seen in the sickbay—was strictly stern to aft, in line with the engine’s thrust.

“How much did that skinsuit cost?” Trig asked, pointing at her hand.

“You like it?” said Kira.

“Yeah. It’s got a cool texture.”

“Thanks. It was made for survival in extreme environments, like Eidolon.”

The kid brightened up. “Really? That’s awesome.”

She smiled without meaning to. “I don’t know how much it cost, though. Like I said, it was a gift.”

They came to an open doorway on the inner wall of the corridor, and Trig turned. Through it was a second corridor, this one leading toward the middle of the ship.

“So does the Wallfish usually carry passengers?” Kira asked.

“Nah,” said Trig. “But a lotta people are willing to pay us to take ’em to Ruslan, where it’s safer. We’ve also been picking up survivors from ships the Jellies have damaged.”

“Really? That sounds pretty dangerous.”

The kid shrugged. “Beats sitting around waiting to get shot. ’Sides, we need the money.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We used the last of our antimatter getting to Sixty-One Cygni, and then the guy who was supposed to pay us stiffed us, so we ended up stuck out here. We’re just trying to earn enough bits so we can buy the antimatter to get back to Sol or Alpha Centauri.”

As he was talking, they arrived at a pressure door. “Uh, just ignore that,” said Trig, waving at a patch of wall. He seemed embarrassed. “Old joke.”

The wall looked blank to Kira. “What?”