The kid was confused for a moment. “Oh, right. Your implants.” He tipped a finger toward her. “I forgot. Never mind. Just an overlay we’ve had for a while. The captain thinks it’s funny.”

“Does he now?” What sort of thing would make a man like Falconi laugh? Kira wished she was wearing the contacts.

Trig pulled open the pressure door and ushered her into a long, dark shaft that pierced multiple levels of the ship. A ladder ran through the center, and thin metal grating marked off each deck, although the holes in the grating were so wide, she could see all the way to the bottom of the shaft, four decks below.

A male voice that Kira didn’t recognize emanated from above. “Warning: prepare for free fall in T-minus thirty-four seconds.” A wild quaver laced his words, a theremin-like shimmy that made it seem as if the speaker might at any moment break into tears or laughter or uncontrollable rage. The sound of it caused Kira to tense and the surface of the Soft Blade to become pebble-like.

“Here,” said Trig as he grabbed a convenient handhold on the wall. Kira did the same.

“That your pseudo-intelligence?” she asked, motioning toward the ceiling.

“Nope, our ship mind, Gregorovich,” the kid said proudly.

Kira raised her eyebrows. “You have a ship mind!” The Wallfish didn’t seem large or well-off enough to warrant one. How had Falconi ever managed to talk a mind into joining the crew? Only half-seriously, she wondered if blackmail had been involved.

“Yup.”

“He seems a little … different from the other ship minds I’ve met.”

“Nothing wrong with him. He’s a good ship mind.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“He is!” the kid insisted. “Best one out there. Smarter than any minds but the oldest.” He grinned, baring a set of crooked front teeth. “He’s our secret weapon.”

“Smar—”

An alert sounded—a short beep in a minor tone—and then the floor seemed to drop away, and Kira clutched the handhold tighter as vertigo made the walls and floor swirl about her. Her dizziness passed as she reset her perspective from an up-down view to a forward-backward one where she was floating in a long, horizontal tube.

She’d really had enough of free fall.

Behind her, at the back of the tube, she heard a scrabbling noise. She turned to see a whitish-grey Siamese cat hurtle out of an open doorway and collide with the ladder. The cat caught the ladder with its claws and then, with practiced ease, sprang off the rungs and launched itself toward the other end of the shaft.

Kira watched, impressed, as the cat soared along the ladder, turning slightly as it flew, a long furry missile armed with teeth and claws. The cat glared at her as it passed by, venomous hatred flashing from its emerald eyes.

“That’s our ship cat, Mr. Fuzzypants,” said Trig.

The cat looked more like a murderous little demon than a Mr. Fuzzypants, but Kira took him at his word.