“Put it together with the rest of her, Sergeant. Perfect skin, perfect teeth, a classic female shape without a single deviation? That body was meant to appeal to someone who liked that sort of thing. Arpat Takraven took one look at it and was hooked. I could read it in his face. You should have seen how quickly he took her up on her invitation to sit at her table. No, something’s off, and I don’t know what.”

The ship shuddered.

“What was that?” Niko demanded of the air.

“A course correction.”

“What? You said we were bound for Scourse.”

“A new course has been provided.”

“Provided by whom?” Dabry asked.

“Lolola Montaigne d’Arcy deBurgh.”

13

“What?” came the chorus of voices.

“Well,” Niko said thoughtfully as she shrugged her jacket back on. “At least we aren’t bound for Scourse anymore.”

“That’s good news,” Dabry pointed out, “as long as we aren’t bound for somewhere worse.”

“I hate to ask.” But she did. “Ship, where are we going now?”

“Lolola Montaigne d’Arcy deBurgh referred to it as the IAPH.”

Niko’s heart sank. Dabry put his face in his uppermost pair of hands. “Somewhere worse,” he murmured.

“Excuse me,” said Atlanta. “What’s the IAPH?”

“Intergalactic Association of Pirate Havens.”

She looked at them in horror. “Lolola’s taking us to the space pirate home? The one that moves from place to place, like in that book, Skullduggery and Sacred Space Vessels? But none of that was real!”

“You were just mentioning you thought something was off about her,” Dabry murmured to Niko.

“It’s clear enough now that she’s a pirate, part of a scheme. They want this ship.”

“What?”

“Think about it.” Niko listed factors on her fingers. “Food critic in order to lure him. A fancy, sexy body in order to get him off guard … I wouldn’t be surprised if it went further than that, and she was meant to seduce him. She knew who he was and was ready to reel him in the minute he appeared.”

Dabry considered this. “You might be right.”

Lassite appeared in the doorway. “Permission to speak of doom, Captain?”

“Permission denied,” Niko snapped.

Lassite sighed and settled down to listen to the conversation as she went on.

“You Sexy Thing is one of the most expensive ships in the Known Universe. Self-aware, self-repairing, able to navigate Q-space without a trained pilot. Its biological structure makes it difficult to detect or scan. Easy enough to sell it to a high bidder, but think bigger. Imagine what a good pirate vessel it’d make.”

The ship thought to itself that it would not want to be an actual pirate ship, but that Niko was very right that it would have been an excellent one. It extrapolated this future outward; the results did not please it, overall, but at least it would not be bored.

“Why is a critic turning pirate?” Gio objected.