Tess frowned. “Why?”
“Because it’s like Baralt said. A lot of these ships follow the same patterns, right? They falsify their registrations. They use certain routes. They trade with certain traders. If we can identify those patterns, it might give us more information about your ship.”
Tess stared at her for a long moment.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“I have them sometimes.”
“I’ll admit to being surprised.”
“You’re too kind.”
Tess snorted, but her eyes were already moving back over the records, this time with a new intensity. “All right, what’s the most obvious pattern? Ship ID’s?”
“No, Baralt said those are all fake.”
“Then what?”
“What about the routes they follow? You said they moved you from ship to ship.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe we need to focus on the locations rather than the ships.” She reached for another record. “You said the last transfer happened shortly before you escaped.”
“I think so.”
“And you remembered the station because of the noise.”
Tess’s expression tightened slightly.
“Cargo lifts,” she said. “All night. And some kind of alarm every few hours. Three short bursts. It drove me crazy.”
“And you smelled something.”
“Fuel. Grease.” Tess shrugged. “The usual.”
“You also told Baralt that you smelled something sweet when they opened the cargo doors,” she reminded her.
Tess frowned, then nodded. “That’s right. Like burnt sugar.”
She began sorting through the records again. Baralt had included transit information from several stations within range of Hothrest, along with the movements of vessels whose registrations had later proved false or questionable. Most of it meant nothing to Polly. Columns of numbers, symbols, port designations and translated notes blurred together after a while.
But she had spent the better part of a year learning to make jewelry, and she understood patterns.
“Here.” She pulled out a manifest and showed it to Tess. “This ship refueled at Nareth Station eleven days before you arrived on Hothrest.”
“So?”
“Nareth Station’s primary export is a refined fuel that burns with a sweet smell.” She pulled out another manifest. “This ship used a different registration. Baralt flagged it because the identification belonged to a ship that was supposedly on the other side of the Empire at the time.”
Tess’s eyes narrowed. “It stopped at Nareth too.”
“Two days later.”
For the first time all morning, Tess went completely still.
She found the third record. “And this one.”
