Page 28 of The Space Between Stars

Niklaus kept his mouth shut and let the silence work for him.

“Yes.”

The giant tightened his jaw.

Well, that answered that question. This man was on the Red Wing’s restriction list, just as Niklaus was. No pen. No paper. No weapons. A prisoner on a very, very long leash.

“Can do.” He would figure out the logistics later. With a grin, he started back up the dunes a second time. “Let’s go, kid.”

Thedexemore hesitated before following at his heels, expression sour. “What could you possibly need to bet on him for? You’ve as much money as a Pazirian prince.”

Niklaus waved a finger. “Ah. Not exactly. Red Wing punitive actions extend further than kicking me to clean-up duty.”

Thedexemore chewed on the thought. “You mean that as long as you’re in this desert, you’re broke?”

“And you’ve displayed that you have something between your ears. Congratulations.”

Thedexemore scowled, and Niklaus hated himself. Withdrawal was a cruel mistress, and she was rubbing off on him.

He made a peace offering. “I’ll interpret for you. Tomorrow.”

The boy issued a disbelieving grunt.

“What were you so keen to ask him, anyway?”

“His name.”

Niklaus turned his head so that the Azadonian couldn’t see his shame. There were likely to be murderers who were better men than him.

EIGHT

FANKALO

Year: 734 Post Cataclysm: Fourteen Years Previously

Location: North Sea

Fankalo smiled as she emerged from the stuffy berth. The sky overhead was the color of orange shells and cream.

Morning.

She clambered up the rungs of the ladder to plant her new leather boots on the weathered planks of the main deck. The smell of salt and the humid tug of air filled her. Preservation, that would never get old. As horrific as the invasion which uprooted her the month prior had been, this was the life she’d been meant to live all along: one beneath the sun, where her sweat-slicked skin shone like bronze. Not confined to a never-changing shanty in Kaidech’s slums.

Birds streamed across the sky. With the breeze rippling at her tunic, Fankalo felt compelled to raise her arms and join them. But for now, simply being aboard the Rogue’s Respite felt like freedom enough. She gleefully tore a strip from her jerky with her teeth, savoring its salt and spice. It had taken her stomach a full ten-day to grow accustomed to eating so much. Now that it had, she couldn’t stop. Her new father, Captain Albernus Keane, never denied her when she asked. She’d never had so much in the way of dried meat and raisins and olives and apples.

Standing by the rail of the forecastle was a boy with a wide-brimmed hat and black hair so straight, the wind couldn’t seem to bend it. Mitek was the only other child aboard the Rogue’s Respite and, given his example, she could see why the quartermaster, Gelhard, had been averse to more. He was, in a word, an imbecile. Always moving, but hardly ever in a way that was productive. Gelhard had referred to him as one of her father’s “rescues” but used the term like it was something foul. Her father had called him an “investment”.

She climbed atop a cargo crate to watch the investment in question pull several empty bottles from a box and set them on the rail. He hauled out a tanka: a mechanical bit launcher—small, sleek, and deadly, mounted to a leather arm brace. Many of the raiders favored them because, as her father said, “If it comes down to melee, we’re fucked as a fish in a falcon’s beak.” The long-range weapon was too large to properly latch to Mitek’s arm, but he strapped it there anyway. Fankalo pulled another bite from the jerky.

The boy moved into a crouch behind the foremast, aiming his arm around it at the glass display as if he were sheltering from enemy fire. Ridiculous.

He shot the weapon, one twanging recoil after another, until his bit strip emptied. Of the seven containers, two had shattered into the sea. A grin cracked his face, so large it was catching.

Fankalo slid off the crate and approached, pulling a whole apple from the pocket of her sirwal.

“May I have a go?” She offered him the fruit.