The Usual Suspects outdid themselves again, from the fencing group to the family. Thanks are also due to the Camp Allen staff, for letting Michael come another year (during which week I got a lot done), and to his special-ed teachers at the high school. The helpers who pitched in with Fox Pavilion (Scott Hawes, Leslie D’Allesandro Hawes, Ruta and Ferris Duhon) saved me a lot of work and worry with that project, and freed more writing time. Beth Sikes is due thanks for insightful comments on some of the characters. The terriers in the Leading Rein, in Austin, instructed me on the character traits of Jack Russell terriers. L. D. offered technical expertise on certain aspects of military procedure. S. and G. shared technical expertise in the areas of communications, corporate organization and finance, and related matters. My agent and editor cheered me on when I felt stuck (which, in this book, happened more than once), and Jennifer Davis helped me unstick from a bad musical situation and get into a good one. Several used-book and antiquities shops in London contributed their ambience to a seedy space station. As always, mistakes are mine.

Kylara Vatta looked at the mass of paperwork from Belinta’s Economic Development Bureau and sighed. The real life of a tradeship captain: paperwork and more paperwork, negotiation with shippers, customers, Customs officials. The life she hadn’t wanted, when she chose to enter the Slotter Key Spaceforce Academy, and the life she had fallen back into when she was expelled. Boring. Mundane.

Not that her recent experiences in Sabine had been boring or mundane—terrifying was more like it—and no one would want another trip like that.

Except that she did. She remembered very clearly the rush of excitement, the soaring glee of the fight itself, the guilty delight when she’d killed Paison and Kristoffson. So either she wasn’t sane or… or nothing. She thought of the diamonds tucked into her underwear drawer. Not enough to restore her old tub of a ship completely, but enough to take her to somewhere else, somewhere she could make the kind of life she really wanted. Perhaps the mercenaries would accept her violent tendencies; they’d offered a chance. Perhaps someone else. It would annoy her family, but not as much as the truth would hurt them.

No. She had to finish one job at least. Crew depended on her. The ship belonged to her family, as well, and she could not possibly earn enough to buy it away by the next stop or the next. She sighed again, signed another sheet, and stared at the next. All right, then. Take this old tub to Leonora, deliver that cargo, then to Lastway. If she couldn’t finance a refit by then, return to the original plan and go home by commercial passenger ship. If she made enough profit, enough to do the refit, she could get that done and bring the ship back to Slotter Key, and then resign. Or—she stared into a distance far beyond her cabin bulkhead. She could send the ship back with someone else. Quincy, for instance, knew enough to run the ship herself.

In the long run, her family would be better off without her. If her father knew how she’d felt when she killed… no. She had had those nightmares, trying to explain to that gentle man, hoping for his understanding but seeing the horror in his face. Better the smothering, overprotective love that had annoyed her in their last conversation than that horror, that disgust, that rejection. If she went home, he would sense something; he would try to probe, try to get her to confide in him, and eventually he would wear her down. It would be worse than anything else that had happened, to have her father sorry she was ever born.

She should just go away. Years later, maybe, she might be able to explain it to him, and he might be able to accept it. Years might put a safe skin on the raw truth of what she was.

She worked her way through the rest of the forms, then decided to take them to the local postal drop herself. Belinta Station had few amenities, but a walk would be refreshing in itself.

“Quincy—I’m going to drop the paperwork off,” she said into the ship’s intercom.

“Find anything to load, or do you want us to start transferring what we left in storage?”

“I haven’t found anything yet,” Ky said. “I may have to go downside for that. Go on and load… see if you can get some of the station dockworkers to help with that. Usual rates and all.”

She glanced at herself in the mirror and decided she was presentable enough. She needed a new uniform—the one she had left after Sabine no longer had the crisp, perfect tailoring her mother had paid for—but only if she was staying with Vatta. If she joined a mercenary company, she would wear its uniform; if she stayed independent, she’d have to find one of her own design. But to drop off forms to be transmitted to a bureaucracy, gray tunic and slacks should be sufficient. She clipped on the Belinta Station access pass.

Outside the ship, Belinta Station hardly bustled with activity. Only three ships were in dock, and the other two were insystem haulers servicing Belinta’s meager satellite mining operations. On their own dockside, Quincy was talking to a burly man in the ubiquitous green tunic of Belinta dockworkers. Beeah, beside her, held a compad ready to record employee data if Quincy’s negotiations were successful. Ky walked briskly past two men chatting on a bench, a woman standing by a lift entrance, barely restraining a bouncing toddler, the faded ads for Belinta’s few and unenticing tourist resorts, and turned left into the wide main corridor. Here were the currency exchanges, banks, communications services—local and ansible—Belinta Port Authority, the hiring hall, and, finally, the postal service. Midshift, few others were in sight. Someone with a briefcase just going into Belinta Savings & Loan, two women chatting as they emerged from Allsystems Exchange.

Beyond were rows of blanked openings to spaces that would someday, if Belinta proved prosperous, house more services, more stores, more people. No traffic at all moved down there.

Ky turned into the postal service’s entrance and walked up to the counter where a display read NOW SERVING NUMBER SIX EIGHTY-TWO. The only clerk in sight did not look up, but said, “Take a number.” Typical Belintan courtesy, Ky thought, and looked around for the number generator. By the entrance. She pulled the tab; the counter display changed to NOW SERVING SIX EIGHTY-THREE and the clerk said, “Number six eighty-three!” in an annoyed tone, as if she’d kept him waiting.

“This is all for the Economic Development Bureau,” Ky said.

“To whose attention?” asked the clerk.

“It doesn’t matter. Just the EDB.”

“It has to be directed to an individual,” the clerk said. “You can’t send mail to the whole bureau.”

“It says on the form,” Ky said, pointing to the block under RETURN TO. “No name, just the bureau.”

“It has to have a name,” the clerk said. “It’s the rules. All mail to government agencies must be directed to an individual.”

Ky was tempted to make up a name. Instead, she said, “Do you have a directory?”

“Customers are not allowed to use our confidential directories or communications devices,” the clerk intoned. “This is a security issue. Customers are advised to identify the correct recipient prior to arriving in the postal service office. Next, please.”