“Good. I’ll do it, general alert. We need to put out the word to our regular route captains as well.” Stavros got the blank look common to those accessing multiple implant links at once, and then smiled. “Done. We should have acknowledgment in a few hours. It’ll be interesting to see what she does.”

Less than an hour later, Gerard’s implant shrilled at him the news that the Sabine system ansibles were out, presumed destroyed. He stared out his office window at the evening, the city lights beginning to twinkle through the dusk. Without thinking about it, he found himself staring far across the city to the Academy, visible only as a gap in the regular lines of light. If that miserable lying little fox of a Miznarii had caused his daughter to end up dead in a war… He shook himself. That was no way to think, not now.

“Gerry.” Stavros had come to his door. “Are you all right?”

Gerard tried to laugh; it came out a croak. “I’m… not,” he said. “If Ky—”

“She’s not Stella,” Stavros said, coming into the office. “Stella wouldn’t make it. Ky—I’d bet onKy.She’s smart, she’s got some military training, enough to recognize the signs—”

“What if they blew the station at the same time as the ansibles?” Gerard said.

“She was on the planet, she’ll be fine,” Stavros said.

“No…” Gerard worked through it as he spoke. “If she sees trouble coming, she’ll go back to her ship. She’ll try to get it away. But there wasn’t time—we had that report the ship was docked only a few hours ago.” He could not help but picture the station exploding, the ships docked there flung wide, losing atmosphere through the docking tubes, other explosions, Ky’s body flung into space, her last agonized breath a cry for help that never came.

“And maybe she’s fine,” Stavros said. “We can’t know until ISC gets ansibles up and running, so the best we can do is stay sane until she shows up wondering why we worried. Say she did go back to the ship. She knows trouble’s coming; she buttons the ship up; she asks permission to undock; she breaks away if she has to. She’s smart, Gerry. She’ll survive.”

She’s not your daughter, Gerard wanted to say, but this was his brother, who had already been remarkably forbearing. And it was all the comfort he had, or was going to get, until the ansibles were back up.

“We’d better not tell the others,” Gerard said.

“You’re right about that,” Stavros said. He sighed. “It was easier in the olden times, when our ancestors believed there were magical beings in the sky who could intervene. Our modern religions are fine for destressing from the everyday, but it would be nice to have a real lightning-throwing god to pray to about now.”

Gerard laughed, and his laugh was almost normal.

After Beeah left, Ky tried to think what to do next. What if someone attacked the station while they were docked—would the station have any warning? Would they share such warnings with the ships? Her mind worked through possibilities with excruciating slowness, though she noticed that the chronometer was clicking over slowly, too. Station attacked, station blown, decompression—

Of course. Right now the ship shared atmosphere with the station, part of their allotment of station resources as covered by the daily dock charges. Station air, station water. But that meant if the station lost atmosphere, so would they.

So the first thing was to button up. It would take longer for Beeah to get back aboard, and cargo to load, but she could worry about that later.

She called down to drives, whereQuincywas presumably still working with her subordinates to plan the quick replacement of the sealed unit.

“Yes, Captain?”Quincydidn’t sound scared. Ky hoped she herself didn’t.

“Just in case, I want to button the ship up. Beeah’s off ship, but the dockside intercom works; we checked it.”

“Good thinking, Captain,”Quincysaid. “I should have thought of that. I’ll be right up to give you a hand.”

In the next few minutes, system by system, they shut off all the connections to the stations but the communication lines and the docking grapples. Air, water, cargo bay hatches… all sealed. Ky watched the shipboard systems come online, one by one, looking for signs of anything wrong. All the telltales stayed green as they should. Their reserve water tanks were full, their growth chambers properly stocked and balanced.

Suddenly the comdesk lit: incoming call from the stationmaster, with visual. A stocky man in uniform glared from the screen. “ Glennys Jones: report status to Stationmaster.”

“Captain Vatta, Glennys Jones, status docked.”

“Our sensors indicate you’ve closed hatches and withdrawn from station circulation: explain.”

“Concern for safety,” Ky said. “If there’s an attack on this station—”

“You have data suggesting an attack on this station?”

“The ansibles were attacked,” Ky said. “Someone has the capacity and willingness to attack space targets. This is a big one. If the station loses air, I don’t want to lose mine.”

“Oh. Well, we understand you have a crewman on the station, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is. Beeah Chok, engineering second; he’s on an errand for me.”

“What kind of errand?”

“We need some equipment,” Ky said. “I sent him to purchase it.”

“He should return to your ship. Station Security will inform him.” The signal clicked off. Ky stared at the blank, silent screen.

“This isn’t good,” Amat said, coming onto the bridge and settling in the pilot’s seat.

“I know that,” Ky said. She glanced at him; his face was set. “You were in the space force, Riel—any advice?”

“Not a lot of options here, Captain. Glad you came back up when you did.”

“Maybe Beeah will have good news for us,” Ky said. Shedidn’t believe it, but she could hope.

An embargo on all ship components,” Ky said. “Why?”

“To prevent our giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” Beeah said. Station Security had delivered him to dockside hours after that last contact from the Stationmaster’s office. He leaned against the bulkhead and took another bite of sandwich; he’d arrived rumpled and hungry. “They don’t want us taking a sealed unit to Secundus.”

“I don’t want to take a sealed unit to Secundus,” Ky said. “I want to put it into my own ship so I can take tractors to Belinta.”

“That’s another problem,” Beeah said.

“What, tractors?”

“Yes, Captain. You see, they aren’t convinced that what we have are tractors for Belinta. They think ‘agricultural equipment’ is just a cover for weapons and things for the rebels.”

“Why would they think that?” Ky said. “We have a contract with Belinta… I told everyone that and it’s the truth. FarmPower has the manifests of what they sent, as well. I can prove—”

“Captain, don’t glare at me. I know that. But they’re in a panic. Nobody thought Secundus had the weapons to hit the ansible platforms. What they say is that you were using your own money, and borrowed money; if you really were hired by Belinta, why wasn’t Belinta’s name on the funds transfer? And they know our holds weren’t large enough to take the equipment without dismantling it. FarmPower told them so, and apparently someone at FarmPower suspects we sold the farm machinery and bought weapons with it.”

“From whom?” Ky said. She felt like someone caught in a bad play. “I haven’t dealt with anyone but FarmPower, the bank, and the embassy—except for buying that stupid sprayer.”

“I didn’t say they were rational. They’re scared, Captain, and they’re determined not to let us have any ship components.”

“Great.”

“And they would appreciate it, they said, if you would pay all docking fees up to date immediately and on a daily basis hereafter.”

Ky tried to think of a suitable epithet but nothing seemed strong enough for the situation. “Why don’t they just insist on coming aboard and inspecting the machinery for themselves?” she asked.