It was wrong, the whole blown-out-of-proportion incident just now with the wine glass was just damned wrong , both what Fletcher had done walking out and what Vince had done lighting into him and what Jeremy had done standing confusedly in the middle. It wasn’t the drink. It was Fletcher’s attitude that made no way for anybody to back down; and as the saying went, it had happened on his watch.

On one level the Old Man didn’t want to know the details, the excuses, or the extenuating circumstances of the junior captain’s failures; on another level, the Old Man would rapidly know every detail that he knew the minute he walked in here and wanted to know where Fletcher was, and there was nothing worse in God’s wide universe than an interview with Captain James Robert Neihart, Sr. when your tally of mistakes went catastrophic—as it had just done in that little damn-you-all gesture of Fletcher’s.

He, supposed to handle things, had thought that in putting Fletcher with the junior-juniors he had arranged Fletcher a berth that wouldn’t expose his ignorance, put demands on his behavior, or burden his own essential and often working team with constantly babysitting Fletcher.

Yes, the senior crew including the Old Man had a load of personal guilt over cousin Francesca, over the fact they hadn’t made it back in time to prevent what they were relatively sure had been a suicide.

Yes, Francesca had named her kid one of the signal names in Finity ’s history, one of the names which, like James Robert , you didn’t just bestow on your kid without asking and without the bloodline to permit it.

Yes, Francesca had named him that name before she’d known she’d be left—she had done it, he guessed, not out of bitterness, or to imply a guilt they all felt, but to declare to a station who otherwise despised spacers that this was no common kid.

Unfortunately that name had stayed on after her suicide to confound Finity command, attached to a kid in the original Fletcher’s line, a kid caught in the wheels of jurisdiction and power games, a kid who by that name and Finity ’s reputation necessarily attracted attention in spacer circles.

And yes , James Robert had wanted to get a kid named Fletcher, his grand-nephew, out of the gears and out of station view. There’d be no shameful appendix to the life of the first Fletcher, to append his name to a kid hellbent—JR had seen the police reports—on conspicuous and public disaster, right down to his dive for the outback.

Yes, Francesca’s situation had been a tragedy. But a lot of people on Finity had had a lot harder situation than Francesca’s, in his estimation.

His mother was one, dead in the decompression. And Jeremy’s. And Vince’s half-brother. Or ask Bucklin, who’d lost every close relative in his whole line except Madison, and Madison, who’d lost everyone but Bucklin.

Damn right they were close, the ones left of the old juniors’ group, the ones like himself and Bucklin, who’d huddled together in nursery while the ship underwent stresses that killed the weak. They’d seen kids grow weaker and weaker until eventually they just didn’t come out of trank at a given jump.

Damned right they’d earned the pride they had and damned right they didn’t like all they’d won handed to a stranger on a platter, particularly when the stranger bitterly, insultingly rebuffed what welcome he was given.

He had a situation building, a resentment in his command. And it was his job to find a way to deal Fletcher in.

“So how is he?” Madison asked, second captain, and JR felt heat rise to his face, wondering what answer he possibly could find.

“He’s not happy.” To his left a guitar hit a quiet passage, strings ringing with a poignantly soft tune he’d heard since he was small; “Rise and Go.” Parting of lovers. Partings of every kind. It was cliché. It never failed to send the chills down his arms and the moisture to his eyes. It disturbed logic. Prompted frankness. “Neither are we with him, sir, plainly speaking, sir.”

“We had to take him,” Madison said. “This was our chance. We couldn’t leave him.”

“I’m aware of our obligation, sir. And mine. I’m not begging off from the problem, only advising senior command that I’ve not made significant headway with him.”

“Not only our obligation,” Madison said. “ Elene Quen had a part in this.”

That small, added information, so directly and purposefully delivered, struck him off balance. And at that moment Madelaine wandered over with a drink in hand.

“Jake’s called ops downside,” Madelaine said, “just to be sure, you know, that Fletcher made his quarters without incident.”

“I think he did,” JR said. The kid was angry. Not stupid. And if Madison’s information bore out into something besides Family determination to recover one of their own, there might be justification for that anger. Quen. Politics. Deals.

“He swiped a drink,” Madelaine said to Madison. “Pell Station let him, I’d be willing to bet. Station rules. He didn’t know he needed a go-ahead.”

Madison frowned. “The body’s old as JR, here. It’s the mind that’s under-aged. Your call, junior captain. What will you do with him?”

“My call,” JR said. “But this is a new one. Where do you rate him, sir? Junior-junior, or not? He’s Jeremy’s age and far less experienced.”

“ And physically the same as your age. Look up the statutory years.” Madison spotted someone coming in by the up-ring entry, and drifted off with that quandary posed, information half-delivered.

JR gazed after him in frustration. He drank, judiciously and seldom, and he had twenty-six years for mental ballast. He also had the responsibility for issuing such privileges to juniors under him. Was Madison saying give Fletcher senior-junior privileges right off? He didn’t think so.

And this hint of deals with Quen, that might have complicated the situation with understandings and arrangements… no one had told him.

“What’s this,” he asked Madelaine, “that the name of Quen came up just now? I know why we took him, on principle. He’s Fletcher . But what are we doing taking him in on this run, not asking for him after he’s local eighteen and the court’s off his case? Is there something essential that I’m not hearing, here?”

“Oh, there’s a fair amount you missed that night at dinner.”

“With Quen? What did I miss?”

“The fact Quen very ably moved the courts to give us Fletcher when she wanted to, after telling us for twelve years that she couldn’t budge them. Now, that may be an unfair suspicion. Possibly her position has changed: possibly she has more power now; perhaps she simply called in a tall stack of favors.” Madelaine stopped—he knew that silence of hers: she was suddenly wondering how much to tell the junior captain on a particular point, and a blurted question from him right now would make her sure he wasn’t qualified to know. So he stood quietly while Madelaine took a sip of wine and thought about her next piece of information.

“Quen wants a ship. She wants a Quen ship. And she wants James”—Madelaine was one of a handful who called the senior captain James and not James Robert —“to stand with her and get it approved.”

“That, I already know.”

“But it’s more than that. Like Mallory, Quen is worried about Union’s next moves. Thinks the next war is going to be a trade war. Union’s building ships it proposes to put into trade and saying they don’t violate the Treaty. We of course say differently. Fletcher’s an issue on his own and always has been, but he’s become an issue of trust between us and Quen. Quen proves to us she’s got power on Pell by delivering Fletcher to us, maneuvering past Pell’s red tape—and we’ll stand by her in the Council of Captains and use our considerable stack of favor-points with other ships to swing votes on the issue she wants—if she backs us. We want tariffs lowered. An unrelated understanding, mark that.”