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teachery voice, again. Margo couldn’t seem to help herself.
    The captain took a swig of his whiskey. “But it only works long as everybody plays by the rules, long as nobody takes more’n they need.”
    Margo nodded, conceding.
    “So, to your knowledge, who runs these food labs? Who maintains them? Who stops people takin’ more than they need?”
    “There’s… private companies,” said Margo. “They’re vetted by the UN.”
    “Family companies?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “And so what stops a real powerful company, a real powerful family from… gettin’ creative? Say they start to decide for themselves who needs what. Say they start thinking they’d like to bring a little money back into it, or they’d like to put a limit on, I don’t know, milk, for certain families with too many kids? You could keep a whole solar-system full of folks currying your sweet favor, if you went about it the right way.”
    “That would never be allowed to happen,” said Margo.
    “Why not?”
    “Because it wouldn’t! Because there’s audits of compliance. There’s officers who come and make sure you’re following all the rules.”
    “And how well do those work out here, do you think?”
    “How well do they work ?”
    “You think they work well here in our dark neck of the woods? I’m just asking.”
    “I don’t know.” Margo’s voice was way too tight in her throat. “I don’t know where we are.”
    Rumer Pilgrim nodded. “Alright. Do you think every man always does exactly the job he’s supposed to, even when there’s no one to watch him do it, even when he’s far from home, in a place he can’t stand?”
    “Are you talking about Peacekeeping Officers?”
    “I’m just talking about men. There’s a lot of men sent to do their jobs in the very deep dark of space where nothing thrives and no sound travels. How easy you think it would be for our family—this very powerful hypothetical family we’re talking of—to have a few such men in their pocket?”
    “Somebody would say something,” asserted Margo, more loudly than she meant to. “Somebody would alert Sky headquarters.”
    “They might,” said the captain levelly. “If they had any idea how to go about it. And if they didn’t mind a slow kind a’ death. Starving’s slower than just about anything, you know. Your body holds on like a muther, eating away at all your fat, and then all your muscle…”
    Margo stared at him, her stomach pitching with understanding she didn’t want. “What are you hiding in the cargo bay?” she blurted. “Who’s looking for it?”
    Pilgrim paused, opened his mouth. Margo didn’t want to give him the chance to lie. “My name is Margo Glass. I’m Helena Glass’s daughter. I’m the daughter of a UN Security Council member, you stupid motherfuckers! If somebody’s breaking the law, if they’re starving people,you have to tell me. Understand? You have to tell me!”
    “Young lady,” said the captain, but didn’t say anything more.
    “ Say it!” Margo was suddenly snarling. “Say what you’ve got in the cargo bay!”
    But of course, Margo could never really cow anyone, no matter how loud she shouted. It was easy, infuriatingly easy, for Pilgrim to pick her up, throw her into her cupboard, shut the door, and walk away.
----
    Rumer let the air out of his chest, and felt himself sag. Kell looked at his captain with a cloud in his glass eye. “You still think we can carry this girl all the way to Black Oven? Look, I can’t speak for you, but I’m not prepared to die spoon-feeding a bunch of sad, sorry motherfuckers we’ve never even met, and I’m certainly not prepared to go to some new kind a’ interstellar prison because some UN Security cunt decides we kidnapped her whelp.”
    Rumer couldn’t find anything to say, so he said nothing.
    “We need to let her float, now, Rumer. We need to stick her inside the shuttle, give her some oatmeal and quick-bread, and let her float. And then we need to drop