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“Kilcannon, I can read cargo manifests and I know when they don’t make sense. I know what’s really in those cargo containers.”
    I grimaced. “Technically, we’re not ‘running drugs.’”
    “Technically. All you’ve got is the precursors used to make the drugs. Do you think that’s going to save your necks if you get inspected by peacekeepers?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She looked more exasperated than anyone I’d ever seen. “You’re going into Fagin Star System with an illegal cargo. If any privateers try to jump you, which has a very good chance of happening, you won’t be able to call for help because the peacekeepers will confiscate your ship once they check the cargo. Then they’d throw you in jail. At least the privateers might let you go if you take off in the lifeboat.”
    “Look, Halley, you know the Lady broadcasts her condition to anyone looking. The engine output, the energy readings, the shield fluctuations, anyone who sees her is going to know she’s a tramp. And they’ll leave her alone because a tramp isn’t going to be carrying anything worth the trouble.”
    Her eyes reflected disbelief now. “That’s your plan? To count on the poor condition of your ship to protect you?”
    “We don’t have any other choice.” I clenched my fists, staring past her. “You said it. The Lady ’s at the end of her rope. We need to make a decent profit on this haul. Enough to get a few repairs done. That’s all we need. Just that one break. Saints forgive me, I’m not proud of this. But it’s our only chance. The only chance left for the Lady and for her crew.”
    Halley regarded me, her face hard. “And for Captain Weskind. What happens to her if she loses this ship?”
    “I…she won’t.”
    “There are places that would take her.”
    “ It’d kill her .” I calmed myself again. “The Lady ’s her life. I’ll do what I have to do to save her.”
    “ Anything you have to?”
    I sat silent again for a moment. “No. Only whatever Captain Weskind would approve of. Or…understand.” I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at Halley for a moment. “We had offers to run weapons into Fagin, you know. They would’ve paid better than the cargo I took.”
    “But Captain Weskind wouldn’t have understood running weapons into a place where people are slaughtering each other.”
    “No, she wouldn’t.” I opened my eyes and glared at Halley Keracides. “And she taught me there’s some cargos you don’t touch no matter what.”
    “She must have been…she must be a fine Captain.”
    “She is. Don’t tell anyone what I told you about her.”
    “Captain Weskind? You forgot the magic word.”
    “Please.”
    “I promise.” She stood up and stared at me. But Halley Keracides didn’t say anything else and after a long moment she left the bridge to me and the blank displays.
    #
    “First Officer Kilcannon?” Able Spacer Siri stood there, still thin as a refugee but with her eyes clear. “I…I wanted to thank you.” Her eyes shifted and she spoke with almost desperate haste. “The dust would’ve killed me. Sure as hell. I was halfway there. I knew my only chance was to get away, on a ship where I couldn’t get any no matter what, but nobody’d take a duster. Except you. I got clear of it, thanks to you.”
    I shook my head. “I just needed another spacer, Siri. Thank Captain Weskind. She’s the one who gave you a chance.”
    Siri’s eyes shifted again. “Uh, yeah.”
    “I’ll let the Captain know you’re grateful and you’re clean.”
    “Uh, thanks.”
    #
    We finally broke out into normal space, high above the plane of Fagin system, looking down on a small area of space where human rationality had been in very short supply for too long. As Lady dove down toward the fourth planet in the system we listened to news reports and shook our heads over the latest atrocities.
    Two inhabited worlds and a slew of lesser bodies with colonies on them left too much territory for the