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side with his hovering seat.
    “Heckleck told me to give you this,” I said, presenting him with the bloodied linen.
    The captain bumped me with his hover seat, pushing me aside to place another bet.
    I was too hungry and too tired to deal with being ignored. I threw the linen onto the gaming table. When it landed, the digit rolled out and onto a number.
    “No more bets,” the game master called.
    Everyone fell silent when they saw the body part on the table with the gambling chips.
    The captain turned to me.
    “Tell Heckleck he can go jump out an air lock.”
    “Number 24,” the game master said. “The number is 24.”
    The captain and his companions uttered a noise. I didn’t know if it was because they lost the bet, were horrified at the bloody digit, or if they were simply laughing at me. I knew from my rounds with Brother Blue that most ships that came here were small and every crew person essential. The Yertina Feray was not a station where you could easily replace someone, and running a ship without a full complement could mean your death. I watched as he placed another bet. And then I took my own gamble.
    “What does your crew member do?” I said. “Probably something important. Can you really do without him?”
    The color drained from the captain’s face. His skin went from red to almost pig-pink.
    “Tell Heckleck I’ll bring him what he wants,” the captain said, and turned back to the game.
    “No,” I said.
    “You are just an errand boy,” the captain said, not able to tell that I was a Human girl. “Deliver the message and leave.”
    “I haven’t eaten, and I won’t get paid until I bring the package to him,” I said.
    The captain sighed. He picked up the digit from the table and indicated for me to follow him. I tried not to lose him as he glided. He brought me to the guest quarters and made me wait outside his room. Just when I thought he would never come out again and that he had somehow evaded me, he emerged with a piece of metal that looked like a gear and a small wooden box.
    “Here,” he said. “Tell Heckleck to let my man go and that our business is done. Tell him I owe him nothing now.”
    I took the items and made my way back down to Docking Bay 12, where I had left Heckleck and the plant. The box vibrated, as though it were alive with energy. I wondered what was inside.
    “That was fairly speedy,” Heckleck said when I arrived. “I expected it to take you a few days.”
    “You didn’t pay me,” I said. “I couldn’t eat. I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
    “I told you not to trust me,” Heckleck said. “You’ll find that your chit works now. I’ll add a little extra since you did it in record time. Meanwhile, you must be starved. Share this snack with me.”
    Heckleck opened the box. The inside was slithering with what looked like maggots. Heckleck dipped what passed for a finger into the box, and the maggots clung to him like writhing honey. He sucked them off his digit and closed what I thought of as his eyes in what looked like delicious satisfaction.
    “What is that?” I asked. Looking at them sickened me. But my stomach growled as I watched Heckleck eat.
    “It’s a delicacy of my planet,” he said.
    “And what’s that?” I pointed to the gear.
    “That’s how I cobble together my pitiful existence here,” he said. “I barter things for things and favors for favors. That captain needed his cargo unloaded and sold, which I did for him quickly and quietly in exchange for that gear which another client of mine needs. This treat was my bonus.”
    “You’re a thief,” I said.
    “No, I never steal,” he said. “But sometimes I persuade. Don’t worry, that digit I took will grow back. His species regenerates them.”
    My stomach growled again as he offered the box to me.
    “You see, I’m not so different from you,” Heckleck said. “I am stuck here just as you are. I would have died, unless someone had helped me. I suppose it is just my turn to