No one said anything for a little while, and Gaylen appreciated the quiet. The train didn’t move all that fast; the rail twisted and turned around the poorly laid out buildings, never giving them time to really pick up speed. Still, they were surely moving around faster than the pirates, and those stupid goons had no way of knowing where they would choose to exit.

The view occasionally blew wide open, as the train sluggishly passed by where no one had gotten around to throw up tall buildings, but the view was spoiled by constant, semitransparent news readouts. The source was a local channel, from what Gaylen could tell, and each window listed out the attention-grabbers that those always went for. The possible upcoming blackout was of course the top item, starring in stories about purchases, police preparedness, unrest, calls for peace by religious and social leaders, and so on and so forth.

There was also, of course, mention of that whole business with the informant, complete with a picture. Someone with pull within the media probably had a beef with that new High Justice, possibly even a stake in the whole thing, and Gaylen reminded himself of the extra risks a jumpy police force under heavy pressure would create on the streets.

It wasn’t unthinkable that the company he was temporarily throwing his lot in with would draw attention his way. Their way. It was far from guaranteed; a city like this had more shady dens than the police could raid in a week of nonstop operations, let alone a few hours. But it was a possibility.

“Think too much, dagi,” Bers told him, the first one to break the silence. “Too dark.”

“My thinking has a habit of keeping us alive,” Gaylen reminded him.

“Can always be too much.”

Sure. His thoughts had a habit of turning on him, with darkness and pain, if left unchecked. But they were a bit more checked than before.

His eyes drifted to Kiris’s reflection in the opposite row of windows. It was fairly visible, despite the constant news scroll, and he could tell that she was meeting his gaze via reflection. There was a good chance she’d known he would be peeking her way. He’d occasionally, as a bit of a thought exercise, wondered who could possibly know a person better than their Chanei lover, and he’d always come up empty.

She knew his thoughts had a tendency to turn to poison, and she wanted him to stop it.

Yeah, yeah, he thought, still looking at the reflection.

Jaquan buzzed.

“What is it?” Gaylen said, and transferred the call to an earpiece.

“We have a complication,” his friend said.

“Well, there’s rarely just one.”

“Heh. No. They blossom out, don’t they? Like rust. Listen, one of the dock employees just came over to speak with me in person. She politely informed me that they won’t be able to let the Addax take off just yet.”

“I don’t think we are talking about a technical issue here,” Gaylen said.

“No.”

There was a particular, knowing tone to Jaquan’s voice. He didn’t like to mix with people much, always being content to let Gaylen be at the front of their ventures. But he’d travelled almost as much as Gaylen had, in places every bit as challenging. There was something going on here.

“She went through some word salad about registration, and about some things needing to be cleared up. Purely as a matter of law and technicality. But I don’t think it was meant to actually convince me. And I wasn’t meant to think any other way.”

“Theatre,” Gaylen said.

“Exactly.”

“And there’s only one bunch of people who have any reason at all to keep us grounded.”

“Exactly.”

Gaylen thought about it all for a few seconds. He’d made use of a fancier dock, for once. Fancy dock meant well-to-do owners. But if Horruk’s clan, or maybe just his particular crew, had connections to those owners, why hadn’t they just landed there, same as Gaylen had? There had been available docks.

“Just continue on as you were,” Gaylen told him. “You should be receiving the extra help. See about getting the special repairs through. We will look into this on our end.”

“Alright. Good luck.”

The call ended.

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The other three had been listening in.

“Wa?” Bers said.

“This is bad,” Herdis commented.

“Semi-bad,” Gaylen corrected. “Hmm. I doubt they’ll risk grounding us for long. Docks that aren’t the only option on some backwater survive through reputation, and runners talk. We talk a lot. The pirates are hoping to buy a few extra hours to deal with us planetside. Of course, we’re already behind schedule. And the longer we stay here, the more time things have to go wrong.”

“So what do we do?” Herdis asked.

“Well, we could scour the streets, following leads and chasing rumours. Or I could just make a call.”

He sought out the number he’d been given in that dive. About half a minute passed before there was an answer.

“Yes?” the bartender said, as happy as ever.

“I have a simple question…”

“I didn’t realise we were friends, spacer.”

“We’re not,” Gaylen assured him. “But helping us helps yourselves.”

“We’re already helping, and just gambling on an actual return of investment.”

“Arret Blanc.”

“What?”

“The dock. Arret Blanc. I know they belong to something called Three Stars. Our mutual friends have somehow gotten them to ground us, and I’ll need to deal with that before your investment can be cashed in. For that, I need to know who would have passed down an order like that.”

“You’re planning to DEAL with some company bigshot?” the bartender asked.

“With words, to be clear,” Gaylen said, still aware of the citywide police situation.

“Aha. Well… Three Stars, they are a fairly minor property business. Minor means there’s one person on top, Vandil Schach, and he keeps a pretty tight grip on things, from what I understand. And he has acquaintances like me. And our mutual friends. So this isn’t a shocker.”

Or any kind of mystery, Gaylen mused, which at least made things a bit simpler.

“And when I say ‘acquaintances’, I mean they answer to him. I know him by reputation, a little, and he wants everything neat and orderly. He wouldn’t put up with someone potentially hurting business behind his back. If he didn’t give the order, he at least okayed it.”

“Then he’s the one to take this up with.”

The bartender laughed joylessly.

“Oh, sure. Just stroll into his tower, sit down, and give him a kiss. He’s not running a corner store.”

“And what would it take to gain an audience with Vandil Shach on short notice?” Gaylen asked, dreading the word ‘money’, because he didn’t have enough of it to move someone like this.

“From what I hear, an invitation from one of his subordinates would do it. It’s how things often work around here, on certain layers of society.”

“And who are these subordinates?” Gaylen asked.

“You know, this conversation has been boring me from the start, spacer,” the bartender said, in a tone that made Gaylen believe him.

“Then let’s speed it along. Just give me some leads, and we’ll continue on with the original plan.”

“Fine!”

The man gave away what he knew, and then Gaylen ended the call, gladly. Next he pressed a button on the armrest and brought up a holographic train map.

“They aren’t going to give up on getting to us,” Kiris said.

“No. But maybe they’ll wager on being able to get at the Addax somehow, while we can’t take off. Although that isn’t something for us to wager on. We’ll keep that drone up above us, and our eyes peeled for those clan scum. I… oh, hell!”

“What?” Herdis asked.

“I just thought of something.”

He looked at the comm in his hand.

“An extra layer to this whole thing. But if I call that bastard up right away he just might get pissy enough to call everything off.”

He tucked the device away.

“I’ll let it wait, maybe half an hour or so.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense!” the woman insisted.

“We don’t have connections here, but that dive does,” he said. “If they just take a few minutes to spread a story around, it might sprout in time to be useful. A story about bottom-feeding trash being in the city, posing as members of a feared Scorchspace clan.”

“And if the people Horruk is getting to help him hear it from other sources first…” Kiris said, getting what he was going for, “... then they’re more likely to believe it if we bring the story up.”

“I don’t know what kind of relationship this Vandil Schach has with Horruk, but it might help in persuading him to just stay neutral in all this.”

“So we’re going to fight this battle with… catty schoolyard rumours?” Herdis asked, with a slightly incredulous smile on her lips.

“The older I get, the more I lean towards believing that adulthood is a myth,” Gaylen told her.

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

“Any little edge can help,” Gaylen told her. “In a crisis, one should seek any edge available. You never know what ends up making the difference.”

“I know, I know. And on that topic: Touch up, guys.”

She took a little nutrition stick out of a belt pouch and bit into it.

“We just used up a fair amount of glucose.”

It was as basic as advice got, but that also meant it was important. Gaylen, Kiris and Bers all did their own bit of nibbling, and then he turned his attention back to the map.

He compared the available stops to the information that miserable bartender had given him, factored in what he could tell about the layout and probable character of each general area, while also resigning himself to the fact that blind luck was always a factor.

“We’ll pop out here,” he told the others, and pointed.