“No,” Maia said.

  The soft blue glow of the LEDs lining the Bucket’s hidden gun locker made her face look pale and fragile. The gun locker was full. Just the way I liked it.

  My guns lay enclosed in black, form-fitting cover, the expensive kind that fills acceleration couches because, one, it’s better at protecting against physical stress and, two, it doesn’t squeak when touched, which I hate.

  My magerifle lay in a special protective pouch beneath another layer of wards, together with my magefoil, which was a meter-long piece of flexible steel whose only function was to keep a minute piece of ripstone as far away from your body as possible while still being close enough for you to control. Unless you went up against another mage who was stronger than you, in which case you were crudmungingly stupid and deserved to die. Which you would, in short order.

  “Why the crud not?” I said.

  Maia gave me a slight smile, the kind to make any teen swoon. On her normally impassive face, it was the equivalent of Hao raising her right eyebrow.

  “Because there will be magedowsers,” she said. “Which you explained to me several times over the past few weeks.”

  “In great detail,” Hao added.

  “I’m leaving my rifle,” I said. “And I’m only taking the submachine gun. I won’t even take any grenades.”

  “Our warded jackets will trigger the dowsers,” Maia said.

  “So?” I said. “I’ve run searches on the current fleet cluster’s law data. All of it’s standard. No killing, no unlicensed fighting, no slave-taking or slave trading. Pay your debts, don’t promise what you can’t keep. Never, ever, mess with the families. Nothing against armor, wards, or personal weapons, except on the Black Swan, and that ship’s on the other side of the cluster from the Bucket. So how about we unload, exchange our cash for credit, and find somewhere to eat?”

  I could imagine the kinds of dishes that could be found on a trade fleet vessel. Anything from fresh fish out of the hydroponics to honey-roasted peanuts and cream custard with real cream, the kind that came pre-made out of a cow or bio-bay. My mouth watered. Of course, we’d have to avoid the truly expensive stuff, but maybe we could wrangle an invitation to a dinner, somehow.

  “But the armor will trigger the dowsers,” Maia said, interrupting my pleasant thoughts. It was becoming a habit of hers. “You said so yourself. What then?”

  Oh, she wanted knowledge. Maybe reassurance that we would be safe. I could understand that. She’d spent half her life in debt bondage. I would be wary if I was in her position, too.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Not much,” I said. “They stop us, they search us to make sure of what we’re carrying and let us know that we’re being watched. We go on our way.”

  Maia waited, poised, her hands gently folded in front of her. The image of patience. Also, very annoying. Annoying was becoming my trade in stock for today.

  “What?” I said.

  “What do they see when they search?”

  “Our underwear,” I said.

  A tiny frown creased her brow. Nothing else. Riina would have told me off. The Knife would have smacked me. Maia’s frowning silence hurt more. She was extremely good at it.

  “They see our weapons, some wards, not much,” I amended.

  “An excellent submachine gun, high quality wards, and a very expensive flame blade strapped to your leg, unless I have misread you,” Maia said.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “So what?”

  She waited. I waited.

  “Crud,” Hao said. “You’re smart.”

  We waited some more.

  “Care to enlighten a mere gunslinger?” I said through clenched teeth. My feeling of embarrassed incompetence, like a student at the Academy caught without his warding kit, was turning into anger.

  “We come off as floating in helion,” Hao said. “Rich folk. Real rich.”

  “So-” I began. My mouth slammed shut on its own. “Oh,” I said after a breath.

  Everyone would think we could afford to pay more than we were offering. That we were playing it tough in order to get the better of a trade fleet conglomerate. We’d get the hardest bargainers in the trade fleet coming at us, coalescing from all corners of the fleet to test us. They’d make it a sport to try and wring money out of us, money we didn’t have.

  Oh, indeed. I put back the submachine gun.

  I also left my heavily warded coat in the gun locker together with my magerifle, foil, and assault shotgun. Instead, I took a short, lightly-warded jacket and my Chimer. As automatic pistols went, it was cheap, discreet, low-caliber, and lacked the intimidation factor of my favorite Mino M3.

  Of course, my old M3 was a puddle of slag on Remba, and I hadn’t had a chance to get a new one. Its form-cut hole in the gun locker’s protective foam gaped empty, a reminder of things lost. Maybe I could replace it here.

  After all, fate smiles at fools and dreamers, and I’d just proven to be the first.

  I settled my wide-brimmed stockman firmly on my head, the worn leather and the weight of the wards sewn into the brim my one true comfort. My hat had been with me for years. The crudmucking dowser techs could freeze in the void for all I cared. I wasn’t leaving it behind. Even Maia didn’t object to that.

  Thankfully, she knew me well enough by now. I didn’t want to get into a fight about my hat. Where I went, my stockman went.

  I clipped the Chimer’s holster to my right hip, and gave the locker doors a light push. Their engines engaged and the doors swung shut in silence, the blue LEDs cutting off, leaving the corridor bathed in its normal, sickly, off-white ceiling lights.

  Maia studied my face.

  “Good,” she said after a score of heartbeats.

  “Thank you,” I replied without irony. I’d learned enough to know that for Maia, that single word was high praise. I’d passed her test, whatever it had been. Probably something much more complex than figuring out how we’d look to the fleet traders. Which I’d failed. “Ready?”

  She smiled, giving a tiny curtsy. Hao patted the crowbar in her tool belt, and rested her hand on the electronics kit she carried on the other side. I had no idea which one of them was more dangerous in that moment, Maia or Hao. Or maybe they were both equally dangerous in their own way.

  But then, so was I. Anyone coming in our way would get a crudmucking kicking.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and keyed the airlock open.