I led her through the long, dark, empty reaches of the Belithain's cargo hold, my feet going numb on the freezing deck plates. Only dim guide lights and the distant glare of the Kylians' dwellings near the rear loading hatch shone on us.

  "So, what are you hiding?" Riina said.

  I jerked inside, hopefully not showing it. I could barely see her, and her eyesight was sixty years older than mine.

  Was she the right person?

  "Small favor, is all," I said. "I need some protein patties."

  As lies went, it was a poor one. Or a poor truth. I needed the patties.

  "Talk to the cooks," Riina said. "We've got the supplies."

  I knew that. We walked in silence, our steps slapping against the deck plates. We'd walked like this over the past months, together in companionable silence, inspecting something, going to the com center, heading back.

  Now it felt like I had a gun pointed at the back of my skull, and no idea who held it.

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  "I..." I began, but the words didn't come.

  Riina didn't push.

  "No hurry," she said, her accent bending the words, making them contradict themselves. Or maybe she was being ironic.

  We headed into the glare of the lamps, the din of life. Kids shouting. Adults yelling. The banging of steel-on-steel, the flashes of an electric arc welder in the distance. I stopped before my door, hesitated.

  I needed to tell her. Riina was good people. She'd have gone to Remba and fought to get her people out herself if that would have made sense. I could trust her with the hatchling.

  He wasn't her people. Void wyrms are valuable dead. No one had captured one alive. Except me, and I hadn't captured him.

  I keyed the door open. It whisked aside with a huff. My cabin was empty, the flowery curtain all that protected the hatchling.

  What could you get for a live void wyrm hatchling? A gigaton of helion? A planet for a ship-full of refugees?

  "I'd like to build a kitchen in my cabin," I said. "To cook sometimes."

  Riina gave me a quizzical smile.

  "Not all the time," I said. "Just sometime. Maybe store some food here, too. A freezer or something."

  "Of course," Riina said. "Why don't you talk to Hao and get one of her engineers to set it up for you?"

  Why didn't I? Yes, why didn't I?

  "I'll need some supplies," I said. "Dried protein patties, that sort of thing."

  My hands were sweating. Why had I brought Riina here? My gut churned. It had been a bad, bad, bad idea.

  "Talk to the quartermaster," Riina said. "I'll clear it."

  "Thank you," I said, fleeing into my quarters and sealing the door between us.

  The protein patties would have to be enough for the hatchling. I'd put a sealing ward on the door. Nothing lethal. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.

  Crud.