Shooting the Rift - eARC by Alex Stewart

as my self-appointed guide, but how many of the others were among my new shipmates, or just dock workers aboard to help supervise the stowage, I had no idea. “New skipper, new name. It’s a Guild thing.”
    “Right.” I hesitated for a moment, before curiosity won out over tact. “What happened?”
    Clio shrugged. “Long story. Short version: John paid off some people we owed, and took over the ship as collateral. Good deal for everyone, except Dad’s too pig-headed to see it.” She led the way up a flight of stairs to a catwalk near the ceiling of the hold, on which my boot soles echoed loudly enough to be heard even above the clamor of the cargo being stowed beneath us. From up here it was easy to see the layout, which, conventionally enough, was a blunt-ended wedge, an eighth the circumference of the vessel: I had no doubt that there were seven more holds identical to it completing the circle. The blank wall at the end, towards which we were now walking, would be one side of an octagon, giving access to the slightly smaller holds above and below, and, higher and lower than them, the crew quarters and utility areas containing the ship’s propulsion and life support systems. A large cargo elevator would run between the hold levels, but, glancing down and through the massive open doors, I could just see the platform on the lower tier, locked down, while the handling drones flitted directly up and down the shaft.
    “It must have been hard on you both, though,” I said. “Losing your ship like that.”
    Clio shrugged again. “Ships change hands all the time,” she said. “He’ll get her back, or take on a new one—just got to wait for the right opportunity.” Which all sounded astonishingly casual to me, but then Guilders were different: something I supposed I’d get used to in time.
    “What did your mother think about it?” I asked, more for something to say than anything else, and Clio glanced back at me, looking surprised.
    “All for it. Who did you think we owed?”
    “I see.” At least I thought I did. “And I thought my parents didn’t get along too well.”
    “They get along great,” Clio said, a faint frost entering her voice. “But a deal’s a deal. Can’t renege on a contract, whoever it’s with.” So at least one of my preconceptions about Guilders seemed to be true.
    “Do you see much of her?” I asked, conscious of skirting a conversational minefield. I was acutely aware that I was going to be spending a lot of time aboard the Stacked Deck , at least if things went as well as I hoped, and I needed to be making friends among her crew. At least Clio seemed to be making allowances for my naivety, although I’d clearly got off on the wrong foot with her dad.
    “Whenever we’re in the same system.” Clio led the way through a doorway at the end of the catwalk, and I found myself in a stairwell, between the inner and outer walls of the central octagon. As she started to climb a few steps ahead of me, I found myself appreciating the view rather more than I suppose I ought to have done. “We’ll find you some quarters, then you can officially report to the skipper.”
    “Sounds good to me,” I agreed, as we reached a landing and my field of vision became less distractingly callipygian. Beyond another door was a corridor, painted in some muted shade of not-quite white, which was probably supposed to seem warmer and less harsh in the overhead lighting, but didn’t. A strip of carpet, in varying hues of stain, completed the effect, which reminded me of nothing so much as my old student dorm back at Summerhall; certainly the last thing I’d have expected aboard a starship.
    “This one’s free,” Clio said, stopping outside a random door and tugging it open. It slid aside easily, and I stepped through, finding myself in a small stateroom, barely the size of Aunt Jenny’s guest quarters. For all that, it was more spacious than I’d expected. “Head’s through here.” She