Navan and I headed for the waystation, while the other three walked back down the slope toward the edge of the shipyard. I didn’t look back as we pressed on, my gaze fixed on the corrugated iron and sporadic brickwork of the waystation, where all the other travelers were flocking.

We walked around to the far side of the compound, following the crowds toward a set of gates made from two sheets of patchworked metal, which had been strung up to a chain-link fence. They were wide open, leading through to a dusty courtyard, where several stalls had been arranged. Sellers shouted above the murmur of the crowd, offering their wares. Farther on, larger structures with cavernous archways led into echoing halls, where more traders were selling their goods to needy travelers.

To my surprise, the majority of our fellow travelers looked close to poverty, their clothes torn and faded, their faces showing the strain of a hard life. They bartered for scraps to repair their ships, though some of them spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, and nor could the traders, by the sounds of things. I figured, whoever they were, they weren’t from somewhere wealthy enough to have the language technology that Navan had.

“Twenty years I’ve been on this planet, slaving away to buy enough of these damned parts to get back home in my ship—and you tell me you don’t have a converter valve for a Brimenian Dreamrider! You told me last week you had one!” one hunched old woman cried. She had dark blue skin and prickles sticking out of her back, the spines bristling with anger.

The trader, a lizardy creature with orange skin and beady black eyes, simply shrugged. “What can I say, someone got here before you. If you want one, you come back next week, though the price is fifty credits.”

“It was twenty-five last week!” she howled.

“That’s inflation for you.”

Her spines shook. “You can shove your inflation up your scaly little—”

Navan put his arm around me and steered me away from the stalls before the old woman could finish. “I think that’s enough of this hall,” he said, as we moved through a corridor into another part of the compound.

Seeing the old woman made me nervous. She said she’d been here for twenty years, trying to fix her ship. What if we got stuck like that? I supposed, with the Fed threat looming over us, we were more likely to get arrested and taken away in a Fed ship than be left to rot here. In that, perhaps, there was a small mercy.

“So, what’s really up with you and Angie?” Navan asked, as we entered another hall, which seemed to be arranged like a supermarket. Everything was divided up into sections: fresh produce, dried goods, pharmacy, blood banks—something to suit every taste in the universe.

“Nothing. I told you.”

“I know when something’s bothering you, Riley. You can talk to me, you know,” he pressed. “I’m here for you.”

“I know, but I really don’t want to talk about it. Honestly, it’ll all be fine,” I assured him. “Anyway, we’ve got other things to think about right now. First things first, what are we going to eat, and what can we afford?”

He smiled. “I say we start at dried goods.”

“Dried goods it is!” I chirped, slipping my arm around his waist as we headed for the stalls.

There were rows and rows of tiny packets on the shelves in the dried goods section, each one no bigger than a sticky note, with pictures on the front of what each one contained. They seemed to be miniature meals, way too small to satisfy human hunger, but Navan assured me that, once water was added, they expanded to the size of a full meal. Intrigued, I flicked through to see which ones looked interesting and picked a load of them up while Navan counted how many we could afford. Here, at least, it turned out we had a decent number of credits to play with. We could make what we had stretch.

Moving on to the blood banks, Navan picked up several sachets of freeze-dried blood, which were cheaper than the vials. There were large bottles, too, though I couldn’t read what was in them. They were tucked away on the top shelf, presumably to keep thieves from stealing them. Although, considering the security in this place, it would have taken a ballsy thief to go after them. There were security cameras everywhere, keeping a close eye on the compound and everyone who passed through it.

“What’s in the sachets?” I asked, curious.

“It’s a mix of blood from all over the place. They don’t taste too good, but they’ll keep us alive,” he explained, picking up some bottles of water, before moving over to the trader to pay for the goods.

With the serious part out of the way, we wandered through the rest of the marketplaces, enjoying one another’s company while we had a spare moment to breathe. Here, with such an eclectic mix of species, we could be together without fearing disapproval. Nobody seemed to care who we were or what we did; they just wanted to get on with their own lives.

I was looking at one of the stalls in the pharmacy section, wondering if they had anything like the Vysanthean herbs, when I heard Navan shout, “Catch!”

I turned in time to see a box hurtling toward me and caught it deftly in one hand. There was a picture of a blue-skinned alien on the front, with long red hair down to her knees. I didn’t need instructions to know what this was—I’d had enough ill-advised experiences with hair dye to know a box of it when I saw it.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

He smiled, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I thought it might be a good idea, given that your face is on a wanted poster.”

“Do you have a thing for redheads? Some secret fantasy you’ve been hiding from me all this time?” I joked.

He looked horrified. “No, absolutely not! I love you just the way you are. There isn’t a single thing I’d change about you,” he insisted, leaning down to kiss me on the lips. Holding me close, he whispered in my ear, “The moment I saw you, I knew you’d always be the most beautiful creature in the room, no matter where you were, or who you were with. To me, you are perfection.”

I grinned, leaning up for another kiss. “To me, you are impossibly smooth.”

“I don’t want you worrying, that’s all. No matter how you look, you will always be beautiful to me,” he replied bashfully.

“I love you,” I said, holding his face in my hands, my heart feeling full.

As I wandered over to the trader to pay for the dye, I briefly contemplated slipping the box into my waistband. I didn’t want to spend money on it, not when I knew we could use those credits on something more practical. The only problem was, with all the cameras watching from every possible angle, there was no way I wouldn’t get caught. So, I did what I had to do, paying for the hair dye with the credits we had left.

“I hate wasting credits,” I muttered, rejoining Navan.

“It’s better than being thrown in a port-planet brig, believe me,” he assured me, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Where to next?”

“I’m going to need a restroom, to make my full Jessica Rabbit transformation.” I chuckled, though I was actually starting to feel a little bit nervous about going ginger. There was a reason I’d only ever used dye once before.

Navan frowned. “Who’s Jessica Rabbit?”

“You’re going to find out very soon,” I teased. He led the way across another open courtyard, toward an outbuilding made of rusting ship’s wings, where the restrooms were housed.

It wasn’t glamorous in the slightest, with the pungent scent of stale bodily fluids lingering in the air and the buzz of strange insects thrumming in my ears. Breathing through my mouth, I left Navan outside to guard the entrance as I stepped into the bathroom and locked myself in, sliding the bolt and wedging the handle with a tall trash can, just in case someone got past Navan.

Walking up to a row of questionable-looking sinks, which were strewn with all kinds of mess—none of which I wanted to dwell on—I took a long, hard look at myself in the cracked mirror. I looked older than I had the last time I’d stopped to check my reflection, the dark circles prominent under my eyes, my lips cracked, my eyeballs bloodshot. Given my current state, I supposed being a redhead couldn’t exactly make me look worse.

Opening the box, I looked at the instructions, which were all laid out in picture form for universal ease. Inside, there was a strange plastic shower cap with a button on the front. I took it out, and the cap started inflating as it hit the air. Glancing down at the pictures, I realized I was supposed to put this thing on my head—there was no liquid, no mixing, no fuss. Following the instructions, I removed my hairband and bundled every strand into the shower cap, before pressing the button at the front. It lit up with a blue light, and the elasticated plastic suddenly sucked to my scalp, every atom of air being vacuumed away.

Relax, I’m sure this is normal, I told myself. I could feel something happening under the shower cap, but I didn’t know what to make of it. Something felt cold and wet, and deeply unnatural, but then again, I was using alien hair dye for the first time. I looked down at the pamphlet, but the instructions pretty much stopped after the steps I’d just gone through. All I could do was wait for the blue light to go off, as per the pictures, and hope for the best.

As I waited, I thought about what had just happened in the market hall. It had been playing on my mind, but I’d managed to shrug it off until now, staring myself down in the mirror. Somehow, this ridiculous-looking young woman in a shrunken shower cap had become a criminal, willing to steal anything, even when she had the money to pay. I couldn’t believe how quickly the shift had happened, and it made me feel a twinge of shame.

What would Jean and Roger think, if they could see you now? I wondered. In all honesty, it wasn’t a question I could answer. I didn’t know what to make of me, so how could they?

All of this is to save Lauren and the rest of the universe. You have to do what you have to do, to stop the coldbloods from creating that immortality elixir, I reassured myself, trying to convince myself that it was the truth. Angie might think the compass was useless, but I hadn’t given up yet.

The blue light flickered off as a beep sounded, and the air was released back into the shower cap device. I removed it with shaking hands, nervous to see what it looked like underneath. Glossy, copper locks cascaded past my shoulders, each strand a burnished bronze shade. I’d expected it to be wet, but my hair was completely dry, with no hint of my old color. Or my old self, for that matter.

I stared at myself in the mirror, unable to believe the transformation. I still looked like me, but, with a hint of amusement, I realized this color suited the girl I’d become, far more than the previous shade of ordinary brown. Still, it was going to take some getting used to.

Knowing I needed to keep my hair out of the way, for practicality’s sake, I braided the shiny, bronzed tendrils until they rested over my shoulder in a long rope. My hair really had grown a lot since Texas, but there was a time and a place for having it loose and flowing, and now wasn’t it.

I threw the shower cap in the trash, along with the box, and stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, where Navan was waiting patiently. His jaw dropped when he saw me, and a wide grin spread across my face. There was something about being a redhead that made me feel mischievous. I liked it.

“So, what do you think?” I asked, slipping my hands around his waist.

“I like it a lot,” he murmured. “But you’d look good no matter what, so it’s cheating.”

“You don’t feel like going ginger yourself?”

He grinned. “I’ve never thought about it. What do you think?”

“Nah, you’re good as you are.” I leaned up on tiptoe to kiss him passionately on the lips, catching his mouth with mine as I ran my hands through his hair. His fingertips traced a pattern up the length of my spine. “Come on, we should be getting back to the others. Food comes before kisses, I’m afraid.”

“If all I had were your kisses, I’d be a satisfied man,” he retorted.

“No, you’d be a hungry man.” I laughed, grabbing his hand and pulling him along as we headed back through the compound toward the gates. On the way out, I noticed the woman with the spines staggering down the path, clutching something under her arm. I tried to get a closer look, but she was holding it too tightly to her body. All I could do was hope it was the piece she needed to get off this port-planet.

Ten minutes later, we reached the edge of the shallow slope that led down to the shipyard. Standing at the lip, I could see the shadows of our group stretching out from under the shelter of a wrecked vessel’s turbine. They were sitting on the ground, and Mort seemed to be sleeping, but there was no sign of Bashrik yet.

“We come bearing gifts!” I shouted, as we approached where they were lounging.

Angie looked up, her face morphing into a mask of shock at the sight of me. “Whoa!” I wished she’d say more, but I knew not to expect much after the argument we’d had earlier.

“You look like some Celtic warrior goddess! Very cool!” Ronad enthused.

“Goddess of the eternally freckled and sunburnt, maybe,” Mort added wryly, flashing a cheeky grin. I knew not to be offended by anything he said anymore.

“I’ll take that as a compliment coming from you, turkey-neck,” I fired back playfully. “How are your pools of sweat, anyway? Actually, don’t answer that, or I might not be able to get my food down.”

Mort’s red-veined eyes brightened. “Food?”

“Oh, yes, we have quite the smorgasbord.”

With the mood instantly elevated at the prospect of a good meal, Navan and I distributed the food and water. Everyone eagerly took theirs. It felt wrong to eat without Bashrik, but he’d soon be back, hopefully bearing some good news.

I opened my packet of dried food and poured some water on it, marveling as it bloomed to five times its size. I had no idea what it was supposed to be, but it was sandwich-like, with some sort of mystery paste in the middle. And, frankly, it was delicious. I wolfed it down as slowly as I could, knowing I’d end up with a stomachache if I ate it too fast. The others were doing the same. Mort had settled on a packet like mine, while Angie was chowing down on what looked like a block of ramen. Meanwhile, Ronad and Navan were rehydrating a sachet of blood in one of the water bottles, sharing it between them.

Satisfied and refreshed, we all sat back in the balmy heat of Wander’s afternoon sun and waited for Bashrik to return.

An hour later, the beat of approaching wings stirred us from our lazy rest. Bashrik swooped down, landing softly on the ground. He flashed a shy look in Angie’s direction, evidently wondering whether to greet her properly or not, but she was still coming around from her afternoon nap, yawning loudly.

“What’d you find?” Navan asked, offering him the bottle of rehydrated blood. Bashrik took it gratefully, taking big gulps. A trickle of crimson ran down the side of his chin. Only when he’d drunk his fill did he reply.

“There’s another shipyard on the other side of Wander, just as we thought,” he said, wiping his mouth. “It’s a real docking yard, way swankier than this scrapheap. I scouted out a few potential options, but I wanted your opinions first.”

“What’s the security like?” Mort chimed in.

“Fairly lax, from what I could see,” Bashrik replied. “There were a few cameras dotted around, but only a couple of patrolling guards. Nothing we can’t handle.”

My heart started beating faster. “How do we get there from here, without you having to make a million round trips and exhausting yourself?”

Bashrik smiled excitedly. “There’s a maintenance transport that leaves here every hour, ferrying mechanics and ship owners from one side to the other. Sometimes, owners come here for the cheaper parts, but they don’t stick around. We just need to hitch a ride with them.”

“Will they let us on?” I pressed.

“I don’t see why not. We’ve at least got to try it,” he urged, his eyes widening as he noticed my hair for the first time. “Nice hair! Suits you.”

I smiled. “Thanks. It was Navan’s idea.”

Navan looked like he was about to protest, but I flashed him a cheeky look, letting him know I was only teasing. I half expected Angie to make a comment about Bashrik not getting any bright ideas, or something like that, but she remained weirdly silent, seeming deep in thought.

I focused on the task ahead. Bashrik was right. If it was the only way to the other side, then we had to get on that transport ship. New, redheaded Riley wouldn’t take no for an answer—I refused to let her.

I exhaled sharply, looking around the group, my stomach clenching with nerves. “So, we ready to steal a ship?”