CHAPTER THREE
That wasn’t unusual for him — he spent most of his waking hours feeling anxiety over something — but the prospect of facing Sebastian again, this time on board the ship with the rest of his crew there to stare had sweat prickling the back of his neck. It was only the judgmental set of Zaria’s mouth that stopped him from calling it all off.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” she said as she watched him slip on a coat in the quarters of the ship they had hired to get them to the outpost.
Ren frowned at himself in the mirror. His black hair had been recently shaved nearly to the scalp in the style of space workers, and his clothing seemed very plain, but he’d still seen eyes following him as he’d walked through the space station, most likely sizing him up as a potential target. He took off the coat and reached for another one.
“Yes,” Ren said, “you have. Many times. But it was your idea to kidnap him. Going to his ship now to discuss the arrangement is a way to establish trust.”
“We don’t trust them,” she said firmly, “and it’s your ship.”
She gave up any pretext of treating him like an adult and smoothed his rumpled collar. Ren bit back any protest — the problem with Zaria having known him since he was a child was that she forgot he wasn’t one anymore, even though she had to stand on her toes to better settle the jacket over his shoulders. When she looked up at him, her eyes were full of worry.
“Tell me there’s another way to do this,” he said, softly. “One that can resolve it quickly without causing more unrest.”
She said nothing, just stepped back. He nodded and started to turn away. “I just worry what it will cost you,” Zaria said, “dealing with that … ship’s captain.” She said the title like it was a disease.
He caught himself before he could react. Ren didn’t think the details of what had happened between him and Sebastian four years ago were known, but there was gossip. There was always gossip.
“He’s nothing,” Ren said lightly. “A reminder of a time when I was young and foolish.”
Zaria gave him a look that suggested she didn’t think those days were behind him, but she only nodded. As he moved toward the door, Ren caught sight of himself in the mirror again. He looked — well, he looked like he cared, which would never do. He let a mask of indifference slide over his features.
“Let’s go. I’m ready.”
The Wayward Prince was at the most distant and cheapest of the station’s docking bays. Ren and Zaria picked their way carefully through dingy corridors to get to it.
“We should have brought more guards,” she sniffed.
“Those men you hired were brutes,” Ren replied. He could see at discreet intervals crew from their own ship shadowing their movements. “We’re going to conduct our business in a polite fashion from now on. Garcia and his crew may be smugglers and thieves, but at least they’re professionals.”
They reached the bay. Ren expected to feel something upon seeing the ship again — it had once housed all of his dreams of a different life, after all. He gazed up, taking it in, and mostly thought the vessel looked more than a little worse for wear.
A slender person swathed in large overalls was up on a ladder welding on the hull, causing sparks to cascade onto the floor. Ren hesitated; the ramp to the ship’s hold was down, but there was no one else around, and it seemed unwise to walk on board unannounced. He wasn’t sure what to do, but then Zaria saved him with one of her imperious throat clearings.
The person dimmed the torch and carefully hung it on the ladder before looking down. Behind the round goggles, Ren could see that she was a young woman with skin a few shades lighter than his own and a pointed chin. She was wearing a close-fitting brown cap — much like most people who worked around ship’s engines did to cover their hair, but hers had fuzzy purple pompoms on the ends. She pulled off a work glove and put two fingers in her mouth to give a piercing whistle.
“Sebastian! Your kidnappers are here,” she called without warmth.
“There’s still time to have these people arrested instead,” Zaria muttered to him.
Ren was too distracted to shush her because Sebastian was striding down the ramp toward them. Ren briefly wondered why he’d been worried about his clothes attracting too much attention when here Sebastian was in a coat of woodland green that reached the tops of his polished knee-length boots, with his shaggy brown hair brushing the raised collar.
He looked better than he had yesterday when he’d been pale with surprise and the effects of the sedative. Now his olive skin looked warm and freshly shaved. Ren remembered well the almost delicate cast of his features and especially the dark eyes that usually looked either bored or amused. It was those rare moments when his eyes sharpened that Ren thought about the most, because when it happened the intensity of their regard could take one’s breath away.
Right now, he stood on the ramp regarding Ren and Zaria with droll humor.
“Thanks, Simi, I’ll take it from here,” he called to the woman on the ladder. She shrugged and picked up the torch.
“Mr. Garcia,” Zaria snapped.
“Captain Garcia,” Sebastian corrected with a slight smile.
“Does it count if the ship you’re captain of is stolen?”
Ren stepped forward quickly. “Do we have your permission to come aboard, Captain? There are matters to discuss.”
Sebastian swept his arm wide to welcome them — Ren wasn’t sure how he got his coat to twirl so grandly with that one gesture, but he walked up the ramp, Zaria stomping along two steps behind him.
Inside, Ren could see the three people who had come to rescue Sebastian yesterday. There was the older, fair-skinned woman that Sebastian called Mags, studying him calmly. Beside her was the short, sturdy man with straight, black hair, and looming behind them, the tall blond man. He scratched at the golden stubble lining his square jaw and frowned at Ren. There were three other people there as well that he hadn’t seen before, and he was about to ask for introductions when a long musical trill suddenly sounded. Everyone tensed, though it was like no ship’s alarm Ren had ever heard.
“Are those… trumpets?” someone asked.
The noise stopped and then a voice rang out from all around the ship’s hold, female but mechanical and precise. “Welcome aboard, Prince Ren.”
“Dub!” One of the women, whose pale, bare arms showed moving tattoos, slapped a hand to her eyes. “What did I tell you about speaking in front of strangers?”
Everyone else was staring at Ren.
“Did she say Prince Ren?” Sebastian asked slowly.
Ren rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s one of the things we need to talk about.”
“So you’re an actual prince?” A man, looking to be a couple of years younger than Ren but slighter in size, with a thick tousle of dark hair atop his head, was staring at him with wide eyes. “Like in a story?”
“Like in a monarchy,” Zaria said severely enough to cause the young man’s light brown skin to flush in embarrassment. “A system of government of which there are several in the Commonwealth. You are addressing Prince Ren of the planet Arcadia, heir to the throne.“
“Just Ren will do,” Ren said tightly. “Please no protocol right now, Zaria.”
She drew herself up. “Protocol is what I do.”
They’d moved from standing around staring at Ren in the cargo hold to sitting around a table in the galley staring at Ren. It wasn’t much in the way of progress. All he wanted to do was hide somewhere.
“This is Zaria Khan,” Ren said, trying to regain some control. “My aide de camp.”
“Fancy,” the woman with the tattoos said, her dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “But what I want to know is, are you going to tell anyone you heard Dub talk?”
“Kaz,” Sebastian said, “is that really important right now?” He was the only one not sitting at the table, having gone to the kitchen counter to pour himself a glass of wine. He drank from it without looking at Ren.
“It is if they’re planning to rat Dub out.”
“Dub?”
“The ship’s computer,” the young man put in quickly. “She likes to be called Dub. Oh, and I’m Jaime by the way.”
Ren allowed himself a brief frown. These days people didn’t like it when computer systems talked or had preferences as to names — it reminded them too much of the Singularity, the self-named group of AIs who had driven humanity from old Earth and its surrounding systems, killing billions of people in the process. The Singularity was still out there, lurking behind their borders, so humans were supposed to be strict about monitoring the AIs they needed to run ships and space stations, just in case they developed murderous tendencies of their own.
“I don’t recall the computer being so opinionated when I had the ship,” he said.
Ren had intended his remark to be light — he was all for breaking the tension at this point — but everyone at the table stilled, looking from him to Sebastian. At the counter, Sebastian poured himself more wine. Ren rubbed his hands over his thighs, concealing the nervous gesture under the table and cast about for something to fill the silence. He was supposed to be trained in small talk after all, that and in leading people, but in practice he was terrible at both.
One of the crew members at the table, a woman in her forties with short dark hair and skin nearly the same shade, spoke up. “One thing I am curious about,” she said, sounding bemused, “so you’re supposed to be a prince, and the ship is called The Wayward Prince. Was that intentional?”
Ren winced a little. “It was originally The Wayfinder. When I, uh, appropriated it for my personal use I thought it would be amusing to change the name. I had some idea that I was hiding my identity in plain sight.”
She shook her head. “Monarchies,” she said almost to herself. “Second-most ridiculous system of government there is.”
It looked like Zaria was about to argue, but Sebastian interrupted.
“Appropriated, huh?” he said from across the room. “I do appreciate a good euphemism. So what you’re saying is that you stole the ship first?”
Zaria cut in sharply. “He cannot steal what is rightfully his in the first place.” She glanced at Ren. “We need to get on with this.”
Sebastian sauntered over to the table. “Yes, this mysterious and lucrative job that you want to hire us for instead of throwing me out an airlock. Or is that the end game?”
Ren looked at him. “What I want at the end of this is for us to go our separate ways and never see each other again. But if you do this job, I will pay you. What’s more, I’ll let you keep the ship.”
Everyone at the table looked once again at Sebastian. He sat down in an empty chair, leaning carelessly back.
“So what’s the job?”
Ren took a steadying breath and put his hands on the table. Before he could say anything, though, the big blond man frowned and spoke in a low rumble of a voice. “You aren’t looking to have us kill someone, are you?”
“Rylan doesn’t kill people,” Sebastian put in helpfully. “He is, however, perfectly willing to shoot them in slightly less lethal areas and punch them into unconsciousness. It’s a moral gray area that we try to work within.” He winked at Mags. “Most times.”
“I’m not hiring you as assassins,” Ren snapped, his control slipping. “I want you to do to do what you do best — lie and steal.” He bit his lip and stopped talking.
“Ahem.” Zaria coughed. She gave the crew a steely glare. “What we are telling you is highly sensitive information. You are being told this on the understanding that if you don’t agree to do this task we will have the ship confiscated and all of you arrested. The Heart of Arcadia has been stolen.”
Jaime raised his hand like he was in a classroom. “Is that like a metaphor for something?”
“It’s a jewel,” Ren said. “The crown jewel. Quite possibly the most valuable thing on our entire planet, and it was taken.”
Sebastian swirled the wine in his cup thoughtfully. “I’m flattered that you thought of me, but merchandise of that level is a bit beyond us. I haven’t even heard a whisper of anyone trying to fence your family jewels.”
“We know where it is,” Zaria ground out.
“Then what’s the problem? Call the Commonwealth or send in your own private army. Arcadia’s a rich planet from the tales I’ve heard.”
“This is a sensitive matter,” Ren said. “The jewel was stolen nearly a year ago, but we’ve managed to keep that quiet while we tracked down its location. If the loss were to be revealed it would cause a great deal of unrest. We haven’t had a monarch since my mother passed, seven years ago. There’s the regent, of course, but her position is not secure.”
Sebastian leveled a steady gaze at him. “What about you, Your Highness? Why aren’t you in charge?”
Ren dropped his eyes. “I’m… not ready yet.”
“No one can rule Arcadia without the Heart,” Zaria said firmly. “We want this crew to get it back from the thieves without anyone finding out it was stolen in the first place.”
“So a jewel heist?” said the sturdy older man beside Mags. He shrugged without concern. “We can do that.”
“Can we?” Simi asked. She looked uncertainly at Sebastian while chewing anxiously on one of the ends of her cap.
He stared up at the ceiling, considering.
Zaria looked like she wanted to remind Sebastian of the possibility of prison, but Ren made a small gesture to her. It was best to wait Sebastian out.
“We can,” Sebastian said finally. He straightened up in his chair and nodded down the table at Ren. “Now let’s figure out a plan.”
“I don’t like it,” Zaria said to Ren several hours later.
They were back in his quarters, where she paced while he went through his clothes again, this time deciding what to take.
“Which part?” he asked absently.
“All of it. Least of all you going off with that man.”
“I’m part of the mission. I would have thought you’d like me taking on a more responsible role. Besides,” he added wryly, “it’s not like you won’t be nearby.”
She was to follow at a discreet distance while Ren traveled on board The Wayward Prince. Their hired ship didn’t have any Arcadian markings, but the Jemisin was large and expensive enough to attract notice. Whereas the Prince was a known smuggling ship that brought less attention — from everyone except the authorities — when traveling.
Ren couldn’t help but feel anticipation at the prospect. Even if he had no other part than to wait on the ship and pay the bills, being a part of a plan to steal a priceless jewel from a distant planet had a certain ring to it. It sounded like an adventure.
“I don’t like you being with this gang of thieves,” she said, perhaps picking up on his excitement. “It’s not safe.”
He was tired; it had been a long day spent around strangers, so he let a little coldness show in his voice. “Thieves came into my home and stole the most valuable item on our world. Nowhere is safe.”
She flushed slightly. Zaria had nothing to do with palace security, but no one had been spared the recriminations when the theft had been discovered. “There are different kinds of danger. I worry that you will forget yourself.”
He felt a flash of anger but covered it swiftly. “I have never forgotten who I am.”
She was not cowed, but then she had known him too long — she knew the difference between him and the mask he put on for the public. “Even when you ran away?”
He turned away from her. “Then you should be glad of Captain Garcia’s presence. He was very effective in reminding me of who I was the last time.”