“So we’ve gotta take some. Inject it back into the economy, as a stimulus. To help local merchants, the small folk who are just tryin’ to live. We do an important service.”
“By…stealing.”
“Damn right.” Ann sat back, shifting her hand on her pistol. “Least, that’s what it was supposed to be like. We weren’t supposed to be deadrunners. I guess we all knew the risk. Didn’t expect to fail so hard on our first act of piracy though.”
Tress cocked her head, barely resisting the urge to scratch at the place where the goggles met her face. Despite the silver on the deck, spores on her fingers could live long enough to do damage.
“I’m…confused,” Tress said. “Deadrunner?”
“You don’t know?” Ann said. “What kind of sailor are you?”
“The kind that…doesn’t know what a deadrunner is?” She felt profoundly annoyed at being berated for withholding questions, then being mocked when she didn’t.
“There are two varieties of pirates, Tress,” Ann explained. “There’s the ordinary kind, then there’s the deadrunners. Regular pirates rob, but don’t kill unless they’re fired upon. You sail well enough to catch the ship you’re chasing, and they surrender their ransom price. Then they sail away with their lives, while you sail away richer.
“That’s how it’s supposed to work. It becomes a contest, see? A race, with a little extortion to keep it interestin’。 The king’s marshals, they keep records. So long as you let folks go, so long as you don’t murder crews…well, if you get caught, they lock you up. But they don’t hang you.”
“That sounds remarkably civilized,” Tress said.
Ann shrugged. “Civilization exists because everyone wants to keep their innards in’r innards. You don’t punch a fellow when you first meet him, ’cuz you don’t wanna get punched each time you meet someone. The king knows this. So long as he gives pirates a reason not to go all the way, they’ll hedge.
“Besides, who wouldn’t rather have a chase than a battle? The poor sods on merchant ships don’t want to lose their lives over their master’s money. The masters don’t want their ships being scuttled or stolen. And you don’t last long as a pirate if’n you’ve gotta wipe the deck with your blood every haul. Except, you know, if you kill someone by accident.”
“Or an entire ship’s worth of people,” Tress said.
Ann nodded. “Then you become a deadrunner. No mercy for you if caught. Even other pirates will hate you. Nobody will take crew from a deadrunner ship. You’re left to make your way, lonely as the single bean in a poor man’s soup.”
By the moons, it made sense. Tress revised her opinion of Ann. That forlorn expression, that regret…it meant whatever conspiracy there had been to sink the smuggler ship, Ann hadn’t been part of it.
Laggart had been though. And likely the captain. They’d wanted to become deadrunners. Hence the hidden cannonballs, the sinking of the Oot’s Dream. Why else would the captain leave one of the sailors alive to spread the word?
Tress was so absorbed by these thoughts that she forgot herself and absently scratched at the itch by her goggles. She froze as she was doing it. Moonshadows.
Well, at least—
That was when Tress’s face exploded.
THE OTHER CORPSE
Tress found herself lying on the deck, the goggles blown free of her face. What was that sound? Screams of pain?
No. Laughter.
Ann was laughing uproariously. Tress immediately put her hand up to her cheek. It was sore, but fortuitously still attached to her face. She’d gotten a mote or two of zephyr spores under the rim of her goggles, where they had touched a bead of sweat. Mercifully, that tiny amount of spores didn’t pack enough of a punch to kill her.
“It isn’t funny,” Tress said, sitting up.
（She was right. It was hilarious.）
“Come on, spore girl,” Ann said, helping Tress up by the arm. “Let’s have the surgeon look you over.” She shouted toward the Doug who had made Tress do this work, and told him to clean up. Then Ann helped the disoriented Tress down to the middle deck.
“You really work with that stuff?” Tress asked Ann. “As assistant cannonmaster?”
“Well, when they let me,” Ann said.
“Why don’t the cannons explode?”
“They do. That’s what makes the cannonballs shoot out.”
Tress determined to give that some thought later, as it didn’t make sense yet. Washing windows, it should be noted, is not an occupation that offers a thorough education in ballistics.
Over from the mess, near the prow, was a door that had been closed when Tress had investigated earlier. Now Ann pushed it open and steered Tress inside. There she found a man dressed in a sharp suit of a cut she’d never before seen. It was somehow less ostentatious but more elegant than the uniforms the duke and Charlie had worn. Pure black, with pressed lines and no buttons on the front.
He had jet-black hair, and features that looked too sharp to be real. Like he was a painting, or a drawing. His skin was an ashen grey, his eyes bloodred. If the underworld had legal counsel, it would have been this man.
Tress should have been frightened of him, but instead she was awed. What was a creature like this doing on a pirate ship? Surely this was a divine being from beyond space, time, and reality.
In a way, Tress was correct.
And no, he still hasn’t given me my suit back.
“My!” Dr. Ulaam said with a refined but excitable voice. “What have you brought me, Ann? Fresh meat?”
“She was loading the zephyr pouches,” Ann explained, leading Tress to a seat at the side of the small chamber, “and some got underneath her goggles.”
“Poor child,” Ulaam said. “New to the ship, hmmmm? You have very nice eyes.”
“If he asks to buy them,” Ann whispered, “haggle. You can usually get double his first offer.”
“My eyes?” Tress said, her voice rising. “He wants to take my eyes?”
“After you are dead, naturally,” Ulaam said. This room was filled with cabinets and drawers. He unlatched one and took out a small jar of salve, then turned toward her. “Unless you’d rather do it now? I have several fine replacements I could offer. No? What about just one?”
“What…what are you?” Tress asked.
“He’s our zombie,” Ann said.
“Such a crude term,” Ulaam replied. “And not terribly accurate, as I’ve told you.”
“You ain’t got a heartbeat,” Ann said. “And your skin is cold as a wet fish.”
“Both adaptations reduce my required caloric intake,” Ulaam said. “My method is efficient. I think everyone will be going around without a heart, once I solve the problem of how lacking one kills humans.” He offered Tress the salve. “Put this on your skin, child, and it will help with the pain.”
Tress accepted it, and timidly put a dab on her finger.
“She took it easily,” Ulaam said. “Is she brave or stupid?”
“We haven’t figured out yet,” Ann said.