“Join us?” Crow laughed. “Just earlier today you were cursing us for having killed your family.”
“I lied, Captain. I wanted to make you feel sorry for me, so you’d take pity and feed me. I know you saw through that. Your kick proved it. I shouldn’t have lied.”
“Then that wasn’t your family on the ship?”
“I was a stowaway,” Tress said. “Didn’t belong there any more than I belong in Shimmerbay. I think I might belong here.”
Crow didn’t reply at first. She unscrewed the top of her canteen, a rattling sound in the night. Tress thought she could track the captain’s thoughts. If Tress hadn’t lost anyone, if she wasn’t angry at the crew…
Captain Crow stood up, a shadow in the night. “Run along anyway. No place for you here. We don’t need you scrubbing the deck all day, underfoot. I save that job for punishment, and with you doing it, you’ve taken away one of my tools for ship discipline. Everyone on this ship must have a place, and you have none. Unless you’d like to take the role of our anchor.”
Crow turned toward her cabin, smoke drifting up from her pipe. Tress nearly ran off as she’d been told. And yet…
A piece of her hated being bullied. Hated it enough to overcome her reluctance to impose. She’d hated how the duke bullied Charlie. She’d hated how the inspectors bullied the dockworkers. And she hated it more here, facing down a woman who thought she could do whatever she wanted, to whomever she wanted.
“You don’t have a ship’s sprouter,” Tress said.
Captain Crow froze at the door to her cabin.
“He’s dead,” Tress continued. “You need someone for the job, but the Dougs won’t do it. Otherwise you’d have pressed one of them into it by now. They made me fill the zephyr pouches. They’re frightened of spores.”
“And you aren’t?” Crow asked from the darkness.
“Of course I am,” Tress said. “But I figure a healthy respect for them helps a sprouter stay alive.”
Silence. Crow was a shadow in the night, watching her, judging her, smoke puffing up into the emerald sky.
“Aye,” Crow said. “You’re right on that. Suppose maybe there is a place for you here. You did cross the spores on foot. Took a zephyr explosion to the face. Still willing to work with spores, eh? Yes indeed…I could make use of you. In fact, I might have the perfect place for you.”
Tress frowned to herself. Were they participating in the same conversation?
“Welcome to the Crow’s Song then, ship’s sprouter,” the captain said, pushing into her cabin. “You’ll forfeit your share of loot from our first three plunders, but can take an officer’s portion after that. Also, you can’t eat with the others. Go to Fort for leftovers. Sprouters are a strange lot, and I don’t want you getting spores into the food.”
“I… Yes, Captain.”
“And don’t lie to me again. Or we’ll be finding out what happens to a human when they swallow a pouch of zephyr spores. Dr. Ulaam has always wondered.” Crow raised her canteen to her lips as she shut her cabin door.
Knees soft as lard, Tress flopped down on the deck, then pulled her red inspector’s coat tight. She was terrified by what she’d done, but determined. She knew it was right; she felt it.
For better or worse, Tress was a pirate now.
THE IDIOT
The next day, Captain Crow woke Tress with a shout. That should have been Tress’s first clue that something was odd, as it didn’t involve kicking. Crow passed up opportunities to cause physical pain about as often as banks provide free samples. Instead Crow led Tress through the middle deck to a room with a very large padlock on the door. The type you use to make a statement.
“You really aren’t afraid of spores, girl?” Crow said as she counted over the keys on her keyring.
“I said that I am afraid, Captain. It’s just that lately, everything and everyone seems inclined to try to kill me. So I guess spores are simply one more, no more notable than the others.”
“No more notable?” Crow said, selecting the correct key. “Well, that’s an encouraging attitude. Encouraging indeed, my red-coated sprouter.”
The click of the key in the lock had an ominous tone. The sound of a trap being sprung. Crow removed the key from her ring and handed it to Tress. “This will be yours now, girl.”
Tress took it, but had not missed that the ring held a second key identical to this one. Crow pushed through the door, and Tress glanced down the hall to where several Dougs were watching and whispering to one another. When the door opened, they stepped backward.
Bracing herself, Tress followed Crow into the room. It did not seem so fearsome as to warrant such a reaction from the Dougs. The small chamber, longer than it was wide, had a single porthole at the end looking out at the sea. Spores churned up from the ship’s passing, occasionally rising to cover the window, briefly plunging the room into darkness.
It had a bunk on one end that was pure luxury to Tress, with a blanket, a mattress, and a pillow. Sure, the mattress looked lumpy, the pillow was small, and the blanket likely hadn’t been washed since the invention of vowels. But when you’ve been sleeping on the deck, you learn to grade on a curve.
Along the wall opposite the bunk was a small worktable. Above it, a set of drawers was built into the wall. The only other item of note was the large mirror hanging above the table, giving the room an open feeling—and revealing to Tress exactly how much of a mess her hair was. It evoked the impression of an eldritch horror escaping from its long slumber to stretch tentacles in all directions, disintegrating reality, seeking the lives of virgins, and demanding a sacrifice of a hundred bottles of expensive conditioner.
Crow stepped over to a door nestled in the corner, near the head of the bunk. She pulled that open and gestured inside, revealing a stall—barely tall enough to stand up in, with a floor that lowered two feet down into a basin. With a drain? And a spigot high on the wall?
A bath? If the bunk was luxury, the idea of a bath was paradise.
“We keep that spigot hooked to a barrel filled with water,” Crow said. “Let us know when you want it refilled. Weev always needed a lot of it for his experiments.”
“…Experiments?”
“With spores,” Crow said, sighing. “You’ll have to keep up, girl, if you’re going to train as our sprouter. Any time you work with spores, do it in this chamber unless you get specific permission from me. I’d even prefer you fill the zephyr spore charges for the cannons in here.”
“I understand,” Tress said.
“Be sure you do,” Crow said. “Your entire chamber is reinforced with aluminum, but there’s a silver lining beyond in case something breaks through. Despite all those protections, you could rip my ship apart if you’re careless.”
Tress nodded.
“You have no idea, do you?” Crow said. “What you’re doing? What will be expected of you? You have no clue how dangerous your job will be. Do you really want to go through with this?”
“Do I get to sleep in that bed?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m in.”