“And this one is your stateroom,” Roald said, indicating the narrow door. Zeph peeked inside. It was quite small, but still sufficient to fit a bed and a desk, as well as a closet fit into the wall. There was even a very compact lavatory.

“Nice,” said Zeph.

“‘Nice’?” Said Roald, sounding astonished. Roald Osment spoke in a low monotone for the most part, and avoided eye contact. He was the ship’s medic, and dressed the part—clean, neat, and precise. He even wore some kind of cologne—distinctive, but not unpleasant. “I’ve never heard anyone refer to these rooms as ‘nice’, before.”

Zeph smiled. “I’ve been in the navy,” he said. “We used to fit two men into one of these rooms. Having one to myself feels like a luxury.”

“I suppose so,” said Roald. He waited as Zeph closed his stateroom door and then led him to another door, not very much farther down the hall. “This is one of the two mess halls,” he said, opening the door.

The room behind the door was surprisingly large, about five meters by four, with two round tables in it. There were two women seated at one of the tables, busily eating from a couple of trays. They looked up as Roald entered.

Roald gestured to the shorter of the two women. She was dark haired, with two long scars on her face. “This is Alis Jenkins,” he said. “She’s our pilot.”

“Yarr,” said Alis, saluting Zeph with her spoon.

“And this other is Katixa Olondriz, but we all just call her Kat. She’s our astrogator.”

“Hey,” said Zeph, nodding to them both. Kat nodded once and looked away quickly, but Alis smiled wolfishly.

“You like to spar?” she asked.

“Spar?”

“Yeah, like—” She punched the air a couple of times, quick and precise.

Zeph knew what sparring was; he just hadn’t expected the question. “I’m not really much of a fighter,” he said lamely.

Alis wagged her head side to side and then laughed. “Yeah, you seem a scrawny one. Stick with me; I’ll toughen you up.”

Roald gestured for Alis to be quiet, and said, “well, I think now you’ve met all of us.”

“You’ve met Victor?” asked Alis.

“Yeah,” said Zeph. “We rode up together on the Lift.”

Alis waggled her eyebrows. “I’ll bet that was fun.”

Zeph laughed. “I probably could have made a better first impression.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Roald. “He already wants to kill all of us.”

“The feeling is mutual,” said Alis.

There was an awkward silence, then. After a moment, Zeph cleared his throat and asked, “Where is the engine room? I’ve been looking forward to seeing it.”

“Ah, this way,” said Roald, gesturing back out the door. Zeph waved to Alis and Kat, and then went back out into the hallway. Roald followed him.

The engine room, it turned out, was just around a corner from the mess, behind an ominous-looking door with a big placard reading “authorized personnel only”.

“Don’t worry,” said Roald. “You’re authorized.”

Inside was a typical engine room, though in a considerable state of disarray. Tools and rags were laid on every surface, interspersed with spare parts and various unidentifiable bits.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Roald. “We’ve all been taking turns on engineer duty… It all kind of…just…” He gestured to the jumble of parts and tools.

Zeph raised an eyebrow. “I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

Just then, Victor came out from behind one of the engine manifolds, wiping his hand on a rag. He saw Zeph and scowled. “The state of this engine room is unacceptable,” he said to Zeph. “If you plan on being part of this crew, you will maintain better order here.”

Zeph gaped. Was he being blamed for this? He opened his mouth to say something, but Roald spoke first. “Come on, Victor. Cut him some slack. You know this isn’t his fault.”

“I’m not concerned in the least about fault,” said Victor. “I could care less about fault. What I care about is that we each of us do our duty. Mr. Marks wants his ship to function flawlessly. That can only happen if we each know our place and do our duty.”

Roald was shaking his head. “This is the first time he’s even been in this room, Victor. Give him a chance.” Victor opened his mouth to say something, but Roald spoke over him. “And what is more—the state of this room is as much your doing as any of the rest of us. It doesn’t look good, Victor, when you start insisting that the new guy take the fall for your own incompetence.”

Ouch, thought Zeph. He needed to defuse this situation—he didn’t know Victor well, yet, but he suspected that he wouldn’t take well to that kind of accusation. “Victor’s right,” he said quickly. “This isn’t about fault, it’s about pulling together as a team. I’ll get this room cleaned up. By tomorrow you won’t even recognize it.”

Victor closed his mouth and eyed Zeph suspiciously. His gaze went from Roald to Zeph and back, and then he nodded. “I suppose it is unfair to hold you to account for the engine room at this point. But you’ve been warned: I expect this room to be clean from now on.”

“I understand,” said Zeph, and he watched as Victor exited the engine room.

“You really shouldn’t encourage him,” said Roald.

“I…just don’t like confrontation.”

“You should probably learn to deal with confrontation without capitulating, though.”

Zeph shrugged. “Give me a chance to see how the team works together, at least.”

Roald sniffed. “Fair enough. Anyway, that’s the ship. Your stateroom door is already keyed to your biosign. I’ll leave you to yourself for the rest of the day, so you can get situated.”

“Thanks, Roald. I appreciate the tour. I think I’d like to spend a little time here, for now, though.”

Roald shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll see you at dinner time.”

Zeph waved and then got to work. He wound up missing dinner altogether, and didn’t hardly regret it. The engine room was his. This was his domain. He spent several hours picking things up, figuring out where things went, cleaning grease and oil from surfaces, sweeping, organizing, and categorizing. He found the work extremely satisfying.

And then he noticed the label on the j-drive. “An-Lin and Sons,” it read. Zeph knew that manufacturer; they were one of the most capable in the subsector, perhaps even the sector. They were high tech, high quality, and high price. And they were most definitely not the stock vendor for this make of yacht.

Which means the drive was added aftermarket. Why?

He looked closer, running his eyes down the spec sheet tacked to the bulkhead. It was confusing at first, until he realized that this was the spec sheet for the stock drive, not the aftermarket one. He turned to the work bench and started rummaging through the drawers until he found what he was looking for.

The spec sheet for the An-Lin drive was eye-opening. The stock j-drive was a basic J-1, with single-parsec range. This aftermarket engine was J-3—triple the power, triple the range. And it was clear that Mr. Marks was trying to pass it off as the original J-1.

Why?

A bit more looking around revealed that the maneuver drive was similarly upgraded. The stock m-drive was supposed to be a T-1, but the installed drive was T-3. Still a far cry from being a racer, but it would be a lot more maneuverable than it was supposed to be.

As much as Zeph loved the hardware, he didn’t particularly like what this implied about the yacht’s purpose.

He was careful to include the details in his first report to Officer Sapani that night.