“Itches,” Naomi said.
“Still up for the eyes?”
“Yeah.”
Inserting her into the ship’s roster wasn’t possible. Even if they could backdate all the paperwork to the Bhikaji Cama’s last port, Emma didn’t have the authorizations she’d need. And messing with the system immediately before an inspection was an invitation to disaster. Fail to shut down one logging system, and the last-minute change was a flashing pointer to whatever you most wanted hidden. So making Naomi into a regular crewman wasn’t possible, but making her not immediately match the biometrics for Naomi Nagata was in reach. All it took was a few well-placed needle sticks and some fluid that caused mild swelling. The only trick was changing the shape of her face in ways that made her look like someone else and not just herself, only puffy.
The med bay was old, but well put together. Nothing had the shine of the new. Everything was worn. But it was only worn, not neglected. Naomi had been around long enough to know the difference. She considered her new face in the hand terminal’s camera. Emma’s first move had been to shave her hair into an unflattering topiary that made her forehead seem wider and her eyes closer together. The swelling in her brow and jaw had thickened her features already. The system’s match to her normal appearance was only 80 percent. Enough that even if they identified her, it could be written off as a false positive.
Unless they already knew she was there.
“I’m putting you in with the crew working the heat sink,” Emma said. “Chief has them swapping out coolant exchanges.”
“Joy,” Naomi said.
“The stink’ll give you a reason to be wearing a mask,” Emma said. “And it’s a mixed-shift crew. Any luck, everyone will think you’re from the other one.”
Emma drove the needle into the flesh under Naomi’s eye. It only hurt a little. “How long do we have?”
Emma checked her terminal and spat out a low, grunting curse.
“We should go,” she said, dropping the needle into Naomi’s skin one last time. “They’re already positioning for transfer.”
“If they take me,” Naomi said, “I will try to hold out until you can get away. But go quickly, and make sure Saba knows what happened.”
Emma didn’t meet her eyes, but she nodded. This had always been a risk. It was what they’d signed up for. As Emma gave her a mask and led her down to the engineering decks, Naomi wondered how Bobbie and Alex would find out about it if she was captured. And what Jim would hear. The temptation was still there. If she did it—if she jumped instead of waiting for the push—she could control the fall.
The coolant lines on the Bhikaji Cama were an old design but in decent condition. She’d flushed lines like them back in her water hauler days, and the process wasn’t that hard. Punishing and foul, but not hard. There were four others on the team. Five people on a three-shift boat. It wasn’t much of a disguise.
The full process would run about four hours if nothing went wrong. She had to hope it was long enough for the Laconians to come, make their inspection and move on. All she would have to do was stay quiet and small until the danger passed. She fell into the work, taking orders from the foreman, doing her part with as little fuss as she could manage. She’d almost forgotten there was anything to worry about more pressing than not getting too much coolant in the air filters, when the interruption came.
“Make safe! Make safe! All you fucking bastards hold the work and make safe, yeah?”
The others all closed down the lines. Naomi did too. There wasn’t much choice.
The man who pulled himself past the yellow work barrier was dressed in a chief engineer’s uniform. Behind him, three soldiers in Laconian blues, one with a captain’s bars. Naomi hooked her foot into a wall handhold. Her heart was going fast, and a hint of nausea plucked at her that had nothing to do with the stink of coolant. The chief engineer motioned for them to take off their masks. The others started to comply. If she hesitated now, it would only call attention where she didn’t want it.
Naomi pulled off her mask.
“Was that discussed with senior staff?” the Laconian captain demanded, continuing whatever conversation they’d been having before they came in the room.
“No,” the chief engineer said. He was a younger man, but with a rough, scarred face that made him ageless. “Why would it be? Captain says it. We do it. That’s how it is. That a problem?”
One of the other Laconians held a hand terminal up to the face of her team foreman. The terminal chimed. Naomi felt a sick kind of peace descend over her.
“It’s an irregularity,” the Laconian captain said. “The political officer will want a full report when you reach the transfer station.”
“Political officer?” the chief engineer asked. Despite herself, Naomi’s ears pricked up. If this was related somehow to the mission in Sol—if Laconia was making a broad crackdown—maybe they weren’t here looking just for her. It was a thin hope, but it was something.
“New oversight regulations,” the Laconian captain said as the hand terminal tracked over Naomi’s face.
“Never heard of them.”
“You’re hearing about them right now,” the captain said.
The soldier frowned. “Sir? This one’s not on the crew list.”
I am Naomi Nagata. I would like to accept the invitation of High Consul Duarte. Please let him know. It was all she had to say. It would even be a relief, knowing that she’d done all that she could first. The chief engineer looked at her and shrugged. “Course she’s not. She’s on the apprentice program.”