Rachel picked up the card and flipped it nonchalantly into her hand: seven of plums. Her hands were shaking a little, and she had to concentrate on keeping her breathing just right. It was a good hand, but she couldn't read Hobenson so well as to know if it was good enough. That was the thing about psychopaths—they did tend to have a natural poker face. Silently, she nodded her continued consent to the stakes. She could back out at any time and get out with her ship, but there was no way she was going to leave Amelia here. Not now that she'd seen what Hobenson was capable of. The thin wiry man smiled inscrutably and flipped over the last wild card. Eight of peaches. "Last chance to back out, Captain Wu." Rachel took a deep breath, glancing down at her cards. This had been a very bad idea. SIXTEEN HOURS EARLIER Rachel usually didn't play poker with them, primarily because they usually played to ride out the storm when she and Daphne locked horns. It was a slow day, however, so Leo had managed to corral Dex and Saul into a game, and the captain had decided to sit in. Leo was dealing, bronze-tinted cards clicking together as they landed in neat piles. "First wild's universal, second's bid for tall, you can buy four on a dragon or a one, or on the first wild, but not the tall. And dragon pairs are up on three ones, but no other threesomes. Got it?" Dex blinked and shook his head, leaning toward Saul. "Can you believe this guy?" "No, but then people tell me I'm not very trusting." "Could we just play, please?" Leo shrugged. "Just trying to keep the game interesting. Ante." Each player tossed in a scrap of paper with a shipboard chore scribbled on it. It was an old spacefarer's wager—useful, since Leo was the only one who actually had the real money to lose. The players glanced at their cards, and placed their bets. Leo flipped over the wild cards, and Rachel won the bid. Silently, the other players traded out new cards and added their last bets. "All right, what's everyone have?" Dex flipped over two pair, fours and tortoises. Saul scoffed and dropped his cards to the table—three of a kind, sixes. Leo shrugged and dropped his hand face down. Rachel smiled and laid her hand down. "Straight in peaches." Dex let out an appreciative whistle as the captain scooped the papers toward her position. "Every hand. How'd you get so good at cards, Rachel?" "That is for me to know and you to find out, Doctor." Dex grinned. "You're wastin' your time, Doc. I been her best friend since we met, and I couldn't tell you half the things she's done for a living." Rachel looked back and forth between Dex and Leo. In truth, she'd expected the tension between them to be greater, but apparently they got along well enough when Mariah wasn't in the immediate area. Despite their polar backgrounds, they weren't really too different when you got right down to it. She was about to suggest that they just play regular tall card for a while when Mona rapped on the door frame. "Sorry to interrupt the game, but, Miss Wu, you wanted me to tell you as soon as we came up on Hobenson Skyplex. I got us touchdown coordinates 'bout a minute ago." Rachel nodded her thanks and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, looks like the lull's over. Back to work. Saul, get ready for walkabout." "Yes, sir." Saul pushed up from the table and bounded down the corridor toward his quarters as Rachel bristled. Try as they might, they still hadn't gotten rid of the military streak in him. It was better than having a completely mercenary mercenary onboard, but the titles did make her a mite uneasy. "Dex, you and Mariah can come with me to look for work. Might be fortuitous to have her way with words about, fancier place like this." Dex nodded, blushing almost imperceptibly, and stepped toward the stairs to the lower deck. "What about me?" "You and your uncle can tag on with Saul and Mona if you want, see the skyplex. Maybe strike a better deal if there's anything you need for the infirmary." Leo bit his lip and nodded. "Right." So that was it. Most of the young women he'd courted back on the Core would make excuses, little ways to slide their schedules into his. He shook his head ruefully as Rachel turned down onto the ladder to her room. Mariah he could figure out—she was more or less like the ladies back home. But Rachel confounded him. He wasn't used to practicality. Rachel slipped the hairpin into place as she walked into the open-space airlock. Technically, civilian weapons of any kind weren't allowed on Hobenson's skyplex, but the man had a less than attractive reputation: crime boss, gambler, slave trader. Rachel didn't like the idea of going in completely unarmed. "Ba chu qian. We're on the clock." Mariah nodded meekly as she approached, as if the delay had been entirely her fault, and Dex smoothed out his white shirt, wrinkled from the weeks at a time he spent in mechanic's jumpsuits. "Rach, you really think there's any work worth havin' here?" She shrugged. "Doubt it. Still, more likely to regret not lookin'." Dex snorted. "Not with th' kind of jobs we're gettin' lately." "I'll ignore that." Sir Anderson hung back with Saul as Mona dragged Leo from kiosk to kiosk, pointing out fascinating bric-a-brac that, while decidedly upscale for this far out on the Rim, would have been laughed out of even the humblest curio shop on Osiris. Sir Anderson glanced around at the mobs, a paranoid gesture he had taken to performing even more frequently since signing on with Artemis. "Tell me, Mr. Horton…what do you know about the man who owns this station? Hobenson?" Saul shrugged. "Pretty big man in this system. Has a hand in everything from slaves to weapons. Pretty psychotic too, from what I hear." Saul glanced down at the old man, eyes darting around. "He doesn't deal with the Tongs, though, your Lordship. You can relax." Sir Anderson shook his head. "Mr. Horton, I don't think I can relax until the entire Yao family is locked up and I'm back in my parlor on Osiris. I mean, you've obviously been on the Core. Doesn't it seem positively provincial out here, by comparison?" Saul's shoulders tensed. "I fought for the Independents during the War, d'you know that?" "I…no." "Then after that, I went into bounty hunting. That's why I'm not head chef at some Core restaurant." "I…I apologize. For what's its worth…some of my friends were…supporters of independence." "My point is…when you've been around the 'Verse as much as I have, you start to realize that there's no such thing as a better or worse place. There's just where you are, and if you don't like it, you're nowhere." Saul nodded to the nobleman. "I'm gonna go buy synthetic protein. You're welcome to come." Sir Anderson shook his head as Saul moved into the crowd, then followed his nephew and the pilot into the market. "Explain to me again why we're here." Dex shifted toward Mariah, only raising his voice high enough to be heard over the noise of the smoky lounge. "'Cause Rachel's a card shark." Mariah's curious glance didn't fade, and Dex smiled concedingly. "Hard to just ask around for work, place like this, where the boss has such a tight reign on everything. We'd either have to go through Hobenson and give up a share of the profit or risk havin' him find out we were dealin' behind his back." Rachel checked the bet to her, discarded one card, and passed one to her right. "This way, if the captains have any cargo they want to transfer ship-to-ship, they can talk about it while they play, and not have to worry about the middleman." Mariah nodded. It certainly made sense. "But doesn't the owner monitor the lounges?" Dex shrugged. "Too many games goin' on, too much noise bleedin' through. This many people, it's perfect cover." Mariah looked over at the mechanic, his angular face framed against the harsh yellow light coming from the vidscreen behind the bar. "You really do know your crime." Dex looked at Mariah out of the corner of his eye, smiling up at him. He cleared his throat. "Well, I guess…ain't nothin' to be proud of." His eyes turned a little closer to hers, then they both darted back to face the poker table. "Uh, listen, d'you wanna…go to the bar and get a…" "Huang jin dai ti liang xin cheat!" The tall man with the salt and pepper beard pushed back from the table violently, sending bronze cards and plastic chips scattering. A short black man sitting next to him scowled. "Si' down, Art." "Bu hao re! She's cheatin'!" The man jabbed a finger at Rachel, but the other visiting captains shouted him down. Rachel raised her hands defensively. "Just 'cause I'm better'n you's no reason to get uppity, friend." The shorter man shrugged apologetically. "I 'pologize for Art. He's a little paranoid ever since he got conned out of all that money he put in wobbly-headed geisha dolls." "Hey, people love those!" Rachel nodded and kicked her chair back from the table. "Thanks all the same, but it's about time for me to cash in anyways. I got a schedule to keep." Rachel gathered her chips together—significantly more than she came in with, Dex could see where Art got the idea—and Mariah and the mechanic followed her to the counter. "Oh, yeah, see, just soon as I get wise to 'er!" "Shut up, Art." Saul met them at the door to the gambling lounge. "Cap'n, we're all loaded up." She nodded as she counted off a modest of Alliance bank notes. "We get a job?" "No, game was a bust. Everyone here now's either buyin' or sellin'. No transfers." Dex gestured to the money. "Well, at least the day wasn't a total waste." "Excuse me, Captain?" All four turned around to face the middle-aged balding man standing in the lounge doorway. "Yes sir, how can I help you?" The man squeezed a hat between his hands nervously. Now Mariah placed him—he had been watching the game from the other side of the poker pit. "I, uh…I have a job I'd like to hire you for." Rachel slid away the stack of bills and smiled. "Is that so? What do you need? Ferry, cargo?" "No, nothing like…I need you to get my daughter back."