Chapter 9: The Manifest

Lucan Fell's skiff was hidden under a tarp in a collapsed hangar, and it was the most beautiful thing Maxine had seen on Ghostfall.

It was small and silver and rakish, with swept wings and a cockpit just wide enough for two.

"Her name's the Pickpocket," Lucan said, whipping off the tarp.

"I've never flown her anywhere. I've sat in her every night for four years, hoping I'd be crazy enough to run."

"Why didn't you?"

"You can't leave six cairns." He shrugged, but it did not reach his eyes. "Strap in."

They lifted out of the hangar at dawn.

The plain slid under them in streaks of rust and old steel, with wrecked warships lying across the ground.

Maxine watched it with her knees locked and her hand gripping the seat.

"You're green," Lucan said, delighted.

"I'm fine."

"You're gripping the cushion like it owes you money."

"I've never flown."

"Oh, sweetheart." His whole face lit. "Then you've never lived."

He rolled the skiff in a neat spiral and she shrieked despite herself.

She was laughing when they came down in the shadow of a huge, dented grey hull with the Court's white seal on its flank.

"The Pennant," Lucan said. "A supply tender. She crashed three years ago and nobody ever stripped her."

"The Court never sent a salvage crew, because the Court doesn't care what's in her."

"What's in her?"

"Let's find out."

The cold hold was behind a jammed hatch that took Lucan ten minutes and a lot of cursing.

When it finally screamed open, frosted air rolled out, and Maxine stopped breathing.

Racks upon racks of sealed crates, rows of them, stacked to the ceiling.

Frozen grain, dried legumes, sacks of lentils, vacuum-packed meat, tubs of fat, salt in blocks.

Real food, enough for seven men and one woman for a year.

Lucan said nothing at all.

He put his hand over his mouth.

"This has been here the whole time," he whispered.

"Three years."

"Three years. Gods, Maxine, we ate rats."

She put her arm around his waist and he leaned into her, shaking with a laugh that was half a sob.

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