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“What’s done’s done,” Cormac says. “Red Hand don’t trouble us much, being as we’re clan of the Reaper, but since the Alltribe started kicking in their teeth, they come down the coast more often. They’ll butcher the village for this. Anyone else see you come in?”

I shake my head, watching him very carefully. “We just need to use your transmitter. Reach Julii’s people and it’s like we were never here. Can you help us with that?”

“Yut,” he says. “Got the code to the building, I do. You wanna go now?”

Seeing something I don’t, Volga lets her finger click the safety off her rifle. Her voice goes deep and husky. “You legion?”

He chuckles. “Fourth. Formerly.”

“Why formerly? War’s still on.”

He pulls up his right leg and sets it on the table, jerking his pants up to show a clunky artificial limb. “Got this baby in the Rat War. Now I’m just a fisherman. Speakin’ o’ which, we got some extra stew and bread if you’re hungry.”

My stomach growls, but it doesn’t seem smart to take food from someone we don’t know. Not with the Red Hand crawlin’ about. “You think I poisoned me stew before you came in here?” he asks. “That’s some swell foresight I got. Go on. I’ll sit here, hands where you can see ’em. Even if I was the Fury herself, doubt I’d try much with an Obsidian and a Peerless under me roof with me children.”

* * *

—

Warm and filled with soup and fresh bread, I watch Cormac flirt with Volga. He’s tied her about his finger with Rat War stories. He seems nice as they come, but so was Ephraim. Volga peeks in periodically on Victra like a worrying maid, and paces as if it was her baby about to be delivered. She only sits back at the table with Cormac and me when Victra yells something with a lot of syllables at her.

Victra’s second stage of labor is not long in lasting. The storm comes in full outside as I bring her a glass of water. She chugs it down in one gulp. Sleet clatters its claws against the window. “How are our hosts?”

“I think the girl’s sleeping. Boy’s just stewin’, and Cormac’s spinning stories to Volga now.”

“You trust him?” Victra asks.

“No. Don’t know him. I say we tie him up.”

“This is my planet,” she says. “I don’t fear a man and two children.”

“But you got a blood war on you. You know well as I do what that means.” She doesn’t dismiss me this time.

“If only the world still had manners.” She sighs longingly. “That’ll be all, thank you.”

I don’t leave.

“You know, I’m not an idiot,” I say. “I’ve seen more babies born than you have. Delivered half a dozen myself.”

She crosses her arms and leans against the wall. Still naked. Her skin lit ruby by the heater’s glowing coils. “Let me guess, it’s a tribal tradition.”

“That’s right.” I cross my arms. “Me ma taught me, and her ma taught her.”

“My mother taught me how to blockade a planet with nothing but asteroids and gravity haulers,” she replies.

“And how useful is that now?”

“I’m in labor. Please spare me the recitation of your culture’s antiquated but treasured ways. Shut the door behind you. Volga is like a wounded puppy.”

I set my shoulders square up with her. “All’s I’m saying is it’s at least several…or more weeks late…right? You said that yourself. You might need help.”

“All my babies are fashionably late,” she replies. She sighs when she sees I’m not leaving. “You deliver that blind one? The one in the Citadel?”

“His name’s Liam.”

“Was he blind at birth or did you boggle it up?”

“Tryin’ to make me cry and run away?” I ask. She was. Words don’t stab so deep as they used to. “He was premature. And yeah. I was there. I cut the lifestring with my own hands.”