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I’d taught her to crochet, and she regularly raided the thrift markets for yarn of dubious origins and colors. She crocheted with more enthusiasm than skill, and the most recent results currently covered her hairless head—it was a rather hideously striped beanie that she was inordinately proud of.

I had ground based quarters within the compound, but the small berth I had on the Stardrifter was my true home. It had a bed, a table, and a minuscule bathroom with a shower. The walls of the tiny space were covered in my drawings.

The extra stool I’d managed to glean was most often occupied by Ariyani, or, as she allowed me to call her, Yani. At least, she was the only one truly welcome to sit on it.

As she sipped her tea, her tail arched up over her shoulder to scratch behind her pointed ear. What it would be like to have such an extra appendage? I rather desperately wished for a tail, it would be very satisfying.

She listened with increasing alarm to my evening’s adventures and grimaced when I got to the eartag installation.

“Damned Kurt,” I finished with a snarl. “I’d hoped to have more time. I could have escaped notice for a while yet if it hadn’t been for him.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

There was a note in her voice that had me peering more closely at her. “Did you know he was going to apply for a mating license?”

Her upper lip curled, showing a hint of tooth, and beneath her haphazardly crocheted hat, her pointed ears flattened to her hairless skull. “I was working on the forward engine casing this morning. Was right up inside it, so Kurt and Travis couldn’t see me. Heard them talking about you.”

My brows rose. “About the license?”

“About Kurt applying. Travis is pushing for it. Wants the bloodline preserved, he said.”

I was so appalled that I simply stared at her. They wanted to use me like an effing broodmare.

The pocket over her chest moved, and my mind, searching desperately for normalcy, suddenly remembered that I hadn’t come empty-handed. I dug out my bag of worms.

Almost as if my mind had been read, a little head popped out of Yani’s pocket. The hedgegopher’s fur was a silvery color with pinkish overtones, and as it emerged, you could see the orderly row of soft purple spines starting on her neck and marching along her back .

“Is Sookie hungry?” I asked her as I dumped the worms on the table. “Got some fat ones, here.”

The hedgegopher had been created by the Drolgok geneticists. They’d combined Earth’s hedgehogs with a gopher-like creature from another planet. The combination made a popular pet in a world where worms were plentiful and money not.

Sookie wrinkled her mobile, pointed nose and crawled out of her nest pocket to pounce eagerly on my offerings. She sucked them up like spaghetti, but I knew her little mouth was lined with wicked pointed teeth. If I was an insect, I’d find her fearsome.

I reached out to stroke her soft spines, and my heart rate immediately dropped as I spoke with her owner. “I’ve got to get off planet. But I don’t have enough money, not yet.”

“Kurt can’t apply for a license until you are evaluated,” Yani said. “We have a bit of time to figure out how to get you out of here.”

I knew how dim a hope that now was, even though I was off planet regularly. Our company provided shipping services for all kinds of merchandise. I was the best pilot we had, and I loved flying. It took me to markets all across the cosmos.

I already had an intercosmic ID, as it was necessary for my job. I’d hoped to get enough cash together to jump ship at one of those markets—I just needed enough to live off of until I found another job.

But getting my own money was not easy. Travis didn’t pay me much. My drawings brought in a little extra on the side, but my savings had been painfully slow to grow.

Lately I’d been taking money to ferry sketchy human-made goods to far-off markets. It was risky as hell, but I was getting desperate.

I’d been damned close to calling it enough, before tonight. Getting shot in the butt had taken a chunk out of it. Evading the eartagging was also a big part of the escape plan. Now that I was trackable, it complicated everything.

However, I’d risk getting pursued by Drakes, to escape mating Kurt. If I got far enough away, they’d be unlikely to bother coming after me.

“ Stardrifter doesn’t have anything other than shuttle duty scheduled for the next few weeks,” Yani mused. “But Stonehenge is going to Seinsep when she’s loaded.”

Stonehenge was our only freighter, but Stardrifter or one of her sister ships flew special courier voyages, as their smaller size and greater speed were ideal for materials that were time sensitive.

With her own slipstream drive, Stardrifter was a versatile little ship.

I wished she was mine, but all the ships were owned by the Drakes.

We merely leased them, but at least I’d been allowed to name her.

Yani and I had named our other ships after themes from her favorite old television series.

It focused on alien visitation to Earth and claimed that many of our planet’s ancient achievements or mysteries were due to their intervention.

Yani rather disconcertingly confirmed that there was more to it than mere speculation, but she loved watching the episodes. She had every one stored on her datapad.

I had only been a child when my father had started his shipping company. Like many other humans expanding their horizons, we’d leased older, outdated ships from the Drakes.

They might be aged, but my father had been very proud of his fleet. And when I got older, we changed their names after Yani became obsessed with her alien theory programs. So now our other two starhoppers were Atlantis and Sphinx .

My brother couldn’t care less what they were called, so long as they worked hard for us.

Between the cost of leasing and the percentage the Tazier Clan took from every shipment, the company was lucky to make anything at all.

But we did. Of course, it helped that Travis barely paid me, and that he did a lot of the piloting himself.

Stonehenge wouldn’t be leaving for another ten days. The freighter carried a lot, but loading her was as slow as the ship herself. There was another issue, however. “Travis is piloting her to Seinsep,” I said.

“Seinsep is far enough from here,” Yani mused. “If you could sneak on board the Stonehenge , you might be able to slip away.”

I sucked my lip between my teeth. It might be my only chance to escape. I looked across to Yani. “Have you saved enough to come with me?”

She shrugged. “Define ‘enough money to rebuild your life’”. But it doesn’t matter. I think we are out of time.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Because she was right.