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“She’s been briefed. I brief her daily.”
    “I see.” I couldn’t tell from her tone of voice just what Halley Keracides saw. “Does she know her entire crew could die at any moment?”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Yes, it is, and you know it. Those engines are running on borrowed time, Kilcannon. This whole ship is. Sooner or later the engines will fail and you’ll never come out of jump.”
    I pretended nonchalance and shrugged. “I hear Haven’s pretty this time of year.”
    “Haven?” She obviously knew about Haven, the sailor’s paradise, which wasn’t something you could say about a lot of managers. “Is that where you believe ships go when they don’t come out of jump?”
    “They’ve got to go somewhere.”
    “No, they don’t. Not according to the physics. And even if they did, they couldn’t go to Haven because there’s no such place.”
    I made another shrug even though I could tell they were annoying her. “It’s a big universe.”
    “Not that big. One single place where every sailor would be happy? No such place could be real.” Halley slammed her palm down onto the arm of her chair. “Dammit, Kilcannon, I can’t believe this. Why won’t the Captain talk to me? I’ve never seen her and none of the crew will talk to me about her.”
    “I told you. She’s busy. You know a ship Captain’s responsibilities.”
    “I know they allow a few minutes a day to leave her cabin and talk to people her ship has rescued.” She fixed me with a demanding look. “The truth, Kilcannon. In the saints’ names, what’s wrong with Captain Weskind?”
    “She’s…” I looked away but something made me tell the truth for the first time in a long time. “Multi-polar degenerative cognitive disorder.”
    When I looked back, Halley’s jaw had actually dropped in amazement. “Untreated?”
    “Yes. No. I mean, we haven’t been able to keep the right meds in stock.” It wasn’t something I got to talk about and now the words tumbled out of me. “The right meds could help her even now, maybe. I don’t know. Probably not. But the right meds cost money. A lot of money. So did doctors authorized to prescribe them. Weskind spent the money on the Lady , instead. It wasn’t enough, but it was more. That’s what she said every time I suggested keeping her body on an even keel, and even I couldn’t explain how she’d get refills for special meds in some of the ports we hit.”
    “By the saints, Kilcannon, someone with untreated multi-polar can’t run a ship!”
    “ Captain Weskind can .”
    She sat back, eyeing me with an expression I couldn’t read. “You do realize you have a legal responsibility to report a captain who’s incapacitated?”
    “Captain Weskind is not incapacitated!” I realized I’d yelled and my face felt hot. Halley’s non-expression hadn’t changed, but I tried to speak more calmly. “She needs a little extra help. That’s all. She’s in command.”
    “I see,” Halley answered again in a tone that conveyed nothing. “How long have you known Captain Weskind?”
    I rubbed my face with both hands, feeling embarrassed. “Since Galpin Prime. The Lady was in port. I met Captain Weskind there. I was just a kid.”
    “Galpin Prime.” Halley pondered the name. “Not exactly the finest planet in the known universe.”
    “It’s a cesspit. It’s where I grew up.” I looked away again, fighting off memories. “No hope and no way out. Until I met Captain Weskind. She didn’t have to spend a moment on me. Not one . But she noticed me. She offered me a job on the Lady .”
    “As First Officer?”
    “As a deckhand. I worked my way up. All the way from the bottom. Captain Weskind believed in me.”
    “She didn’t have multi-polar then?”
    “No. At least, it hadn’t manifested itself.”
    “So, you owe her…”
    “Everything.”
    Halley nodded slowly. “Does she know her ship is running drugs?” I didn’t say anything, taking refuge in silence for a moment.