“You think?” Pendt said.
“I mean, everything is always accounted for perfectly,” Dulcie clarified. “In two decades, you’d think there’d be some kind of oversight with the manifest.”
“You haven’t spent much time with my aunt,” Pendt pointed out. “Captain Arkady knows everything about the Harland. It’s almost uncanny.”
“Maybe,” Dulcie said. “But what kind of ship that size has an entirely empty hold when it comes into the only large station it encounters in two decades?”
“What?” Pendt said. Then she remembered her passage through the lower hold, how everything was clean and there was no sign of any passengers having spent years living there. “Oh, the lower hold. That’s for passengers. They’re usually outgoing, to work on the mining colonies.”
“If you say so,” Dulcie said. “Anyway, the quartermaster has several options for you, whenever you’re ready. It’s a question of location, really. The places you work on the station are pretty spread out.”
“Thank you,” Pendt said, accepting the datapad from her. “I’ll take a look and think about what I want. It should probably be nearer operations, though. That’s where I’m needed the most urgently.”
“True enough,” Dulcie said.
Pendt bid her goodbye and headed out onto the colonnade. She stopped for a snack at one of the restaurants and sat chewing thoughtfully while she turned her discussion with Dulcie over in her mind. Pendt had been quick to dismiss the foreman’s suggestions in conversation, that there was something shady about the Harland, but now that she was mulling it over, Pendt was forced to admit Dulcie might be right. She didn’t know why she felt so defensive about it. She wasn’t a Harland anymore and she was never going back. But she’d been on that ship for almost eighteen years. Whatever took place on board, she was party to, whether she liked it or not.
There was one person who might know. Dr. Morunt resolutely refused to discuss his sister with her, but maybe if she explained that it was necessary, he would open up. She hated to ask anyone to access painful memories. She knew how difficult they were to bury and unlearn, but she had a feeling she was going to need answers.
Pendt finished her snack and turned in her dishes. Several people came up to her to inquire about her health and Fisher’s. She told them that Fisher was doing well—the truth—but that he might be working a bit too hard. This received understanding nods, and she promised everyone that she was keeping an eye on him, which was also true.
Making her way along the colonnade, Pendt took time to look in shop windows and watch station residents go about their business. It was a system she never tired of: the flow of goods made on the station or imported from Katla, the ebb of conversation and movement in the crowd around her. Today it was even more comforting. Ned was gone, but Brannick Station was able to continue to function because of what he had done when he was still alive.
At last, she made her way to the infirmary and ducked into Dr. Morunt’s portion of the office. He was sitting at his desk, reading something, and so she coughed politely to get his attention.
“Pendt, a pleasure,” he said. “Please, sit.”
“I’m not here for a medical reason,” Pendt said. “If you have important work to do, I can come back.”
“No, it’s all right,” Morunt said. “I have nothing pressing for a couple of hours, and some conversation would be welcome.”
Pendt hoped he still felt that way after she started talking.
“Dr. Morunt, I know this is a difficult time for a lot of us, and I hate to add pressure to you.” Pendt began as diplomatically as she could. “But if you can, if you’re able, I need to ask you some questions about your sister.”
Morunt stilled in his chair, his face growing several shades paler.
“Foreman Channing has raised concerns about my family’s ship,” Pendt continued. “And since that would impact my safety and the safety of the station, I was hoping you might be able to help. I know it’s not a subject you are comfortable with, and I understand if you kick me out of your office, but please understand: You are the only person who might be able to help me with this. I wouldn’t put you in this position if it wasn’t important.”
Morunt said nothing for a few moments, but he was nodding while he turned her words over in his thoughts.
“All right, Pendt,” he said. “I will tell you what I can. I don’t know very much.”
“Thank you,” Pendt said. She leaned back in the chair and considered her words carefully. It was probably best to be direct. “How did your sister come to be on the Harland?”
Morunt closed his eyes to the memories. A small smile curled his lips, and Pendt was glad that not all of his recollections were bad ones.
“She was a genius, our Sylvie,” he said. “She was the youngest, and my father didn’t want her. We were born on Katla, though, so it wasn’t much of a strain on him to make sure she was educated. If we’d lived anywhere else, things might have been different.”
He paused and took a deep breath.
“Sylvie started following us along to our medical classes when she was about ten,” he continued. “Her connection to the æther was about the same as ours, but she had a gift for healing. Eventually the instructors just . . . accepted her into the class. She graduated when she was seventeen.”
Pendt tried to imagine the Morunt she knew as a seventeen-year-old prodigy, and it was essentially impossible. Whatever spirit she’d had as a child, the Harland had killed off.
“Then the Harland came into Katla Station,” Morunt said.
“What?” Pendt said. “To Katla?”
“From what my father gathered, it was a very special trip,” Morunt said. “They were dropping off something too valuable to trust to another courier. I think that was what drew my father’s attention. He always had an eye for opportunities.
“Anyway,” he pressed on. “My father spoke to the captain, your grandfather, I believe, and the next thing we knew, Sylvie was dragged out of our quarters and through the Harland’s loading bay. Father didn’t let her take anything with her, said she wouldn’t need it in space. The last I saw my sister, she was screaming against the seal of a Katla airlock. My father had already turned away.”
Morunt closed his eyes and two tears ran down his cheeks.
“We couldn’t stay with our father after that,” he said. “He wanted three sons, and instead he got nothing. After Sylvie left, he could afford a nicer place for us to live, but we all refused. We knew where that money had come from. My two brothers headed towards Hoy, and I came here. It was a foolish hope, but I knew that if I ever saw Sylvie again, it would be at Brannick Station.”