"I don't like it." Shaw Gojo slammed his empty coffee mug down on the common room's table and tilted his chair back, throwing lanky legs onto the hard plas tabletop. "I mean, it sucks what happened to your home, and I'm sorry about your old man, but the fact remains that you had two killers chasing you around for two days, and you got away from them because you hid in my cargo. They saw my ship, man."

Gen gripped his fork and kept his gaze on his plate of food. "I couldn't run any further, and yours was the only ship with an open ramp and cargo pods still on the floor."

"So you took advantage of the fact that my partner is a chatty little motherfucker who would rather look at vids with his inspector buddies than actually load the ship." Shaw directed that comment toward Gadget.

"I said I was sorry," Gadget mumbled around a mouthful of eggs.

Gen looked up and squarely met Shaw's hostile gaze. "Yeah, I did. I needed to get away from those men—they almost killed me once, I didn't want them to get another chance."

Shaw sat up, his boots landing with a thump on the deck. "The worst part of this whole mess is that you don't know why! How can you not know why people are trying to kill you? People have tried to kill me before, and I definitely knew why."

"That's because you either cheated them at ten-card or were sleeping with their girlfriends," Gadget said.

"I told you everything I heard them say," Gen said. "I've never heard of that guy Litou, and I have no idea who those 'others' were that they were talking about."

"What about that Uko guy?" Shaw asked.

Gen frowned. "My dad had a friend named Uko, who used to visit us when I was younger. He didn't like me all that much, but I can't imagine him wanting to have me killed." He had to admit he never liked Uko either, and he'd always wondered what his father saw in the man, but he'd never doubted that their friendship had been genuine.

Shaw shook his head. "This is way too complicated for me, pal. We arrive at Kayuun in three days, and when we dock in their spaceport, you are getting off my ship."

"That's fine, " Gen said. "That's all I wanted, was to get off-planet."

"I would say that you owe me for all the meds and food you're consuming," Shaw said, gesturing at Gen's plate, "but even I know it would be stupid for you to try and access any of your accounts."

Gadget scowled at him. "Stop being such a hard-ass, Shaw. You can take the money for food and meds out of my share. Gen was hurt and needed help, and we were there—what's so bad about helping him?"

"I don't like being this close to trouble that I didn't cause," Shaw replied. "Look, we'll let him off at Kayuun—"

"With no money?" Gadget rose from his chair.

"You want to give him money, give him money." Shaw got up and retrieved his coffee mug. "I'm giving him shelter, food and water until we reach Kayuun."

"Gadget, sit down," Gen said. He looked up at Shaw. "I'll repay you as soon as I'm able."

"Yeah, whatever. The best way you can repay me is to get as far away from me as possible when dock at Kayuun." Shaw poured himself more coffee, and then he left the common room and went into his office.

"Man, he's being a jerk about this," Gadget said as he plopped back down in his seat. "I'm sorry."

Gen returned to eating his breakfast. "Don't be," he said. "He's right, and I would probably had said the same thing. He's also right that I took advantage of you."

Gadget rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, guess I learned that lesson the hard way."

"And don't worry about giving me money," Gen said in between bites of food, "I'll find work. What you've done for me is more than enough."

Gadget leaned on the table, resting his chin in his hands. "It's just that I was once in a real bad place with no food or money, and somebody helped me. I want to be that kind of person who helps."

Gen drank down the last of his coffee. "You know what would really help right now?"

"What?" Gadget sat back up.

"A shower, if you can spare the water," Gen replied. "And a change of clothes." He indicated his filthy, torn pants. "These are about to fall apart, and I'm guessing you had to cut off my shirt."

Gadget smiled. "A shower is no problem—our graywater tanks can support six people. I'll ask Shaw for some of his clothes, you're closer to him in size."

"Good luck with that," Gen said.

"He's pissed off at you right now, but he'll get over it," Gadget said. "He always does." He rose and gathered up their plate and put them in the cleaning unit, and then he turned toward Gen. "Ready?"

Gen carefully eased out of his chair and followed Gadget into their shared quarters.

Gadget pointed to the washroom. "The shower unit's right in there, to the left of the toilet. You ever showered on a ship?" When Gen shook his head he continued, "Only use the water when you need to, do all of your soaping up and scrubbing with the water off. I do it that way so I can run the water for a little while at the end." Gadget carefully removed Gen's bandages and the plas-skin that covered the burn on his side, and then he jerked a thumb toward his bunk. "I'll hang out over there, just in case you have any trouble. Yell if you need me."

"Okay, thanks."

The hot water felt wonderful on his sore muscles, and it felt even better to wash the sweat, grime, and blood from his body. He followed Gadget's recommendation, and when Gen was done he stood beneath the hot spray for a few blissful minutes. While he dried off, he examined himself in the foggy mirror above the sink. Not too bad, he decided; he had a good number of gashes and bruises, but the worst injury was the blaster wound to his side, and—thanks to Gadget—it was already almost halfway healed. Gen wrapped the towel around his hips and left the washroom.

Gadget lay on his bunk, reading a repair manual, and he looked up when Gen walked into the main room. "Clothes are over there", he said, gesturing toward the end of his bunk. "I bet you feel a million times better."

"Fuck yeah," Gen said. He dropped his towel and reached for the borrowed pants, and while he pulled them on he was aware of the way Gadget's appraising gaze flicked over his body from behind the book. Gen had been looked at that way before, by both women and men, but this was the first time that he wasn't discomfited by it. Maybe it was because there was no intent behind Gadget's look, just open, honest admiration.

Gen found that he didn't mind it at all.

"Don't put that on yet," Gadget said when Gen reached for the shirt. Gen watched Gadget while he gently dabbed biogel on his wound, and then covered it with a fresh sheet of plas-skin. "There you go. This should be healed by tomorrow, if we're lucky." Gadget reached for the transdermal pen. "You okay with pain?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Gen said. "It hurts, but nowhere near what it did yesterday. You do good work."

A splash of pink appeared on Gadget's cheeks. "I'm good at fixing things—people are things too, just living." He dialed the pen for an antibio dose, and pressed it against Gen's arm. "All done. We'll keep up with the antibio until tomorrow, I think." He re-packed the medikit while Gen buttoned up the shirt, and then he said, "C'mon, you can come help me do a repair in the lower engineering bay."

"But I don't know anything about repairing a ship," Gen protested. "I've only fixed grav-sleds and other machinery at the vineyard."

"That's okay. I need to finish rebuilding our jumpdrive, and I could really use someone to just hand me stuff and help hold stuff in place. We can tell Shaw you're working off your room and board." Gadget grinned at him.

"Works for me," Gen said.

They spent most of the day in the tiny room that housed the ship's jumpdrive; Gen sat on a stool and handed Gadget tools and parts, and other times he held parts steady so that Gadget could work on them. He told Gadget about the vineyard, and his life there, and Gadget told him stories from when he lived on Bel'een, and how he met Shaw.

"Old man Noon had died the year before, and I took over running the shop," Gadget said from underneath the jumpdrive unit. "Shaw showed up one day and told me he'd just won a ship in a game of ten-card. He asked if I'd come take a look at it, since he'd heard I was good at fixing stuff. We get to where it's docked, and when I went inside and came down here I started laughing my ass off. Gimme a number eight socket?"

"Why'd you laugh?" Gen handed him the tool.

"Whoever he'd won the ship from had stripped out half the ship's modules, and they'd taken the entire jumpdrive unit. All the expensive shit. Dude must've commed someone as soon as he gave the papers to Shaw, and they took everything they could carry."

"Shit," Gen said. "So he won a ship that he couldn't fly?"

"Pretty much," Gadget replied. "That's when he offered me a deal to work on the ship, get her running again, and in return I would get room and board, and a third of the money from our cargo runs."

"Not a bad deal."

"I thought it was pretty sweet, and I liked the idea of living on a freighter like this. See places, you know?" Gadget patted the bulkhead next to the drive. "Shaw gets all 'his ship' sometimes, but she's my ship too—I've put a lot of work into her over the last couple of years." Gadget finished his repairs, and then he handed the socket back to Gen and slid the module back in place. "All done for today!" he said, and he got up and pulled the cover back down over the drive unit. "That really helped, having you here to hand me stuff and hold things. Shaw hates doing that."

Gadget took the remaining tools from Gen and re-packed his toolbox. "I'll leave this here, 'cause I'm gonna take advantage of having you around for three days! I'll be able to get a bunch of stuff done with the extra help. C'mon," he said, "Let's go get dinner started. We don't want Shaw to cook dinner, he sucks at it."

For the rest of the evening, they remained in the ship's common room. Gadget was a decent enough cook, and Shaw had mellowed enough toward Gen to offer him a beer. By the time they had completed five games of ten-card, Shaw was positively friendly.

"Man, it's nice to have an extra person playing," Shaw said as he pulled the pile of plaques toward him. "You're pretty good. Gadget's gotten decent, but a lot of games just aren't as fun with just two people. Gadge, get us a couple more beers while I put everything away."

Gadget complied, and he handed Gen and Shaw a bottle. "Yeah, usually we only have really good card games when we see our friend Kai."

"Yeah, but Kai beats us every fucking time," Shaw said, and he took a long pull from his bottle. "You're getting better, Gadge, but I can still beat you most of the time. Gen here is giving me a good run for my money."

Gadget drank some of his beer. "Then it's not such a bad thing that he's here for a couple days, hunh?" He winked at Gen.

"Nah, not too bad." Shaw closed the lid on the card set. "You know how to play 'Oh Hell,' Gen?"

"Yeah," Gen said. "My dad liked that one a lot." A memory rose of playing cards with Komou on cold winter nights, sitting near the fire and drinking wine. He swallowed with some effort and stared at his beer bottle.

For a few moments everyone was quiet.

"Excellent," Shaw said, breaking the silence. "We'll play that tomorrow night, and we'll drink to your old man." He got up from the table and put the card set away, and then he retrieved his beer and said, "Nighty-night, boys, I'm gonna go watch some stars." He left the common room and headed for the bridge.

Gadget clinked his bottle against Gen's. "He likes you now."

"I'm thrilled," Gen said, deadpan.

They finished their beer and he helped Gadget clean up, and then they returned to Gadget's quarters and prepared for bed. Gen eyed the hammock of webbing. "I guess I'm in this tonight?" he asked.

Gadget's head poked around from the washroom doorway. "Hunh? Oh, yeah. It's pretty comfy, and I lowered it earlier so you don't have to climb into it."

Two sleepless hours later, Gen decided that it was not particularly comfortable, despite Gadget's claim. Maybe it was due to Gen's larger frame, but Gen found it difficult to find a spot where he could relax, and the way the webbing swayed every time he moved unnerved him. He shifted again, muttering a curse when his foot slipped through a space in the webbing. How the hell did Gadget sleep on this when Gen had been in his bed?

The room was bathed in the pale blue light from the tiny bulb over the hatch, and Gen glanced over to where Gadget lay. The little shit was sprawled in his bunk, snoring, his arms and legs all over the place.

There was plenty of room for two in that bunk.

"Fuck this," Gen muttered. He managed to get off the webbing without tipping over, and then he hitched up the waistband of his borrowed sleep-pants and shuffled over to Gadget's bunk. He sat down on the mattress and poked Gadget in the ribs with an elbow. "Move over," he said.

Gadget started at the contact. "Wha—?" He blinked sleepily at Gen. "What're you doin' here, Gen?"

"That nest of yours is only fit for monkeys, I can't sleep in that piece of crap. Move over."

"Um, okay." Gadget shifted over to make room.

Gen slid under the covers and stretched out next to Gadget, and he gave a contented sigh. This was much better. Warmer, too.

"Uh, I think I should warn you that Shaw says I'm a bedhog."

Gen snorted. "I could see that already." He scowled in the darkness. "You sleep with that jerk?"

"No! Not like that!" Gadget exclaimed, vigorously shaking his head. "Sometimes if we need extra money we'll fill up my quarters with cargo and I'll bunk with him. But not like that."

"Not your type, I guess?"

"No way!"

"What is your type, then?" Gen asked, even though he thought he knew the answer.

Gadget stammered something unintelligible in reply, and the awkward silence that followed confirmed Gen's suspicions.

"Good night, Gadget," Gen said, and he tried to keep his amusement out of his voice.

"G-good night." Gadget rolled over so that his back was to Gen, and within a few minutes Gen heard his soft snores resume.

Gen closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. At some point during the night Gen woke to find Gadget's arm flung across his waist, and he felt the warm press of Gadget's body next to his, and the damp puffs of Gadget's breath against his skin.

He didn't mind that, either.