Kandi gets back to the ship to an obviously tense standoff in the galley, Whisper backed into a corner and the old soldier blocking her in, coiled like violence, in a stance intended to cow. He's red and heaving for breath like he's been screaming, again.
Kandi steps in quietly, and to the side a little, turning her body so she doesn't block the doorway.
"What's going on here?" she says, conversational, and the captain whirls on her, too much of his teeth and the whites of his eyes showing, rocking on the balls of his feet before he spits on the deck between them.
"Not my floor to mop, guy," she says, keeping her shoulders relaxed, and waits; waits; watches him stomp out past her, snarling and wordless.
She counts forty-five seconds after he goes, lightly grips Whisper's bicep, steers her to the cabin they're stowed in.
"He's a time bomb," she says, murmuring low against Whisper's temple. "We are not staying on board; we can be on a bus midway to the nearest city in two hours. Grab your gear."
On the mostly-empty bus, later, Kandi leaning against the window and Whisper slumped in the aisle seat with her hands laced together in her lap, Whisper says, "I fucked that up."
"That," Kandi says, eyes nearly closed, "is a guy with issues."
"He never would have taken us on board in the first place," Whisper says. "I greased the wheels."
Find the place that sticks and what it needs to free it up. The essence of Whisper's job.
"Mhm," Kandi says, as if she's nearly asleep.
"He let us on board because I got on my knees for him," Whisper says.
Some people measure out the world in the currencies they have to spend, and the vagaries of their buying power. Of course Whisper knows, to six decimals, what a mouth can buy.
"It wasn't the only boat in the world," Kandi says tiredly.
"He got the idea we're screwing," Whisper says, very quietly. "I think it got tangled up in his head with the notion of chain of command. That it made you insubordinate."
"Issues," Kandi repeats, and lets her eyes actually close for a second.
Strategic shows of honesty, vulnerability, are also currency.
The slow-dancing round the point they've been doing, touch and countertouch, long looks and sleeping nestled together; also currency.
Kandi's a simple machine, a quick and hot and dirty engine running on loyalty and violence. It doesn't make her stupid. It puts her in stupid places, sometimes, doing stupid things; knowing she's getting fucked. Knowing she's been cheaply bought for the opportunity to arbitrage; genuine loyalty sells dear.
She opens her eyes again, skims a knuckle lightly along the outside of Whisper's thigh.
Genuinely loyalty does sell dear, regardless.
"You should get some sleep," she says.
