“Here,” John said, and reached for the child.
Ruthie made a noise like he would reject this, then visibly forced himself to let go and gave the baby to his husband. John began pacing the living room, making soothing sounds.
I sat in the other armchair and picked up my knitting; it would give my hands something to fidget with until the crying stopped.
We were lucky: Not five minutes later, the baby was snoring and drooling into John’s coat seams. Wisely, he kept bouncing.
Ruthie leaned forward, pitching his voice low. “After we left Medical, I sat down to rest my eyes a moment in the living room, while John washed his blanket. He tells me you stopped by with paperwork sometime after that?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I slept through you, and I just kept on sleeping.All the advice I’ve been reading says that when the baby sleeps, you should sleep, too. So I did. John stayed up a bit reading over dinner, then headed upstairs for a shower. He checked on us again, and then decided to get some sleep himself.” Ruthie swallowed. “And then, next thing I know, I’m waking up and the door is open and there’s someone standing over me, reaching for Peregrine.”
I shuddered. “Description?”
“Thought it was a man. Short hair, men’s jacket, thin build. His face was in shadow from the light coming in the door behind him. And then…” He wheezed out the ghost of a laugh. “Peregrine woke up. And he did not want to. And he began to protest.”
“I heard him from upstairs,” John put in as he continued to circuit the room.
“And the kidnapper didn’t expect it, because he jerked back.” Ruthie’s face turned smug beneath the pallor. “And thenIbegan to protest. Rather strenuously. With a fist.”
“You hit him?”
“Unfortunately, no—it is quite hard to issue a decisive and shattering blow to an enemy’s jawbone when you are trying to do it around a very loud, very fragile baby. But I was going in for a second attempt anyway, and this one would have been a face ruiner.”
“And a hand ruiner,” John muttered.
“The intruder turned and ran—John chased him a waysdown the deck, but lost him when he turned into the Greenway.”
“The lock was wiped when he entered,” John added. “So we can’t trace him that way.”
And I couldn’t help, either, Ferry added plaintively. The shipmind could be queried about any individual’s present location, but for privacy’s sake didn’t store records of passenger movement. And there were a hundred perfectly legitimate, innocent reasons why a person would be in the Greenway in the middle of the night.
“So we decided to come here,” Ruthie finished. “Because what good is having an aunt for a ship’s detective if you have to do all your own detecting?” He planted his hands on his knees and sat up in the armchair. “I demand a full investigation into Crimes Committed and their potential involvement in the first attempted kidnapping of a minor that theFairweatherhas seen in three hundred years.”
Oh, stars save us.
I dropped my head into my hands. Crimes Committed was a myth from the Antikythera Club, a running joke about some mysterious villain who collected all the dangerous inventions and frightening schemes club members created (when they weren’t dreaming up useful technology and advancing scientific knowledge, which devices were naturally passed along to the Board). If Crimes Committed was real, that was probably what Violet was up to—but Ididn’t want to think Violet would ever be a menace to my family. “Allow me to investigate on my own, please, Ruthie. The three of you can stay here—I’ll ask for a guard, and have Ferry revoke all accesses but mine and yours until we can figure out what’s happened.”
Ruthie grumbled. John said, “I’ll have to call in for my shift.”
“Wait—don’t do that,” I said, as an idea occurred. John was the most talented mixer of memory cocktails at the Antikythera Club. A place of overstuffed furniture, decadent food, and wild and wide-ranging intellects. “You and Ruthie should both go in. And you should take Peregrine with you.”
“I don’t see how cocktails are going to help this situation,” Ruthie protested, though his eyes spoke of yearning.
“Couldn’t hurt,” John murmured, mid-bounce.
“Think of it this way,” I said. “You could stay here, alone, in a place they know you’ll run to, exhausted and fearful. We already know the intruder can bypass the door locks. Or… you could take Peregrine to the Antikythera, where he will be the absolute center of at least a dozen wide-awake, brilliant people’s rapt attention—and where entry is also heavily restricted and the entrance monitored around the clock.”
Ruthie gave a little laugh, desperation ringing in every note of it. “Well,” he said, “that settles it. Cocktails it is.”
I finished my coffee, decided the ship-wideannouncement couldn’t wait, sent it off urgently for the Board’s approval, and escorted my little trio to the Antikythera Club’s doorway.
Gaskill was the door-warden on duty this morning, a broad-shouldered, stone-faced woman I’d never once seen crack a smile. She stared for a long moment at the baby, whom Ruthie had reclaimed and was holding close to his chest like a bear cradling a wayward cub.
Slowly, Gaskill leaned down and peered into the child’s eyes.
Peregrine blinked up at her innocently—and burped.
