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Tress is still in the quartermaster's office, the Essence's after-smell on her tongue, when the ship's bell begins its rapid-fire summons. *All hands on deck.* Ann wants to know how Crow possibly heard them; Tress can only say it has to do with spores, that it is hard to explain. The bell rings on. Salay says they were going to do this tomorrow; now they will have to do it tonight. Tress stands and throws open the door, meaning to run for her cabin and the flare gun — and finds Laggart's pistol levelled at her forehead.

*Captain wants to see you four most of all,* he says — how convenient that they are all together. Tress manages to say that he can't hurt her; the captain needs her. *True,* he allows, and turns the pistol on Salay and shoots her through the thigh. Ann screams. Fort lunges and freezes at the sight of Laggart's second pistol. *Captain didn't say anything about bringing the other three of you up alive,* Laggart notes pleasantly, and asks Fort whether his gun speaks loudly enough. Ann binds Salay's leg with her handkerchief. It is bleeding too much; they need Ulaam. Laggart herds them up the steps. Fort lifts Salay like a child and they emerge onto a deck full of staring Dougs.

The Crimson Moon hangs overhead, its haze of spores glittering like droplets of blood. Crow stands framed against it. The Dougs line either rail, leaving the centre of the deck open for the captain and her four would-be mutineers. Laggart climbs to the quarterdeck and trains his pistol on the group. *So,* Crow says — *you lot want to take my ship away from me, do you?* No one answers. Honestly, she says, she had not thought they had it in them — and waves a Doug forward with a small table. She lays one pistol on it. Then a second. Then a third. *Consider me a proud parent. But it does make me wonder how many on this ship truly respect their captain.* Fort taps a reply on the back of his board: *no one respects you, Crow. They do what you say because they fear the spores in your blood.* She thought he was the smart one, she says: it is not the spores they fear, it is her — isn't that right, crew? Eyes drop on either side.

Then the trap: an old-fashioned duel. Three pistols, the four of them — well, three, as Salay is currently *grappling with the result of her arrogance* — against her. Ann points out the obvious unfairness: Crow's spores will stop any bullet they fire at her. *Don't fire them at me then,* Crow says. *Kill Laggart before I deal with you and I'll step down.* *Captain?* Laggart says from the quarterdeck. She tells him to stand there like a good target. He puts his pistol away, slowly, as he realises she is in fact that callous. *Well?* she says. *I'm not making an offer. It's an ultimatum.*

Fort moves first, leaping for the guns. Crow kicks the leg out from the table, scattering the weapons, surges forward, and slams her elbow into his face — a crunch Tress has never heard the like of. Tress dives for a pistol; Crow slaps Salay's crawling hand off another, snatches it up, and tosses it overboard with a shrug. Then she swings her full weight into Tress's stomach, and Tress folds around the fist. The narrator observes that there is no schoolhouse training for taking your first real punch: a part of you panics, but a bigger part is dumbfounded that another person was actually willing to do it. That, he says, is the edge a Crow will always have over others. Her mind accepts the fact at once. She hurts and kills, and she enjoys it.

Grinning, she picks up the table and slams it into Fort's face. It does not break; it is solid wood, and it leaves him sprawling. She tosses the second pistol overboard. The third has found its way to Ann, who has it pointed at Laggart. Crow gestures grandly: *be my guest.* Laggart starts to back off his post; Crow tells him she will shoot him herself if he moves — *think very carefully about which bullet you'd rather risk.* He stops. Ann steadies the gun, and in that moment understands, in the way the smart often do, that even if she hits Laggart cleanly Crow is not going to honour the deal. So she fires for the one fewer enemy. She misses by half a boat length.

Crow laughs and shoves her aside. Ann comes back with a knife. Crow takes from her own pocket a stubby gun with a very wide barrel — Tress's flare gun — and shoots Ann in the chest. The flare lodges in her clothes and the woman's body cushions the trigger; the charge releases only when it falls tip-down to the deck and cocoons her in vines. *For cheating,* the captain says, and slams her heel into Salay's wounded leg. Fort is last. She walks over to where he has dropped his writing board and snaps it in half under her heel. He cries out — the only sound the narrator has ever heard him make besides a laugh — and slumps weeping with bloody hands to bloody face.

Tress finally understands. Executing the four of them might have inspired rebellion among the Dougs; death made Weev a martyr, and Crow learned the lesson. *Humiliation made servants.* The Dougs lower their eyes. Fort's grief turns silent. The ship is quiet the way a hospital room is quiet after a loved one has died. Crow has beaten her four best officers, and never needed her spore vines to do it; she purposely held them in, Ulaam tells the narrator afterwards, so that no one could later wonder whether she was easier to handle without them.

*Cannonmaster,* Crow barks. *Lower anchor.* But the lair is days away, Laggart starts to protest — *we've arrived,* she cuts him off. She gives him a quick piece of advice on suspecting mutiny: always tell the crew the trip ends a few days later than it does, because cowards delay until the last possible moment. The anchor rattles down; she throws a letter overboard, sealed in a glass case as her books instruct, into the region the dragon watches.

She hauls Tress up by the shoulder. *You,* she tells her, *are going with me quietly and willingly, or I will have Laggart start executing your friends. This is another ultimatum.* Tress nods; she still has not got her breath back. She finds Salay looking up at her, pleading. She turns away. In that moment Salay finally believes. *You were never one, were you?* she says. *No,* Tress whispers; *I tried to tell you.* Salay slumps to the deck.

Beyond the rail the spores start to undulate, then spin in a whirlpool draining from below — a sided tunnel opens down into darkness. Xisis has the message. The launch is prepared; Crow forces Tress in. *If we don't come back in an hour,* she tells Laggart, *kill one of them.* As they are lowered to the spore surface, the narrator reaches across the rail one last time, puts a hand on Tress's shoulder, and whispers again that she has everything she needs. Crow barks at him; he backs away. Crow shoves Tress out onto the strangely solid spore floor and starts her down into the tunnel.