The Shuttle Drawings

The dockside drafting clerk remembers Anselm Rook clearly. "He paid for six clean copies of a ward-shuttle blueprint and chartered a fast sloop this morning. I told the other bounty hunter the exact same thing." She nods across the street toward a man in a long duster coat leaning in a tavern doorway, watching your ship.

Rook's chartered sloop has a four-hour lead. Past the last fortress, she dives straight into a dense bank of industrial forge-smoke, where swirling cinders from the giant smelter flues can easily hide a small hull—or scorch a pursuing ship.

Ashby is calm, polite, and all business. "The Guild pays the same bounty for Rook dead or alive, so long as the blueprints are recovered. I propose we hunt him together and split the reward fifty-fifty. Or you can claim the bounty for yourself, and we'll settle right outside the harbor whose ship is faster."

Rook's sloop is moored beneath a rock overhang with a hired corsair ship guarding the approach. On the sloop's deck, a thin young drafter holds a roll of blueprints over a lit brazier. "I'm Anselm Rook! I drafted these ward-shuttle plans when I was fourteen under indenture, and the Guild bought my life's work from my master for a keg of nails! Come any closer and I burn the originals—or board alone and hear me out!"

Rook sits bound on a crate in your cargo hold with the rolled blueprints beside him. "The Guild's bounty agent waits at a picket station an hour from here," he says quietly. "He'll pay you full silver for me and lock me in a private Guild cellar where no judge will ever hear my case." Up on deck, your helmsman awaits your course.

Up close, Rook is exhausted, his cuffs stained with drafting chalk. "Under Compact law, an indentured apprentice legally owns half of any invention he creates. If I reach the patent court alive with these original drawings, the judges will void the Guild's monopoly. That's why the Guild posted me dead or alive." He rolls the blueprints tight. "Escort me to the patent court, and I'll build the first licensed ward-shuttle directly into your ship's Ward Loom."

The Compact registrars examine Rook's old indenture contract, the Guild's bill of sale, and the fourteen-year-old boy's signature in the corner of the original blueprints. "Under Compact law, half the patent belongs to the creator," the chief registrar rules. "The Guild's exclusive claim is void, and they must pay him licensing fees like anyone else." Outside on the court steps, Rook sits down weak-kneed with relief.