Born and bred to be crewkin, Renna is devastated by the death of her ship and most of her kin. Crewkin have aspects of family and crew. They are raised in a closed society developed to guide spaceships on the decades-long voyages between asteroid mining colonies and the sun’s planets. When disaster hits her ship, her company’s medical department advises the few surviving kin to commit suicide and join their kin in death. Renna refuses. Knowing she will never join another crewkin, she resolves to stay in space doing the only job she knows. She seeks a berth on one of the short-haul shippers running between the planets, but integration into a ‘norm’ crew seems impossible until she joins the crew of the Vagrant Spirit, whose captain seems as desperate for any crewman as Renna is for a ship’s position. This job, this journey, will propel her into a new world.
