You are so concerned about saying the wrong thing that ultimately you decide to remain silent, and the impasse in the viewing station is only broken by the occasional bit of static and feedback on the open radio channel between you. You can see yourself reflected in his helmet - no doubt as he can see himself reflected in yours - but by staring at his faceplate, you can make a pretty good guess as to what he can and cannot see. Right now, there is no way that he could possibly see the blueprint. But if he were to come into the copula - or even just strafe around it, you have no doubt that he would plainly see it in your hands. However, if you were to go and try to stuff the thing back into the tube, it would be plainly and painfully obvious that you were trying to hide something from him.
"That was ... really quite impressive, the uh, what you did to the worm there."
You hold your tongue, willing him to leave you alone. Unfortunately, it does not work.
"Hey - I can see your radio from here. It's not broken."
More static and feedback on the line, but nothing else, at least until he speaks again.
"You ... you are Smithy? No, Smithwick. Smithwick.That pirate cabin boy. The one that can read."
You tense up. For reasons that are obvious, you would rather that no one know you were a cabin boy. But you didn't come to the <span class="mu-i">Commissioner</span> alone - you had been accompanied with the bulk of the surviving crew of the <span class="mu-i">Salacious Scheme</span>, and they knew your history, and that you could read, and somehow or other it had gotten around. Admittedly, there had been some upside to that. Back in her day, the <span class="mu-i">Scheme</span> had racked up some impressive victories and netted some serious swag. And it just so happens that freebooters are well regarded in the <span class="mu-i">Commissioner's</span> hierarchy of peons, especially those that were taken off of noted ships. This even extends - to a limited extent, of course - to auxiliary crew, like cabin boys.
"We were in the same certification classes."
You had figured as much.
"You have been reading these papers. That's what you came back in here to do, right?"
Fuck. Of all the miserable, shitty luck, your wallflower here actually has enough brain cells to rub together.
"Listen, this recovery job is bullshit. Setting aside how the restriction against structural cuts makes this all needlessly difficult, if there are monsters like that all the way out in the cargo bay, then I hate to imagine what it is like further in."
Huh. Seems like the wallflower has quite a few brain cells to rub together.
"With the restriction against cutting into the hull, the only way to get enough conduit is to go deeper into the ship. But just like we won't get paid if we are under our target, we can't get paid if we are fucking dead to some fucking worm."
We?
