Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

Spacers and submariners have a lot in common. Biggest difference is they have specific purposes and set periods on board, whereas free traders live in a fancy tube because it’s the only place we’ve got.
Anything that threaten ‘fireflies’ – the ships we call home – terrifies us. Every crew’s paranoid about stopping or avoiding them. But yesterday we caught the one of the worst: Jasmo Dean, wanted on sixteen counts of Wanton Plunder: taking everything a ship has, including the air, and the lives of the crew.
“How did he get aboard?”
Captain Rand’s livid, but we don’t know the answer. Two people came aboard at the last spaceport, neither were Jasmo, and they’re sitting opposite me right now.
Misty speaks quietly.
“He said he arrived a few minutes before Barton caught him.”
Barton howls with laughter.
“In the middle of the big empty, he just popped in?”
Misty nods.
“Said he wouldn’t have bothered us but urgently needed a toilet. Ate something bad on Brindak.”
We all stare at her. Brindak’s two months away in a different direction from the route we’re on.
Rand pats her hand.
“He’s shining you on. That’s how his kind lull you into befriending them: first they gain your trust. Eventually they’ll turn on you.”
“Can the accused say something, please?”
We all look about in fright. Barton brings up the cell hologram: Jasmo’s sitting cross-legged, looking up at a cam.
“Yes, I’m still confined. No, I can’t explain in any way you’ll understand. But if I could have a candle, I can demonstrate.”
Rand bristles.
“No way in creation I’m giving you a fire source!”
Jasmo grins.
“I didn’t say I wanted a lighter. Just a candle.”
Rand points at me.
“Did you search him?”
“Yes. One rucksack containing basic toiletries and old clothes. No technology except for a standard issue crewmate dagger in a plain locking sheath.”
He nods. You never separate a spacer from their utility knife. It arrives with you, and often will become your headstone.
“Show of hands. Do we give him a candle?”
Misty throws her hand up.
Barton considers, then raises his slowly.
“Fifty-millimetre stub. Not a whole one.”
Good idea. I tip my hand his way.
Our passengers are divided: Abello shakes their head. Drantysh raises a hand.
Rand shakes his head.
“Four to two. Who’s taking it?”
Misty stands up. Barton gets a fresh candle from our trade goods and cuts the stub from the wick end. She goes. We watch the hologram.
Jasmo gives her a little bow without rising. After she exits, he gets up, retrieves the candle, and… Waits?
Misty rejoins us.
“Now watch.”
We all focus on the hologram.
“Travel, as with most things deemed impossible without technology, is a matter of focus and will. On a planet, you focus on a star in the sky. Out here…”
He holds up the candle in one hand, then snaps the fingers of the other.
It lights! The blue globe throws shadows across his face.
“Then all a wizard has to do is will oneself onwards.”
He vanishes!
Utter pandemonium breaks out.
Much later we’re all sitting around, almost scared to look at one another. Jasmo, impossibly, is no longer on the ship.
His voice comes, sounding like he’s shouting from far away.
“Sorry about the scare. The authorities fear people like me. My peers hate that I won’t hide. Two very different motives behind me being framed as a pariah. I’m no threat to fireflies. You’re like tiny islands in an endless sea of night. Only a fool would harm such.”