“We looked for word of you,” Laurence said finally, “but—I could not presume to write your family—”

“No, of course,” Ferris said, low. “I know you were in prison, when—” and they were silent once again.

“I can hardly offer you any recompense which should be adequate,” Laurence said at last: as futile as the offer might be, still it must be made. “But whatever remedy should be in my power to make you—if you have come here intending to establish an estate, I would—” Laurence swallowed his distaste. “I can presume on some acquaintance with the governor, MacArthur; if you should—”

“No, sir, I don’t, that—I heard you had gone, and Temeraire, to start the breeding grounds here,” Ferris said. “I thought, if you were not an officer yourself, anymore, then perhaps you might—that I might be of use, if I came. And in any case—” He stopped, and indeed did not need to go on to make abundantly clear the other motives which should have made such a flimsy hope sufficient to induce him to take ship around the world, for a tiny and ill-run prison colony: the worst sort of disgrace and mortification, and the life of an outcast. “But I hear you are restored to the list, sir.”

Laurence scarcely repressed a flinch: he, the actual traitor, had been reinstated, and guiltless Ferris had not. And that very injustice now barred Laurence from giving him a real place: as a captain of the Aerial Corps, he could appoint only aviators to Temeraire’s crew. He might contrive to offer Ferris some unofficial position, as a hanger-on of sorts; but such a situation could only be deeply painful, putting Ferris in daily company with aviators less gifted and likely to offer him the same disdain which Laurence with more justice had met.