Crossways (65 page)

Ben awoke warm and safe with Cara snuggled against him in the nest that their passion had carved out of the quilt. Her regular breathing indicated she was still deeply asleep. Since he didn't want to disturb her he lay still, his arm around her waist, his hand on the silky smoothness of her ribcage, contemplating their future together.

He remembered her, edgy and nervous on Mirrimar-14 when they'd first met. He'd loved her from the very beginning, but it had taken her much longer to develop trust. He got that. He'd have trust issues as well if van Blaiden and McLellan had mindfucked him as thoroughly as they had her. He was amazed and grateful that she seemed to have overcome all that, at least well enough to function, though he knew from the way she mumbled in her dreams that it was still with her and might never leave.

She'd come to trust him, though, and now his past was catching up with them both. It was hardly fair, but when had fair ever been part of the equation?

What did he want? He'd fulfilled his promise to the Ecolibrians, brought home their missing settlers and left them in a safe space. Whatever happened to him, Gupta and Mel Hoffner would make sure the settlement survived, even if they had to be isolated from the rest of humanity. If that's what it took, then that's what it took.

He had a duty to the Free Company, to Wenna and Marta, to Ronan and Jon, to Gen and Max and their unborn child, to the indefatigable Archie Tatum and steadfast Yan Gwenn. Names crowded in. He owed them all.

Was Crowder coming for them as well?

Cara stirred in his arms. “Time is it?”

“Early.”

“Too early for coffee?”

“Much too early.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She turned into him and stretched against him belly to belly. He stiffened against her. She stroked his flank.

“I love you, Ben Benjamin.”

“I've loved you since the very first moment we met.”

“Prove it.” She slipped her hand between their bodies and he gasped. A delicious heat growing in his groin chased away all thoughts of Crowder and the Free Company.

It was the smell of coffee that roused Ben for the second time that morning. Cara was out of bed, wrapped in a robe, her short hair wet from the shower.

“The coffee from the
Bellatkin
is good. Marta sold most of it on the open market but kept some for us.” She laughed. “I can see the look on your face. Don't worry, there's caff for you. The good stuff is all mine.”

“Good. We couldn't have retrieved a tea clipper, I don't suppose. It had to be coffee.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched. “Marta didn't sell the ship, did she?”

“No. It's been overhauled and retrofitted with one of Dido Kennedy's jump drives.”

“The pilots?”

“Families have been notified, ashes returned as requested.”

He nodded. “I suppose there are loose ends to clear up. The missing ark has been top of the agenda for so long I feel a bit bereft now we've found it. Everything seems to be going our way for a change.”

“Apart from Crowder.”

“Yes, Crowder.”

“And Kitty.”

He shrugged. “Her too. Disappointing.”

“And protecting Olyanda so that no one else moves in on our only source of income.”

“Crowder, Kitty, and Olyanda, right. And I was thinking what a beautiful morning it was.”

Cara laughed and tossed a pair of pants in his direction. “You never lose sight of the big picture.”

“Except sometimes, just for a few moments, you can make me forget it all.”

She kissed the top of his head and danced out of reach of his hands before they quite closed on her waist. “I'll see you in the office.”

Ben arrived in the central office barely ten minutes behind Cara, still carrying his carton of caff, but now buddysuited and feeling ready to face whatever the day had to throw at him.

Wenna, Gen, Max, Ronan, Jussaro, and Marta were all waiting for him.

“Who called a meeting?” he asked.

“We need to know what to do with Kitty,” Ronan said.

“And there's some financial stuff you need to look at,” Max said.

“Pilot training schedules,” Gen added.

“And Nan says you still haven't called her,” Wenna reminded him.

“I get it. I've been off lollygagging, now it's time for work. Okay, let's all sit down. Who's first?”

They pushed together three tables to make one large one and pulled up chairs.

“Max, finance. Tell us the worst.”

“I've gone over all the figures for the last month. We're still forty days from the first platinum rods rolling out of the new plant on Olyanda, but the primary loan arranged by Mother Ramona is accruing interest at a frightening rate. I put the word out and this morning I got a better offer from Fawcett and Post, so I propose we borrow from them to pay off the first loan.”

“The sale of the coffee cargo from the
Bellatkin
offset some of our running expenses,” Marta said. “But I can't source supplies on credit for much longer.”

“Garrick has deferred rental on Blue Seven,” Max continued, “but we can't pay wages. No one's grousing yet, but they will. Tengue has agreed to defer wages for a fifteen percent increase when the platinum credits come in. I need hardly tell you that if something happens to platinum production on Olyanda we'll be mired in debt so deep we'll not even be able to afford shovels to dig ourselves out.”

“What interest rate have Fawcett and Post offered?” Cara asked.

“Six and a half percent instead of eight, and the term is extended for an additional forty days.”

“I say go with that,” Ben said. “What about the rest of you? Any further comments or suggestions?”

There was a general shaking of heads. “It gives us a breathing space,” Wenna said. “I agree.”

Max nodded. “Right. I'll see to it. There is always the possibility of selling the
Bellatkin
.”

“We need to increase our own fleet,” Ben said. “It would cost us more to buy a jump-drive cargo ship than we'd get for the
Bellatkin
.”

“That leads straight to pilot training,” Gen said. She dropped a plasfilm onto the table. “We've got two jumpships, both small ones. Kennedy's working on a drive that will power a ship with greater mass, but she's not there yet. Anyhow, training has been pretty intense. I'm worried about Esterhazy. It's not consistent. The Magena twins are outstandingly good and I'm not sure how the Kazans do it—they must have one hell of a bond—but they're rock solid. I'd keep them for the Free Company if I had a choice rather than passing them on to Crossways. I think you need to check each one of them out. Some—not Esterhazy—will be capable of the Benjamin Maneuver if you want to teach them.”

“It's a risky trick. Is that a wise move?”

“The Magenas are interested and so are the Kazans. Esterhazy wanted to try it but I think it's being overambitious. Valois and Singh, the two new pilots recruited by Mother Ramona, could probably manage it, though.”

“Hey, just a minute,” Max said. “If you're training pilots like that, does it mean you can pull more ships out of the Folds? Not only would it be a public service, but the salvage would ease our debts considerably.”

“Don't you think if it were that easy that someone would have thought of it by now?” Cara asked.

Max shrugged. “Just saying.”

“I'll think about it,” Ben said. “Next.”

“Kitty Keely,” Ronan said. “She's still under guard in a cell with a psi damper, but she's not coping well with being cut off, even with tranqs.”

“Been there,” Cara said. “Has anyone been visiting?”

“Me,” Jussaro said. “Etta.”

“Etta?”

“She's coming along quite well.” Ronan butted in. “Says
she doesn't believe for a moment that Kitty was going to kill her.”

“And Syke,” Jussaro finished. “Seems they struck up a friendship after Wes Orton's death. He says he's kicking himself for not figuring out she was a spy, but even so, he's kept coming back. We figure she used visits to Orton to get access to a public comm booth, at first, but there's no doubt in my mind that she really did care for him. The attack shook her faith in the megacorps a little—enough to keep quiet about you going after Etta on Sentier-4. I needn't tell you what would have happened if she'd given you up.”

“We must be thankful for some things.”

“That's why I don't think she would have gone through with killing Etta even though she'd had orders to. I think she made what she was doing so obvious that she knew we'd stop her.”

“We need to speak to her. Will this afternoon be good for you?”

“Yes, fine,” Ronan said.

“And Nan,” Wenna reminded him as the meeting broke up.

“Nan. Yes. Anything else?”

“Nothing I can't handle,” Wenna said.

Cara hooked her arm through Ben's as the office cleared and Wenna went back to her desk. “You want to talk to Nan now?”

“Yes, if you're up for it.”

Cara connected him smoothly.

*Reska, did you find the ark?*

*Yes, Nan, we did.*

*And your void dragon?*

*Yes. Amazing creature. If you ever come across any pilots who claim to have seen one, point them in our direction.*
He quickly poured out everything that had happened.
*How's Ricky doing? Ready to send him back to school yet? Rion's missing him. Oh, and Kai's got a girlfriend.*

*Kai? Good for him. I don't think Ricky's cut out for life on Jamundi. The boy's got ambition, maybe more than is good for him. He does miss his dad and Kai, but he's not going to be a farmer. Reminds me of you when you were his age.*

*You encouraged me.*

Nana gave the mental equivalent of a chuckle.
*Maybe I did.*

*How's your mission?*

*Interesting. Chander Dalal has taught me a whole lot about Indian cookery and taught Ricky how to play poker for chores tokens.*

*I've seen Chander playing poker. I assume Ricky will be doing chores until his ninety-seventh birthday.*

*He's not losing quite as badly as you might expect, especially when he can talk Captain Dorinska into playing.*

*Where are you heading for now?*

*Romanov.*

*If you see my ex-wife—*

*I'll give her your best regards.*

*That's what I was going to say.*

C
ARA AND BEN NODDED TO THE GUARD Outside Kitty's cell door. She'd been in a converted storeroom at first, but a swift rearrangement of walls behind the barbican had created a cell space which could only be accessed via Tengue's security post.

“How is she this morning?” Cara asked the guard.

“She gives no trouble.”

“Any visitors?” Ben asked.

“Not today.” There was a pause while he accessed information on his handpad. “Yesterday, Doctor Wolfe in the morning and Captain Syke in the afternoon. Captain Syke comes most days. Sometimes Guard Heator or Mr. Jussaro, and twice Ms. Langham.”

He opened the door. Inside, the cell—a room with a bed, a chair, a table, a bookslate, and space to pace—was almost homey.

Cara had survived for almost a year with her implant powered down while she'd been on the run from Ari. Before that she'd been in a bare cell, shot through with drugs to suppress her telepathy. It had been a tough time. Kitty had it easier. She hadn't been totally isolated, even though she'd been locked up for almost two months. Her cell had a damping field to prevent telepathic communications from
outside. It wasn't as bad as being drugged with reisercaine, but she had to be feeling the strain.

Surprisingly, every available surface in Kitty's cell was covered with pots of earth showing shoots and young plants. Ben picked up a pot and ran one finger gently up a leaf.

“Getting my fingers dirty helps.” Kitty looked up from the table where she had a heap of dirt on a plastic film and a couple of empty pots. “I planted poppies in the raised bed outside your window the day they put me in here. I expect they're growing tall by now.”

“Yes.” Cara hadn't even looked. “How are you?”

“Better now that he can't get at me anymore.” She dusted off her hands and wiped them on a cloth. “I suppose you want me to apologize.”

“Not really.” Ben shook his head. “I guess you were only doing your job. Is Kitty Keely even your real name?”

“Almost. Catherine Keely, but I've answered to Kitty since I was at the Academy.”

“How long have you been an Alphacorp spy?”

She shook her head. “You make it sound like a vocation. Maybe I'd have made a better job of it if it was. I was just in the right place at the right time.”

“To watch Ari van Blaiden,” Cara said. “They didn't trust him—or maybe Yamada didn't trust him.”

“Ms. Yamada. My orders came directly from her office. No, she didn't trust him. Would you?”

Cara shook her head. She had, for a while at least, trusted Ari and it had almost killed her.

“So why did you latch on to us?” Ben asked.

“I needed to make myself useful. My mother needed treatment—expensive treatment. I figured if Ms. Yamada wanted to pull me off the case I could always get out, but if I missed the opportunity that presented itself on Olyanda I'd never get another one.”

“Did you stop to consider what might happen after you got back to Alphacorp? You'd have arrived home with dangerous knowledge. Did you think they'd let you keep it? You'd have been sent straight off to Sentier-4 for a mind-wipe, or worse.”

Kitty's eyes widened. She hadn't considered that. Cara herself might not have considered it either, before raw experience had taught her that the megacorporations were as
dangerous, dark, and twisty as the people who helmed them. Was there anyone who rose to the top by being decent and fair? Probably not. The road upward was built on top of good people.

“Did you pass messages on to the Trust?” Ben asked.

“No. Only to Alphacorp, I swear.”

Ben frowned. “Did you know about Crowder's mole in Alphacorp?”

“What? No!”

“Crowder's been getting the information almost as quickly as Yamada.”

“The information I sent . . .”

“Helped to kill Wes Orton.”

Kitty shook her head, but Cara figured that had hit home.

“You liked Wes.”

Kitty nodded.

“More than liked him.”

Kitty nodded again. “We didn't have long together, but he made me feel good. He was kind. A good man.” She flicked a glance at Ben and back to Cara. “You know how that feels after . . .”

It was Cara's turn to nod.

“And you like Arran Syke,” Ben said.

“He's been a good friend since . . . Don't blame him for—”

“We're not blaming Captain Syke for anything,” Ben said.

“What happens now?” Kitty asked.

“I don't know,” Ben said. “We're not interested in retribution. We're interested in a solution to the problem. A permanent solution.”

“Please . . . don't leave me here like this. I'm done with Alphacorp.”

“That's easy to say and harder to prove,” Ben said. “As soon as you get out of here they can get at you again.”

“I could wear a damper,” Kitty offered.

“For the rest of your life?” Cara said. “They're a temporary solution at best; good for deadheads with a receiving implant who don't feel being cut off from the flow like we do. Besides, even with a damper you'd still be a target for a Finder unless you have your implant removed.”

Kitty's eyes widened. “You wouldn't . . .”

“Of course not,” Cara said. “Would we?” She turned to Ben.

He shook his head, an I-don't-know gesture rather than of-course-not. “What are the alternatives? Garrick would simply throw her out of an air lock. He's offered to do that already. Problem solved. If we let her go she has information in her head that could endanger not only the Free Company, but the whole station.”

“I don't want to go back to Alphacorp. I know I said that before, but I really mean it now . . . except . . . I might not have a choice. My mother . . . they have her in their care. They've threatened to bill her for all the treatment—a bill she'll never be able to pay. They've got a hold over me if they need it.”

“Only if they have a direct line of communication to you,” Ben said. “A threat is useless unless you know they've made it, and they generally have better things to do than terrorize little old ladies.”

“You can say that after the Trust used your grandmother?”

Ben shrugged. “Look how that turned out for them.”

“Long-term cryo,” Cara said. “We can freeze her and send her to the future with a tag on her toe: open one hundred years from now.”

“But my mother . . .”

Ben shrugged. “If the choice is frozen, insane from having your implant shut down, or dead, what would she choose for you? What would you choose for yourself?”

They left Kitty in her cell with her seedlings.

“What do you think?” Ben asked Cara.

“She's still cut up about Wes Orton and she does value Syke as a friend, but whether she's really done with Alphacorp remains to be seen. Her mother's a problem. If Alphacorp has a hold, Yamada may not be done with her. Long-term cryo may be the only option.”

Ben took a tub to Red One with Yan. He needed to see the jump drives for himself and to talk to Dido.

“She's not as wacky as she looks,” Yan said. “I mean, yes, she's a bit unconventional, but so would you be if you'd had her upbringing.”

Ben couldn't imagine Dido Kennedy as a child.

“She was born on Earth, you know.”

“Really?” That did surprise Ben. She looked as if she'd been bumming around the space lanes all her life.

“Parents were solid entrepreneurs, ran a tour company offering holidays on the Moonbase resorts. She was bored out of her skull. Always liked tinkering with engines, but her parents wouldn't send her to school. Wanted her in the family business. She took to dressing down, refusing to be the young businesswoman. When she was sixteen she took one of their tours to the Moon. At the spaceport she talked her way onto a bucket-of-bolts freighter and learned ships from the deck plates up.”

“Tough schooling.”

“She learned well. I tell you, if I was up against it there isn't anyone I'd rather have holding my ship together than Dido.”

Ben tried not to smile. He'd never seen Yan this enamored of anyone before. He'd found his soulmate. It didn't matter that she was at least ten years his senior, had slightly bug eyes, three chins, and dressed like a refugee, she was beautiful to him. To be honest, if she could retrofit ships with jump drives, that made her more than beautiful, it made her brilliant.

In Red One, Dido greeted Yan with a brief but telling smile. Feelings ran both ways, Ben realized, pleased for Yan.

“Hey, Benjamin, come to see where your money's going?” Dido called, looking up over an amalgamation of wires on her workbench.

“I can see where it's going. Those kids out there aren't anywhere near as skinny.”

“No apologies. You've got so much and they've got so little.”

“Point taken.”

“Come and look at this.”

Ben looked. The mess of cables and coils was only marginally less confused than a bowl of spaghetti. “I'd probably be impressed if I knew what it was.”

“You want bells and whistles? Flashing lights? I can give you those but they won't make any appreciable difference to how well it works.”

“So what is it and what does it do?”

“I've miniaturized the hypervoluraic delimiter and stacked the solupene compensators to counterbalance the foraldic nodules on the simsalvic crystals that drive the—” She cracked up laughing as his eyes glazed over. “It's no good, I can't keep it up. That's a load of tosh. I made it up. You wouldn't know what I've done, anyway. Yan can barely follow it and he's smart. Not saying you're not smart, Benjamin, but you're not engineering smart. So to answer your question: it's a jump drive, powerful enough to take an ark into foldspace. Hell, it might even be powerful enough to take the whole of Crossways into foldspace.”

“And out again?” he asked.

“With the right pilot.”

Ben checked all the Vraxos pilots by taking them through the Folds individually in
Solar Wind
. Alia and Grigor Kazan, working instinctively together, passed with flying colors. The pilots Gen had trained were intended for Crossways' own fleet, but Ben liked the Kazans and appreciated their quick thinking on Vraxos in the spaceport.

“I'd like you to try coattailing,” he said. “And if that works out, the
Bellatkin
needs a permanent crew.”

“You mean the Benjamin Maneuver?” Alia asked.

“I'd really like to get away from that name.”

“I'm afraid you're stuck with it, sir,” Grigor said.

“No need to
sir
me, Grigor.”

“Okay, Boss.” He grinned.

Ben had them zip in and out of the Folds a number of times and then, using a hulk marked for scrap, he had them sashay up close and draw it into the Folds.

“Whoa, cool!” Grigor says as they pop into foldspace, the hulk in their shadow.