Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (58 page)

Protect us or we'll talk.

Or, conversely, someone wanted to stall and hinder
Finity's
approach to the station authorities: sue
Finity
or they'd get no protection from their stationside contacts.

Madelaine was going to shadow the negotiations this time: the ship's chief lawyer, not at the table, but definitely following every move.

"Berth 2," Bucklin said as they walked. "And
Champlain
is 14."

"Not far enough," JR said. "We need a guard on the sleep-over, not obtrusive, but we can't risk an incident—and they may try us—maybe to plant something, maybe to start an incident."

"I've put out a caution," Bucklin said.

"No question you would. Damn, I'm missing you guys."

"Feels empty across the corridor."

He gave a breath of a laugh. "I lived through docking. I'm jumpy as hell."

"Don't blame you for that. How's the Old Man?"

Sober question. All-important question. "Last I saw he was doing all right." He hadn't told Bucklin about the Old Man's rejuv failing. He thought about doing it now. But he'd been told that on a need-to-know, and Bucklin wasn't on a need-to-know. If it had involved a second captain's health, yes. But it didn't.

"Hard voyage," Bucklin said, not knowing that deadly fact. "At his age, it's got to wear on him."

He didn't elaborate. They reached the sleepover frontage. He thought of ways he
could
talk to Bucklin, if Bucklin played sometime aide and orderly. It wasn't the way he'd have preferred it.

It was the way things were going to be.

Walking through Xanadu was like walking through the heart of a jewel, lights constantly changing, most surfaces reflecting. It impressed the junior-juniors no end. It impressed Fletcher.

So did the suite—an arrangement like Voyager with all of the junior-juniors in one, but this time with enough beds. The bed in the central room was as huge as the one at Mariner. The two adjacent bedrooms were almost as elaborate. Colors changed on all the walls constantly. One wall of the main room was bubbles rising through real water, like bubbly wine.

Linda had, of course, to squat down by the base of the wall and try to see where the bubbles came from.

"Let's go on the docks," Jeremy said, and Fletcher was glad to hear the impatience in Jeremy. The kid was getting over it. Liberty was casting its spell over the junior-juniors, luring them with vid parlors and dessert bars and every blandishment ever designed to part a spacer from his cash. Vid-games had become important again, and the universe was back in order.

"There's a vid zoo," Linda said, from her examination of bubble production. "A walk-through. It's educational. There's tigers and dinosaurs and zebras."

"Where'd you hear that?" Vince wanted to know.

"I looked it up while
some
people were lazing around."

"The hell," Vince said.

The bickering was actually pleasant to the ears. "Let's go downstairs," Fletcher suggested, and instantly there were takers.

It took four hours to set up the initial meeting, that of ship's officers with station officials. Station Legal Affairs said it didn't want the station administrators to meet with a ship under accusation… that it would constitute a legal impropriety.

The Old Man suggested the station officials could refuse to meet with a ship under accusation, but they'd damn well better arrange a meeting for an Alliance mission. Immediately.

Sitting aboard the ship, in lower deck ops, along with the other four captains, with the beep and tick of cargo monitoring the only action on the boards, JR. watched and listened to that exchange, on which Wayne ran courier. The Old Man was perfectly unflappable, pleasant to every cousin and nephew and niece around him. That was a bad sign for the opposition.

The Old Man dictated a message for
Boreale
, too, one to be hand-carried, a fact which said how much the Old Man relied on the security of station communication systems, even the secured lines, and all prudent officers took note of it. JR wrote the message down and printed it; and Wayne ran that one, too, while Tom B. ran courier for Madelaine's office back and forth in an exchange with Esperance Legal to which JR was not privy.

The message to
Boreale
was simple.
The suit is harassment and will not stand. We will vigorously oppose it and defend you in the same matter. We will hope for your attendance at one of our final meetings with ship captains at a time mutually agreeable, and hope also for your support of the pertinent treaty provisions with your own local offices
.

What came back was:

We cannot of course speak for Union authorities, but we stand with you against the lawsuit. We also hold that, in accordance with both Union immunity and Alliance law, our deck is sovereign territory.

The latter sentence was complete irony. It was James Robert's own hard-won provision in international law and the reason of the War in the first place; and
Boreale
was invoking it to prevent Esperance station personnel from entering their ship to search for records—as
Finity
held to the same right.

But Union held to no such thing within its own territory with ships signatory to Union.

"They stand with us," Madison muttered when he heard the answer. "One could even hope they were on our side when they took out after
Champlain
and started this legal mess."

"But dare we notice that station hasn't charged
Boreale
?" Francie said. "They're very careful of Union feelings at this port."

"Noticed that," Alan said. "Question is, how high does
Boreale's
captain rank over whoever's in the Union Trade Bureau offices here. I
think
that
Boreale
has the edge in rank, barring special instructions."

"I don't take
Boreale's
turning up at Mariner total coincidence," James Robert said, breaking a long silence, and JR paid close attention, but as the least informed, he'd kept quiet.

Not coincidence. "So," he ventured, "what
was
the carrier doing at Tripoint?"

"Mallory's business," Madison said. "We think that Mazianni operations have shifted from Sol fringes to a new area the other side of Viking. We thought there'd be something more
Boreale's
size sitting there observing. We got a carrier
and
then
Boreale's
presence at Mariner. And a Mazianni ship running for Esperance, the complete opposite direction, when taking out for Tripoint would have thrown it right into the arms of that carrier."

He hadn't thought of
Champlain's
alternative course. Blind spot. Major blind spot. He was chagrinned.

"So it ran this direction."

"Its chances were better with us. That carrier would have had it, no question,
Boreale
wanted it but couldn't catch it,
Boreale
wanted them alive."

It would be a source of information, one that Union science could probe with no messiness of courts, at least in the autonomy of the Union military operating in what was technically a war zone.

Maybe we should let them, was the unethical thought that raced next through his mind. Maybe we play too much by the law and that's why this has dragged on for twenty years.

No. That wasn't correct. Their playing by the law was exactly what this whole mission was about. Their playing by the law was the only thing that got the cooperation of hundreds of independent merchanters, who otherwise would have supported Mazian with supply at least intermittently and brought him back from the political dead the moment things grew chancy. The result would have been another, far deadlier war, with the whole human future at risk.

Cancel that thought.

"Various interests at Esperance aren't willing to see
Champlain
answering close questions," Francie said. "That's my bet."

"It's mine, too," Madison said. "I think it's a very good bet.
Champlain
was dead if it had gone to Tripoint.
It knew what was waiting there
. It might stay alive if it ran this direction and threatened its own business partners. They're here. On Esperance. At least one strong anchor for the whole Mazianni supply network is right here… the contraband, the smuggling, the illicit trade in rejuv, the whole thing. The other leak is probably Viking; but Viking isn't our problem. Esperance is."

It made sense. It finally made sense, how the web was structured. And what the gateway was for the high-priced goods to reach the paying markets, at Cyteen. Cyteen officials didn't like it. But they still drank their Scotch, not looking closely enough at whether it came via a legitimate merchanter or whether it meant rejuv and biologicals were getting to Earth, to the wellspring of all that was human, in trade for supply for Mazian's war machine.

The other captains discussed technical matters. The new one was just filling out the holes in his understanding of what they were doing, and why they were doing it, and why certain Cyteen factions would support them and certain ones wouldn't. Some Cyteeners were defending their world. Others were making money.

Say that also about the position of Esperance in this affair. It had existed by playing Union against Alliance, supporting and not supporting Mazian. It was what the Old Man had said at Voyager: Mazian was essential… in this case, to Esperance. Maybe even to them… because without him, Union would have had Esperance, and the Alliance would have gone down Union's gullet. As it was, Union would let Esperance slip firmly into the Alliance in return for secure borders—secure from a threat Union itself was helping fund simply because Union had an appetite for what their sole planet didn't produce.

Like lifestuff that wasn't poisonous, or otherwise deadly. Cyteen had made a great matter over its rebellion from what was Earthlike; Cyteen wielded genetics like a weapon; but when it came to creature comforts, Cyteen, just like some this side of the Line, didn't look too closely at the label.

Like Pell, he thought. Like Pell, and its dinosaurs and sugar drinks scantly removed from where thousands had died. People forgot. People were human and didn't look too closely at what didn't look harmful. No single person's little purchase of black-market coffee could affect the universe.

That was the dream people had, that little things were ignorable on a cosmic scale.

Wind blew through virtual foliage. Moist air brushed the skin. It wasn't one of those sims that you wore a suit to experience. You wore ordinary clothes, and just put on disposable contacts. And walked.

And climbed. And walked some more. It might have been Downbelow, but it was too green. They walked over soft ground, and around trees, following a hand-rope.

A tiger was resting in the undergrowth. It stood up, huge, and real, right down to the details of its whiskers and the expression in its eyes.

Vince yelped, and the virtual cat jumped, spat, and retreated, staring at them.

Fletcher had to calm his own nerves and slow his own pulse. "Don't move," he said. "Stand still."

The tiger rumbled with threat. The tail-tip moved, and muscles stayed knotted beneath the striped fur. The place smelled of damp, and rot, and animal.

"It's really real," Linda said.

"Does a pretty good job," Fletcher said. The junior-juniors clustered around him; and his own planet-trained nerves were in an uproar.

They edged past. The tiger followed them with a slow turning of its head.

A strange animal bolted away, brown, four-footed. The tiger bounded across the trail in front of them.

"Damn!" Jeremy said.

Fletcher concurred. They'd had a children's version and a thrills version of the zoo, and he began to know where he classified himself.

Or maybe too much immediacy and too much threat had made them all jumpy.

They walked out of the exhibit with rattled nerves and went through the gift shop, spending money all the way.

Four hours to set up the meeting and then another hour while station officials drifted in from various appointments, in their own good time. Alan and Francie took charge and kept, contrarily, claiming that the senior captain was on his way. On his way… for another hour and a half.

"Just sit there," Francie advised JR. "Just sit and be pleasant. Keep them wondering."

So he took
his
place at the table beside Alan, and provoked stares from a long table occupied by grim-faced station authorities and minor Alliance officials.

"Fifth captain," Alan introduced him. "James Robert Neihart, Jr."

JR returned the shocked glances, and suddenly, in possession of the conference table, knew how hard that information had hit.
These
people hadn't known he existed two seconds ago—
another
Captain James Robert, under tutelage of the first.

Now titled with the captaincy, at a time when, just perhaps, they'd been thinking the famous captain couldn't last much longer and that they knew his successors.

Now they knew nothing.

"Gentlemen," JR said. "Ladies. My pleasure."

There was a moment of paralysis. That was the only way to describe it. They didn't know what to do with him. They didn't know what his position was, how much he knew, or
why
. In short, what they thought they knew had changed.

"We," the first-shift stationmaster said, trying to seize hold of what had no handles, "we weren't informed. Is it recent, this fifth captaincy? We hope it doesn't signal a crisis in the captain's health."

Vile
man, JR thought. He'd never found a person
snake
so described on sight. And, completely, coldly deadpan, he made his reply as close a copy of the Old Man as he could muster.

"We
aren't
our apparent ages.
Recent
in whose terms, sir?"

Conversation-stopper. Implied offense—within the difference between spacer perceptions and stationer perceptions.

And he'd asked a question. It hung in the charged air waiting for an answer as a dozen faces down the long table hoped not to be asked, themselves, directly.

There was one gesture the senior captain had made his own. JR consciously smiled the Old Man's dead-eyed, perfunctory smile. And at least the two seniormost stationers looked far from comfortable.

"There is a succession," JR dropped into that silence. He'd thought he'd be terrified, sitting at this table. He'd thought he'd conceive not a word to say. Maybe it was folly that took him to the threshold of real negotiations, knowing that the Old Man's arrival might be further delayed. It might be dangerous folly. But the Old Man had taught him. "There always was a succession. It's our way to shadow our seniors, so there's
no
transition. There never
will
be a transition. But Mazian can't say the same. They went on rejuv back during the War—to ensure no births. Those ships
have
no succession." A second, deliberate smile. "We left only one of our children ashore. And at Pell we got him back. Another Fletcher Neihart, as happens. Looks seventeen. Unlike me, he is."

For a moment the air in the room seemed dead still, and heavy. There was no way for them to figure his real age. The face they were looking at was a boy's face. But now they knew he wasn't.

Then a set of steps sounded in the hall outside. A good many of them. The Old Man was arriving with his escort.

He was aware of body language, his own, constantly, another of the Old Man's lessons. He deliberately mirrored calm assurance, to their scarcely restrained consternation, and when Alan and Francie rose in respect to the Old Man and Madison coming into the room, so did he. Four of those at the conference table, in their confusion, rose, too.

"So you've met the younger James Robert," James Robert, Sr. said, and JR would personally lay odds someone's pocket-com had been live and the feed going to the Old Man for the last few minutes. "A pleasure to reach Esperance. I was just in communication with the Union Trade Bureau. Very encouraging." James Robert sat down as they all resumed their seats. "Delighted to be here," James Robert said, opening his folder. He looked good, he looked rested, not a hair out of place and the dark eyes that remained so lively in a sere, enigmatic mask swept over the conspiratory powers of Esperance with not a hint of doubt, not of himself, not of the Alliance, not of the force he represented.

"Welcome to Esperance," the senior stationmaster said.

Thank you." James Robert let him get not a word further. "Thank you all for rearranging your schedules. You've doubtless received partial reports on the trade situation and the pirate threat. I've just come from the edges of Earth space, and from consultation with our Union allies on matters of security and trade, and on the changing nature of the pirate activity hereabouts." This, to a station that fancied its own private agreements with Union: it suggested Union shifting positions: it suggested things changing; and JR very much suspected the Old Man was going to follow that theme straight as a shot to the heart of Esperance objections.