Quiet Knives (5 page)

Sarah Chang laughed.

"How old are you?" She asked then.

"Fourteen winters."

The boss tipped her head. "Thirteen
Standards, near enough. Regular old maid. And you've got a nice
touch with an explosive.

"Skihi, for your information, is an
extremely volatile mixture. Many explosive experts have the missing
fingers to prove it." She bounced out of her chair and shook her
head.

"All right, Inas, let's go."

She stayed in her chair, looking up into the
slanting black eyes. "Go where?"

"Outworld," the boss said, and moved an
impatient hand, pointing upward, toward the sky--and beyond.

* * * * * *

Quiet Knives

THE TURTLES HAD CANCELED, the tidy kill-fee
deposited to ship's funds before the message had hit her in
box.

Just as
well
, thought Midj Rolanni, wearily. She
sagged back into the pilot's chair and reached for the cup nestled
in the armrest holder. She'd hadn't really wanted to reconfigure
the flight deck for two turtles, anyway.

The 'toot wasn't exactly prime grade and
being cold didn't improve it. She drank it anyway, her eyes on the
screen, but seeing through it, into the past, and not much liking
what she saw.

She finished the cold 'toot in a swallow,
shuddered and threw the cup at the recycler. It hit the unit's rim,
shimmied for a heartbeat, undecided, and fell in, for a wonder.
Midj sighed and leaned to the board, saving the turtles'
cancellation with a finger-tap, and accessing the stored message
queue.

There wasn't much there besides the turtles'
message--the transmittal, listing the cargo she'd paid Teyope to
carry for her; the credit letter from the bank, guaranteeing the
funds, half on cargo transmittal, half on delivery.

And the letter from Kore.
Pretty thin letter, really, just a couple lines. Not what you'd
call reason for off-shipping a perfectly profitable cargo onto a
trader just a little gray--"... just a little gray," she repeated
the thought under her breath--and Teyope
did
owe her, which even he
acknowledged, damn his black heart, so the cargo was in a fine way
to arriving as ordered, where ordered, and not a line of the
guarantees found in violation.

She hoped.

Her hand moved on its own, fingers tapping
the access, though she could have told the whole of Kore's note out
from heart. Still, her eyes tracked the sentences, few as they
were, as if she'd never read them before.

Or as if she hoped they'd say something
different this time.

Her bad luck, the words formed the same
sentences they had since the first, the sentences making up one
spare paragraph, the message of which was--trouble.

Midj. You said, if I ever changed my mind,
you'd come. Cessilee Port, Shaltren, on Saint Belamie's Day. I'll
meet you. Kore.

"And for this," she said out loud, hearing
her voice vibrate against the metal skin of her ship. "For this,
you shed cargo and take your ship--your home and your
livelihood--onto Juntavas headquarters?"

It wasn't the first time
she'd asked the question since the letter's receipt. Sometimes,
she'd whispered it, sometimes shouted.
Skeedaddle
, now. Her ship didn't tell
her nothing, but that she needed to go. She'd promised, hadn't
she?

And so she had--promised. Half her lifetime
ago, and the hardest thing she'd done before or since was closing
the hatch on him, knowing where he was going. She'd replayed their
last conversation until her head ached and her eyes blurred,
wondering what she could have said instead, that would have made
him understand...

But he
had
understood. He'd chosen, eyes
open, knowing her, knowing how she felt. He'd said as much, and say
what you would about Korelan Zar, he was no liar, nor ever had
been.

"You go, then," the memory of her voice,
shaking, filled her ears. "If this job is so important you gotta
take up the Juntavas, too--then go. I ain't gonna stop you. And I
ain't gonna know you, either. Walk down that ramp, Korelan, and
you're as good as dead to me, you hear?"

She remembered his face: troubled, but not
anything like rethinking the plan. He'd thought it through--he'd
told her so, and she believed him. Kore'd always been the thinker
of the two of them.

"Midj," he said, and she remembered that his
voice hadn't been precisely steady, either. "I've got to. I told
you--"

"You told me," she'd interrupted, harsher
maybe in memory than in truth. She remembered she'd been crying by
then, with her hand against the open hatch, and the ramp run down
to blastcrete, a car waiting, its windows opaqued and patient, just
a few yards beyond.

"You told me," she'd said
again, and she remembered that it had been hard to breathe. "And I
told you. I ain't comin' with you. I ain't putting
Skeedaddle
into Juntavas
service. You want to sell yourself, I guess you got the right. But
this ship belongs to me."

His face had closed then, and he nodded,
just once, slung his kit over his shoulder and headed down the
ramp. Chest on fire, she'd watched him go, heard her own voice,
barely above a whisper.

"Kore..."

He turned and looked up to where she stood,
fists braced against her ship.

"You change your mind," she said, "you send.
I'll come for you."

He smiled then, so slight she might've
missed it, if she hadn't known him so well.

"Thanks, Midj. I'll remember that."

In the present, Midj
Rolanni, captain-owner of the independent tradeship
Skeedaddle
, one of a
dozen free traders elected as liaison to TerraTrade--respectable
and respected--Midj Rolanni drew a hard breath.

Twenty Standards. And Kore had
remembered.

* * *

SHE SET DOWN AS pre-arranged in Vashon's
Yard and walked over to the office, jump-bag on her shoulder.

Vashon himself was on the counter, fiddling
with the computer, fingers poking at the keys. He looked up and
nodded, then put his attention back on the problem at hand. Midj
leaned her elbows on the counter and frowned up at the ship
board.

Rebella was in port--no good news,
there--and BonniSu, which was better. In fact, she'd actively enjoy
seeing Su Bonner, maybe buy her a beer and catch up on the news.
Been a couple Standards since they'd been in port together, and Su
had bought last time....

"Sorry, Cap," Vashon said, breaking into
this pleasant line of thought. "Emergency order, all good now.
What'll it be?"

All spacers were "Cap" to Vashon, who
despite it was one of the best all-around spaceship mechanics in
the quadrant--and maybe the next.

"Ship's
Skeedaddle
, out of Dundalk," she
said, turning from the board. "Got an appointment for a general
systems check. Replace what's worn, lube the coils, and bring her
up to spec--that's a Sanderson rebuild in there, now, so the
spec's're--"

"Right, right..." He was poking at the keys
again, bringing up the records. "Got it all right here, Cap. How're
them pod-clamps we fitted working out for you?"

"Better'n the originals,"
she said honestly, which was no stretch, the originals having seen
a decade of hard use before
Skeedaddle
ever came to her, never
mind what she'd put on 'em.

"Good," he said absently, frowning down at
his screen. "Now, that Sanderson--we have it on-file to tune at
ninety percent spec, that being efficient enough for trade work,
like we talked about. You're still wantin'--"

"Bring her up to true spec," Midj
interrupted, which she'd decided already and, dammit, she wasn't
going to second-guess herself at this hour. If she was a fool, then
she was, and it wouldn't be the first time she'd made the wrong
call.

Not even close.

Vashon was nodding, making quick notes on
his keypad. "Bring her to true-spec, aye, Cap, will do." He looked
up.

"You'll be wanting the upgraded vents, then,
Cap? If you're going to be running at spec, I advise it."

She nodded. "Take a look at the mid-ship
stabilizer, too, would you? Moving her just now, I thought I
noticed a slide."

"'Cause you come in without cans," he said,
making another note. "But, sure, we'll check it--ought to ride
stable, cans or no cans." He looked up again.

"Anything else?"

"That's all I know about. If you find
anything major that needs fixing, I'll be at the Haven."

"Haven it is," he said, entering that into
the file, too. "Cash, card, or ship's credit?"

"Ship's credit."

"Right, then." He gave her a crabbed smile.
"She ought to be good to go by the end of the week, barring we find
anything unexpected. You can check progress on our stats channel,
updated every two hours, local. Ship's name is your passcode."

"Thanks," she said, and shifted the bag into
a more comfortable position on her shoulder. "I'll see you at the
end of the week, barring the unexpected."

She nodded and he did and she let herself
out the door that gave onto the open Port.

* * *

"Going
where
?" Su Bonner paused with her
beer halfway to her mouth.

"Shaltren," Midj repeated, trying to sound
matter of fact, and not at all reassured by the other woman's
decisive headshake.

"Shaltren's not the place you want to be at
this particular point in time, Captain Rolanni, me heart." Su put
her beer down on the table with an audible thud. "Trust me on this
one, like you never have before."

"I trust you plenty," Midj said, spinning
her own beer 'round the various scars on the plastic tabletop, that
being a handy way to not meet her friend's eyes. "You know I
do."

"Then you've given over the idea of going to
Shaltren." Su picked up her beer and had a hefty swallow.
"Good."

Midj sighed, still navigating the bottle
through the tabletop galaxy. "So, what's wrong with Shaltren?
Besides the usual."

"The usual being that it's Juntavas
Headquarters? That'd be bad enough, by your lights and by mine.
Lately, though, there's more. Chairman Trogar, they say, is not
well-loved."

Frowning, Midj glanced up. "Must break his
heart."

"Not exactly, no." Su had another swallow of
beer and shook two fingers at the bartender. "What I heard is, he
means to keep it that way. Anybody who talks across him or who
doesn't rise fast enough when he yells 'lift!'--they're dead right
off. He's got himself an aggressive expansion plan in motion and he
doesn't mind spending lives--that's anybody's but his own--to get
what he wants."

Midj shrugged. "The Juntavas always grabbed
what they could."

The new beers came, the 'keeper collected
Su's empty, looked a question at Midj and was waved away.

"Not always." Su was taking her last comment
as a debating point. "I'm not saying every decent spacer should
sign up onto the Juntavas workforce, but I will say they've been
getting carefuller in later years. They're still trading in all the
stuff nobody ought, but they haven't been as gun-happy as they were
back in the day..." She raised a hand, showing palm.

"Cold comfort to you and yours, I grant. The
fact remains, there was a trend toward less of that and more
...circumspection--and now what rises to the top of the deck but
Grom Trogar, who wants a return to the bad old days--and looks like
getting them."

"Well." Midj finished her beer, set the
bottle aside, and cracked the seal on the second.

"
So
," Su said into the lengthening
silence. "You changed your mind about going to Shaltren, right? At
least until somebody resets Mr. Trogar's clock?"

Midj sighed and met her friend's eyes.
"Don't see my business waiting that long, frankly."

"What business is worth losing your ship,
getting killed, or both?"

Trust Su to ask the good questions. Midj
kept her eyes steady.

"You remember Korelan Zar," she not-asked,
and Su frowned.

"Tall, thin fella; amber eyes and
coffee-color skin," she said slowly. "I remember thinking that skin
was so pretty-looking." She fingered her beer. "Your partner,
right? He was the one that told you one day he take you to Panore
for a vacation, right?"

Midj nodded, said nothing.

Su's sip was nearly a chug, then she
continued into the silence.

"Right. Always wondered what happened to
him. Never got around to asking. Must be--what? Fifteen, eighteen
Standards?"

"Twenty." Her voice sounded tight in her own
ears. "What happened to him was he figured he had to sign on with
another crew--he had reasons, they seemed good to him, and that's
all twenty Standards in the past. Thing is, I told him, if he ever
needed to ship out--call, and I'd come get him."

Su was quiet. Midj had a swig of beer, and
another.

"And where he is, is Shaltren," Su said
eventually, after she enjoyed a couple of swigs, herself.
"Midj--you don't owe him."

"I owe him--I promised." She closed her
eyes, opened them. "He asked me to come."

"Shit." More quiet, then--"How soon?"

St. Belamie's Day had begun
as a joke; at need, it had become a code--he'd remembered that,
too, and trusted her to do the same. It was a moving target,
calculated by finding the square root of the diameter of
Skeed
a
ddle
,
multiplying by the Standard day on which the message was sent and
dividing by twelve. Accordingly, she had about twenty Standard Days
on Kago before she lifted for Shaltren.