Shooting the Rift - eARC (30 page)

“I got us some leverage,” I said, dropping the file I’d been examining into his ‘sphere.
Think the Guildhall will pull a few strings to get their hands on this?

“Definitely,” Remington said, after a moment of paging through the data, and coming to the same conclusions as I had; which was probably a lot easier than it had been for me, as the files I’d been looking at were still open. “The logistical contracts alone would be worth a fortune once the shooting starts.” He glanced down at me, curiosity and respect mingling on his face. “How the hell did you manage to get hold of this?”

“I cracked a node,” I said. “From the infirmary. They put us down here because it’s too far away from the operational areas to mesh in to one, but the surgery isn’t. I found I was close enough to use my sneakware, and I thought I might as well give it a try.” I thought it best to sound as though I’d been acting purely on impulse; mentioning that I’d picked a fight with Deeks in a deliberate attempt to get myself sent there, so I could use some customized datanomes I’d spent days putting together, would raise all sorts of questions I didn’t want to answer.

“I’ll get on to the Guildhall,” Remington said, “and tell them what we’ve got. Our hosts won’t listen in to official Guild business.” Not when pissing off the Guild could mean having their logistical and supply chains disrupted just before the shooting started; people had lost wars that way before. He looked at me curiously. “What do you want to use a riftcom for?”

“How much do you think the Commonwealth would be willing to pay to get a look at this stuff?” I asked, falling back on the default Guilder response to a difficult question. It was a reason he’d consider, whereas not wanting the next thing I heard from my family to be the news of Mother and Tinkie’s deaths in action probably wouldn’t have very much weight with him. “We’d make a fortune.”

“Maybe. Or the League would pay us just as much to keep our mouths shut about it.” He sighed heavily, and appeared to reach a decision. “Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and finally felt ready to get some sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

In which I move to less salubrious quarters.

I was woken an indeterminate time later by raised voices outside, one of which sounded like Clio’s shouting my name. I just had time to throw back the duvet and plant my feet on the floor when the door of my room burst open, to admit Wymes, a couple of troopers whose fatigues and body armor were as devoid of insignia as his uniform, and a comet tail of my shipmates, headed up by Remington; perhaps fortunately, Rolf and Lena were next, which kept the rest bottled up in the corridor.

“Get your pants on, please,” Wymes said, in a manner which made it abundantly clear that this wasn’t a request despite the polite form of words. “You’re under arrest.”

“You can’t do this,” Clio’s voice interrupted, tight with anger. I glanced around for a moment, wondering where it had come from, before I noticed her in the corridor, bobbing anxiously about, trying to get a look past the looming transgeners blocking the door. “He’s a member of the Commerce Guild, and protected by charter.”

“I’m afraid not.” Remington looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, then rallied, and met my eyes with a resolute stare of his own. “I’m revoking your apprenticeship.”

“You’re doing what?” I asked, not sure if I was playing for time, or genuinely unable to get my head around this unexpected development.

“I’m cutting you loose.” To be fair, he didn’t seem all that happy about the situation, but having made up his mind he was determined to go through with it. “I warned you when you signed on that I’d do that if you let me down.”

“That was before you took me on as an apprentice,” I said. “And you can’t expel me from the Guild without running it past the local Grand Master.”

That’s Grand Mistress on Freedom
suddenly popped up in my ‘sphere, with Clio’s ident attached.
But you’re on the right track.

“Not exactly,” Remington said. “An apprentice can be dismissed by whoever takes them on, but you’re entitled to appeal to the head of the local Guildhall to get the decision reversed.” He glanced pointedly at Wymes, and the two soldiers accompanying him. “Good luck with that.”

“I can appeal it on your behalf,” Clio said, her face appearing for a moment beneath Lena’s elbow.

“You won’t get the chance,” Remington said. “We’re undocking this afternoon, as soon as our clearance comes through. I gave my word we’d deliver our cargo as quickly as possible, and I intend to follow through on that.”

“Then I’m staying behind, as his advocate.” Clio’s voice was as grimly determined as his own. “I’m leaving the
Stacked Deck
right now.”

“You’re doing what?” Rennau’s voice carried clearly from somewhere near the back of the crush. “You’re not doing anything of the kind before we talk about this properly.”

“Fine, we’ll talk.” Clio returned her attention to the drama in the bedroom, and her glare to Remington. “You’ve got no grounds for expelling him.”

“If you think you have, I’d like to hear them,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice level. After all, I’d had a lifetime of practice at hiding how I felt.

“You’ve lied to me from the beginning,” Remington said flatly. “You were planted in my crew by Commonwealth Naval Intelligence, and you’ve carried on working for them even after I granted you an apprenticeship. I should have realized something was going on after you swiped that data from the customs inspector in the Numarkut system.”

“Data you were happy enough to have at the time,” I reminded him evenly. “In fact, I seem to remember that was what persuaded you to offer me the apprenticeship in the first place.”

“It was.” Remington nodded. “And if I hadn’t been so blinded by the business edge it gave me, I’d have asked a lot more questions. Like why an Avalonian social parasite had a headful of sneakware in the first place.”

“I told you, it was just a hobby,” I said.

“You told me a lot of things. Like your aunt’s a logistics and supply officer.”

“You know she is,” I said, uncomfortable with the way this was going. “You’ve run cargoes for her. That’s why you took me on, as a favor, because you thought it would give you some leverage the next time she offered you a contract.”

“You never told me her day job’s a front for gathering intelligence!”

“News to me,” I lied, with an easy shrug of indifference.

“But not to me,” Wymes chimed in. About time, I thought, much longer and we’d all forget he was there. “Jenny Worricker’s been known to us as a senior network controller for a long time. When Captain Remington confided his suspicions to me a couple of hours ago, I must admit I was on the point of dismissing them, until he mentioned in passing that you were her nephew.”

“Something else your background checks missed?” I asked, sarcastically, before going back on the attack. “But even if I did believe your absurd suggestion that Aunt Jenny is some kind of spy, that’s no reason to assume I am as well.”

“Do you deny you had a private meeting with Ellie Caldwell at Farland Freight Forwarding just before you lifted from Numarkut?” Wymes asked, as if he was going for the jugular. “Another known Commonwealth agent?”

“I was sent to pick up a package,” I said. “We never even spoke.”

“A package which contained your orders,” Wymes said, with the air of a man laying four aces on the tabletop.

“This isn’t fair!” Clio interrupted, from the far side of Rolf’s buttocks. “Guilders are always taking information-gathering contracts! You can’t expel him for doing what any one of us would do, given the chance!”

“That’s the whole point,” Remington said. “He wasn’t a Guilder when he joined the
Stacked Deck
, he was a spy, using us for cover.” He sighed, and shook his head, looking genuinely regretful as he addressed his next remark directly to me. “If you’d admitted that when I offered you the apprenticeship, we could have worked something out, converted it into a standard Guild contract with your aunt. But you were using me and my ship, and you betrayed us all.”

“I betrayed you?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “How do you work that one out?”

“How long have we been stuck here?” There was an undercurrent of anger in his voice now. “If you’d been honest from the start, we could have cut a deal. Left you behind on Kincora while we made our delivery, and picked you up on the way outsystem, something like that. You’d have been under Guild protection the whole time, wouldn’t even have been asked many questions—”

Wymes nodded. “Because we’d expect the same courtesies extended to any of our information contractors detained by the Commonwealth.”

Remington went on as if he hadn’t even heard the interruption—possibly because he hadn’t. “Instead of which we’ve all lost time and money we couldn’t afford.”

Apart from the compensation payment
, I sent dryly.

“Bugger the compensation payment!” Remington retorted, leaving Wymes looking faintly confused. “You’ve made us look like idiots! We’re Guilders, we’re supposed to be on top of every deal, and now every second-rate hustler we take a contract with is going to think they can put one over on the
Stacked Deck
because you did! There’s no amount of money can buy back a dented reputation!”

“Who’s going to know?” I asked.

“Everyone! You think the
Ebon Flow
mob are going to keep quiet about it after the way you picked a fight with one of them? Not to mention the Freebooters. They’ll pass on anything that’ll make the Guild look bad.”

“They’re letting the Freebooters go too?” I asked. Not exactly the most pressing concern I had right then, but my head was still reeling at this unexpected reversal, and I suppose I was grabbing at whatever piece of mental flotsam floated by in an attempt to regain my footing.

Wymes shook his head. “They still have charges to answer in the civil courts. We’ll turn them over once the paperwork’s done, and we’ve cleared the other ships. Shouldn’t be more than a day or two.” He shrugged indifferently. “I don’t imagine they’ll be in any hurry to leave, anyway; they won’t find their next accommodation nearly so comfortable.” He looked at me, like a hungry cat contemplating a rodent. “Neither, I’m afraid, will you.”

Well, he was right about that, though perhaps not as much as he’d thought. Even though the cell they moved me to was a good deal smaller than the room I’d been staying in, my quarters aboard the
Stacked Deck
hadn’t been all that much bigger, so I didn’t find it as claustrophobic as I might have—although being unable to leave whenever I felt like it made a big difference, of course.

Wymes had, at least, granted me a degree of privacy in which to get dressed before leaving the internment area; since my old room had only one exit, which made trying to run for it impossible, and hiding in the wardrobe didn’t look like much of a long-term strategy, he’d agreed to wait outside in the corridor for a few minutes while, as requested, I put on my pants.

By the time he and his escort came back inside, I was fully dressed, and had packed the few items I thought I might be allowed to take with me—spare clothes and toiletries, for the most part.

Wymes nodded approvingly as he rummaged through the bag. “I see you like to travel light.”

“I didn’t leave home with much,” I said.

“So I gathered.” He plucked out my shaving kit, and held it up. “This is a joke, right?”

“Do you see me laughing?” I asked, before it dawned on me he was actually serious. “You expect me to fight my way to a docking bay and hijack a ship with an inch-long blade?” I asked, incredulous.

“That’s more than long enough to sever an artery.” He tossed it on the bed. “Nice try.”

“Is delusional paranoia a job requirement for you people.” I asked, “or did you just decide to go with what you’re good at?”

“You should know.” He finished rummaging through my pack, and lobbed it at me; I caught it by reflex, and Wymes nodded, confirming the impression of my reaction time he’d gained during our duel of pens. Another mistake on my part; I should have fumbled it, and made myself seem less of a threat.

Fortunately, the crowd of my shipmates had left the corridor before we emerged, most of them busily collecting up their possessions in their own quarters. The few exceptions we encountered acknowledged me with what I can only describe as distant embarrassment, unsure how to engage with me, and by no means convinced that they actually wanted to.

The exception, of course, was Clio, who broke off from arguing with her father in the common area as we passed through, and hurried over to bar our way. She glared at Wymes. “You’re making a big mistake,” she said. “He’s still protected until his appeal’s been heard by the Guild Mistress.”

“That’s not my understanding,” Wymes said levelly. “If he is reinstated following your appeal, we will, of course, pay appropriate compensation. But unless and until that happens, he’s a Commonwealth intelligence agent—”

“Alleged agent,” I interrupted.

“—and subject to the civil and military codes governing acts of espionage.”

“If you hurt him,” Clio said, with cold intensity, “I’ll have the Guild embargo this entire system until the most sophisticated piece of technology still working on Freedom is the ox cart.” Wymes began to smile, then hastily suppressed it.
Don’t make threats you can’t follow through on,
I sent her.
It makes you look weak.
Something I’d learned early on, growing up with a sister like Tinkie, although I imagine it wasn’t exactly news to a Guilder either. But Clio wasn’t all that big on hiding how she felt. “Right after I finish removing your testicles with a rusty spoon,” she added for good measure, and suddenly Wymes wasn’t amused at all.

“If you insist on staying behind to play out this ridiculous charade, I’ll see to it you have access to the communications net,” he said stiffly. “Under supervision, of course.”

“Guild communications are privileged,” Clio snapped back. “You’ll give me full access to an outgoing channel through my neuroware, and if I even suspect my discussions with the Guildhall are being monitored you’ll be spending the rest of your career cleaning the heads on a garbage scow.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Wymes said tightly, recognizing the first moderately credible threat for what it was.

“That’s my girl,” Rennau said fondly, ruffling her hair. He picked up his kitbag. “So there’s really no chance of you changing your mind?”

Clio shook her head.

“Didn’t think so.” He sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable. “Look after yourself.”

“You too,” Clio said, her expression softening. “Love to mom, if you run into her first.”

“Will do.” Then he turned, resolutely, and hurried away, keeping his face averted.

“We’d better get moving too,” Wymes said, and led the way out of our quarters.

Good news, it seemed, travelled fast—all my fellow internees seemed to have heard that the Commonwealth spy no one really believed in had been unmasked at last, and were feverishly preparing for departure. Which didn’t stop a lot of them from pausing in the act of whatever they were doing to stare, glare, or, in one or two cases, catcall, depending on their temperament. I’d expected Deeks to be one of the most vocal, but in the event he just turned his head without comment to watch me go by, and resumed stacking boxes outside the
Ebon Flow
crew’s quarters.

I glanced round, hoping to catch sight of the Freebooters, but they seemed to be staying in their quarters—which I could hardly blame them for. The ferment of activity in the rest of the cavern would only have reminded them that their stay here was coming to an end, along with the short period of relative liberty it represented. I could still detect Baines’s datasphere, though, so I sent a quick farewell message:
Didn’t work out. Sorry.
Which probably wasn’t much in the way of consolation to a man facing jail time, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Of course it did cross my mind to kick over the file I’d swiped for him in any case, but with the crew of the
Stacked Deck
already on their way to the docking bay, and no chance of cutting a deal with anyone else, being caught in possession of it would only create more problems for him than it would solve.