The Night's Dawn Trilogy (72 page)

“That’s right, it comes from a planet called Lalonde. Which is tropical; in other words it won’t grow here on Norfolk. Not
without extensive geneering, anyway.” He looked at Gideon who was standing behind Kenneth’s chair. The man showed a certain
admiration for the wood, but he wasn’t particularly involved, not like his senior cousin. Surely an aide should at least ask
one question? But then he hadn’t said a word since they had been introduced. Why was he present? Joshua instinctively knew
the reason was important. If the Kavanaghs were as eminent as they appeared, even an injured one wouldn’t be wasting time
standing about in an office doing nothing.

He thought of Ione again. “Trust yourself when it comes to people,” she’d said.

“Have you been to any other importer with this?” Kenneth asked cautiously.

“I only arrived today. Naturally, I came to a Kavanagh first.”

“That’s most courteous of you to honour my family in such a fashion, Captain. And I’d very much like to return the gesture.
I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. As you know, roseyards aren’t legally allowed to sell their produce before the new
crop comes in, but fortunately my family does have an unofficial allocation system. Let me see what I can find for you.” He
put the mayope down and began typing.

Joshua met Gideon’s gaze levelly. “Did you lead a very physically active life before your accident?”

“Yes, we of the gentry do tend to enjoy our sports. There is little to do in Kesteven during the winter months, so we have
an extensive range of events to amuse us. My fall was a sorry blow.”

“So office life doesn’t really suit you?”

“It’s the best occupation given my circumstances, I felt.”

Kenneth had stopped typing.

“You know, you wouldn’t be nearly so restricted in free fall,” Joshua said. “There are many people with medical problems who
lead very full lives on starships and industrial stations.”

“Is that so?” Gideon asked tonelessly.

“Yes. Perhaps you’d care to consider it? I have a vacancy on board
Lady Macbeth
at the moment. Nothing technical, but it’s decent work. You could try it for a Norfolk year, see if it’s more agreeable to
you than office work. If not, I’ll bring you back when I return for another cargo of Tears next summer. The pay is reasonable,
and I provide insurance for all my crew.” Joshua looked straight at Kenneth. “Which includes complete medical cover.”

“That is extraordinarily generous of you, Captain,” Gideon said. “I’d like to accept those terms. I’ll try shipboard life
for a year.”

“Welcome aboard.”

Kenneth resumed typing, then studied the holoscreen display. “You’re in luck, Captain Calvert. I believe I can supply you
with three thousand cases of Norfolk Tears, which comes to approximately one thousand tonnes. My cousin Grant Kavanagh has
some extensive rosegroves in his Cricklade estate, and he hasn’t yet placed all the cases. That district produces an absolutely
first-rate bouquet.”

“Wonderful,” Joshua said.

“I’m sure cousin Grant will want to meet such an important client,” Kenneth said. “On behalf of the family, I extend an invitation
to you and Mr Hanson to stay at Cricklade for the midsummer harvest. You can see our famous Tears being collected.”

The light from Duchess was just making its presence felt as Joshua and Ashly walked out of the Drayton’s Import office. Norfolk’s
short period of darkness was giving way to the light of the red dwarf. Walls and cobbles were acquiring a pinkish shading.

“You did it!” Ashly whooped.

“Yeah, I did,” Joshua said.

“A thousand tonnes, I’ve never heard of anyone getting that much before. You are the sneakiest, most underhand, deviously
corrupt little bugger I have met in all my centuries.” He flung an arm round Joshua’s neck and dragged him towards the main
street. “God damn, but we’re going to be rich. Medical insurance, by God! Joshua you are beautiful!”

“We’ll put Gideon in zero-tau till we reach Tranquillity. It shouldn’t take a clinic more than eight months to clone a new
arm for him. He can enjoy himself with Dominique’s party set for the rest of the time after that. I’ll have a word with her.”

“How’s he going to explain away a new arm when he gets back?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. Magic clockwork, I expect. This world is backward enough to believe it.”

Laughing, the two of them waved for a taxi coach.

When Duchess had risen well above the horizon, sending her bold scarlet rays to discolour the city, Joshua settled himself
on a stool in the Wheatsheaf’s wharfside bar and ordered a local brandy. The view outside the window was fascinating, casting
everything in tones of red. Some colours were almost invisible. A regular train of barges sailed down the willow-lined river,
helmsmen standing by the big tillers at the rear.

It was wonderful to watch, the whole city was a giant tourist fantasy pageant. But some of the inhabitants must lead incredibly
dull lives, doing the same thing day after day.

“We worked out how you did it eventually,” a female voice said in his ear.

Joshua turned, putting his eyes level with a delightful swelling at the front of a blue satin ship-tunic. “Captain Syrinx,
this is a pleasure. Can I get you a drink? This brandy is more than passable, I can recommend it, or perhaps you’d like a
wine?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“No, I’ll drink anything.”

“I don’t know how you can sleep at night. Antimatter kills people, you know. It’s not a game, it’s not funny.”

“A beer, maybe?”

“Good day, Captain Calvert.” Syrinx started to walk past.

Joshua caught her arm. “If you don’t join me for a drink, how can you brag about working
it
out? And incidentally demonstrate how superior you Edenists all are to us poor mud-chewing primitives. Or maybe you don’t
want to hear my counter-argument. After all, you’ve convinced yourself I’m guilty of something. I don’t even know what that
is yet. Nobody ever had the decency to tell me what you thought I was carrying. Have Edenists left justice behind as well
as the rest of our poor flawed Adamist customs?”

Syrinx’s mouth dropped open. The man was intolerable! How did he twist phrases like that? It was almost as if she was in the
wrong. “I never said you were a mud-chewing primitive,” she hissed. “That’s not what we think at all.”

Joshua’s eyes slid pointedly to one side. Syrinx realized everyone in the bar was staring at them.

Are you all right?
Oenone
asked anxiously, picking up on the flustered thoughts in her skull.

I’m fine. It’s this bloody Calvert man again. Oh, is Joshua there?

“Joshua?” She winced. She’d been so surprised at
Oenone
’s use of his first name it had slipped out.

“You remembered,” Joshua said warmly.

“I…”

“Have a stool, what are you drinking?”

Furious and embarrassed, Syrinx sat on a barstool. At least it would stop everyone from looking. “I’ll try a wine.”

He signalled the barmaid for drinks. “You’re not wearing your naval stripe.”

“No. Our duty tour finished a few weeks back.”

“So you’re an honest trader now?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got yourself a cargo?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Hey, that’s great news, well done. These Norfolk merchants are tough buggers to crack. I got the
Lady Mac
stocked up, too.” He collected the drinks, and touched his glass to hers. “Have dinner with me tonight, we can celebrate
together.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you have a previous engagement?”

“Well…” she couldn’t bring herself to lie outright, that would make her no better than him. “I was just on my way to bed.
It’s been a long day with some tough negotiations. But thanks for the invitation. Another time.”

“That’s a real shame,” he said. “Looks like you’ve condemned me to a terminally dull evening, then. There’s only my pilot
down here, and he’s too old for my kind of fun-seeking. I’m waiting for him now. We seem to have lost our paying passenger.
Not that I’m complaining, he wasn’t the party type. Apparently there’s a good restaurant in town called the Metropole, we
were going to check it out. It’s our one night in town, we’ve been invited to an estate for the midsummer itself. So, tough
negotiations, eh? How many cases did you get?”

“You were a decoy,” Syrinx said, jumping at the chance to get a word in.

“I’m sorry?”

“You were smuggling antimatter-confinement coils into the Puerto de Santa Maria system.”

“Not me.”

“We were trailing you all the way from Idria, we’d got you in our sensors every kilometre. That’s what we couldn’t understand.
It was a direct flight. The confinement coils were on board when you left, and they were gone when you arrived. At the time
we assumed you hadn’t rendezvoused with anybody, because we never detected them. But then you didn’t know we were there, did
you?”

Joshua drank some of his brandy, his eyes never leaving her over the rim of the glass. “No, you were in full stealth mode,
remember?”

“So was your friend.”

“What friend?”

“You took a long time to manoeuvre into each jump coordinate. I’ve never seen anyone so clumsy before.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“No, but nobody’s that imperfect either.” She took a sip of the wine. Oh, he was a canny one, this Joshua Calvert; she could
see why she’d been fooled before. “What I think happened was this. You had your friend waiting a light-month outside the New
California system, in full stealth mode, at a very precise coordinate. When you left Idria you jumped to within a few thousand
kilometres of him. It would be difficult, but you could do that. With the nodes the
Lady Macbeth
is equipped with, and your own astrogration skill, that sort of accuracy is possible. And who would suspect? Nobody is that
accurate jumping out of a system; it’s when you come insystem you need precision to jump into the correct emergence zones.”

“Go on, this is riveting stuff.”

She took another sip. “Once you jumped outsystem, you shoved the illegal coils out of the cargo hold, and jumped away again.
We couldn’t detect that sort of dump of inert mass, not by using passive sensors at the distance we were operating from. Then
as soon as
Oenone
and
Nephele
jumped in pursuit, your friend moved in and picked them up. So while you were taking an age to get to Puerto de Santa Maria,
and keeping us occupied tracking you, he was racing on ahead. The coils were already there by the time we arrived.”

“Brilliant.” Joshua tossed down the last of his brandy and called the barmaid over. “That would work, wouldn’t it?”

“It did work.”

“No, not really. You see, your hypothesis is based on one assumption. Tragically false.”

Syrinx picked up the second glass of wine. “What’s that?”

“That I’m an ace astrogrator.”

“I think you are.”

“Right, so on a normal commercial run I would use this alleged skill of mine to shave hours off the journey time, wouldn’t
I?”

“Yes.”

“So I would have used this skill to get here, to Norfolk, wouldn’t I? I mean, I brought a cargo to trade, I’m not going to
waste time, money, and fuel getting it here, now am I?”

“No.”

“Right, so first of all ask the captain on the good ship
Pes-travka
when and where I emerged in the Norfolk system. Then you can go and check my departure time from Lalonde, and work out how
long it took me. Tell me after that if you think I’m a good astrogrator.” He gave her an annoying toothsome smile.

Thanks to
Oenone
, she was instantly aware of Lalonde’s spacial location; how long it ought to take an Adamist star-ship of
Lady Macbeth
’s class and performance to make the trip. “How long did it take you?” she asked in resignation.

“Six and a half days.”

It shouldn’t have taken them that long,
Oenone
said.

Syrinx said nothing. She simply couldn’t bring herself to believe he was innocent. His whole attitude spelt complicity.

“Ah, here’s Ashly now.” Joshua stood and waved at the pilot. “And simply because you committed an extraordinarily rude
faux pas
don’t think you have to pay for the drinks to make up for it. They’re on me, I insist.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to mutual
understanding and future friendship.”

The
Coogan
’s battered prow was riding heavily over the steep wavelets the Zamjan tributary sent rushing down its length towards the
Juliffe. Lori could feel the length of the light trader boat exaggerating each pitch as they drove against the current. After
four and a half days nothing about the
Coogan
bothered her any more; it creaked continually, the engines produced a vibration felt throughout every timber, it was hot,
dark, airless, and cramped. But enforced routine had made it all inconsequential. Besides, she spent a lot of time lying inertly
on her cot, reviewing the images the eagles Abraham and Catlin provided her.