The Rise of Earth (30 page)

“I need to get something off my chest, I guess.”

Tycho wanted to say no, but that would just delay the inevitable—there was no avoiding someone for three days on two decks of a sixty-meter frigate.

“Not here, though,” Carlo said.

Tycho shrugged and grabbed his jacket. He thought of stopping to put on his shoulder holster but decided against it—his shoulder and side were still chafed from wearing it earlier. Zipping his jacket, he followed his brother out of their quarters and through the corridors of the fondaco, passing other spacers and Jovian bureaucrats with their own bags.

He wondered idly what was bothering Carlo. Probably something to do with the rebellious privateers angry about their lost letters of marque. Or perhaps he was still struggling with the ruthlessness their mother had shown in reclaiming the
Leviathan
.

He wasn't particularly surprised when Carlo led the way to the center of the Southwell and its web of wires. But he was taken aback by the look on his brother's face. Carlo looked ashen, and he was trembling.

“What's wrong?” Tycho asked, forgetting his anger for a moment.

“You were right,” Carlo said, then stopped, his chin
falling to his chest. One hand came up and wiped at his eyes.

“Right about what?”

Carlo struggled to master his emotions, staring down into the levels below them. “There was no sign walker,” he said, stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out. “It was the Securitat, just like you said. I
cheated
. I cheated and I don't deserve to be captain.”

Tycho took a step backward, shocked—not that Carlo had done what Tycho had already suspected, but that he'd admitted it. His brother's eyes were red, his face twisted by misery.

“Just tell me what happened,” Tycho said quietly.

“It started with a message. Right after I screwed up and let the Earth ships steal the
Leviathan
.”

Tycho nodded, remembering DeWise's first message to him, the one he'd read on the quarterdeck above Ceres.

“Whoever sent it knew things about our operations that most people wouldn't know. About what had happened on cruises, about prizes taken and lost. And then they asked how I felt about my chances for the captain's chair. So I agreed to a meeting.”

“A meeting where?”

“Out beyond Bazaar, in some dodgy miners' grog shop. They had all the information about that Earth freighter, the
Blue Heron
—where it would be and when. I asked what they wanted in return and they said nothing—just
that they thought highly of me and wanted to help me. When I hesitated, they said they'd give the prize to some other privateer if I didn't want it. They said things had worked like this for years and there was no shame in it.”

“And have they asked you for anything since then?”

“No. But what does that matter?”

Tycho leaned on his elbows. His anger had curdled into a nauseated regret. His brother wasn't confessing to anything Tycho hadn't done himself—except Carlo was admitting it and Tycho never had. Tycho had benefited from the Securitat's help, then turned his back on them. And he'd kept it a secret.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked Carlo.

“Because it's the honorable thing to do. I've been thinking a lot about it. I wish I'd told the Securitat I'd take their tip, but only on behalf of my family. I wish I'd told them that's the rule for us—that the family is the captain, and the captain is the ship, and the ship is the family. Then things might have been different.”

No, they wouldn't have
, Tycho thought.
The Securitat doesn't work that way
.

“But it's too late,” Carlo said. “I can't take back what I've done. All I can do is try to make it right.”

“And you realize what that will cost you?”

Carlo smiled shakily at Tycho.

“It means you're going to be captain,” he said, his voice breaking on that final word, the one that had meant so much to them over the years. “And I'm happy
for you, Tyke. Maybe you don't believe me, but it's true. I really am.”

Tycho felt his breath catch in his throat and tears start in his eyes. He turned away, unable to look at his brother.

“I mean it, Tyke,” Carlo said, his hand on his shoulder. “You're going to be a
great
captain. I was even thinking I could help you with your piloting—show you a couple of things that will make a big difference.”

“Stop it,” Tycho said, shrugging off his brother's hand. “Don't touch me.”

Carlo pulled his hand back. “I'm sorry, Tyke. I'm really sorry. And now I'm supposed to see my . . . my handler, or whatever you'd call him. I'm going to tell him that we're done. And then . . . and then I'll tell Mom, when we're back aboard the
Comet
.”

“And then what?”

“And then it will be up to her.” Carlo made a faltering attempt at a smile, then a better one, blowing out his breath. “I feel better having told you,” he said. “That's crazy, isn't it? I just made sure I'll never be captain, and I feel relieved about it.”

“Carlo, don't do this,” Tycho said. “You don't have to do this.”

His brother looked baffled.

“You don't have to tell Mom,” Tycho said. “I understand. I really do. I . . . it can be our secret, okay?”

“I have to tell her. I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't.”

“Then I have to tell Mom too,” Tycho said almost before thinking about it. He stared at his feet, feeling his face flush.

“Tell her what? What are you talking about?”

Tycho forced himself to look his brother in the eye. “You're not the only one with a Securitat handler. Ceres, two years ago. A message, a man in a café, asking if I wanted to be captain. They gave me a freighter too, in fact.”

Carlo's eyes widened in shock. “The
Portia
?”

“The
Portia
.”

“You didn't find a mediapad?”

“No. Just like you didn't talk with a sign walker.”

Carlo looked stunned, and Tycho found that he too felt a strange relief at having parted with the secret that had haunted him.

“I don't believe it,” Carlo said.

“The Securitat was after the
Iris
cache, just like we were. I think they saw me as insurance in case they didn't find it. So I made a trade with them. There was a data disk in the boxes below Darklands. I swiped it when no one was looking and gave it to them—in exchange for giving us a clear title to the
Hydra
.”

“But we never—”

“I know we didn't. They lied to me about the
Hydra
. Just like they would have lied to you sooner or later. Who was I going to complain to? Anyway, I haven't done anything for them since then. And I wish I never had.”

Carlo nodded. “So what do we do now?”

Tycho took a deep breath. “Either both of us tell Mom or neither of us does.”

“I have to. These last few days— I can't do this.”

Tycho felt sick to his stomach. He'd not only done worse but also managed to live with himself a lot longer than his brother had.

“Then we both tell Mom,” he said.

They stared at each other, letting that sink in.

“All right,” Carlo said.

He extended his hand. Tycho took it, then hugged his brother, trying to remember the last time they'd done that. They parted after a moment, smiling awkwardly.

“I'll see you at the ship, okay?” Carlo said.

“Carlo, don't go see them—just send them a message. It's dangerous out there.”

Carlo shook his head. “It's something I need to do. I'd feel like I was running if I didn't. It'll be fine, Tyke. The crimps don't have any more customers and the Ice Wolves are gone, remember?”

“I guess. Look, I'll go with you as far as Bazaar—I need to say good-bye to Elfrieda. Maybe you could—”

“No,” Carlo said, looking away. “Don't, Tyke. She won't care. She won't care and you'll just be hurt.”

“Maybe. But I'm still going to go. I guess it's my own thing I need to do.”

It was probably just Tycho's imagination, but he thought Elfrieda's goons looked bored standing in their usual ring around the Last Chance. Bazaar was quiet, with just
a scattering of shoppers and weary-looking merchants. But his grandmother occupied her usual spot at the center of her depot, barking out orders that made clerks scurry.

“I thought you'd be gone by now,” she said when she saw Tycho.

“We're leaving in a couple of hours. I wanted to say good-bye.”

Elfrieda nodded, and Tycho waited for her to turn away. But then she called Burke over to watch the counter.

“Cup of tea?” she asked Tycho. “My treat.”

“All right. Thanks.”

A minute later they were sitting in the Last Chance's café, mugs warming their hands.

“So how's your girlfriend?” Elfrieda asked.

Tycho shook his head, eyes downcast.

“Ah,” Elfrieda said. “That's a shame.”

She let her eyes rove over the depot, then sighed. “Can't say I'm sorry to see your Ice Wolf friends move along.”

“They're not my friends,” Tycho said, but Elfrieda barely noticed.

“They spent livres, but they were an odd bunch. Told me they took orders from a boss they never saw—some kind of machine, one of them claimed.”

“A machine?”

“That's what they said, at least. I didn't think much of it until the last wave of shipyard workers returned.
They said the ship they'd been working on never had any cabins built or life-support equipment installed.”

Tycho's mind flashed back to the Ice Wolves' black ship and Yana's strangely low energy readings—and that ragged voice telling them to keep their distance or die.

“The solar system is full of wonders, I suppose,” Elfrieda said. “Anyway, most of the Saturnians are gone. I've seen just a few this morning, on their way to space. Same with the Earthfolks and you Jovians. Gonna be quiet again on this chilly little rock.”

“I wish you'd told me about the Ice Wolves and their boss,” Tycho said. “We could have used that information.”

“Not my business.”

“I wish you'd told somebody, then. The Securitat, maybe.”

Elfrieda put down her mug hard enough that tea sloshed out of it. “I wouldn't help those jackals if the fate of the solar system depended on it.”

Tycho looked at her in surprise.

“They're dealers in misery,” Elfrieda said. “They spend their days seeking weaknesses to exploit and puppets they can make perform. That's how they drew your grandfather in. Stay away from them, Tycho—they'll be the ruin of you. You understand me?”

Tycho's mug was burning his hands. He set it down.

“I understand,” he said, thinking what an enormous
understatement that was. The Securitat had manipulated his grandfather into taking part in a scheme that had backfired and led to the Jupiter pirates' ruin. And then, years later, they'd ensnared Tycho and his brother.

But they'd never fool another Hashoone again. In an hour or two he and Carlo would have confessed what they'd done and no longer be in the running to become the
Comet
's next captain. But at least their stories would be object lessons to future generations of Hashoones about the dangers of the Securitat's lures.

But which future generations? Tycho supposed that Yana would become captain. Ironically, the Hashoone sibling who had given up on gaining the captain's chair would be the only one left in a position to claim it.

Elfrieda sipped her tea for a moment.

“Grandmother? Can I ask you something?”

“No harm in asking.”

“Do you believe in second chances?”

As Elfrieda started to answer, Tycho's mediapad trilled.

“Go ahead,” Elfrieda said in response to his apologetic look.

It was a voice transmission, from an unknown recognition code.

It's Kate
, he thought, fumbling to answer, his heart thudding.

“Hello?”

“Tycho,” a male voice said. “Where are you?”

It was DeWise, he realized, his eyes jumping to Elfrieda, as if their discussion had somehow summoned the Securitat agent.

“Leave me alone,” Tycho told DeWise. “And my brother too.”

And then he disconnected him.

“I'd like to believe in second chances,” Elfrieda said. “It's a lovely idea, really. But mostly they never come.”

Tycho got to his feet. “I'll have to hope for the best, I guess. Maybe we'll see each other again, Grandmother.”

“I'll keep a lookout,” Elfrieda said. “For you and your sister.”

Tycho edged around one of his grandmother's goons and exited the Last Chance, Bazaar's multicolored flags fluttering above his head in the breeze from the air scrubbers. His mediapad beeped again, muffled by his jacket. He recognized the sound as a message alert and kept walking, passing through Bazaar's airlock and into the tunnel leading to the Westwell. There was nothing DeWise could say that he cared to hear.

He'd left the Westwell behind and was just entering the main Well when his mediapad trilled once more, this time with another voice transmission.

“Take a hint already,” he grumbled, but stopped to unzip his jacket and extract his mediapad. The new transmission was from his sister's recognition code.

“Yana? What is it?”

“I just got a really strange voice message. I don't know who it was from, but he was asking where you and Carlo
were, and warning me about the Ice Wolves.”

Tycho stopped, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Tyke? Are you there?”

“Yeah. I heard you. I better go.”

He disconnected Yana and called up his message queue, fingers stumbling through the familiar steps. He tapped the message he'd ignored earlier and it began to play.