Trading in Danger (18 page)

The hatch opened into the lock; Ky stepped back against the bulkhead to let the invaders out.

The first in line faced her, and kept a weapon pointed at her. Ky stood still, hoping they couldn’t detect her pounding heart—but they probably could, if those suits had the capability of Slotter Key’s combat suits. The second pulled the inner lock shut, then moved a short way down the passage.

“You’re Captain Vatta?” The voice came through her earbug; she didn’t know if the speaker was in the suit or still outside.

“Yes,” Ky said.

“Kind of… young, aren’t you? Are they robbing cradles these days?”

“First voyage,” Ky said. She was not going to rise to that bait. “It was supposed to be a milk run.”

“Lucky you,” the voice said. “I suppose we should be glad you had the sense not to play hero. Tell me, is your entire crew straight out of infant school, or is there someone aboard with a gray hair or two?”

Ky refrained from saying that they had the crew list. “Most of them are older than I am,” she said.

“Caretakers?”

“Something like that.” She thought of making the comparison with senior NCOs and young officers, but thought better of it.

“You don’t get upset easily, do you?” the voice asked. She wasn’t sure what the right answer to that one was.

“I try not to,” Ky said, with a slight emphasis on the “try.”

A faint grunt answered her, then, “Well, suppose you cycle another round in, then.”

Ky worked the controls; the outer lock opened more easily this time, with less noise, and the next two entered. When she had completed the sequence and two more armored figures crowded the little space, the voice spoke again.

“Unplug from the phone—I’m switching to external speakers. We’ll handle the lock from here. Start back up the passage. We’re right behind you; don’t try anything.”

She could think of nothing to try. She led the mercenaries up through the escape passage, trying to move calmly, trying not to think about those dangerous figures behind her, their weapons pointed at her. After all, if they’d wanted to shoot her, they could have done that right away. And if they’d wanted to blow the ship, they could have done that, too. Whatever it was they wanted, so far it included keeping her alive and the ship in one piece.

Gerard Vatta, pacing his office, waited through the clicks and buzzes, the bleeps and clicks, that involved an intersystem call. He could imagine all too clearly the distances a signal must travel to InterStellar Communications headquarters: the light-years from Slotter Key’s system to the relay at Beckwith’s Star, more light-years from Beckwith’s Star to Nexus II, and from Nexus II to Nexus I. More light-years than his age.

Finally the open line… but now he had to convince layers of underlings, whose jobs depended on keeping the officers of ISC insulated from people like him, that this time they should instead let his call go through. He had one in: Vatta Transport had been a steady supporter of ISC over the years, when other long-haul shippers had argued for laws restricting ISC’s monopoly. Lewis Parmina, now only three slots away from the CEO-ship, and rumored to be the chosen successor to the current CEO—had been a Vatta guest more than once at Corleigh.

He kept his voice pleasant and firm, pushing down the impulse to scream at Parmina’s personal assistant, who—when he finally got through to her—wanted him to call back the next day at three P.M. local time. He repeated again that the matter was urgent, and the setup time for an intersystem call made it impossible to be that precise.

“Oh—you are calling from outsystem, then?”

He had explained that more than once at every level. “Yes, I am,” he said. “This call originates in Slotter Key, approximately one hundred eighty-seven light-years away, through two intermediate relays.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll see if Mr. Parmina can speak with you. He is a very busy man.”

It seemed a year but was, by the chronometer on the wall, less than ninety seconds before Parmina spoke. He had the strong nasal accent of his homeworld, but he was not that hard to understand.

“Gerard Vatta—it’s been too long, Gerard, since I was out your way. What can InterStellar do for you?”

“You’ve lost ansibles at Sabine Prime,” Gerard said. He knew he should respond with some pleasantry, but it was the middle of the night here in Slotter Key’s capital city, and he was grumpy with exhaustion. “My daughter’s there—”

“With the Slotter Key space force? What are they doing in Sabine?”

Clearly Parmina had kept up with the Vatta family, at least enough to know that Ky should, by now, have been a commissioned space force officer.

“No, as a Vatta Transport captain. The military thing didn’t work out—”

“I’m sorry,” Parmina said. “But your delightful daughter—so spontaneous as a child—not really the military sort, was she?”

“No.” Somehow it was worse that someone outside the family would have predicted Ky’s failure. He pushed that aside. “But the thing is—something bad must be happening in Sabine system. We don’t have any ships in the area. Ky’s in there with an old tub that was on its last legs—she was taking it on its last voyage, to salvage—” Never mind that she wasn’t supposed to be in Sabine anyway. That was family business. “And I was wondering—”

“I understand your concern,” Parmina said. “As a father, if that were my daughter, I’d be frantic.” His voice cooled. “I hope you’ll understand that I cannot comment at all on what ISC thinks about this, what course of action, if any, the company might choose to take. Encryption is all very well, but—”

“I know that,” Gerard said. “I don’t expect that.” He’d had hopes he knew were irrational. He had more sense than to mention them. “What I wanted to ask was—in the event that ISC finds out something about—well, about Ky—is it possible you could let me know? I know it’s probably against policy but… well…”

Parmina’s voice was warm again. “Gerry—right now I can assure you that we have no information on anything in Sabine system; all we know is what you know: the ansibles went down in a catastrophic way. In the event that we reestablish communication, our first priority has to be restoring service—but yes, if we happen to find out anything about your daughter, I will do my best to see that it’s routed to you. It’s irregular, but you’ve been a longtime supporter, and I know how I’d feel if it were my daughter…”

“Thanks,” Gerard said. “I owe you. And how is Denise doing at Solvena?”

“She’s making good grades, finally, but she’s changed her major three times in the last two years. If I understand their transcript system, the courses she’d passed might qualify her for assistant gerbil trainer in a zoo… Why is it, Gerry, that daughters invariably go after something either impractical or unsuited to their character? All my sons went straight into business, but Denise… it’s like she has a magnetic repulsion to anything that would do her some good.”

This begged for a similarly condescending comment about Ky, but Gerard could not make himself tell about Ky’s expulsion, not while she was in danger—if she was even still alive. “Daughters!” he said instead, in a tone he hoped sufficed. “You’re right about them.”

“I’ll do what I can, Gerry,” Parmina said, in a tone that signaled the end of the conversation. “But I can’t promise anything, you understand that.”

“I do, and thanks again. I appreciate your willingness to even listen to me.”

“Always,” Parmina said. “And the next time I’m out your way, I’ll be sure and stop by.”

The line closed to the standby buzz. Gerard turned off his desk unit and turned to face the window. Out there, the city lights, like stars… and somewhere his daughter. In here, the darkness and the waiting.

“I hate waiting,” he said aloud; the sound of his voice startled him, and he forced a chuckle. Time to go back to his city apartment and try to sleep. Tomorrow he was supposed to fly back to Corleigh and host the annual estate picnic. He wanted to commandeer the fastest courier ship Vatta had, and go find out if Ky was all right.

The ISC repair ship
Cosmos
, routinely assigned responsibility for ansible maintenance in Sector Five—twenty-three systems of which Sabine was one—had received the company’s current upload on military security. Every military organization known to be operating in Sector Five, with its current—or believed to be current—location and mission. ISC agents stationed on ansible platforms reported daily on military activity—among other things—which enabled repair ships like
Cosmos
to know what they might be getting into when they came to repair an ansible that went offline.

Jed Sinclair, senior analyst aboard the
Cosmos
, looked over the updates. Three such organizations had relevant notations and had not shown up on any ansible listing since the Sabine ansibles went out. Barkley’s Best, a fairly new organization, had taken its entire fleet and personnel into jumpspace from Matlock seventeen days before the Sabine ansibles went out. They were three mapped jump points from Sabine, though military vessels often used odd, indirect routes. Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation had dispatched two cruisers from its home base on Knifecroft; they jumped out of their system eight days before the Sabine ansibles went out. Gruin Colonies, Inc., had sent three ships out eleven days before the Sabine ansibles went out.

Jed thought about that. Gruin could almost certainly be taken off the list. Gruin used its security forces to put down riots and rebellion in its colonies; it had never—so far—attacked anyone else. Barkley’s and Mackensee were both straight-up mercenary forces, for hire to anyone. Worst case, they were both at Sabine.

He didn’t believe worst case. ISC’s tap on the financial ansible, which gave him information on funds transfers into and out of the system, suggested that Secundus didn’t have the resources to hire two different mercenary companies.

So, which was it and what difference did it make? He was pondering when new data popped up on his screen. Barkley’s had shown up on the Timodea ansible, apparently involved in the dispute over ownership of some uninhabitable but mineral-rich minor worlds.

Mackensee. They had a profile, and that profile… did not include blowing up ansibles. Interesting. ISC had fought some bloody engagements to convince everyone—planetary governments, system unions, space militias and mercenaries—that ansibles were not target opportunities. They had an unwritten but generally known policy that allowed combatants to fight over control of communications without actually damaging the ansibles or their platforms, with ISC committing to cooperation with the victor. Mackensee had acted correctly—from ISC’s point of view—in other wars it had fought. In fact, Mackensee had an “acceptable” rating on a scale where there were only two values and a large, wide, deadly line between them.

So what was its problem here? Who had forgotten the hard lesson taught last time? Who wanted to be down-rated, with all the consequences of that change? Had Mackensee blown the ansibles, or had someone else done it, to downgrade Mackensee or simply to get ISC attention?

And most important, what would happen if
Cosmos
jumped into the system and started working on replacement ansibles?

Jed forwarded his conclusions to the
Cosmos
captain and back to headquarters. Then he downloaded all the data ISC had on the Sabine system and started looking for a sneaky way in.

Master Sergeant Cally Ray Pitt, twenty-eight-year Mackensee veteran and fire team leader for the boarding party assigned to
Glennys Jones
, had loaded the trader’s crew stats into her implant. As always, the most dangerous time came first, when they had to depend on a civilian ship captain to be smart and steady. Most were. A few weren’t, a few panicked right at the moment of boarding and tried something stupid, and although Mackensee personnel were willing to blow away difficult neutral civilians, it was bad for business. So she always hoped that civilians would behave like good little civs, not get in the way, follow orders.

Glennys Jones
, on exterior inspection, looked like the old tub she was… an antiquated and inefficient design, decked out in the colors of a famous and very respectable trading firm. Cally had seen Vatta ships before, rotund well-kept ships with neatly uniformed crew guarding the docking access. Not as good as military, by a light-year or so, but certainly a quality organization, as civ organizations went. So why were Vatta keeping this old scow, and why was it captained by a Vatta family member?

A very very young Vatta family member, in fact.

She watched the young Vatta captain carefully. The crew stats had told her age—which she’d assumed was a mistake until she saw the woman’s face. A young face, a young person’s racing but steady heartbeat, a young person’s lung capacity—her suit picked up the woman’s vital signs easily, as it would have detected the residual effects of longevity treatment. The woman was actually that young, and a captain of a seriously deficient little ship.

And not nearly scared enough. What did she know, that she wasn’t panicking? She should be terrified by the proximity of large, threatening, armed and armored soldiers, faceless—Cally knew the woman couldn’t see through the visor. She was scared, but she wasn’t panicked.

Cally tried to push her, teasing her about her age. The woman didn’t budge, emotionally. That said something. Few young civs had that kind of emotional discipline.

“Cally—talk to me—what’s happening?” That was Sid, back on
Victor
. They’d have a recorder running; she had the little eyeblink on her helmet; they’d see what she saw and hear what she heard. But Sid wanted her analysis as well, at least when nothing was—thankfully—happening.

“The captain’s young and there’s something—she’s not reacting like I expected.”

“Trouble?”

“None yet. She’s done everything I told her to, but—I dunno.”

“Bad feeling?”

“Not really. Just don’t understand something about her.”

“Go on, then. We’re on the ticker.”

They were on the ticker indeed. Some idiot—possibly their employers and possibly someone else—had blown both ansibles in this system, and ISC would be crawling all over this place sometime soon. Nobody wanted trouble with ISC. Gods grant they didn’t blame Mackensee…