by Hank Davis
He made his way over to where Koscuisko sat with Chief Stildyne, to ask him about people who listened at doors. As he approached, Stildyne pushed himself up and away from the table, leaving his custard dessert untouched. Bat wasn’t fooled. It was almost certainly an extra for Koscuisko, who probably had a sweet tooth—like most Dolgorukij that Bat had ever met.
Koscuisko stood up, too, and waited. They would have drawn peoples’ attention, by now, Koscuisko being who he was and Stildyne being such a distinctive man with his nose smashed flat and one cheekbone not quite in alignment and his thin lips and his general air of nobody wants to get in my way. Stildyne gave Bat a nod on the way past; Koscuisko gave Bat as much of a bow as any senior officer in the Jurisdiction’s Fleet would give any Judge, and gestured with his hand.
“Please sit down, your Honor,” Koscuisko said. “The dining hall is busy today. We’ve saved you a seat.”
There it was again. Ordinarily Bat would have let it pass, because although he didn’t know Koscuisko very well he’d been grateful for Koscuisko’s backup in some uncertain situations; but he was a little nervous about whether his arbitration experiment was going to work, and they did have a relationship, he and Koscuisko. Of a sort.
“I wish people wouldn’t call me that,” Bat said, sitting down, moving the surplus custard to the Koscuisko side of the table. “I’m not a Bench judge, not here in Gonebeyond.”
When Koscuisko sat back down he angled his chair around—with his back to the room, now. Nothing to see here, Bat thought. Everybody just eat your breadfolds, and mind your own business.
“Your objection is overruled,” Koscuisko said. “I am widely held to be an impatient and arrogant man, which is to say, a chief of Surgery at Safehaven Medical Center. When I bend my neck to you I place myself under your authority, to howsoever limited an extent, and communicate to all that they ought to do the same, in my opinion.”
Whether arrogant or not—Bat made no ruling—Koscuisko unquestionably had a good opinion of himself. That was all right. Bat could see his point. “As you wish, your Excellency,” Bat said, not without a certain flourish of his own. Fair was fair. Koscuisko could take it as a reference to his civil rank in his system of origin as easily as pointing out his former rank as Ship’s Surgeon—Ship’s Inquisitor—on the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. “If I might inquire as to your interest in a common cargo contractual issue, your Excellency?”
Koscuisko made a commendably restrained expression of shuddersome rejection. “I am only curious, Dir Yorvik, as everybody, about how you were going to approach a resolution to this issue. Nor had I any idea there was a potential point of interest until Langsarik Station diverted Fisher Wolf en route to Safehaven, thus depriving me of my chance at the first of the pear-fruit to ripen this season. Which I resent.”
“Is there no such thing as arbitration among the Dolgorukij?” Bat asked, momentarily distracted. Koscuisko was a surgeon over and above anything else that he had been in Jurisdiction Fleet; there was no place for a free and full exchange of ideas in the middle of a medical procedure, all yes Doctor and no Doctor and I regret that the patient has stopped breathing, Doctor and oh God that’s my daughter and stop you madman you’re too impaired to conduct this surgery you’ll kill her. Bat watched entertainment vids too.
“I know it works for people who have already enough of a set of understandings in common,” Koscuisko said. “But for people of unrelated social norms, I would think the chances less likely of success. You are the one who knows. Tell me.”
This was naïve of Koscuisko, Bat suspected. Maybe Koscuisko was drawing Bat out, trying to get a sense of whether Bat could make it work. He wasn’t sure. He was going to give it a try regardless.
“I don’t know how much you heard, listening in,” Bat said. “If that was you, that is, and not one of yours. Everybody’s assumptions were reasonable, but mismatched. It wouldn’t have mattered back in Jurisdiction space, because we had a single set of assumptions—you would call it under Canopy, Doctor?—of externally imposed and defined roles. We’ll see. Feel free to stand outside the door, or maybe we could get plant services to put up a curtain for you to lurk behind. I endorse your concealment, by the way. I’ve known you to be very loud just by breathing, with respect, no offense, Doctor.”
He meant it, the with respect and no offense parts. All of them, really. “I want to know if Dar Vilna means to offload her cargo here, Dir Yorvik,” Koscuisko said. “I have a personal interest. There are rumors that she has some particularly fine shocattli on her manifest, and I wouldn’t mind having some of it for myself. I get shipments from home, yes, but we are not yet on the leading edge of the luxury market, for that commodity. Hard to imagine, yes, for me as well, but it is true.”
Koscuisko had been mostly finished with his breadfold when Bat had sat down with him. Scooping the last bits of the second custard up with his spoon now, Koscuisko finished that as well, and pushed himself back and away from the table. “Good luck, Dir Yorvik,” Koscuisko said. “We will be keeping an ear, ready to intervene at your word. We believe in you.”
He did not. Koscuisko didn’t know him well enough to be able to say such a thing, not sincerely. Koscuisko was just being polite; but he’d put an idea in Bat’s mind, and if it worked out he would try to get some shocattli from Vilna’s cargo—if it could be done without the appearance of impropriety—just to thank Koscuisko for his assistance.
* * *
When Bat returned at the end of four hours and some minutes to the conference room they’d used during this morning’s meeting the hallway was full of people, lined up ominously enough to either side of the corridor—self-selected by sympathies. The Port Authority had three Security on either side of the doors into the conference room, now. They opened the primitive hinged two-panel doors for Bat to go through.
There was to be only the four of them there inside the room, Vilna, Hammond, Bart, and an administrative professional from Langsarik Station to make sure the record of the discussion was being correctly extracted, to witness the proceedings. There was so strong a sense of an interrupted conversation that Bat only barely succeeded in controlling his temptation to ask outright what they’d decided, and Shurl—from Langsarik Station—wouldn’t tell him. Shurl was punctilious about things. Nothing that wasn’t on the mutually approved record was going to be forthcoming from him. That was a pity. Bat pulled a chair into the aisle between the two tables on either side of the room—between the desks—to sit down.
“These are the questions I think we need to answer,” he said, offering the flatfile flimsy briefing sheets one to each side. “Have a look. Are we ready to discuss these?”
He’d made them up himself. He had no precedents at hand to apply to this situation. There was to be no formal Judicial inquiry, no state your name and occupation and the crime you allege to have occurred or with respect to which you plead your innocence, no describe your cargo, explain the facts of the complaint and why it rises to the level of a Judicial proceeding. Nothing like that.
Hammond, who had a subtle self-satisfied expression on his face, gave the flatfile flimsy a little shake, just enough to make it rustle in an informal request to speak. “I don’t know why some of these questions should be official,” he said. “In fact I might go so far as to suggest it’s nobody’s business what my comprehensive cargo manifest contains, Dir Yorvik.”
To be self-satisfied might indicate that Hammond felt on sure ground, which in turn might hint that he believed the most part of the people in the hall supported his side of the controversy. Bat put that consideration to one side; it had nothing to do with the facts of the matter, or the best—fairest, most robust—solution.
The question about the cargos was an innovation on his part, something Bat had only added to the list after Koscuisko had mentioned shocattli. Bat wasn’t sure whether Koscuisko had any business knowing that about Vilna’s cargo, so he had to create a reasonable pretext for him to have the information, wh
ich meant asking both parties.
“I understand your reservations, Dir Hammond. We may find a valid need for some such information when we get to the end of today’s meeting, and please note that the same questions are asked of you both; so let’s save discussion about whether you’ll release the information until then, please. How do you feel about answering these questions here and now, Dar Vilna? Dir Hammond? I think we can resolve this dispute today, if we’re willing to work things through together.”
Vilna was making marks on the flimsy she held. Hammond shrugged. Bat wished he’d brought a tall cooler of something cold and fruit-flavored with extra cups, but they were off to the wars now and it was too late.
“First we establish what we’re here for, then.” Not off to the wars. Off on a voyage of exploration. One that would go better with ice and fruit juice in Neeks’ rather stuffy conference room, but Bat was feeling the excitement now even in the presence of his nervous apprehension about whether this experiment would work, and eager to get started.
“Dar Vilna.” It was her complaint, so Bat started with her. “You’ve told us, yes, but let’s have it again, if you don’t mind. What exactly would you need to feel you were made completely whole of the injury you feel has been done to you?”
Things had been more informal, earlier today; no notes had been taken, nothing they could use to memorialize this negotiation. He needed notes now. They were making their own precedent. It was important. He listened for the meat of Vilna’s statement; no change from what she’d said this morning, though her tone of voice was a little more reserved, less sharp-edged. She’d been consistent throughout, to her credit.
She wanted her money back because Hammond hadn’t gotten here when they’d agreed he would. She wanted paid back the money it was going to cost her to move her cargo from Neeks to Beraile. But she wanted something else, implied, not explicit—she wanted the disruption, the professional inconvenience, to be Hammond’s fault. And all the time she spoke Bat could hear noise in the corridor outside the room, carefully noting the degrees by which voices seemed to be raised.
“Thank you, Dar Vilna. And now. Dir Hammond.” There seemed to be more people out there than before. The conversation was becoming more heated, without a doubt. The walls were on the thin side; a mere closed door was not going to stop anybody who wanted to come through. “Is there anything in Dar Vilna’s statement that contradicts your understanding, or that is newly introduced? Yes, I agree. May we hear from you, now, what do you feel would make you whole, to the extent that you have suffered damages?”
Hammond’s desires were simpler, understandably so. He didn’t think he cared to refund her transport costs; he had supplied transport. He was sorry his ship hadn’t made it to Neeks in time, but they’d burned through the extra fuel he could have used to make a final dash for Neeks—his cargo had been heavier than he’d accounted for—and they all knew why. So that wasn’t his fault, either.
Bat knew where his sympathies lay; and a judge could have sympathies, but only so long as they didn’t interfere with the fair and considered and careful requirements of equal treatment under the Law. He knew what he wanted to happen, exactly. He couldn’t be the one to suggest it unless he absolutely had to, however, because once the suggestion came from a third party it was potentially compromised thereby.
“So, just tell me now, Dar Vilna,” Bat suggested. He really, really wanted a cold drink. The door at the back of the room had started to shift a little, as though a press of bodies was deforming it; standing up, Shurl pushed a rearmost table across the doorway and sat back down in front of it. A barricade. “Let’s go back to Delgacie. If everything had worked out and we knew then that Dir Hammond’s ship couldn’t get your cargo here to Neeks in time to keep your schedule, what would have happened?”
They’d have tried to find another carrier, obviously. She wouldn’t have made a contract with Hammond, so Hammond would be out of it. Maybe there’d been another ship, but maybe there hadn’t. It was most likely that Hammond had been proposed to Vilna because no one else in Delgacie just then was coming to Neeks at all, let alone on Vilna’s schedule. In that case Vilna would have missed her connection and had to reschedule anyway. Whose fault was the missed connection at Delgacie? Not Hammond’s, anyway.
Bat heard an emphatic clicking sound, from the back of the room. Shurl looked back over his shoulder, clearly startled; the doors were starting to open, pushing the table forward as they did, pushing Shurl in his chair as well. There had to be a lot of muscle behind that effort. Not good, Bat told himself. Not good at all. The doors were opening wide now, the tumult beyond punctuated by the scraping sound of the table-legs as the table was pushed into the room, protesting every step of the way. Better hurry up.
“So, setting aside any considerations of blame for the moment, and focusing specifically instead on how this might have come out right for all of us.” Meaning of you, but Bat trusted Vilna and Hammond to know what he meant. Shurl had taken up his recorder and retreated to a seat as close to the far wall—on Bat’s right—as he could get. Bat didn’t blame him, but he wasn’t moving. “What additional costs accrue to you, Dar Vilna?”
The doors were wide open, now. And yet the people Bat could see crowded in the corridor weren’t rushing into the room. What was going on? Bat thought he heard somebody’s clear voice calling out. Coming through, out of the way, please. Was that Janforth? Neeks’ Security stood at either side of the open doors, doing a good job of looking as though they were still in full control of the situation.
“I’ve been thinking about that question,” Vilna said. She was looking at Hammond, though, not Bat. “I paid full cost for haulage, with a penalty for late arrival. If I can’t get my cargo to Beraile I’ve failed to deliver, and I’ll have to find an alternate market, at additional expense, with a cargo that’s worth less and less the longer that takes. I’m paying a premium on refrigeration costs as well, for as long as I’m stuck here in Neeks.”
All fair considerations. Bat was sure now that it was Janforth’s voice, coming toward them through the corridor outside. Bat had reason to remember Janforth, since Bat had been on the same shuttle that had carried Janforth into Gonebeyond—to find Andrej Koscuisko, in fact, none other. Janforth must have had satisfaction when he’d made the connection, because he’d clearly joined Fisher Wolf’s crew.
“Thank you, and thank you,” Bat heard Janforth saying, quite near, now. The people out there in the hallway seemed to be moving out of the way. And here Janforth was, with the rest of the wolf-pack—Pyotr, Kerenko, Garrity, Hirsel, Godsalt, Robert St. Clare. And, even more welcome in Bat’s current very thirsty condition, they’d brought a beverage service.
“Still speculating, Dar Vilna.” Bat pressed his point, but in a polite and neutral tone. He wasn’t blaming anybody. “Was there a premium for on-time arrival, as well? An overplus, yes, I see, with funds in escrow. And you, Dir Hammond? If I remember correctly you have stated to us that you did your best once you realized there was going to be a problem.”
Fruit-flavored water in an urn large enough to hydrate twice as many people as were here, its tell-tales showing a cheerful report of icy chill. Fisher Wolf’s crew set the secures on the trundler’s transport wheels, filled flasks from the reservoir; two of them brought trays forward, condensation already beading in the warmth, distributing them to Vilna—Hammond—Shurl—Bat himself, in turn. They didn’t leave.
“There was a premium set, yes,” Vilna affirmed emphatically. “So, do you know what I think, your—Dir Yorvik?” She’d made up her mind about something. Bat felt hopeful, so long as it wasn’t a conviction born out of a desire to say anything that would get her out of here. The wolfpack was between her and the door.
The door had an additional layer of access control: only so many people at a time could get through it. As for the wolfpack itself they were all convincingly large people with a persuasive posture of we-know-what-we’re-doing-and-bones-will-break.
The trundler was locked off just inside the open doorway. The wolfpack had turned their backs on Bat and formed themselves up in a cordon facing the corridor, a wall of once-bond-involuntary Security trained to protect their officer of assignment from any murder-minded soul at the cost of their own lives. If anybody knew anything about bond-involuntaries—apart from the obvious, of course, that they’d been instruments of torture in their own right—it was that as a class they were the best Security in known Space.
But Hammond interrupted. “Will you permit me to speak first, Dar Vilna? Thank you. Dir Yorvik. I have to accept at least part of the blame for the situation. I should have checked the weights before I left Delgacie. If I had, I would have known I couldn’t meet Dar Vilna’s contractual requirements. I’m at fault for that. Dar Vilna was not to know. I, er, I’m willing to come to an accommodation, Dar Vilna, can we talk?”
Hammond had raised his voice to a significant extent, as if to make sure that people could hear him, in the hall. He’d surprised Vilna. He’d surprised Bat, but it was a pleasant surprise; he looked to Vilna, now, to see how she would respond. This could work. It would work, if she would only—
“I say that Delgacie is at least in part to blame,” she said. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now, and Dir Hammond shouldn’t bear the cost of Delgacie’s failure to exercise full disclosure. I’m most worried about the fact that I’ve failed to deliver on contract. How can I repair the damage to my reputation for reliability?”
She was talking to Hammond. She’d raised her voice, as well. Bat could hear noises from the corridor; thoughtful noises, shushing noises, let’s-listen sorts of noises.
“If I give you some consideration,” Hammond said, thoughtfully and slowly, as though he was feeling his way through. “It would be—um—deserved, in a sense. Though you wouldn’t have done any better if you’d stayed in Delgacie, I don’t care to be the one who’d be at—well, not at fault, exactly, but you’d have cover, so far as your next contract was concerned.”