I settled back in my chair and sipped my coffee. “An aspect I hadn’t considered.”
She smiled. “Do you think he didn’t know what he was sending you into?”
I let that question rattle around for a few heartbeats before answering. “No. I don’t think so.”
She gave a half shrug. “Continue. You were considering our cargo.”
“If he knew—and I have to assume he did—then he gave us that can knowing we wouldn’t be able to deliver it.”
“Seems likely.”
“Do we keep it or return it?” I asked.
“That’s a good question.”
I snorted. “We probably need to be looking up Penny and Quentin Carstairs relatively quickly.”
“Because of Brill’s message?”
“Well, that and Pip’s relationship to TIC Intelligence.”
“You still think he’s a field agent?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, he’s something else. He won’t appear on any TIC roster. Neither will his boss. None of his missions will appear in any TIC oversight report.”
“He’s still a liar.”
“Yeah, but he knows we know. With what I surmise about his actual job, I think I even understand it. And he’s getting better about not lying outright to us.”
“So you want to get to Penny and Quentin?”
“Play along with me for a moment,” I said.
She grinned. “I love games. Go ahead.”
“Assume that it’s your job to protect the good citizens of your tribe.”
“So, like station security?”
“Or bigger, like—TIC for example.”
“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” she said.
“Of course. Further assume you need eyes and ears in places where eyes and ears aren’t welcome. Places where unpleasantness pools.”
“Oooh. Sounds dramatic. Places where you—perhaps—have no jurisdiction for official action?”
“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Now suppose you worked with a group of people who could pass through these areas with equanimity, garnering no more attention than any other regular citizen with perhaps a reputation for dealing in more esoteric goods than average.”
“An interesting idea. Hypothetically, a family of merchants known to travel the back alleys and byways?” she asked.
“I see you grasp the nature of this game.”
“Don’t try to teach your granny to suck eggs, boy.” She grinned.
“So, the Carstairs clan becomes an asset for TIC Intelligence. I don’t know if it’s the whole clan. Only a few of them, allowing the rest to cover by taking no roles.” I shrugged. “You know Penny Carstairs?”
She nodded. “Formidable woman. She’s excellent cover for Quentin.”
“You’re so busy watching her, you miss him.”
“You’ve met them then,” she said.
“I should have twigged earlier. The signs were all there.”
“You didn’t have cause to until you jumped into Telluride.” She gestured with her mug. “Go on.”
“So, hypothetically, you need a base for your silent service.”
“More than one, actually,” she said.
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Of course.” I shrugged. “Bear with me. I’m new at this.”
“You’re doing great. I’m looking forward to what happens next in this game.”
“So you have a couple of bases. A command structure that stays connected but never actually appears to be in command.”
“A front?” she suggested.
“Yes, a front. Someone who operates in the open. Perhaps a person with no connections to our hypothetical silent service. A person who is, nevertheless, in constant contact with the service.”
“A person like me?” she asked, a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.
“No. I’ll get to you. You’re not the one.”
“You sound certain of that.”
“I am. You’re too mobile. Too visible. Too ephemeral. You’re not the linchpin. You know who it is, but you’re not her.”
The chief’s eyebrows rose at that. “I’m impressed.”
“So, Pip—and perhaps his cousins—represent the next generation of spooks. Family is family after all. They’re not the only ones. There may be other families. Other assets with equally unlikely but useful provenance. Pip wasn’t sent here to find the Mega. He was sent here to find out what the hell is going on in Telluride.”
“You think he knew all along?”
I shook my head. “No more than you did. I think his plan to use us as bait was simply that. One of his many talents is improvisation. He collected a mix of volatiles, tossed them into a pressure cooker, then stepped back to see which way the lid blew off.”
“You’re one of the volatiles?” she asked.
“I pondered that. I think I’m the catalyst in our reaction.”
“Interesting,” she said. “Having seen you operate, I think you’re right.”
“Turns out, his plan worked and we found Telluride. We did some basic investigation. Enough to justify pulling out the big guns because when you need to pull out the big guns, you always need to justify it to somebody.”
“You’re a cynic?” she asked.
“A realist. You can’t run a reactor without controls. You can’t have big guns shooting randomly or you could find yourself being shot.”
She sipped her coffee again.
“We found it. We got in. We got out. We have the evidence. The only question is what do we do now?”
“File reports?” she asked.
“That’s already been done. Pip filed his about five ticks after you did. We still have a ship full of evidence that needs to be handed off. I only need to know where, how, and to whom.”
“You’re not asking Pip?”
“No. He’d just spin some wild justification for why we need to visit Port Lumineux and leave a backup copy of the data there for safekeeping. Perhaps he’d get a message from his father that the Bad Penny docked and Aunt P needs to see him. Or—since he knows what’s in the message from Brill—he’ll tell me that Aunt P is attending a family reunion back on Port Newmar and we need to catch up to her there.”
“You know about Port Lumineux?” she asked.
“No. I just know he claims to have been born out here. You mentioned Port Lumineux earlier and it shut him up for a bit. I figure it’s the Carstairs base here in the Toe-Holds. Every one of their ships that I’ve ever seen is almost the same. Penny’s Bad Penny has insane legs even for a fast packet. Thomas’s Epiphany. Even Pip’s Prodigal Son. I think Tom once told me they were all stamped out of the same Unwin Eight mold. It makes sense for a bunch of packet pilots to have a central location in the Western Annex that gives them access to anywhere they need to go around the rim.”
“You inferred that from some side discussions and a few comments from a known serial liar?” she asked.
“Yeah. Am I wrong?”
“No, you’re pretty close on most of it.”
“So Pip’s filed his report with TIC Intelligence at Port Newmar. They won’t need our evidence for themselves anyway. They’ll have plenty of time to sift through the after-action reports.”
“Probably true.”
“Where does Naval Intelligence—or whatever you call yourselves—need the evidence we’ve collected?”
She smiled. “Port Lumineux will do, actually.”
I paused.
“Didn’t see that one, eh?” she asked.
I laughed. “No, but I probably should have.”
“Probably,” she said, emptying her coffee cup and slipping it onto my desk.
“We can do that. Shall I let Pip make up a story?”
She shrugged. “You can if you want to. You’re the captain and you can steer your own course. Port Lumineux will take the can off your hands and give you a healthy profit
.”
“Will I need to get a new chief engineer there, too?”
Her eyebrows rose at that. “Why? Are you firing me?”
“No,” I said. “I just thought you’d be off on a new assignment.”
She laughed. “I haven’t finished my current one yet.”
“Aren’t you concerned that I know you’re not just the chief engineer?”
She shook her head and settled back in her chair, lacing her fingers together over her stomach. “Not in the least. Saves me telling you, actually.”
“You’ll let me know when I need to replace you?”
“I’ll give you a month’s warning and a recommended replacement. That enough?”
“You can do that? Your handlers don’t just pop in with orders and whisk you away?”
“Oh, they try once in a while. Never works.”
“A month’s more than I’ve had in the past, so yeah. That’ll be fine.”
“Anything else you want to talk about, Captain?”
“Not at the moment. Thank you, Chief.”
She nodded at the flask on the desk. “You want to keep that for your next social contract?”
“No, Pip prefers beer.”
“You have any?” she asked.
“No, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to convince me to take this can to Port Lumineux where he just happens to know where there’s a cache of Clipper Ship Lager.”
She laughed and stood. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your marshaling of forces, Captain.”
I stood, too, and reached a hand across the desk. “Thanks for being there when I needed you.”
She shook my hand and grinned. “You’re always an interesting assignment, Captain. Our work together isn’t done yet.”
She took the flask off my desk and slipped it back into her pocket. “Have fun with Pip.” She winked and left, latching the door behind her.
I sat down, leaned back in the chair, and waited for him.
In less than two ticks, the door opened and he slipped in. He seemed almost surprised to find me watching him enter. “That was a long conversation,” he said.
“Were you waiting in the passageway?”
“No. Spying from my stateroom.” He plunked himself down in the chair that was probably still warm. “I think I know where we can get a good price on this can,” he said. “I know some people there. They’ll deal square and not worry too much about where it came from.”
“Really?” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the desk. “Do tell.”
He paused and cocked his head. “Everything all right?”
“Ops normal as nearly as I can tell. Why?”
“Usually you give me crap about whatever I’m about to propose.”
I straightened in my chair and placed a hand on my chest with a dramatic flourish. “You wound me.”
He settled down in the chair with a frown and stared across the desk at me for several long moments. “You sure you’re all right?”
I settled back in my own chair and shook my head. “I’m sure I’m not, actually. I’ve a killing headache. I haven’t slept more than three stans in a row since we jumped out of Telluride because I’m half convinced that there’s somebody out there in the Deep Dark who’s hunting us. I’m still struggling with losing Greta, and having somebody try to stuff a missile in our kickers just adds a new layer of trauma over it. Topping everything off, I’ve got a can of beef that I’m not sure I have the right to sell and no real desire to return it to Felder because I don’t want to have to explain why I brought it back.”
“He probably knows,” Pip said.
“Yeah, but he’d feel obligated to pretend he doesn’t and I like the old guy.” I finished off the last of the rum-laced coffee and put the mug back on the desk. “So, no. I’m probably not all right, but I will be. Eventually. We’ve got some business to deal with first. You were about to tell me why we need to go to Port Lumineux.”
“Was I?” he asked, sitting back in his chair.
“Something about a square deal and not asking too many questions?” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk.
“What makes you say Port Lumineux?”
“It’s either that or Port Newmar, and we’ll be going there after.”
“After what?” he asked.
“After Port Lumineux. Come on, Pip. This is your conversation. Try to keep up,” I said.
Chapter 49
Port Newmar: 2376, January 12
Pip and I stood on the observation deck of the academy terminal watching the cadets drilling on the campus parade grounds while we waited for Brill’s shuttle. A cold wind off the water kept us inside the building and off the open deck just a few steps away.
“You remember doing that?” Pip asked.
“Marching around? Yeah. Rain. Snow. Freezing your ass off in the winter and broiling in the summer”
“Good times, huh?”
I laughed. “Good times.”
“What made you decide to throw in with me?” Pip asked.
“When? On the Lois? You were the first person I met. We worked together. Practically slept together. Why wouldn’t I?”
He frowned at me. “No. Later. Here. The Chernyakova.”
I shrugged. “Not sure. We always made a good team. I needed something to do. You needed a captain.”
“But the Chernyakova,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything at the time to discourage you, but it was all I could do to walk into that ship when we snuck in. I still can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”
I shrugged and looked out over the parade ground again. The phantoms hadn’t bothered me in a long while. I could live with that, but saw no reason to get into it with Pip. “Your roots are showing,” I said.
His hand went up to his head and he ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. I decided to grow it back out.”
“Got tired of people treating you like my father?” I asked.
He laughed. “As if.” He didn’t say anything as the cadets formed up, bannermen carrying the small flags at the fore, and marched off the field, everyone in step, undoubtedly marching to a cadence chant we couldn’t hear. “It was time.”
We turned to look out over the tarmac at the line of shuttles parked on the far flight line. A pair of cadets in green and yellow warning vests stepped out of the building almost at our feet and donned their ear protectors as they looked up into the sky above the port.
“Won’t be long now,” he said. “You still seeing that therapist?”
“Appointment tomorrow morning.”
“We’re going out tonight. You going to be sober by then?” he asked.
“I will be, but don’t feel like you need to hold back on my account.”
“Clipper Ship Lager,” he said, a sing-song tease.
“Ever wonder how much you could fit in a can?” I asked.
“A Barbell can?” he asked. “My guess would be two hundred metric kilotons.”
“No, how many bottles.”
“They’d freeze and break.”
“Yeah, but how many would fit?”
“Four hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-six,” he said. “More if you took them out of the cases.”
I laughed. “Really? Based on mass or volume?”
“Mass.”
“Is that some kind of cargomaster secret knowledge?” I asked.
“Math,” he said. “You should try it.” He glanced up at me. “Don’t give me that look. You’re the one who asked the question.”
My tablet bipped. I pulled it out and read the message. “Al says Ms. Fortuner passed her second mate exam.”
“She going to stay with us as third or look for a new berth?”
“I talked to her yesterday. She thought she’d stay as long as we’re heading back to the Toe-Holds.”
“Are we?” he asked.
I snorted. “You know we’d never make that kind of profit running on the High Line.”
“I thought about it,” I said.
He looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m not completely convinced about the hat, but the jacket and slacks? I think I like them.”
“Huh,” he said. “Did you come to any conclusion on the snakeskin issue?”
“Yeah. I concluded it was a dumb question.”
He laughed.
“How many people decided to stay at Telluride?” I asked.
He glanced at me. “Only rumors.”
“Of course.”
“Rumor is about half,” he said.
“That many?”
He shrugged. “Makes sense. A lot of Toe-Holders made it their home for the better part of two decades. They weren’t treated badly and made a comfortable living.”
“What about the companies?”
“Well. Just rumors,” he said.
“Rumors,” I said.
“Manchester has a nice side business making mining barges and ore haulers. Pravda Systems took what they learned and they’re developing a new generation of station power plants. Mellon-Merc is still looking for a power supply that can drive a Mega. Nobody’s talking about what else they might have been doing.”
“They just get away with it?”
“Rumor is they’ve made significant contributions to various CPJCT efforts around the Western Annex.”
“Interesting. I’m surprised there’s any precedent for that. I didn’t think TIC had any jurisdiction in the Toe-Holds.”
His grin showed teeth. “They made the mistake by forgetting they each have huge investments in High Line infrastructure.”
“What does the rumor mill say about the hammer that drove that nail?”
“High Tortuga might have had some influence. Perhaps.”
“Rumors,” I said.
“Yes, exactly. Rumors.”
“Doesn’t that violate their stand on neutrality?” I asked.
“It’s just rumors.”
“Any rumors about what happened to that ship?”
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