“I mean, it’s horrible, of course,” he said, and felt that, but his first thoughts were to how this information could harm the Marchants and what use Eades could make of it. He wanted to be certain of the matter before rushing to message Eades, as well. “You’re not speaking of indentures?”
The fringe worlds’ indenture system might look like slavery to some, but it was really more of a debt system — and, except convicts or those taken up for debts already owed, it was voluntary. One sold several years of one’s labor for the upfront cost of transport to a colony world in need of one’s skills, or simply more population. It was no different than borrowing the money for property or an aircar, really.
“No, not indenture, boy,” Detheridge said. “It’s outright chattel for these folk.”
“But … why?”
“The Barbary’s got worlds more isolated than the farthest Fringe planet,” Sween said, and the others nodded. “Kuriyya was just the edge of it, close to others, even. Most of this space has so little to offer there’re few who’ll wish to go.”
“And less to be brought back,” Grubbs said. “Not much in the way of coin in the first place.”
“A proper machine, for nearly any work, would take up less space in the hold than twice as many men,” Avrel said. He still couldn’t help but think they were wrong — or overreacting to something quite a bit more innocent than they described. “Where’s the value in —”
“Some machine has the cost of a hundred men,” Grubbs said, “but one part breaks and there’s a hundred men’s labor gone.” He shrugged. “One man breaks and there’s still ninety-nine at the work.”
Sween nodded. “Some company like Marchant comes in and they have the coin to do a thing right from the start, but a couple miners with a hard-scrabble claim far from it all?” He shrugged as well. “May not be the smartest, but it is what it is.”
Detheridge glared at her plate and said, quietly, “Then there’s the things men don’t want no machine for.”
Sween laid a hand on her shoulder, which surprised Avrel, as he’d never seen her take comfort from one of them like that, nor the others offer it.
“We’ll hope it’s none of that,” Sween said.
Detheridge shook her head. “There’s always some of that.” She drained her mug. “I may be off next leave, lads.”
Minorca was due to stay in orbit around Kuriyya until the work in the hold was complete, and then it’d been announced they’d have one more night’s leave on the surface before she sailed. This had puzzled Avrel from the start, for it wasn’t in any shipper’s interest to stay idle around a planet longer than necessary. The work in the hold could have easily been completed while underway in darkspace.
“There’s more than one won’t come back,” Grubbs agreed. “Lost shares or no.”
Avrel frowned. “How does no one know about this? The government wouldn’t stand for such a thing, Barbary or no. A New London flagged ship would never —” He broke off. There was nothing the Marchants wouldn’t do, he suspected, if there was a farthing in it for them, and he well knew the influence they could place on those in government. Money talked in many places.
“Which of us’ll speak out, even if we did run?” Detheridge asked. “You? Have you read your contract? Libel, slander, defamation, a slew of other things all come down to keep your bloody mouth shut or the Marchants’ll ruin you — damages on top of they’ll claw back every share you’ve ever been paid if you speak of company business. It means debt and indenture for your whole bloody family, just for the fees to defend the bloody case and never mind who wins. Who’ll risk that?” She drained her mug. “Pay’s good, though.”
“Aye,” the others agreed, but with dark looks. “There’s that.”
The work on the hold finished, Morell announced, as Avrel’s mates predicted, a further night’s stay in orbit around Kuriyya and leave for all the crew. There were darker looks and fewer cheers than had greeted the leave granted when Minorca first arrived.
Avrel scanned the crowd when he exited Minorca’s boat. For once, he wished to see some peddler-boy single him out with Eades’ codeword, but there was none — only the same offers as when last they’d landed.
He caught sight of Kaycie at the boat’s forward ramp, exiting with Morell and Turkington, but though she glared at him, he couldn’t seem to catch her eye enough to indicate he must speak with her. Hard as it was to speak privately aboard ship, she seemed to be almost deliberately avoiding him these last few days — at least when she wasn’t setting Hobler or his mates after him for some imagined slacking.
He’d given little thought to what might have got into her, though, as he pondered how to get a message to Eades. They’d not set up any sort of method for that, relying on Eades’ network to contact Avrel instead. There’d been no indication until now that Avrel might have information on the Marchants that couldn’t wait to be communicated — now, though, if Eades could get word of what Morell was up to to some authority, perhaps the Royal Navy, then Minorca could be found, stopped, and caught red-handed at something the Marchants wouldn’t be able to buy their way out of.
There was his tablet, of course, which he could use to send a message, but that was tied to Minorca and his transmission would go first through her systems. He couldn’t think of what he might send to relay the information that wouldn’t give him away if it was monitored by Morell or Turkington — and he was certain all the crew’s communications would be monitored now.
Nor could he encrypt a message, for that would be suspicious in and of itself.
There’d be little use in that, anyway, as any message he sent via Minorca would be weeks reaching Eades. It would be copied onto every outgoing ship bound in the direction of the message’s destination, and copied from each of those to any others going the same way — whichever got there first would deliver it, and the process of marking it so and deleting all those copies would begin.
All of which meant Minorca would be done with her dirty business long before Eades was even aware of it.
No, he needed a faster method, and that meant a dedicated packet — or at least a fast one, bound in the direction of his message to begin with.
Those weren’t cheap, though, and he had little coin — less than usual, truth be told, after his expenses of the previous leave. The house hadn’t emptied his pockets entirely, but they’d taken more than the cost of the girl’s hire for the trouble of getting him downstairs and parking him in the kitchen overnight. He’d not begrudged it at the time, but now he felt the need for every pence.
Not cheap, no, and neither were such things for hire in the common spacers’ district.
They’d put down on Kuriyya at midmorning, leaving the crew with a full afternoon and night’s leave, and Avrel’s search took him well away from the pubs and brothels nearest the landing field, past the more genteel establishments catering to the ships’ officers.
Here, though much the same services were on offer, the environment was more refined. There were no burly fellows or half-dressed girls hawking a place’s wares on the street, no mugs sold through the pubs windows, and any advertising as to an establishment’s purpose was quite a bit more subtle.
Avrel scanned the storefronts. A bank, he thought, or a gentleman’s club, would either have what he needed or point him in the right direction — if they didn’t throw him out before his first word. His ship’s jumpsuit clearly didn’t fit in with the attire on display in this district — even the rattiest captain at least gave the illusion of being a gentleman.
Then, his most creeping fear was realized, and he spotted Morell and Turkington, in conversation with another captain, coming his way.
If they saw him in this district, they’d wonder at it, and Avrel wanted no attention brought to himself at this time. He ducked quickly through the nearest doorway, hoping they’d not seen him and weren’t bound for there themselves.
The door clicked shut behind him and Avrel had a moment to both bless and cu
rse that the place he’d ducked into had no windows at all. Morell and Turkington wouldn’t see him here, but neither could he be sure when they’d gone past. He’d have to count time in his head and make the best of it.
A clearing throat made him turn, and he took in the room for the first time. Dimly lit and well-appointed, it was a rather more upscale version of the place he’d spent his last leave.
I’m developing a disturbing habit of finding myself in brothels …
The difference here, though, was that none of the girls appeared too enthused by his entrance. They all stared at him with varying degrees of distaste and hostility.
“Have you come to deliver a message?” an older woman, clearly the house’s greeter, asked.
“Ah …”
A large man stepped out of the shadows behind the woman, with a look for Avrel that was no friendlier than those of the women.
“Yes, now?” the woman asked. “If you’ve a message, tell me who it’s for. We’ve not much custom this early and I’ll not have you driving what there is away by hovering about.”
“A message … yes … ah, for Captain Morell, of Minorca, if you please.” Avrel squared his shoulders and tried to look confident, he needed just a few minutes’ time for Morell and Turkington to pass by.
The woman frowned, then shook her head. “No — no Morell here. And none off any Minorca.” She narrowed her eyes and the man behind her followed suit, as though their brows were connected. “You’ve a look about you — what are you up to? Whatever it is, I’ll not have it in my house, you hear?” She said something to the man behind her in another language.
“Up to? No — I’ve a message. Is this the wrong house? Captain Morell said he’d be here, and —”
The brows narrowed further, and a second man stepped from behind the first, his brow mirroring the others. It was the size of the second man that made Avrel realize just how large the first was, as the second was … quite large, but had been hidden all entire. Now all three brows advanced on Avrel.
“He’s up to something,” one of the watching women called out.
“He is,” another agreed.
Damn me, but why’d it have to be a house? If there was one thing he’d learned watching his shipmates in port, it was that the ladies of a house could spot deception before it had its boots off.
“You leave,” the bigger man said, as he stepped around the woman’s left, his partner mirroring his motion to her right.
“I was just thinking that,” Avrel muttered.
“Now,” the smaller man said.
Avrel reached behind him for the door latch and backed away slowly.
“Yes, of course. I have the wrong place, I see. Different street entirely, is where I’m bound. I’ll just —”
The men reached for him and Avrel felt a pain in his right ear as something grasped it. Which was quite odd, since the men hadn’t reached him yet and he was backing toward the street.
The pain intensified as he was yanked backward through the doorway — a blessing as it got him out of the way of the two men and a curse as he was spun painfully around by the grip on his ear, then shoved to thump against the building’s stone front.
He clapped one hand to his ear and the other to his chest where Kaycie had shoved him.
“Did you learn nothing from being carted back to Minorca like so much baggage?” she asked, glaring at him.
“I —”
“I thought better of you, Jon, I really did. Carousing like a common spacer!”
“But —”
“And as though you’d have coin enough to pay for such a place. Were you planning to run out on what you owed, as some of the men do?”
“Never! I wasn’t —”
“Oh, tell me no stories. I heard you spin your tales for a dozen teachers, remember?” Her gaze darted to the doorway behind him, then down to the ground. “I suppose that’s how you’ve spent these last three years, then? Running from one house to another, having your fill?”
“I never!” He flushed. “Well, I mean … not so often as that.” He hurried on as Kaycie’s eyes flashed up to him again and she opened her mouth to speak. “I wasn’t! Here, I mean.” He held up a hand to forestall her. “Look, Kaycie, it’s not like that. It’s … there’s something coming aboard Minorca and I need to get word to Eades instanter.”
“And your Mister Eades spends his time in bawdy houses, does he? Is that where you picked up the habit?”
Avrel’d had enough. He didn’t like to see Kaycie upset, but this was beyond reason, and getting his message to Eades was too important for him to be delayed any longer. Besides which, what hold did she have on how he spent his time?
“Lord, Kaycie, I’d never taken you for such a prude. The Dark help your crews if this is how you’ll set on them for a bit of sport!”
Now it was Kaycie’s turn to flush. “I’d not!” Her gaze darted from Avrel to the doorway then back again. “It’s only that —”
“And besides, what’s happening aboard Minorca is more important. Look, we have to get word to Eades.”
Kaycie frowned. “And what exactly is happening aboard Minorca? Captain Morell and Mister Turkington have been treating me quite oddly since I came aboard — as though my very presence were some great inconvenience. That’s why I was following them.”
“Following them?” Avrel only now glanced around and found that they were the focus of much attention on the street. No one was so close that they could hear much of what was said, but enough that he realized it was time to move along. Luckily there was no sign of Morell or Turkington, so they must have been far along before Kaycie dragged him out of the house. “Look, let’s move this along elsewhere, shall we?”
Kaycie led him some distance away from the direction Morell and Turkington had been heading, then stopped in a less traveled part of the district.
“All right, then, what’s this all about?” she asked. “You seem to know more about it than I do. What’s got Captain Morell and Mister Turkington so unhappy with me?”
“It’s likely they weren’t expecting one of the officers to be replaced — not with what they have planned for this trip.”
He went on to explain what Detheridge and the others had told him about the purpose of the compartments in the hold and his plan to get word to Eades.
Kaycie’s expression grew more and more unhappy as he spoke, but she nodded along.
“It explains why they were unhappy with me from my very arrival,” she said when he’d finished. “If they weren’t expecting Mister Carr’s emergency leave, then it must have come as an unpleasant shock. Likely they plan to inform me once we’ve set sail and present it as a fait accompli, much as they will to the crew — those who don’t already know.” She nodded again. “Right. Your message is the best course, I think — let’s be about it.”
The day was wearing on with visits to four different banks before they finally admitted that the cost of a message with the priority they deemed suiting wasn’t exaggerated by the first they’d spoken to.
“It’s bloody usury,” Avrel muttered as Kaycie swiped her tablet to transfer the funds. He glared at the banker, who was tapping his own tablet to acknowledge receipt. “It’s a few bits of storage in the ship’s core, we’re not buying the bloody packet.”
The cost had been more than both of them together had in coin, and more than Avrel had even in his accounts. It was only the luck of Kaycie joining up with him that allowed the message to be sent at all.
The banker shrugged, his full beard making his face unreadable, but his eyes showed amusement.
“The ship goes to where you wish first.” He shrugged again. “For this, you pay.”
Kaycie nodded and gave Avrel a little kick to the ankle. “Of course,” she said, “and thank you.”
She rose and gestured to Avrel. “Let’s get back to the ship, Jon.”
Even with the message to Eades away, Avrel felt no better about things aboard Minorca, as there was no
guarantee it would help.
Though he’d truly pinned all his hopes on it, the message would first have to make its way to Penduli, a long journey, despite having paid for it to be the packet’s first stop, and then there was no surety Eades would still be there. If he were, some plan for intercepting Minorca would have to be arranged, and they’d been unable to so much as suggest where the ship might be bound. Neither he nor Kaycie had any idea, other than their eventual destination of Hso-hsi, where the ship’s next stop might be.
Avrel had to resign himself to the likelihood that they wouldn’t actually be able to stop Minorca’s trading in slaves, only bear witness after the fact. At least he, and he was confident Kaycie, would do so, despite the risk of being sued by the Marchants. After all, Avrel had nothing more they could take from him and his only wish was to see the bastards torn down.
Minorca sailed with no more than one in five of her original crew left behind on Kuriyya.
Some of those might have honestly missed the ship’s sailing, too drunk or otherwise occupied to note the time, but Captain Morell sent no quartermaster’s mates to collect them. Most, given the grumblings Avrel heard, had left because they had no stomach for what was to come.
He noted that those who remained were nearly evenly divided on the matter, with a third seeming enthusiastic about their coming sail, a third angry, but not so angry as to give up their pay and shares in Minorca’s journeys, and the last third seeming not to care one way or the other.
Of his mates, none stayed behind on Kuriyya, but none were happy about what was to come.
“It was an almost, I tell you,” Detheridge muttered, as they settled in for the noon meal shortly after sailing. They were all sweat-soaked and tired from working the sails to tack their way out of Kuriyya’s winds. She kept her voice low, so that those at the next mess tables couldn’t hear, as the whole berthing deck was far quieter than usual, both from the missing crew and that none felt too jubilant. “There was a schooner out of Hanover taking on hands and offering fine rates.”
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