Such meticulous record keeping, Dansby found, did not extend to wholly accurate record-keeping, however — at least not where it might profit Fell.
There were fully a dozen dead men still on Tyche’s rolls — one who’d died before Fell came aboard — and each was still issued his monthly pay, his daily tot of spirits, and all the other stores and consumables a man might need. There was no doubt Fell was pocketing the difference, but that was only what one might expect from a man in his position, who’d had to purchase his warrant and office from Admiralty and was personally responsible for all the costs and stores of the ship. Such things were considered only right and proper — a sort of perquisite of the position’s responsibilities.
Dansby was looking for a more perfidious bit of dealing, and he found it buried deep in Fell’s tables and charts.
It wasn’t labeled as addle dealing, of course, Fell was smarter than that, but when Dansby matched the dates in the ledger against his own recollection of Tyche’s ports of call, it all came clear. Such and such amount taken aboard at Penduli itself, which gave Dansby Fell’s source for the stuff, and such and such amount offloaded at these systems — all with mining as their main focus. If the ledger was accurate, and Dansby had no reason to believe it wasn’t, there was quite a bit more of the addle aboard than the crates he’d found — perhaps as many as twelve, or more if Fell was selling more than a full crate to some of the systems on Tyche’s route.
The ledger for the addle itself led, of course, to the ledger for the money, causing Dansby to both raise his brows and frown — his brows because the total was something more than he’d expected, Fell’s sideline being immensely profitable, and his frown because there were some odd notations in the ledger.
He’d get to those in a moment.
First was to track who was involved, and it quickly became clear that Fell was the leader of the enterprise. His own mate, Beardsley, was involved, and profited by it, but not nearly so much as Fell. Of the other men aboard Tyche, Fell made no note — so either he kept such payments secret, even from his own ledgers, a thing Dansby found unlikely, given the man’s detail in all else, or there were no other crew members, warrants, or officers involved.
Dansby had to give Fell credit for the sheer amount of work that must have been involved in setting this operation up, much less keeping it so secret from those aboard the ship — and the reward he reaped was commensurate with that effort.
That did make Dansby’s course clearer and easier.
With none of Tyche’s officers involved in Fell’s scheme, he could just alert one of the lieutenants or Captain Stansfield to the location of the addle and trust them to take care of the errant purser. That their care would be a summary trial aboard ship and a hanging, with Fell’s body consigned to drift in the Dark until it was broken up on some dark matter shoal — well, best for all concerned if such a thing were never more to Admiralty than a brief entry in the ship’s log, which would in all likelihood never be reviewed by anyone.
Not that he’d tell an officer face to face, of course. That would leave one Avrel Dansby far more involved and with far more visibility to the Navy and Navy men than he cared for.
No, he could feel safe about skipping from Tyche at the first opportunity and then sending a message to Captain Stansfield anonymously. Avrel Dansby would be listed as having Run, but have no further connection to Fell or the addle — and once aboard Elizabeth again, a brief message to Eades with his Foreign Office connections would ensure that the Navy would think the Avrel Dansby who’d run was someone else all entirely from Avrel Dansby, captain of Elizabeth.
Such a course would tie things up nicely, and certainly satisfy both the Kaycie in his head and the real one that the right and proper thing had been done.
Still, there were those odd notations — and Dansby did like to understand a thing in full.
Fell’s ledger didn’t just show cash in return for the addle — each value there was linked to yet another ledger, this one with multiple entries and not labeled in pounds or shillings. These were noted with other codes: Au, Pt, Ag. They weren’t the typical currencies Dansby was used to, and he’d been trained to trade in nearly any system’s coin that might make its way from one place to another.
Bloody bugger — it’s not coin at all, or rather not yet.
He ran down the list again to be certain.
Gold, silver, platinum, and more — even gallenium, the metal that insulated ships from the radiations of darkspace and made travel between systems possible.
Fell wasn’t receiving coin for his addle, he was taking payment in the very ore the miners pulled from those systems. Quite a bit of it, if the ledger were to be believed — and quite a bit of gallenium, though trade in that most precious of metals was heavily regulated and every speck of the stuff was supposed to be sold first only to the Crown.
Well, if one’s going to trade in one capital substance a second isn’t much of a risk, I suppose. I’s not as though they can hang him twice.
Fell had already collected hundreds of kilograms of valuable metals on this run. Previous voyages showed a transfer of metals off to another system when Tyche arrived there — which left Dansby to ponder the implications of that.
If Fell had taken payment in coin or transfer of credit, then he’d have been able to deposit such in his own accounts at each system, making the ill-gotten gains nothing more than electrons floating about the kingdom’s banking systems.
Ore was quite another matter.
Kilograms — tens, no hundreds of kilograms of metal had to have a place. A physical home of sorts. And if something of such value had a physical home, one so very close to Avrel Dansby as Fell’s ill-gotten gains must be aboard Tyche at this very moment …
Dansby leaned his tablet against his leg so that he could scratch at a suddenly itchy palm.
If he simply ran from Tyche and notified Captain Stansfield of Fell’s doing, then all that metal would be found by the ship’s officers.
He scratched harder.
It wasn’t as though Admiralty needed the money, now was it?
Sixteen
Dansby’s mind ran away from him with thoughts of what was next to do.
He could simply leave Tyche, reboard Elizabeth, and then send that anonymous notice to Captain Stansfield. That might be the wise course.
It would not, however, be the course that would enrich Avrel Dansby by several thousand, perhaps tens of thousands, of pounds.
Nor would it enrich the crew of Elizabeth, who’d spent the last weeks haring off after Tyche and Dansby with no cargoes and no hopes of coin to fill their own purses.
Dansby had no delusions about his crew — they were loyal to him, to a point, and that point was the knot in their purse strings. Beyond that, they’d leave for greener pastures and he’d be left with a ship, Kaycie, and have to recruit a new crew — a new crew which hadn’t been broken out of slavery, or had objections to being made into slavers by the old captain of Elizabeth and her owners, the Marchant Company.
Another thing Dansby had no delusions about was the difficulty he’d have recruiting a new crew from scratch — one willing to involve themselves in the sort of shadiness he intended.
Add to that, they had been loyal to him — he assumed they’d followed Kaycie’s orders, but also assumed none had jumped ship as yet. They’d come after him with no hope for profit, only their captain’s return.
One could almost say I owe them the profit, couldn’t one? Dansby thought. They do deserve something, for their efforts, after all.
And, if one were to come right down to it, he’d not be in this position if the Navy hadn’t Impressed him — they owed, damn them.
The question was, how to get the bloody money?
For the entire way to Greater Ashton, Dansby roamed the ship’s hold whenever he could do so.
So much metal couldn’t be easily hidden — it had to be in a crate — and Fell had not shown that he was much interested in tryi
ng to hide his doings with the addle, after all. The drug itself was simply packaged up as a normal crate.
He finally found a likely candidate, back amongst the very oldest stacks, among crates that might have come aboard with Tyche’s original stores when she was first commissioned. All of the crates here were banged up and dusty, save one with less dust and a suspiciously light crate atop it — one which could be shoved aside by a single man, even though it was as tall as a man on each side — to give access to the crate beneath.
That one had a bit of a hatch in its top, not normal for a crate of ship’s stores, just large enough for a man.
Dansby gave a glance around the dark shadows of the deep hold, then slipped inside the lower crate. He returned the hatch to close himself in darkness before turning on his tablet’s light, so that its glow wouldn’t give him away.
The lower half of the crate was full, giving Dansby room only to crouch atop the sturdy boxes that half-filled it. The lids of those came off easily and he was quickly dazzled by the reflections of his tablet’s glow — gold and silver glints sparkled in his eyes, along with bits of purple from the gallenium in one of the boxes. Two other boxes had heavy lids, and he didn’t open those, assuming they were the radiologicals from Fell’s ledger.
Dansby upped his estimate of Fell’s takings beyond even the purser’s calculations.
Fell might not have so good a source to sell some of these things as Dansby did, and he might be calculating in some discount. The more he thought, the more Dansby found that likely — the gallenium would have to be sold at a discount of market, of course, as its mere possession without a license would be a capital offense, but the rest was simply metals. Fell might be selling the whole lot to one fence who was discounting the entire cargo along with the gallenium, but Dansby thought separating the two would gain far more coin.
Perhaps twice as much as Fell’s number.
Dansby picked up a bar of gold and one of gallenium in his hands and hefted them while he grinned.
By the time they reached Greater Ashton, Dansby had the beginnings of a plan for getting a crate of illegal metals, two meters square, off of a ship filled with three hundred spacers and marines, while simultaneously taking his own leg-bail from a Navy which both frowned on and expected such things from its spacers.
It wasn’t what he’d call a good plan, nor a safe plan, nor, really, what any one might, in good conscience, deem a sane plan — but, then, nearly a hundred-thousand pounds enrichment in a single act couldn’t be contemplated without allowing some risk, now could it?
“Are you daft?” Milhouse asked.
Dansby peered into his beer. Greater Ashton was no station with limited access — there was a whole bloody planet out there. Unsettled, wild, and generally unlivable, yes, but the Navy recognized that a man could easily hide himself in such a place until his ship must sail on. Then a bit of a walk back to a settlement would put him — hungry and dirty though he might be — within reach of work at any of the mines, and with a dream of a claim of his own.
That being the case, there was only one street of Greater Ashton’s town the crew was allowed to seek their ease in, with ship’s marines at either end, patrolling its length, and scattered about the most obvious alleyways.
Elizabeth had arrived before Tyche again and put down a few of the crew as Dansby’d asked, then taken to her waiting in darkspace again.
“Y’want me to return to Miss Kaycie without you a second time?” Milhouse went on. “Did y’not read her response t’yer last message?”
“I did,” Dansby said, “but I’ve not finished my business aboard Tyche.”
“And won’t tell a man what that business is, even as he’s puttin’ his life and very bollocks on line t’be yer messenger?”
Dansby shrugged and drank. He didn’t want to give out too much information, either to the crew or Kaycie herself. The Kaycie-voice in his head had changed from urging him to stay aboard Tyche and end the addle trade to berating him for risking himself over the slim chance he might find a way to get Fell’s illicit ores off the ship, to, now, insisting that he was a bloody, greedy fool.
He was certain the Kaycie-voice was quite overestimating the risk involved. If conditions weren’t exactly right, of course, he’d never try it anyway, and would look for some other way.
“She won’t take your bollocks, no matter what she says,” Dansby said. “She’d not do that.”
Milhouse drained his beer and motioned to the bartend for another, then shuddered. “Oh, it’s not Miss Kaycie threatenin’ that,” he said, “but her pet Presgraves — with Detheridge looking on an’ fingerin’ at her pockets ‘though she’s a blade there.” A new beer arrived and Milhouse drained half. “It’s a fair troika of lasses runnin’ things in your absence, captain, sir, and they’re none too pleased with you.”
“What’ve I done to displease Detheridge and Presgraves?”
Milhouse gave him a bewildered look. “Y’displeased Miss Kaycie, an’ when one lass is wroth with her fellow, don’t y’know all are bound to be? It’s like —” He waved a hand searching for the right thought. “— when a few sani-pumps get in a bad cycle an’ soon as y’can see it there’s shite a’flinging everywheres.”
“I’ll be sure to mention your comparison to the three ladies on my return,” Dansby said.
Milhouse’s eyes grew wide. “Now, why’d y’be threatenin’ a man so o’er his drinkin’ words, captain, sir? Ain’t right.”
Seventeen
It took a great many more beers, luckily all on Milhouse’s, and thence Elizabeth’s, tab, but Dansby did finally convince the man he had no choice but to take Dansby’s plan and message back to the ship and Kaycie. A close-run thing, by any measure, and it was only Dansby’s better tolerance for drink, and drinking less, that left him in a state to convince the spacer that bashing his captain over the head and dragging him back to “Miss Kaycie” might not be the safer option.
Milhouse left and Dansby finished his own beer before rising himself. He’d be returning to Tyche before his leave was fully up, but there were preparations aboard ship that were best done when some of the crew were away and the rest were bustling about in the hold. No one would remark on Dansby’s presence there when there was work to be done, and he needed to take a few items aboard anyway. That meant a stop at a chandlery, and with his purse newly replenished by Milhouse, though only to the tune of a couple pounds.
It would be enough for what Dansby needed to buy.
He left the pub and made his way toward the nearest chandlery — not one for officers this time, as he had no need of a fancy tablet, only good, simple provisions, a few spare air bottles for his vacsuit, and replacement ship’s light or three.
He’d not told Milhouse what he needed the money for, nor what the ultimate plan was.
No, if he’d done that, then the spacer would have likely decided, too drunk or no, that bashing his captain on the head and dragging him back to Elizabeth and Kaycie trussed up like a spring bullock would be his only option.
Kaycie was likely to be even more wroth with the both of them when she realized what Dansby’s plan was, but he trusted her to carry out her part, even when she wouldn’t know until the last minute what that was. If she knew ahead of time, she’d likely fire on Tyche and try to take the ship in order to get Dansby out — that or leave him to his fate, shaking her head at the madness.
Dansby glanced around, liking the bustle of Greater Ashton’s field-side shops and streets. There were four merchant ships and a few other craft in orbit, with all their boats and crews making the port town a busy place. There was action in the air and he could nearly smell the opportunities — both for honest trade and other, more lucrative, schemes.
Just ahead was another pub, for instance, which was advertising its gaming tables and, after his luck at Corders Hole’s gaming, he longed to sit and turn Milhouse’s two pounds into —
A figure exited the building patting at her hip pocket where a
winner at the tables would store her coin and Dansby was off after her like shot from a gun.
Rabbit looked up before he’d taken two steps, eyes wide then narrowing as her lips quirked in a grin, and the chase was on.
Bloody girl runs nearly as well as she —
Dansby’s thought was cut off as he had to dodge an antigrav cart full of produce being pushed along by a merchant crew.
Rabbit had already riled the men by hurdling the cart, hopping and placing hands on the uppermost boxes to swing her legs over and be off on the other side.
That had put a box of apples into the mud of Greater Ashton’s street and if the spacers couldn’t catch Rabbit, they’d take their displeasure out on Dansby who was clearly after her.
He spun away from grasping hands, flung fingers at the face of one too close so as to make him flinch away, shot an elbow into a gut he really hadn’t been aware of, but since the contact was made one might as well make the best of it, and was then away, boots splashing in the mud save where they ground a spilled apple or two deeper.
Brief though it was, Rabbit had gained ground on him.
“Stop her! Thief!” Dansby shouted, then, “Bloody merchant prats!” as half the street ahead of his prey seemed to clear while onlookers stood back smiling and cheering the girl on.
“I want my eight pounds!” Dansby yelled, then saved his breath for the chase.
She made the end of the street, opening onto Greater Ashton’s landing field, and cut to the right along its edge. Dansby followed, glad of her path because it led toward where Tyche’s own boats were grounded and was within the area blocked off by the ship’s marines.
Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy Box Set Page 24