Trading in Danger

by Elizabeth Moon

  “It’s ridiculous,” grumbled the man on her left. “If the government had just opened the Tertius mines to investment—”

  “It has nothing to do with Tertius,” said the man on her right. “That’s just a side issue; the real problem is Secundus’ perception that Prime is misrepresenting them to the universe as a backward, violent society—”

  “Well, they are—,” said the other man.

  “They’re pioneers. Pioneers have to be tough to survive.”

  “They don’t have to have a habit of blowing up their neighbors. That’s hardly a survival trait.”

  Ky felt like the net in a tennis match. “Excuse me,” she said. “I just got here two days ago, and I have no idea what’s going on.” That wasn’t, strictly speaking, true, but she hoped it would slow down the high-speed volleys.

  They both looked at her as if they had not realized there was a human in the seat between them.

  “Oh!” said the one on the right. His eyes focused on her uniform. “Uh . . . you’re a merchanter captain? Uh . . . Vatta Transport?”

  “Yes,” Ky said. “Picking up a load of ag machinery.”

  “Oh, ag machinery,” said the one on her left with a tone that suggested it might be something else. “Well . . . did you visit Secundus?”

  “No,” Ky said. “FarmPower’s here on Prime.”

  “Yes, of course. Of course. Secundus . . . you heard me say they are pioneers . . .”

  “What made it come to a head now is that the Prime government decided not to open the Tertius mines to investment, but to keep them as a government monopoly. To prevent destabilizing overexploitation, as they put it. Actually, to keep control of the richest mineral deposits in this system and funnel the output to Prime’s industrial backbone—FarmPower among them—and ensure that Secundus keeps buying its . . . er . . . ag machinery from Prime’s suppliers.”

  “And meanwhile,” the other man said, “Prime’s telling everyone that Secundus is backward and not worth trading with—bunch of ignorant roughs who shoot visitors in the street for no reason.”

  “It has happened, Harmy,” the first man said.

  “No more often than on Prime,” the other man said. “The case they always cite,” he said to Ky, “was a university student—one of a group—who went to Secundus on break. They went to get drunk and disorderly far from home, if you ask me. Anyway, the young man not only got drunk and disorderly, he pulled a young woman down from a wagon, ripped her clothes half off, and was about to rape her when she shot him. It would have been less trouble overall if she’d killed him, but she shot for deterrence instead, so he was able to come home and tell everyone what unreasonable people there were on Secundus.”

  “If they had proper law enforcement,” the first man said, “it would never have happened; a policeman would have stopped him the moment he grabbed her off the wagon.”

  “Yes, but there was a reason she shot him. It wasn’t ‘senseless.’ And there are streets in Prime’s cities where you need a team of escorts, not just one.”

  “Criminal elements are everywhere.”

  “Including in First Families and government bureaus.”

  Ky interrupted, sensing another long volley about to begin. “So—Secundus is a pioneer society? How do they think they’ll do in a war against Prime?”

  The men stopped, looked at each other, and her, and said simultaneously, “I don’t think I should comment on that.” In eerie synchrony, they opened their workcases and began staring at the little screens.

  Ky sat back, thinking, and wondered if either of the men would start a conversation again. She wondered all the way to the orbital station, and they didn’t.

  Back aboard her ship, she found her crew hard at work breaking down the ag machinery into components that would fit the odd-sized holds. She nodded at Gary Tobai, and headed for the bridge and its comdesk.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  No one was sitting at the comdesk board when she got there; with the captain onstation and on the way to the ship, that made sense. They were all busy trying to get the ship loaded.

  Ky sat down and inserted her command wand, then entered the string of codes for intersystem ansible access. Whatever had a hair up the rear of the Captains’ Guild wouldn’t affect access from the ship; by law and treaty, all ships were guaranteed such access. While she waited for the connection, she flicked on the nearspace advisory channel.

  “—an emergency like this,” she heard. “Unprecedented, we simply have no idea what will happen now . . .”

  That did not sound good. Ky queried her implant, realizing that it had been more silent than usual since she’d entered the diplomatic shuttle. She’d assumed the shuttle had security masks in place, but that shouldn’t have been a problem on the orbital station. The implant fizzed the way it did when it needed an adjustment, then produced a warning symbol, followed by what was obviously an official announcement.

  Due to conditions beyond our control, public access to channels is restricted until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. Thank you . . . Due to conditions beyond our control . . .

  Ky damped the implant and looked at the display on the comdesk. The intersystem access telltale still glowed red, and as she watched it began to blink. After a long moment, it went dark.

  “No one ever thought anything like this could happen,” someone on the nearspace advisory channel was saying. “Attack on intersystem ansibles is just . . . just unthinkable.”

  Not really. Ky remembered one of the lectures in Strategic Analysis, in which a discussion of the consequences of successful interdiction of intersystem communication had delved into the reasons someone might do it and the consequences thereof, economic, political, and military. It had happened—far away, and decades past, and those responsible were no longer alive—but it had happened. So some people had thought of it, and presumably also whoever had—her mind came back from that moment of shocklike drift. No ansible meant no message to Vatta Transport, Ltd., and thus no funds, and thus . . . no repairs for getting her ship safely out of this system before whoever had taken out the ansible decided to attack the orbital station.

  A variety of epithets ran through her mind as she felt the goose bumps rise on her skin. This was not a training simulation, a classroom exercise. She was sitting on an unspaceworthy ship at a space station orbiting a world at war, and one side or the other had just demonstrated the ability to mount an attack in space, at the same time neatly cutting off this system from real-time communication with the rest of the universe.

  She called up the station display of ship status. The good news was that the display still worked, and purported to be up-to-date. The bad news . . . ships were already signing up for departure queues, and one—Susie G—had just executed an unapproved emergency disconnect. She didn’t bother to put her name in the queue; Glennys Jones wasn’t going anywhere without her drive repair. She tried for a video access, and to her surprise was able to see a typical newcaster talking away in front of an image of explosion. She turned up the sound on that.

  “—No one is believed to have survived the explosion of either ansible platform; the death toll is estimated to be at least seven hundred fifty and could be several times that. InterStellar Communications local office has no comment at this time—” ISC, the monopoly which controlled both communications and financial ansibles across hundreds of systems, would make someone wish they hadn’t done it . . . They had fought some succesful limited wars to keep local governments from taking over ansible linkages. That response would come far too late to help her, Ky knew. “—Sabine system is now cut off from regular communication with the rest of the universe,” the announcer said. “No word yet that anyone has claimed responsibility, but Sabine Prime’s Solar Royal has accused Secundus rebels.”

  At least they had already loaded the supplies for the trip back to Belinta. Ky suspected that prices were going to skyrocket in the next few
hours.

  She heard someone running along the passage to the bridge; Gary Tobai and Riel Amat burst in. “Ky—Captain—you’re here! You know what’s happened?”

  “Some idiot blew the ansibles, yes,” Ky said. “And no, our transfer didn’t come through. It must’ve happened while I was in transit. We’re stuck here on a vulnerable station with a malfunctioning drive. At least we have food, right?”

  “Right, Captain. Supplies all loaded. But the drives—”

  “I know. And I can’t call home—I could have, if the stupid Captains’ Guild hadn’t refused my credit rating, but they did, and eight hours makes a difference.” Eight hours ago, when the ansible was still working, when those people were still alive . . . Ky pushed that thought away. “So—what do we have, if anything?”

  “Insystem’s still fine, so far as I know. But the deepspace is gone—not just the sealed part, but there’s cavitation damage in the linkage—”

  “I know,” Ky said.

  “And if we try to use it, there’s no telling where we might end up.”

  “I understand,” Ky said. “But if the insystem drive is okay, we could get away from this station, which I do not doubt is going to be attacked . . .”

  Amat frowned. “It’s a long way to anywhere else . . . where would we go?”

  “I don’t know. Yet. How are we doing on cargo loading, Gary?”

  “It’s coming. Sixty-five percent at the moment. We’d left open space for drives access for repairs—if we block that up—”

  Then a repair crew, if she could find one, and if they would extend credit, wouldn’t be able to get at the drives. But the ship without drives was nothing but a target. But the ship without cargo was useless . . .

  Too many variables, too many conflicting priorities.

  “How about the four I sent up?” Ky said. “Are they any use?”

  “Oh, yes. Good workers, all of them. If we just had the drive in order—”

  “Understood.” Ky tried to make her brain work faster. It had to work faster; she had to find a solution to this. And the logical thing to do was try to find a repair yard. “I’m going to see what I can do about the drive problem. I’ll switch our contract to Vatta Limited, and see if that shakes ’em loose, though with war breaking out and the ansibles gone, who knows? See if that drives tech thinks he can install parts if I can just get the parts. We could stand off somewhere on insystem drive, and install the stuff ourselves, maybe.” And if he left her alone for a few minutes, she might be able to think clearly.

  She called up the station directory and found the orbital offices of six firms with orbital yards. Helmsward Yard, Ltd., Sabine Systems, and Artco Yards all had a Superior rating, but Helmsward had already turned her down for financing. She doubted they would reconsider her application if she now claimed to be operating under Vatta’s umbrella. In fact, in light of the ansible attack, they might think she was trying to misrepresent herself if she changed her story. When she checked the status of the others, Artco had relisted itself Unavailable. She called Sabine Systems, and a nervous-sounding voice on the other end said their chief engineer would have to get back to her.

  That left Colley & Co. and Bartlin Brothers, rated Acceptable in the guide, and RealValue Repairs, unrated. She tried Bartlin Brothers; no one answered. Colley & Co.’s com was answered by a man who was both out of breath and annoyed. “Are you kidding?” he said, when she started to say her ship needed repairs, and then he hung up.

  Gravity, her father had said, ensures that stuff rolls downhill until it hits bottom, and some psychic gravity was definitely at work here. RealValue Repairs sounded like the kind of place only the desperate approached. The kind of place where they removed parts from the previous repair job, cleaned and polished them, put them in fresh containers, and sold them as new. Where they had more experience in faking and cheating than actually repairing.

  But what choice did she have?

  Quincy’s call from the drives bay gave her an excuse not to call them. “If you can get us a sealed unit and about ten meters of good-quality liner, we might get this done ourselves,” she said. “It’ll take us longer than a proper yard, but it’s doable.”

  The first good news. Things got bad until they started getting better . . .

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Ky said. Maybe RealValue would sell the parts. Quincy should be able to tell if the sealed unit was really sealed, and there had to be some kind of function test she could apply, short of going into FTL flight . . . and liner, that was a visual test. She knew how to do that herself. And maybe there were other suppliers . . . She queried her implant.

  The comboard flashed red and a message came up on the screen: ALL SHIP TO STATION COMMUNICATIONS SUSPENDED EXCEPT TRAFFIC CONTROL TO SPACECRAFT. Great. Just great. Now she would have to leave the ship to get any more supplies.

  No. She would send someone. She was the captain; she was responsible for them all. She would not leave the ship now, of all times. She called Quincy again.

  “I need you to go onstation and find us that sealed unit,” she said. “They’ve cut off ship to station communication, except for official contacts. I can’t even get a list of suppliers, but I do have one contact name from before: RealValue Repairs. I don’t want to leave the ship myself—”

  “Quite right,” Quincy said. “And I shouldn’t either. I’ll send one of the junior engineering crew. You do know RealValue has a bad rep.”

  “I suspected it; they’re unlisted. But all the others have shut up business—I can’t get through. We can sit here with nothing, or try to get permission to leave the station and go crawling off on insystem—which means we’d have to crawl back in a few weeks—or we find someone to sell us the sealed unit and some liner material. And RealValue is the only name I have.”

  “I have a couple others, not repair places but suppliers,” Quincy said. “I’ll send Beeah. You’ll need to give him the financing options.”

  The financing options, which consisted primarily of begging someone to trust that Ky was really Vatta Transport, Ltd.

  “Of course,” Ky said. “Send him up and I’ll give him the works.” Since the station/ship commercial channels weren’t working, Ky printed out a hardcopy of her master’s license, her ID, and a statement on the Vatta Transport, Ltd., letterhead which authorized Beeah Chok, engineering second, to make binding legal contracts contingent on her signature.

  Beeah showed up on the bridge in a crisp-jacketed Vatta Transport uniform completly unlike his usual working coverall. “Quincy said I had to look official, Captain,” he said. “With trouble on the docks, I don’t want to get taken in for something. Quincy gave me the shopping list—what else do I need?”

  “This,” Ky said. “Vatta Transport, Ltd., authorization to purchase, my authorization . . . and don’t worry about getting the best price. Pick up whatever news you can, and make it snappy. Someone’s going to close down this station soon, one way or the other . . .”

  “Attack a station?” Beeah said, his eyebrows going up.

  “Someone attacked ansibles,” Ky said. “I expect an attack here; I would have broken us loose already if we had a working FTL drive.”

  “Right,” Beeah said.

  “Check the dockside intercom on your way off our patch,” Ky said. “If anything happens, I want to be sure we have that much linkage.”

  “Will do,” Beeah said.

  She watched him on the monitors as he went; at dockside, he picked up the microphone and spoke.

  “You hear me, Captain?”

  “Loud and clear, Beeah. What can you see from there?”

  “Not much. A lot of empty dockside. Looks like they may’ve closed the big hatches between here and Y-Zone, with just the personnel locks between. That may be why the ship-to-station ordinary linkages are down. That was all optics, probably. See you later, Captain.”

  Ky watched him go, chewing her lip. It wasn’t safe. Nothing was safe, right now. ISC would have noticed immediat
ely when their ansibles went down; they would respond, but who knew how long that would take? She and the Glennys Jones and all her crew could disappear into this war, and nobody would ever know what had happened. Her family would wonder . . .

  But they would know, she realized in the next instant. Vatta Transport, Ltd., used the same ISC ansibles as anyone else; Vatta ships had a regular schedule through Sabine. The Sabine ansible would be monitored by someone at Vatta’s home offices, and they might even know already she was here, if that monitoring included a list of ships currently at Sabine’s orbital station.

  She hoped it didn’t. She hoped very much her father didn’t know that she was a long way from where she was supposed to be, in a developing war zone, and out of ansible contact.

  The board meeting opened on time, for a wonder. The media ruckus downstairs had almost delayed the arrival of Ky’s father, but he had time for a half cup of coffee before strolling, elaborately casual, down to the boardroom with his brother.

  “Any news?” Stavros asked.

  “Not yet,” Gerard Vatta, Ky’s father, said. “We shouldn’t hear anything now until the first stop.” He raked his hand through his thinning hair. He didn’t need to say more; Stavros knew the plan.

  “It’s a shame,” Stavros said. “She was doing so well.”

  “Yes. And thanks again, by the way, for being available for a pickup.”

  “Of course.”

  “And don’t think I don’t know you’re biting your tongue not to mention Stella.”

  “Much as I love Stella, I’m not having to bite my tongue, Gerry. She and Ky are nothing alike. Stella is eighty-seven percent feeling. We should’ve tweaked that in the embryo, but you know how it is . . .”