“You’ve got an incoming comm,” Yuri said, and something in his voice made her ears perk up.
“Someone I know?”
“Don’t know. A parts trader on Yakutsk, called Jamyung. Bear knows him, a little—we’ve dealt with him before, but not for a couple of years.”
Elena frowned. She did know Jamyung—she knew most of the traders in the sector, having bought from nearly all of them when she was with the Corps. Like many salvage traders, he had some dubious ethical lines, but her dealings with him had always been straightforward. If he had what she needed, he charged a fair price, and she always got exactly what he’d represented. In return, she’d turned something of a blind eye to the less legal aspects of his business.
“Why does he want to talk to me?” she asked.
“He wouldn’t tell me. He sounds a little . . . agitated.” Yuri paused. “You want me to cut him off?”
It had been years since she had spoken with Jamyung. She couldn’t imagine why he wanted to talk to her, never mind how he had tracked her down once he realized she wasn’t in the Corps anymore. At least it’s not monotony, she thought. “That’s all right,” she said. “Put him through.”
She could picture the expression on Yuri’s face, but he completed the connection.
“Is that you?”
She recognized Jamyung’s voice: flatly accented Standard, his vowels clipped, his voice full and baritone despite the fact that in person he was slight, like most of the natives on Yakutsk. Yuri was right: he did sound agitated, and out of breath, as if he had been running before he commed her.
“Who else would it be?” she asked.
He huffed a breath in her ear. “Fuck me, Shaw, do you know how long it took me to find you? You left the fucking Corps, and nobody at that goddamned Admiralty of yours would tell me where you were. What the fuck?”
“If I’d known you were looking I’d have sent up a flare.” There would have been no reason for the Admiralty to help him, even if they could have. She used to be certain her former commanders—or at least Shadow Ops, their secret intelligence division—had kept track of her location, even after she resigned. At this point, though, she was inclined to believe she didn’t matter to them anymore. None of which is his fault. “Did you call me to yell, Jamyung?”
“No. No, no, no.” Another huff. “Not yell. But I need a favor.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re a straight shooter,” he said. “These other Central motherfuckers, you can’t trust them. And the freighter jocks—they haggle over shit like they’re fucking royalty, like I don’t know I’m the only one in six systems with that fucking field regulator they need to keep from blowing themselves to bits. Condescending assholes.”
She unraveled that. “You’re asking for a favor because you trust me.”
“Yes. Yes. Because they’ll just tell me I’m fucking nuts, and I need a fucking favor, Shaw.” He was beginning to sound frightened. “You don’t know. Lately, here, it’s been—shit.” Huff. “I am fucked, we are all fucked, and I need a favor, and I have to get rid of this thing.”
“Calm down.” She glanced at Arin, who had straightened, ignoring the cat, eyes on Elena. She gave him a reassuring smile, then stepped away, rounding the shipping cartons for some privacy. “Why are you fucked? What thing? Start from the beginning.”
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Huff. “So you know it’s been fucked here, dome-wise, since the Great Terraformer Experiment went to hell. Fucking politicians killing each other instead of fucking doing something to help people. Same old shit my whole fucking life, because those assholes are fucking bored or something, I don’t know. Never made any fucking sense to me. And yeah, I make money off of it, usually, and why do I care if some lying dumbass governor loses some air?”
Jamyung was big on storytelling when he was trying to sell something, but he wasn’t sounding like he had parts to move. “So it’s fucked there . . . and you don’t care?”
“Yes. No. Because it’s not just the usual bullshit this time. This time people keep talking about nukes. Asking me if I can get them, then getting really fucking you-didn’t-hear-us-ask when I tell them I can’t.”
Nukes. On a domed colony. Shit. “Is this a reliable rumor, or just the usual mine-is-bigger crap?”
“Reliable. Solid. They keep naming a Syndicate tribe: Ailmont. They’re the real deal.”
“I’m not Corps anymore,” she told him. “I can’t stop the Syndicates from selling their own cargo.”
“Yeah, but now they’ve been fucking with me, and they keep coming back, and fuck it, Shaw, I can’t give them this thing.”
She parsed that. “Wait. You have something somebody is after?”
“Do you know what this fucking thing can do? I can’t sell it to them!”
She closed her eyes. “From the beginning. What thing?”
Huff. “Okay. Okay. I have this scavenger. Had this scavenger. Few days back, she brings me this thing she found on the surface. No idea what it is, but it’s warm, and it’s not radiating fucking poison, so she thought it must be something useful. Next day—a pack of those assholes from Baikul fucking vacates her. A good fucking scout, too, and now she’s a fucking frozen dessert.”
Vacated. Local slang for exposing someone on the moon’s airless surface. Elena gave an involuntary shiver. “Could be unrelated.”
“And then,” he went on, as if she’d said nothing, “I get an offer from some off-world trader I’ve never heard of to buy out my stock. A generous offer. A stupid generous offer, you know? Only it comes with a side order of take it or we’ll fucking kill you and take your shit anyway.”
She frowned. “They were that explicit?”
“Of course not! But it was clear. And it’s this thing, Shaw. This fucking thing. I know it is.”
“Then why not just give it to them?”
“Here’s the thing.” Huff. “I sell shit. I’ve always sold shit. Your shit, their shit, I don’t care. I have it, you need it, I’m taking your money, no questions asked. But . . . this thing, Shaw. I don’t know what the fuck it is, but I don’t want it in the hands of the we’ll fucking kill you anyway crowd.”
“Why not?” Ethics seemed entirely out of character for Jamyung. “What is it?”
“I just told you! I don’t know what the fuck it is. But . . .” She heard him swallow. “It talked to me, Shaw. It got into my head and fucking talked to me and I’d nuke it if I could, but with my luck it’s built to survive that.”
“Hang on.” She sorted through everything he’d said. If the conflict on Yakutsk was finally—after centuries of low-level squabbling—escalating into a nuclear conflict, he was right to be panicked. Nukes could destroy domes with alarming efficiency. Everything else sounded like unrelated events strung into some loosely related cause-and-effect chain generated by his anxiety.
Except the object.
“How did it talk to you? Does it have a comms interface?”
“It has no interface. It’s a fucking box. Nothing on the surface, no lights, no connectors, no nothing. Only it’s warm. Martine said it was warm when she found it, out on the surface in the fucking vacuum.”
She had to ask. “What did it say?”
“It said Get the fuck off Yakutsk, Jamyung. Smartest fucking box I’ve ever found. I need airlift, Shaw. I need someone to get me off this fucking rock before they shove me outside as well. You’re my last hope here.”
There was the drop. The story of the object was likely a shaggy-dog tale couching his request . . . but she had known him a long time, and despite a business model that might have pushed him to do it, he had never lied to her.
She owed the truth to him in return . . . but she didn’t think he’d want to hear it. Nukes on Yakutsk meant Bear would have to cancel the whole drop. Budapest was staffed with civilian freighter jocks who’d have no idea how to handle a nuclear zone, and she couldn’t protect them all on her own.
“I can’t tell you when we�
��re going to get there,” she said, with a pang of guilt at the prevarication. “But Galileo is close. Less than four hours, I think. Tell them we talked. They’ll take you.”
“After all this, you’re shucking me off on the fucking Corps?”
“Best I can offer.”
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” He sounded calmer. “Four hours? Okay. But this thing, Shaw. Four hours, and they’re after me, I know it.”
“Hide it then,” she told him.
“Where?”
“Do I know your workshop? Someplace nobody else knows about.”
“There isn’t—” He broke off. “Good. Yes. Good. Let them search. They won’t find it. Thanks, Shaw. Four hours?”
“Four hours, Jamyung.” She hoped Galileo would not be delayed. And that they’d be willing to offer help to a paranoid small-time parts trader.
Huff. “Thank you. Thank you. Four hours.” He disconnected.
She leaned against a storage carton just as Arin crept hesitantly around the corner. He had picked up the cat, who blinked at Elena with bored green eyes. “Everything okay?” Arin asked.
No, she thought. She turned and gave him an absent smile. “For now,” she said, not wanting to alarm him. “But I’ve got to talk to Bear.”
Bear Savosky was an enormous man. Half again larger than anyone else Elena had ever met, he had broad shoulders, no neck to speak of, and a voice that carried even when he whispered. He had a severe jaw, shrewd eyes, and an entirely bald head covered in elaborate tattoos, nearly invisible against his night-dark skin. She had known him nearly nineteen years, and over all that time she had seen both his temper and his pragmatism. She had always found him to be consistent and fair.
But she had learned, after six weeks and more culture clashes than she could count, that there were things about him she was never going to understand.
The rest of the crew sat around her at the large common-area table, listening to her relate her conversation with Jamyung. She had expected a sensible response to the nuclear rumors, including a discussion about rescheduling the drop after the situation on Yakutsk had cooled down. Instead, when she finished, they all looked at Bear, awaiting his assessment. For Bear’s part, he was watching Elena, his dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“I’ve heard these rumors already,” he told them.
She gaped at him. “Then why are we still headed there?”
“Because,” he said, straightening, “nobody has actually seen any bombs. I spoke to one shop that ordered a few just to see what would show up, and they’ve had nothing but delays and excuses since then.”
“So this is some governmental fear tactic.” This came from Naina Chudasama, the ship’s accountant, and the one Elena would have expected to be the most likely to want to leave the entire mission behind.
“That’d be my guess,” Bear told her. “But Elena’s right: we don’t know, and if I’m guessing wrong, the downside is pretty big.” He leaned back in his chair. “What do you all think?”
Good God, Elena thought, he’s letting them vote. She fought to sit still, hands on her lap under the table, where nobody could see her fists clenching.
“I think we should go,” Arin said.
Bear shot him a look. “Some of us will be staying in orbit,” he said. “And that means you.”
“But—”
“Not now, Arin,” Bear said flatly.
Arin slumped back in his chair, glowering. Elena felt a wave of sympathy for him, but she was relieved. At least Bear had heeded her enough to protect some of them.
Naina glanced at Arin, then turned back to Bear. “Whoever goes,” she said, “I agree. We need to complete this delivery. The contract only calls for us to have someone on Yakutsk accept the cargo on the record. Once we have that, the funds are released. What happens afterward makes no difference to us.”
“It’s a quick trip, then,” said Yuri. “We make the drop, get some bureaucrat to stamp the paperwork, and we’re gone.”
“Which is fine,” Elena put in, “until someone blows a big fucking hole in the dome.”
Yuri, usually so sensible, gave her a resigned smile. “If we worried about eventualities,” he told her, “we’d never deliver anything.”
Eventualities. She opened her mouth, but Bear quelled her with a look. “Chi?”
Elena knew she would get no help from the supply officer. Chiedza, taciturn and standoffish, could usually be counted on for pragmatism, but Elena, who had been watching the woman throughout their trip, had come to believe Chiedza’s background involved activities less aboveboard than cargo delivery. Chi wasn’t going to turn down a sale for what Bear apparently considered an imaginary risk.
“This is rumor,” Chi said dismissively. “We can’t call a delivery over a rumor.”
Bear was silent for a moment, and Elena beamed desperate thoughts in his direction. You’re the captain of this ship. Civilian freighter or no, you’re in charge here. Overrule them. Tell them no. Why the fuck did you ask them to begin with? “Nai,” he asked, “how much could we get on the secondary market if we skipped this drop? Theoretically.”
Naina was frowning in concentration. Elena, who was no slouch with numbers, was continually amazed at how quickly Nai could do calculations in her head. “We couldn’t make it up with what we’re carrying now,” she said. “We could resell some of it, but not enough.” She looked at Bear. “Eighteen thousand decs, three weeks minimum, and that’s if we find a buyer for the surplus right away.”
Elena could tell from everyone’s posture, even Arin’s, that her argument was lost.
She did, in the end, get a compromise from Bear: only three of them would head down to the moon’s surface. Elena and Chiedza would each pilot a cargo shuttle, and Bear would accompany them to deal with the financial validations. “The paper pushers will keep us there for a while,” he said, “but it shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. Then we can get out of there, and they can buy nukes from whoever the fuck they want.”
They all stood to leave. Arin stalked out first, not looking at her, and her sympathy was tempered by annoyance. Even if they’d needed the extra hands—which they didn’t—after the way Bear had chewed her out over the last time she had brought the kid along on a drop, she couldn’t imagine why Arin would think she’d champion his participation. The others drifted away until only Naina was left, her eyes on the door Arin had just passed through.
“He’ll get over it,” Naina said, half to herself.
“I hope,” Elena said, “what he has to get over is a boring op he was lucky to miss.”
Naina met Elena’s eyes. She was a good deal older than Elena, perhaps close to Elena’s mother’s age, round and soft in a way so many civilians were. She was also relaxed and good-natured with a tendency to smile, and Elena had felt less uncomfortable with her than most of the people she’d had to deal with since she left the Corps. After six weeks, Elena was beginning to think of Naina as a real friend, although they had never shared anything deeply personal. Still, it was nice to have someone who would sit with her and chat about ordinary things, instead of frowning at her and reminding her, all the time, how little she knew about the universe outside the Corps.
Naina’s dark eyes were gentle, and held a bit of that maternal kindness that Elena would often see in people trying to explain things they thought she should already understand. “You know, Elena,” Naina said conversationally, “you need to stop treating us like we’re helpless just because we’re not Corps.”
Well, that was entirely unfair. “I don’t think you’re helpless,” Elena protested. “I just . . . I don’t understand the choices you make.”
“Because you think, for us, it’s about money. Only about money.”
“No. Not only. I just—” I think your materialism is going to get us all killed. “I think you’ve never dealt with a colony going to hell before. And yeah, I think risking your lives over money is fucking stupid. That’s my opinion, Nai. It’s not a put-down.”
But it was, and she knew it.
“I don’t think you mean it that way.” Nai’s voice had gone gentle, as if she were speaking to a child. “But you act like you’re the only one who’s ever been out here.”
“Respectfully, Nai, you’re an accountant.”
“I am. I’m an accountant who’s far from home, and who wants to get paid so I don’t have to do that so much anymore.” She smiled. “My sister’s having a baby next month, did I tell you? A girl. My mother is thrilled. And my sister could use an extra pair of hands.”
“Nai, I understand why people want the money. I just don’t get the urgency.”
“Don’t you?” Nai cocked her head to one side. “You know what happened on Mundargi all those years ago.”
Elena nodded. She had read about it; it had been a case study at Central Military Academy. “That was before I was born.”
“It was not before I was born,” Nai told her. “And it was not something I can forget, or leave behind. You have a good heart, I know. But it’s not for you to defend us all against the darkness. Even if you could—it’s not something we would choose for you to do. We choose, for ourselves, with our eyes open, with as much knowledge as you do.”
“It’s one shipment, Nai.” Elena felt like the woman wasn’t listening. “And none of that is worth dying for.”
“And yet you’re going down to the surface.”
“Well of course I am. It’s my job.”
“And you’re the only one allowed that conceit?”
“No!” She closed her eyes. “Nai, this was my whole career, this kind of bullshit. Not historical horrors that none of us can go back and fix, but this: people wanting to kill each other, and perfectly willing to take bystanders with them. I’m going down because I’m the best qualified to make sure the fewest people get killed.”
“And Chi is the best qualified to transfer the shipment, and Bear’s the best qualified to make sure we get our money. We’re not ignorant, and we’re not helpless. You’re not the only one who’s been in danger, and you’re not the only one who’s willing to take risks.” She reached out and laid a hand on Elena’s arm. “We’re not in need of rescue. And none of us are going to turn our backs on our families because things are tense on Yakutsk.”
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