Not the Neiharts. Finity’s End accommodated all of them with room to spare.
A legend. A friggin’ legend. Ship and captain.
1900 sharp. A half minute past, a mixed group came in and spread out along the wall, behind the bar, happening to block service. Whatever was going to come down, it was a sure thing that they weren’t all rated “local” to the establishment, and if trouble started, being fairly close to a side exit wasn’t a bad idea.
Following them . . . grey jackets, six of them, entourage for a young man also in grey, with, bet on it, a ship-patch unique among all colorful patches. Finity’s patch was just a solid black and starless disc, the black of space itself, claimed by the first and oldest of all spacefarers, Gaia. Not even a name displayed.
Arrogance. Absolute, chilling arrogance. There had been a time Ross had dreamed of being James Robert Neihart. Of having that kind of luck. Now, he could only watch as that still-youngish man made his way steadily to the center of the room, his only badge of office a captain’s gold collar tab. And God, good-looking to boot.
But not that tall. Shortest man in the set. That was a little surprising.
The stir of conversation died back, thumped to total death by a bar mug on the counter.
“Thanks for coming,” the young man said. “I’m Finity’s senior captain. JR Neihart. This is second-senior Madison. Helm 1 Jim B. Nav 1 Kate. Finity deeply apologizes, first of all, for the inconvenience to Firenze and Qarib; and secondly for any concern the high-V approach caused. It was necessary and not something we could explain until we got here.”
“Screw that,” someone shouted. “Just tell us why you’re here.”
JR’s face didn’t even twitch. “We’re here because we’re a Family ship—and we don’t want to see Family ships run out of business. Any of them.”
“Only threat to our business is three ships an’ one monster what doesn’t belong here,” the same voice shot back.
“We’ve no intention of intruding on your routes. We’ve minimal cargo, no more. That’s not why we’re here. We’re here because we recognize the shape of that ship up on A-mast—a certain design team back on Pell is decidedly not happy, but we could care less about that. Not our problem. We care about what that ship is for. What’s its purpose here?”
“Ballast?” came from Ross’s right, and someone gave a snort.
If JR Neihart heard, he didn’t show it. “We’ve got bets on whether we could find our way around those corridors without a map; and odds are on it being more than a little different inside. Won’t have a kids’ loft, that doesn’t even get odds. Won’t need one. They’ve crewed it with hire-ons, not Family. Crew will come and go as the Company pleases. The Company expects they’ll train station-born crew in one voyage and a few sims.”
“Tell us something we don’t know, ye damned big shot!” That was from somewhere behind, with the thump of a beer mug. The accent was Santiago.
JR Neihart’s eyes flicked that way, sharp and quick.
“All right. Try this. If that ship is planning to trade, no matter who crews her, she’s doomed before she starts. First, she doesn’t have the bow we have that lets us ring-dock, which means the math is against her, regarding cargo. A big hold takes time to load and unload. Canisters make it fast. A lot faster. Only four stations still use mast docking, and you see what extreme measures Alpha—compliments to Alpha’s excellent chief of ops—had to take to accommodate Finity. We also had one of our best people handling docking, a senior-senior in charge who learned on a reconfigured pusher. Gaia. I leave it to your seniors to imagine what havoc a novice crew might have caused. And note that most stations will not be ready to risk receiving that kind of mass on a mast-end, especially a ship with a bridge full of trainees.”
That caused a murmur, and JR Neihart gave it a moment before continuing. “Secondly, if they’re planning to fill that cargo bay and trade, they’re also doomed. Canister racks are the only way to safely stow cans in a cargo space of our size . . . and for canisters, you need the ring-dock. Finity and her cousin Dublin are why ring-docking was designed, and why it has become the rule in the Beyond. It’s efficient, it’s safe . . . and there are smaller canisters that a regular cargo hold can accommodate without racks. There’s plenty of cargo that needs pushing or hauling, enough for all the ships in service.”
“Doesn’t do us damn all good if we can’t link up to the station.” It was no more than a mutter, but this time Neihart’s eyes flicked toward the perpetrator.
“Contrary to rumor, a ring-dock can accommodate smaller ships with a regular linkup with no problem.”
That was a revelation. A really hopeful one, and helluvalot more interesting than what he’d been saying about Rights. With Venture shifting over to the ring-dock, it had been a serious concern.
“It’s a matter of an adapting mechanism for all of your ships. The details I’m sure have downloaded in the box-feed. You’ll be using it eventually at Venture. But installing the canister adaptation on that ship out on A-mast would require an overhaul, a complete change in cargo config—assuming it has such. The larger canisters can’t be loaded manually, and require mechanisms inside the hold. You don’t need the loading machinery for smaller ships. Just the smaller canisters.”
“How small?” somebody called out and someone else: “That’s his bad back askin’.”
“Controlled-environment cans that stand no taller than that doorway, and fit a regular hold.”
Another great bit of news. Controlled-environment cargo . . . inside the regular cargo hold?
Damn.
“As for your back . . .” A hint of a smile broke through Neihart’s somber expression. “A ship at Mariner rigged a cradle out of chain and lock-plates. Seems to work on half- and quarter-cans. A manufacturer at Pell is planning reusable cans that’ll fit a five-by-five cargo lock.”
There was a general buzz at that and again, Neihart gave it time to sink in. The rumors had them facing obsolescence and ruin. But some little ship out there had bodged a fix—just . . . figured a solution to slinging those canisters about using stuff every ship carried. They’d bodged it, the way ships bodged regular things, the way people just coped with a problem when they had to with whatever they had lying around. It was in the best tradition. And if stations upstream were actively accommodating little ships, actually seeking ways to bridge the gap between big and small rather than catering entirely to the Finitys of the universe . . . God, it was an escape hatch in what they’d thought an absolute wall.
If Galway could get that adapter, if a makeshift rig was that easy done, Ross thought, and then: God, was it that easy? What wasn’t this fancy captain telling them? This man whose ship-cred could buy every Alpha ship in dock and still take his crew out for dinner without feeling a moment’s pain—what did he gain?
Damn, he’d come in here resolved not to buy what JR Neihart was selling. His attack on Rights had been pretty much as expected, but now . . . damn. His stomach was upset. And Neihart, damn him, had seen that attack wasn’t working. He’d shifted his sales pitch over to the canisters, to the concerns he knew damn good and well they all had. Con job, maybe . . . telling them they had a future
“But there’s a serious problem in that idea,” Neihart said. “And that problem’s sitting up there on A-mast. Look at our ship’s outline, the size of our hold. That ship’s hold space is way under what it could be. Its personnel ring is way over. That’s a ship that’s not designed for cargo. A ship that’s drained Alpha of resources. A ship that’s owned by the Company. And some think cargo-handling isn’t its objective.”
There was utter, cold silence. You didn’t say bad things about the EC. It wasn’t against the law, but it just wasn’t smart. The blue-coats monitored the Strip for trouble, and you didn’t want to sound like trouble.
There were a lot of people here. Station didn’t like overflow crowds in p
laces even when everybody was in a good mood. Any minute, the blue-coats would be showing up.
And station would be noting which crews were in the forefront.
“So what are you sayin’, Finity?” A shout from the table ahead, from Julio Rodriguez, who rose halfway out of his seat. “You came all this way . . . four of you . . . to reassure your shit-poor cousins? Is it Pell talkin’? They tryin’ to get us to desert Alpha and go kiss Konstantin ass? Well, screw you!”
“No, sir! Not Pell. We don’t endorse any station—or the EC—controlling any ship. We contend that the EC shouldn’t own a merchant ship. It hasn’t been so from the beginning—that was the whole point behind Gaia’s refusal to stand down after the first voyage—and it shouldn’t be so now. Trade is our realm now. It’s your realm . . . not the EC’s. The EC hasn’t given a damn about the stations out here. They haven’t sent resources to maintain Glory or Alpha or Venture. They could have. Pusher loads could have handled it. But instead, they’ve built that ship. They could have helped you maintain your ships. But they haven’t. They’ve built that ship, and built it with limited capacity for trade. So what is it for? And how does it serve you?”
“Bullshit, Finity. What’s it to you?”
A single dark brow lifted. “You’re Family. Family ships matter. The trust and the trade our ships have built up with the stations are both at issue. The EC intends to go into competition with Family ships? We say no.”
There was another buzz, longer this time, and again JR Neihart let it run its course.
Rodriguez straightened. “You said ‘we.’ So who are you speaking for?”
“For Finity’s End.”
“For Little Bear,” a dark-haired man said. And: “For Mumtaz,” a hawk-faced man said. And a dark-skinned woman, “For Nomad.”
“You’re outsiders!”
“Are we?” Neihart asked. “Captain Rodriguez, do I have the honor?”
“You do, sir. And it’s a question we want answered. Need answered, before this goes any further. If not outsiders, you who trade in volumes we can’t even imagine . . . even the smallest of you . . . what are you? What do you remotely have in common with us?”
“Fair question.” Neihart gave a deep nod, and Julio Rodriguez raised his chin, mouth hard. “Not as much as we once did and not nearly as much as we hope to have in the future.”
Rodriguez opened his mouth, and Neihart raised a hand. “Bear with me, just for now. ‘We’ is not Pell, or Cyteen or any other station. ‘We’ are—as of now—some forty-six of sixty-three families like your own, hoping to make that sixty-three of sixty-three, including the ones operating past Pell, where we also have Families out getting signatures. Old Families. Ship Families. Families that may have subdivided and spread out through space, but who remain part of the original twelve Families that have served the star stations through all the shifts and changes, and who have been loyal to a set of principles that have served all interests out here for generation after generation. One of those principles, the absolute most basic, is ownership.”
Julio Rodriguez’s head tipped, his eyes narrowed.
“From the beginning, we’ve served all interests,” Neihart said, “but these days the only ones looking out for our interests . . . is ourselves. The stations can’t do it. The EC certainly won’t do it. Thus far, those of us serving beyond Pell have maintained our rights to independent ownership against two very powerful interests.”
“Easy to say when your ship isn’t mortgaged to the hilt.”
“And why is that?”
“You know damn good and well why.”
“Lack of cargo from Sol is only part of the problem. Time was, no ship ever went into debt. Time was ships hauled necessities between stations and in return the stations took care of them, kept the systems and equipment up to date and gave the crew a place to stay when they were in port . . . but we no longer deal in that simple economy. Now there’s credit. Now ships have books to balance, and they pay stations for services. Alpha still covers your repairs, as they did in the past, but those repairs happen at the station’s priority, not yours, and they charge you docking fees and for food and bed when you’re forced to layover for mechanicals. In the Beyond, we pay not only for layover, but for the repairs themselves. Our cargo comes out of station-credit at one end and goes into it at the other. We are completely independent. That’s the reality of modern economics. We forty-six respect your efforts to maintain your pride and independence in a difficult situation, but we fear for your future—and our own, thanks to that A-mast ship and what it implies about the EC’s view of the future.”
Another muttering interruption. Dangerously close to opinions you just didn’t have, not on Alpha.
And this time, Neihart didn’t wait for it to die down.
“We have indeed had the advantage in this new economy. More, perhaps, than you realize. Beyond the fact that we have two bio-rich planets in our FTL routes, beyond the fact we have several mineral-rich systems with thriving stations, beyond the fact that the tech keeps evolving and Alpha has never brought your ships into compliance with the new standards . . . beyond those obvious advantages, there’s the fact that we deal directly with the decision-makers of the stations we serve. Thanks to that ongoing dialogue, they understand that their prosperity is directly linked to ours. The better our ships, the faster our turnaround, the more trade they have with the other stations and the more money they make. You have not had that ability. Your stationmaster does what he has resources to do. But the decision-makers that affect your livelihood, who decree the fate of the stations you keep alive, have sat at Sol, untouchable, out of reach, issuing out-of-date orders that make no more sense now than they ever have. They don’t care about keeping your ships current, they don’t care about sending enough product to keep trade with the other First Stars healthy and your books in the black. They only care, as they always have, about their projects. Their current project has shut down Galileo Station, shut down Thule—thereby cutting your routes in half—and brought extreme hardship on the rest of the First Stars, which were never gifted with the resources this construction has demanded, and who have depended on shipments from Sol for simple survival . . . shipments which have now given way to the demands of that ship. And without cargo to carry, without the tech upgrades the old agreements once promised you, your ships are doomed.”
“Dammit,” Rodriguez said, turning to go, “this is bullshit. I’m out of—”
“Unless you get help.”
Rodriguez froze. Turned. “Help! From where?”
“Not from Alpha. Unlike Pell and all the other stations in the Beyond, stations that were built without EC endorsement and who have long since denied the EC any say over their operations, the First Stations have no choice but to follow EC directives and accept EC personnel. Your station here can’t help you, because the EC tells your station director how to spend his resources, and the EC has other priorities.”
Chilling statement. Dangerous. And true. Julio Rodriguez sank slowly back into his chair beside his brother.
“And you’d get no more help out of Pell or Cyteen, either,” Neihart said. “Not unless, yes, you defected to their routes, and then you’d be competing with each other for their attention and still having to pay the bills. Even if they did agree to a refit, you’d be generations paying off the debt. They simply don’t care. Out there, stations think of other stations as potential markets—numbers, not people. And our ships are simply a means to transport product to those markets. All they get from Alpha is luxury goods passed on from Earth, which they can easily live without. And in recent years, with even those luxury goods cut off, they rarely think of Alpha at all, let alone Glory or Bryant’s. They do worry about Sol. They worry about the EC trying to come in and take over administration once Sol finds a route. And that ship up there looks to them like there might be a plan to make that takeover happen with or without
that route. They really worry about Sol or Alpha getting desperate enough to make a run through Proxima, risking all the bad luck that star harbors just to get an FTL link to their stations. The bitter reality is, all the stations in the Beyond would just as soon all the stations this side of Venture would fail, leaving Sol, when it does break out, whether through Proxima or some as yet unmapped jump point to Alpha, a scarcity of bases to bridge the gap to the farther stations.”
Which meant their dream, the future every Alpha spacer had invested their lives in . . . was the nightmare of all those stations beyond Venture. It was a pretty good summation of bleak reality.
Nobody raised an argument.
“That’s what the stations out there think about your stations. For you and your ships . . . If asked, they’d probably like to entice you into trade with them, but the motivation would be to leave the First Stars to rot. And as I’ve already mentioned, to get remotely competitive out there, where the stars are farther apart, the jumps longer . . . you’d have no choice but to get a complete overhaul . . . which for some of you still wouldn’t be enough. Without a modern purpose-built ship, you’d go bankrupt, and the stations wouldn’t even notice. You ask if we speak for Pell. No. But we’ve spoken to Pell, to Cyteen, to Mariner and Viking and Venture, with one conclusion: we all have a problem and that the problem lies up there on A-mast: a massive ship that’s taking hire-on crew. The stations’ position is that that ship may be designed not to carry cargo, but EC enforcement personnel. That’s where their concern lies. The forty-six Families’ position is that, if it’s trading, if it’s hauling cargo, a Family, maybe a consortium of Families, should get it.”
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