Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  For the EC, that second connection was the only one that mattered. The workers at the facilities were employees, and the only rules that mattered were those the company set. Cultural differences were on their own time.

  The whole attitude was fundamentally different. Earth’s culture didn’t embrace multi-generational groups isolated for years at a time, groups whose only constant reality was what had become the Family, or the Station, and, in the case of the spacers, groups who could if they cared to, tell a station to go to hell, and just leave.

  Forever.

  That was what the EC truly didn’t understand, had never come face to face with. Independence. Real self-reliance. Spacers no longer needed the EC for survival. That had been true from the time the Pell station core had left Venture, bound for a star with a living world.

  Neihart had made a lot of good points in what he’d said. He’d brought clarity to a problem Abrezio had been dealing with for years. The EC at Sol had no concept of what it took to make the star stations run smoothly . . . in that, he agreed with Neihart. And one day, perhaps soon, FTL was going to replace the pusher-traffic to Sol; and Sol was going to be plunged into a new reality, one in which decisions had to be much faster, decisions whose consequences were months, rather than years, away.

  At which point, which had been his thought while listening to Neihart’s speech, Ben Abrezio could play a key role in making that transition run smoothly.

  It was a safe bet that the first FTL ship out of Sol would bring EC reps with notions that wouldn’t make much sense in the First Stars, let alone as far out as Venture.

  But the EC’s goal would be profit—the same as everyone else’s.

  He understood the situation. He had psychologically bridged that gap for years. He could direct Sol’s first steps with experience and common sense, and make the EC that profit . . . only grant they sent him somebody willing to stand still, watch, listen and learn.

  Unlike, God help him, Cruz and Hewitt.

  Cruz was too mono-focused on the Rights of Man project, and not even twenty years at Alpha had given him the knack of getting cooperation on the Strip . . . a useful art, while running a project indefinitely sidelining local shippers’ needs. Cruz wasn’t the man to be setting general station policy or negotiating with spacer crews. His interests weren’t the EC’s, either. His interests were accomplishment. Recognition. And his social skills were mildly wanting.

  Hewitt . . . God help him double . . . had only one response to a challenge. Force. He’d almost bet that raid on Neihart’s meeting was meant to rough up the visitors, and that the firedoor corridor being put in the hands of six-month recruits to Enforcement was a setup designed to draw blood, no matter whose. Hewitt wasn’t socially skilled either—but Hewitt knew how to touch off tempers and take advantage of the emotional reaction. And while Bellamy Jameson had brought the force, he’d bet Hewitt had sent Jameson the personnel, then sat back, listened, and waited. Hewitt had let Neihart lay it out and work the pitch up and up, and then, right before Neihart’s denouement, he’d slammed the hammer down, intending to make the most of whatever fell out.

  Bet on it, Hewitt had also taken notes on who was there, so he had his little list of locals he could pressure, including, possibly, the bar owner. Cruz managed to offend people because he had his notions of entitlement, but he wanted to be liked, and he wanted to be important. Hewitt didn’t give a damn about being liked. He just wanted to be in charge. Wanted power. The two of them together—Cruz and Hewitt—God knew, regular people who came off a pusher-ship passage were just a little odd. The voyage did that. But whatever demons personally drove them, whatever ambitions had driven these two, with their aides, to become the men the Company chose to send out here—and whatever the voyage itself had made them, ripped loose from family, friends, nation and personal ties—

  Neither of them was what the Company needed in control here, working with spacers, or with the Farther Stars and whatever deal Finity had brought in with them. Not now, and especially not once Sol joined the FTL routes.

  The EC needed a guiding beacon, not a supernova.

  Ben Abrezio hoped to be that guiding light. He hoped to matter hugely to the human future, and thought that might actually be possible, depending on how he handled this situation. He hadn’t anticipated it, but it presented an opportunity. If he could negotiate with these ships, right here, right now, if he could possibly secure some agreements with Pell, agreements even leading to increased supply and ring-docking in Alpha’s future, he might be able to set up a system so healthy and potentially profitable that any EC representative arriving after the fact would be forced to think twice before undermining it. He couldn’t do it within the transit-time of a message to Sol, but Sol’s entry would be more symbolic than substantial at first. The Sol-based EC would be feeling its way.

  At first.

  If those coordinates he had in the safe panned out, if goods started flowing from Sol, more diverse and more exotic than Pell, the introduction of those goods from Sol into the interstellar market would have to be finessed.

  That was the rough spot. Konstantin would not be happy with the competition: Pell’s economy would take an initial hit, with Earth’s biological riches fully in the game. But things would level out. Pell had its value, as Alpha would, a bridge between the Cyteen and Sol markets and a necessary buffer between two very different mindsets.

  Damn. It was a scary place to stand, but the potential . . .

  Sol was the one power that could challenge Cyteen, if Cyteen, with its engineered populations and reckless expansionist notions, became a problem, and Pell was, whatever else, still linked to Earth in history, in ethics, in law, in traditions . . .

  Damn . . . Definitely scary, but if the Konstantins played their cards right, Pell could become a new Sol, a bright new future for mankind.

  If he could start those negotiations with Pell here at Alpha, during this visit . . . he could become the central point of exchange, in touch with both Pell and Sol, able to be the bridge.

  What hadn’t Finity had time to say in that meeting? Anything new? Or critical? Damn Hewitt for the timing.

  Was Rights becoming a Family ship an idea the Neiharts had come up with on their own? Or was it Konstantin’s power play, to push the EC into a corner?

  Did it really matter? Regardless who was pushing the buttons, he was damned sure not going to hand over his largest card as the opening bid in a game he wasn’t even sure was the right game to play. He’d believed for years that the Konstantins wanted to force the First Stars’ stations into mothballs and leave Sol sealed in the past as long as they could—it had surprised him to hear Neihart so openly admit to that. It was unthinkable that Sol would never find an FTL route, but every year that arrival was delayed gave Pell that much more time to strengthen its position. He had absolutely no doubt that the Konstantins carefully controlled Pell’s export, and that the biostuffs that made it past Venture and Bryant’s were barely enough to fill Alpha’s standing purchase orders was no accident. Supply trickled. It did not flow. And that was policy. Pell wanted them not to die—but not to live that well, either.

  When Sol broke out, Pell wanted Sol occupied with reviving its own, determinedly loyal, stations.

  It had been a long, long time since Alpha had gotten all its biostuffs from Sol. Pell was far faster in trade. His predecessor, with Pell to fill the gaps, had depleted the reserve that Alpha had traditionally maintained when shipments were years rather than months or even weeks apart, a reserve against the possibility of pusher-ships lost in transit. One of his own first decisions, coming into office, was to build that reserve back up . . . only to have Pell cut them off entirely, following the infamous theft of the Finity’s End blueprints. Relations had thawed, trade had resumed, but then Sol’s pusher shipments shifted completely over to materials for Rights, which threw Alpha and all the other First Stars into complete rel
iance on Pell.

  Pell knew the situation, had actually increased the export of food along with the price break, but they were still sending just enough to keep the station alive. Uncanny, Konstantin’s ability to judge that margin. But it was the ships that carried those supplies that were hurting the most, if he was honest with himself. Without the exotics from Sol for those ships to carry out of Alpha, their ability to cover dock charges grew increasingly problematic. Pell had to know that if Alpha lost its ships to other stations—Alpha would have to shut down. And if that happened by the choice of Alpha’s regular ships, Emilio Konstantin avoided public censure, never mind he’d have choreographed the whole thing.

  If Konstantin’s policy succeeded, Sol’s ships would arrive to find a deserted station—maybe to a string of deserted stations. Potentially stranded. With only a light-bound message taking years to ask for help. Gruesome scenario.

  Damn the Konstantins! He hadn’t signed up for this kind of problem when he’d accepted his promotion twenty-plus years ago. First damn thing he’d gotten had been the plans for that monster. He’d gotten those, done what had to be done . . . and now—he could almost believe Konstantin had planned the whole damned course of events including the theft of the plans. Smug bastard had probably unlocked the door to his office and left the damned computer on.

  And waved a cheerful farewell to the EC agent as he left.

  Well, he had beaten Konstantin at his own game. Despite Cruz, despite Hewitt, he’d done his best for Alpha’s loyal ships. He’d met with the captains, forgiven a few charges he could control, helped them through hard times. He couldn’t think that Neihart’s rhetoric could peel them away—he couldn’t think that spacers so long loyal could leave Alpha in the lurch. The Strip was a home to them, unique in the places they visited.

  But he also needed to give them something, something to offset the lure Neihart was dangling in front of their noses. They needed some hope that the situation here on Alpha now was not going to be the situation tomorrow, that trade was going to get better. The small ships could not compete at Pell. Neihart himself had said that.

  Ten years—one pusher-run. He needed to keep them loyal for that ten years. If he transmitted those coordinates today, along with his fears regarding Pell’s plans, Sol would have them in six years. He had no doubt Sol was equipped to test that information and get some results within a year. If the points were viable, Sol could have ships here within a decade—sooner, if they were already building and training in anticipation of the discovery of jump points. He could bring the local ships’ captains in on the secret, give them hope, ask them to wait that ten years. . . .

  If he dared transmit. Dammit.

  Or, he could sit on those coordinates, could cast his lot with Pell, could enlist the help of these visitors, and they might save his station; but at what price? Without Sol’s imports to sell, Alpha would remain a poor cousin surviving on Pell’s charity—unless the ever worrisome Pell-Cyteen business headed for a trade war, and Pell decided it needed Sol’s backing, at which point he could pull those coordinates out of mothballs and hand them over.

  That Pell-Cyteen business was hardly a certainty. Everyone feared what Cyteen planned with its potential armies of clones, but all Cyteen had ever done was milk a bunch of rich fools and hand out FTL for free and build stations out where no one else had ventured. He hated to depend on some undefined hazard for Alpha to become a major player in this interstellar chess game.

  Inside a decade, if he transmitted that data, reckless of eavesdropping bots, he could put FTL in Sol’s hands. Time would lurch into rapid motion when that happened. Everything would happen faster and faster.

  And spiral out of control if he wasn’t careful.

  He had to keep Cruz in check—keep Rights and its force under his control, not Cruz’s or Hewitt’s, and keep Alpha’s loyal ships focused on reality, not promises. That speech of JR Neihart’s was not innocent. Riots were not the only threat to station security. Neihart was here to recruit the Families to some nebulous idea, promise them whatever he had to promise and recruit them—

  To what end was something he had to find out about before he made a choice regarding those coordinates.

  He needed someone on the inside.

  Following the board-shadowing run to Bryant’s and back, Qarib had set itself at odds with Hewitt and Cruz and the whole Rights project, and by extension, Sol authority itself, calling Hewitt an agent of Satan, or the like. Santiago was a possibility, and Julio and Diego Rodriguez were good people, but whether they could keep anything from their crew was a question. With Giovanna Galli and Firenze, he had extreme financial leverage, but subtlety of approach and Galli were not even acquaintances.

  Which left Galway. She was Venture-built, but with no ties there in the last few decades, station-time. And she was the largest, most modern of all the ships that supplied Alpha. The Monahans could have opted, when they’d gotten that ship, to head out to Pell and take their chances there, as other ships had done. But they hadn’t. They’d remained loyal to Alpha. Old favors, old history. Niall Monahan had a head on his shoulders. And did understand discretion.

  Abrezio looked at the screen, at the names listed on Bellamy Jameson’s report. Ship personnel who’d been at that meeting. Those who’d gotten out before the lock down, those who’d remained inside. Galway names on both. First shift who hadn’t escaped. First shift, including Niall Monahan, in the lot who’d been intercepted and roughed up at the door. Their Nav 1 was the old man in the infirmary.

  Oh. My. God.

  Damn Enzio Hewitt. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. Human history could turn on one fool’s heavy-handed order.

  He tapped a button. His secretary, Ames, answered.

  “Contact Captain Niall Monahan. Request his presence here at his earliest convenience. And make certain that man of theirs in Mercy Infirmary is getting the best care.”

  Apologies were in order. Diplomacy was in order.

  Galway had every right to be upset with station management.

  But if any ship was likely to feel unease in Finity’s arrival here—in a change in the trade routes—

  Galway, as Alpha’s best and newest ship, definitely had reason to ask—what was in it for them.

  Chapter 3 Section ii

  “That the one?” Jen Neihart leaned past JR to tap the portable screen. The image paused. Another tap and it zoomed in on a young man sitting down the table from Galway’s Niall Monahan, smooth morph between images: Finity security had spaced their wearable cameras out at the fringes of the meeting, to cover the room—the way they had spread out a web of anti-spook devices to assure nothing sneaked into or out of their equipment in this stretch of very comfortable sleepover rooms.

  JR nodded, not at all surprised that Jen had spotted the target on her own, no matter that there were two other people in that shot who were fairly close to her age group.

  “Easy on the eyes,” Jen said. “That one has his choice of sleepover invites, I’m betting.”

  “You mean—he’s good-looking enough not to be suspicious of your interest.”

  Jen threw him a coy over-the-shoulder. “Why, Uncle James, sir, is that a back-handed compliment?”

  “Don’t give me that face. And a little respect, there.”

  Jen laughed and tapped the screen to unpause the image, leaned an elbow on the little wall-fixed desk to support her chin, intent now on young Ross Monahan.

  Uncle James, sir, indeed. She was, in fact, JR’s niece by blood, her mother having been his late half-sister. And she’d taken ruthless advantage of that association among her peers from the moment he’d been voted senior captain.

  Jen had been a scamp from earliest days, but from the cradle she’d read people the way nav read star charts, and she’d been a thorough pain in the ass as a junior-junior—way too clever, way too few principles and way too quick with the excuses.
She’d been an angry, orphaned kid for a few significant years, a kid far too smart for the rules, always asking why, constantly at war with authority and, on one occasion, stripped of all privileges for three shipboard months. Her aunt Frances, who’d assumed parental authority, hadn’t known what to do with her—until hormones had finished their run and Jen’s brain had settled down to . . . well, finally a real interest. And in what?

  She’d focused, to shipwide amusement, on the one institution with which she’d become so frequently and intimately acquainted.

  Security.

  It proved a perfect fit, particularly for undercover. She’d become smooth enough to leave most of her targets thinking they’d almost gotten what they wanted . . . a talent which had found a natural career on docksides from Mariner to Venture—but not as the lightweight people thought she was. The smooth-as-silk wiles she’d polished, getting away with mayhem on board, had found whole new uses on this run.

  You wanted information station didn’t want to give you? Put Jen on it.

  You wanted to know what another ship was up to? Give Jen a couple of days.

  Right now the question was how the situation in Critical Mass had shaken out, locally—and what the local sentiment was about that faulty copy of Finity sitting up there.

  A night on the Strip, a few key hookups, and some serious talk with some young man—Jen thought she could do it, easy as on Pell dockside.

  But . . .

  “A word of caution,” JR said. “Look at me, Jen. Look at me.”

  “Listening.” Watching the replay. Without the slightest flick of an eye in his direction.

  “This is Alpha, Jen. Let that soak in. This isn’t even Venture. You don’t know it the way you know Pell or Viking. Local terms are different. It’s the Strip, not dockside. They’re starting to call themselves merchanters—but the station calls them spacers, as opposed to stationers, and never call them shorthaulers. They won’t like that word, anyway. Their loyalties may be like ours, to their ships and family, but their pride . . .” He paused, trying to think how to make the point. “What we call the Hinder Stars . . . they call the First Stars, and with good reason. For a long, long time, the Hinder Stars were all there was. These Families have never been beyond Venture. There’ve been several ships in their backgrounds, but only a small handful of stations. You’ve seen the Strip. This place is old and showing its age, but it has a long, long history, not all of it sweetness and light.”