“That she didn’t know and couldn’t say if she did. That it was for her senior captain to say.”
“Oh, that’s helpful.”
“If she asks me what you said or Abrezio said, all I can say is: I don’t know and couldn’t say if I did. Which would also be the truth.”
“So maybe she’s dropping just the points she wants you to follow. You going to see her again?”
Anger had no place between him and Niall. But it was real close. “No, sir, not if you say not.”
“Good time?”
“No one’s business, Niall, sir, but . . . yeah. It was.”
“No reason to stop. Just be cautious.”
“And you’ll ask me what she said?”
“What do you think?”
“You want me to spy. Abrezio wants a spy. Does he know I spent last night with a Neihart, too?”
“For all of us, Ross. For the Family. For the ship. We need to know what we’re in the middle of, and who’s lying to us.”
“Maybe nobody is.”
Niall put a hand on his shoulder. “Ross. Little cousin. Don’t try to make everybody right. Won’t happen. Good spies get accurate information, even if it’s upsetting.”
Little cousin, hell! He wanted to shrug off his captain’s hand . . . but he didn’t. Because Niall was right.
Damn it. Just . . . damn it.
“You said there was an offer from Abrezio. Is it good?”
“It’s good. In the short run . . . preference on cargo. No dock charges on this stay. And right now—it’s helpful. Our own cargoes have taken two hits on the market, and these people have just been through the whole string of stations with their offloads, no way they’re not. We’re not going to shine real bright at Bryant’s, not after these ships have spread the wealth—so, yeah, we’re officially a little worried.”
It made uncomfortable sense. He’d seen the market here bounce like mad, seen speculation so hot it had triggered a four hour cool-down on trading—ending in a serious depression in the cost of flour and Pell wine. Wasn’t all bad. It meant lower prices. It was good for stationers, excepting those making money on the market. Ships like this, moving through little stations—destabilized things.
“So we get our pick,” Ross said.
“The way things are, it’s a good thing. And more than that. Good of the ship, Ross. Good of the ship.”
“God.” Good of the ship . . . yes . . . but at whose expense? Galway wasn’t the only Alpha ship hurting. We need all the ports . . . Jen’s voice whispering in his head. All part of the web. All the ports . . . and all the ships.
Damn. He’d never thought this way. Loyalty to the ship . . . yes . . . but there was a bigger picture. One he was just beginning to see.
“Just go enjoy the girl’s company. But take notes. It’s well possible she is.”
“To learn what, f’ God’s sake? What should I keep close?”
“Not a thing. Tell them anything you know. Listen hard. Read between the lines. Chance meeting or not, you’ve gotten attention and so has Fallan.”
That stopped him cold.
“Don’t spoil it, Niall.”
“Spoil what?”
“Their Fourth, and Fallan. Don’t get in the middle of that. God, you know how many years back that is, how long he’s remembered her? And vice versa?”
“Ross, lad, you are a romantic.”
“I happen to remember—”
“Och. Yeah, I have a heart. I appreciate the situation. But if you think Finity’s Fourth, in that great ship with four full shifts to run her, is a lissome lass with nary a thought in her head—”
“If you think Fallan’s a fool—”
“We’re all fools, men and women. Or capable of being. You don’t get more callous with the years and the ports: the anger and angst go, but the feelings come on, with all the experiences heaped high. Good thing for us all that wisdom generally comes with them, and you can lead our Fallan just so far, but he’s the prankster and hard to catch. If she impressed him that much—and if, whatever she was then, she saw him for what he is, maybe he’ll get a good slice of the truth from her. And if he does or doesn’t, he’ll be sure it doesn’t hurt us. I have no doubt of that. You, being a young fool, are another question at all times, Ross Healle Monahan. But I have to turn you loose. You’ll be believin’ things Fallan wouldn’t, but there’s no way to stop you.”
That stung. “You could just say don’t.”
“I could. Should I? And would it do any good?”
“Captain, sir, I’m not a fool.”
“We’re all fools. You didn’t hear what I said.”
“I heard. I don’t intend to be a fool.”
“Best a young man can do. Sleep with her but don’t get drunk with her. And don’t set your drink down.”
“It’s not my first sleepover.”
“The ship’s relying on you, Ross. On your good sense. Find some currency we can spend in Abrezio’s office, and keep your wits about you.”
He didn’t like it, he really didn’t like it. He felt a little dirty agreeing to the idea. But if Finity was intending harm to Galway . . . however it came . . .
He took a breath. “Yes, sir. I’m in.”
Chapter 6
Section i
So JR Neihart wanted to talk.
Ben Abrezio wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to JR Neihart—not yet, and not on the likely issue. Ships were supposed to be left accessible. Finity’s End had been left locked.
That had just become clear, though it hadn’t been his choice to send customs up there to try. He had, in actual fact, given orders that the visitor ships were to be left alone, ever since the first one in had put “N” in the “customs may access” blank, a response that had triggered an immediate notification to his office. He hadn’t specifically targeted the customs office in that order, but, dammitall, it was implicit and someone had ignored that directive.
Generally inspections were hit and miss, done occasionally, very occasionally, most not going further than seeing the condition of the cargo hold and checking the manifest for goods not offloaded as well as goods delivered. The procedure wasn’t going to catch the bottles of expensive liquor or the luxury goods up in crew quarters, destined for private sale at the next station and not on the manifest. It wasn’t going to catch a pocket-sized packet of drugs or hand-weapons in a cabin locker. If contraband wasn’t taken down onto the Strip, its existence wasn’t station’s concern, unless there was evidence of a significant shipment that was going to cause problems for the next station.
Not that customs ever found anything. Their local ships didn’t cause problems. They hadn’t caught anything but a mistaken offload on two or three crates reaching the cargo area in the last two years, and catching that was actually to the ships’ advantage, as they’d have had to account for its absence at the next station and hadn’t received credit on Alpha.
Illicit passage—people-smuggling—wasn’t at issue with their own ships. And the number checked off at the lift on all these ships equaled the number in sleepover rooms.
And yet customs, even knowing the delicacy of the situation, had taken it on themselves to inspect that particular ship, never mind he’d told them—explicitly—to hold off on confrontation with the three previous outsiders?
He knew damned good and well why customs had made that decision, and he had a strong suspicion that the stern reprimand he’d just sent down to customs would ricochet into another office and cause a retaliation. But it was a damned high and wide action, and a breach of order he didn’t intend to let slide.
Question was: which office?
He had a short list of possibles. Hewitt had high notions of his own EC-granted authority. That authority did not, however, extend to the customs office.
But Cruz—
Cr
uz could have ordered that inspection, though it should have come to the stationmaster’s office for approval before being implemented, particularly as it directly countermanded Abrezio’s previous instructions. And Cruz, who had near-unlimited authority where it came to anything affecting Rights of Man, would, more than anyone, want a good long look at Finity’s boards.
Cruz might well have had the same thought that had come to him in the night, and that idea entirely upset his stomach . . .
It was a serious question, whether there was cargo undeclared in Finity’s hold, or whether she now stood empty—a massive ship that moved at massive energy cost, transporting nothing material. It didn’t make economic sense. But Alpha had to be her turn-around point—didn’t it?
Had to be—unless Pell had what he had in that floor-safe, and meant to test it with one of these four, maybe had tested it, long ago, and meant to send the lot of them through, get the jump on the Sol markets and the all-important connections . . .
Damn.
So now, thanks to Cruz, Finity was proved to have left her airlock unaccessable, contrary to regulations, and within a very short time of that attempt to board her, there’d been a meeting of the outsider captains at one of Finity’s restaurants. An Alpha ship captain, Giovanna Galli, had participated in that meeting. Cause and effect? Or coincidence? A smart man assumed a connection.
But he didn’t know. Couldn’t. Station surveillance of that meeting had been thwarted by equipment Finity had deployed.
Interference with station systems in any way, shape, or form was against the law.
Violation.
Locking a ship’s access while at dock was a violation.
Meeting with a local captain was not a violation, but secret meetings and talk that led to violations . . . was a violation.
He had ample excuse to call in Giovanna Galli, for starters, at least to ask what the outsiders had said.
But while he was meditating that move, it was JR Neihart at his door, wanting to talk to him.
Finity had not played by the rules about access, and he was relatively sure now that none of the other outsiders had either. Likely all the ships were locked. He was not sure now that they were vacated, as ships were supposed to be while at dock.
Damn Cruz, for forcing this into the open, for pushing an already delicate situation to the brink of . . . what? The last thing they needed now was a Finity-led riot on the Strip, with damage resulting. Or a direct confrontation with station police or Rights personnel.
He wished he could believe it was all coincidence, the outsiders coming in, Cruz pressing his authority. He wished he could convince himself that no one knew about those coordinates in his safe, but he’d be a fool not to consider that potential goldmine a possible factor. Maybe Finity’s arrival, maybe everything Cruz was pulling was designed to trigger a takeover of his office . . . and those all-important numbers it harbored.
Transmitting them on the Stream remained a risk. More so if either of those factions knew about them. There was simply no knowing whether one of those ships—or Cruz himself—had deployed something in the path of the Stream—or whether something had long since been set there to tap into everything.
Time, of which he’d thought he had plenty, had suddenly become precious. Waiting for the next pusher to Sol seemed increasingly questionable. If he sent the data today, it would make him potentially the savior of the EC’s authority—but even at light speed, it would be six years for the information to get to Sol, an unknown time to test the validity of the numbers, and even if the numbers checked out . . . the situation here could well change before Sol could take action. They had no defense if Pell learned about those coordinates, less than none if Pell learned that he’d sent them to Sol. Pell could demand he give the coordinates to these four Pell ships . . . in which case, Pell got the jump points and, with these larger ships, an instant stranglehold on the Sol trade. Or if Pell decided on a more radical course, like taking over Alpha . . .
These ships didn’t bring force enough to do that, physically, against all the station inhabitants, but Pell could get an economic chokehold on Alpha . . . by simply refusing to sell them the biostuffs the residents of the station needed in order to survive, until there were agreements set into place. Agreements that would make Alpha an adjunct to Pell, not Sol.
Either way . . . it was all a question of time.
The situation needed finesse, not confrontation.
Finesse . . . when Sol had given him Andy Cruz—and Enzio Hewitt. Not ideal, given the situation.
They had worked together, he and Cruz. At times, especially before Hewitt arrived, they had worked together quite well. Cruz understood that his one and only function was to get and keep Rights of Man fit and ready, and keep Sol’s most critical entry-point, Alpha, ready for Sol’s FTL breakout. Cruz himself admitted, after his first decade on Alpha, that Sol’s first move out here would bring in a batch of ideas that wouldn’t work and that both of them were essential to Sol’s making a smooth transition.
Since Hewitt’s arrival, however, all that had changed. Hewitt had no patience with spacer politics, didn’t deal well with the social aspect of Family officers. Bloody feudal system, Hewitt called it. And increasingly, since Hewitt’s arrival, Cruz appeared to share that opinion.
Well, good thing for everyone involved that neither of them would be involved in this upcoming meeting. Respect and tradition was the way spacers worked. And the social niceties were the oil that made the machinery function. A little whiskey, a little polite talk, a few suggestions—granted they had a conflict of expectations, they’d work it out. He was experienced in dealing with the type. Sol’s golden boys refused to learn. So . . .
“Send him in,” he said to the intercom, and waited.
Chapter 6 Section ii
Benjamin Abrezio, Director of the EC office on Alpha, stationmaster, as stations outward called the post, a title Abrezio himself alledgedly preferred. By whatever name, Benjamin Abrezio was the executive authority, here on Alpha.
An authority not, from what JR had been told, without its challengers.
Little Bear, Mumtaz, and Nomad had done a good job of reconnoitering and socializing since the meeting, exchange of jacket patches, buying of drinks back and forth—trading woes and wishes, and keeping it all sorted, tabbed, and shared about. In fact, they’d scouted out information wherever they’d been, from Mariner to Alpha, and the official word was—Benjamin Abrezio was a reasonable man, and Cruz and Hewitt were Sol-based EC to the hilt, imports who’d spent a significant number of years arriving here by pusher-ship, in two widely separated phases of the build.
Abrezio was the man who’d received the stolen documents at the beginning of his career. Station-born, a man who’d served fairly well in office since, fairly well liked by local spacers. That was Abrezio’s reputation, that of a reasonable administrator effectively hamstrung by orders from Sol and by the presence of two officials sent from Sol.
The reputation of Andy Cruz, the next highest ranking EC man on the station, the titular executive officer over Rights of Man, was not so encouraging. Cruz had a lot of authority on Alpha . . . anything he considered affected Rights he could at least petition to get control of. And yet Cruz . . . was not a concern, as JR saw it. Cruz had overseen the building project. It was this new man, Hewitt, the most recent import from Sol, who had marked an ominous change: more personnel in uniform, more enforcement presence on the Strip. The relationship between Abrezio and Cruz was rumored as not always harmonious, and that between Abrezio and Hewitt—was somewhat pressured.
JR hoped so. Hoped that pressure would work in his favor.
“Mr. Director.” JR gave Abrezio his EC title, kept the tone pleasant. “Thank you for the time.”
Abrezio stood up, offered his hand. JR took it. “Scotch, Captain?”
“I’d be pleased, sir. Thank you.” He waited while Ab
rezio went to the plexi buffet and set out two glasses.
“Ice? Water.”
“Neat, sir. No ice.”
“I’d have been appalled,” Abrezio said, and poured two, neat, both generous.
JR accepted one without comment, took the chair Abrezio indicated, in front of his desk. Abrezio settled, and had a sip. JR did—act of good faith returned.
“So, Captain, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Not a mention of customs’ attempt, or the action at Critical Mass. He doubted Abrezio really wanted to discuss either matter.
“I must say, Mr. Director, on behalf of all of us, that we’ve been given extraordinary consideration in our arrival. We know we’ve represented an unprecedented pressure on facilities.”
“Unprecedented, to say the least. But we have tried to be hospitable. We naturally wonder why four ships we’ve never seen before show up here all at once.”
“We are traveling together.”
“To Glory, as well? They can’t accommodate you in anything like our facilities. Their last pusher call was a hundred years ago, areas are shut down, and the pusher housing is allotted out to residents.”
“Perhaps we’ll have to stand off under power, there,” JR said. “We appreciate the advisement.”
Abrezio took a sip of the Scotch, quick and definite. “So—your business. What sort of cargo still in reserve, do you mind?”
“Some foodstuffs. Not enough to hammer the market, only enough to offer a little choice. A few staples to reinforce reserves. A few trinkets. A few luxuries. The last thing we want to do is work a hardship for your local ships.”
“So. And your purpose, Captain? I’d appreciate bluntness at this point. We’ve been stressed. We are stretched to the limit. We assume this visit is not happenstance or without purpose.”
“It is not, sir. And we do owe you honesty, which I’m prepared to deliver.” A sip of Scotch. “Let me first define we. We are an organization of merchanters with merchanter interests. We are numerous, and growing with each port of call. We are establishing agreements with various ships, to support those mutual interests, and this is our position. Centuries ago, on the first return of Gaia to Sol, the EC and the pusher ships established an agreement, as to the ownership of Gaia and the responsibility of stations to her and to her pusher cousins.”
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