Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  Cargo hatch he might find some way to excuse, with some delicate maneuvering. But emergency hatch? That was into sensitive territory. There were bound to be cameras. And video of customs agents prowling restricted-access areas of that ship was bound to get to Pell. Charges of all sorts could be leveled; espionage, sabotage, data-theft, petty pilferage of crew items—God knew what. All that, they could deny, match vid record with vid record, all manner of claims and counter-claims—but with this damned organization that the Neiharts and company were selling . . .

  Or claiming to sell. Damn. Wasn’t that a question?

  Finity still had personnel aboard. Or had automations talking to personnel on the Strip outside Alpha’s regular communications. They had picked up numeric output they could intercept, but not crack—so sparse, they were likely pre-arranged signals. The first customs attempt, the one defeated by the locked access, had generated those from within the ship, and one response from the Strip.

  He’d bet it was going on now. He hoped it was. And that whatever had cut the agents off from communication was an electronic problem, not a matter of four dead agents. They’d never had such an incident. He didn’t want it now. He hadn’t found the right time and the right issue to open extensive talks with the Neiharts, but before they left, before any of this company left, he intended to have a detailed discussion, and he’d hoped to manage some sort of leverage in negotiations. Now—Customs had changed the tone of the discussion entirely.

  It was 0520 hours.

  “Ames,” he said to the intercom.

  “Sir.”

  “Call Finity’s senior captain. He can’t be sleeping through this. If he seems unwilling, tell him I want an amicable solution to this situation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Time ran. 0525. 0526.

  The com beeped. “Sorry, sir.” Ames’ voice. “They say they’re dealing with a situation, and they’ll discuss it later.”

  “Call them back. Tell them we are urgently concerned about the safety of four of our personnel.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ames said, and the clock ran. 0548 hours. “Sir. Second captain says they are safe and the senior captain will call you after he’s reviewed the situation. I asked when. Second captain said about 0700.”

  “God.” One fear allayed, but nothing pleasant in the prospect. Persisting in contacting Finity could be the thing to do, to show some strength of position. Or it might complicate the situation. Finity was going to want to know where the agents had been going and what they had been doing. “Orders stand. Just keep me informed of developments.”

  Tell the visitors that he hadn’t authorized the intrusion? That was giving away his arguments piecemeal. And damned if he wanted to admit his growing lack of control over his own subordinates. If the agents were safe, then he could use the time himself to get his facts—and his personnel—in order.

  Maclean. In principal, Maclean. He didn’t want to go to the offices himself. He didn’t want to call Maclean away from an active situation in which Maclean knew the details. But—

  “Sir. Finity says they’re releasing the agents. They want our personnel out of the vicinity of their airlock, and they’ll put them outside at 0600.”

  “Tell Maclean get his people out of the lift system. No interference, nobody waving guns around.”

  “There’s also, sir,—”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a rumor starting to circulate. That there’s been an incident, sir. There’s a little aggregation of spacers in the mast offices area.”

  “Ours or theirs?”

  “Uncertain. Some are Firenze. Some are Nomad. And Little Bear. Those are the patches spotted. They’re not doing anything. Just—they’re right by the lifts. Something’s going on.”

  “Give me Maclean. No, give me Mabele.” He didn’t want to give Maclean any possible way to redeem himself.

  “Mabele’s on, sir.”

  “Mr. Mabele. What’s the situation? Have we confirmed Finity is not vacated?”

  “We have, sir. We don’t know how many are aboard or where located, but we have had contact with Finity’s third captain, John Neihart, who requested free communication with their own security personnel left aboard. We registered a complaint and reminded the captain that ships are to be unoccupied during station-stays, and that the airlock is to be left unlocked. Third captain says he defers that issue to the senior captain and says that they are sending our personnel to the office area. The lift is operating right now. We’re trying to clear the immediate area, but there are a number of people—including Captain Giovanna Galli and Captain Xiao Min—who are present and resisting requests to stand back. We’ve tried to handle them with respect, sir, bearing in mind the Neiharts are lodging complaints about their e-hatch situation, but all of a sudden everybody out there’s doing ship-speak and not understanding a word of Standard.”

  Spacer tactics. Galli spoke perfect Standard. With a drawl. “Just don’t let it slip out of control. Take charge now, my order. Get the agents into the offices and debrief.”

  “The lift’s here, sir.” A pause. “Sir. We’ve got a situation. Excuse me. Get those men under cover. Get them coats. Get them into offices. Now!”

  “What’s going on?” Abrezio asked. “Mr. Mabele?”

  Mabele had put down the com, or at least quit talking. Confusion came over it. Shouting. Hooting and laughter.

  It wasn’t reassuring.

  “Mr. Mabele?”

  More shouting and hooting.

  He made out EC pigs, and Got served what they deserved. The tones were not encouraging. He’d known there was resentment, but this . . .

  “Mr. Mabele, what’s going on?”

  No response. No response. And no response, just a great deal of yelling, ending in: “Clear the area. This office is closed!”

  Voices. Scattered laughter. Voices using ship-speak, and not a familiar one.

  Then Mabele. Finally.

  “We have them, sir. They’re here. They’re inside. I’ll debrief them and report. I have a call from Finity’s second captain reporting the unattended pusher attached at their lock. They say they will let it maintain there for six hours. They want it removed within that time frame. I can’t authorize that.”

  Damn Maclean. Let him retrieve it—was the thought in Abrezio’s mind. But he said patiently, “I’ll put a request through to Cargo. I’m sure they’ll want it back. The agents are safe?”

  “No injury, sir.” A pause. “No uniforms. Strip-searched. Cold as hell and barefoot. Medics are checking them over now. They . . . don’t appear to be customs officers, sir. They’re saying they’re enforcement.”

  Enforcement. Abrezio drew a deep, difficult breath. “Go see to it, Mr. Mabele. I’ll want a full report.”

  Call Legal? They had a monster ship attached to the mast with crew aboard, a very powerful spacer Family looking for an issue to use, and it was, at the moment, a situation no longer limited to a misplaced cargo pusher needing retrieval, and an alterday Customs manager that deserved a career running a utility pusher for letting somebody make a move on that ship. God only knew whether any of the enforcement agents handling that craft had experience with it, and they’d run it up against that same ship’s hull. If they protested the rough handling of the agents, Finity could come back with the risk of damage to their hull and the illicit use of an emergency hatch for police entry . . .

  And that was just for starters.

  He needed Hewitt. Now.

  “Sir!” Ames’ voice, in outer office. A door had just opened, a chill draft arriving. “Let me advise—”

  “The hell!” Cruz arrived in his doorway, in high temper, shaven—neat, uniformed. Annoying but hardly surprising since Cruz had announced himself as on alterday shift, ever since . . . no surprise there . . . the arrival of Finity’s End.

  Abrezio, unshave
n, straight from bed, in a shirt grabbed in the dark, glared back. “I haven’t had breakfast, I’m not in a good mood, and I’ve got a hell of a situation over in B-mast, where some damned fool from enforcement attached an unauthorized pusher to the ship we most don’t want to piss off right now, and made an illegal entry—so give me good news, sir, or it can wait!”

  “That ship is in violation up and down the list, and they’ve assaulted investigating agents!”

  “Agents caught illegally entering private property! Or did you issue a search warrant? I certainly didn’t. Perhaps Mr. Hewitt made out his own?”

  “Justifiable precaution. Necessary precaution. We don’t know who’s aboard, what they’re carrying, or what they’re doing with unauthorized communication equipment that’s transmitting signals we can’t read!”

  “So you sent in security disguised as customs men, without a warrant, via the singlemost sacred entry port a ship has? Brilliant move—if didn’t violate every understanding we have with the ships that keep us alive!”

  Cruz’s face was red. “Damn you, Abrezio. If you had the balls to stand up to these people, to keep me informed, this would never have happened. I want to know what this Pell ship is proposing to those ships that ‘keep us alive.’ I want to know what they brought into this system, what they’re planning, what deals they’re cutting and why in hell Firenze’s debt is being paid in Finity’s scrip!”

  “Why? Why? Because, Mr. Vice Admiral Cruz, that friggin’ great construction project that’s bled us dry for more than twenty years and bids to do it indefinitely, is sopping up resources that could’ve had Firenze in safe running order years ago. We’re lucky not to have lost her, and our only choice now is, paid or unpaid, to freight in a fix for her from Venture—a fix which Finity apparently can and will arrange and pay for. Damn straight I’ll let them, because Alpha can’t! And because if the system isn’t replaced, we’re going to lose a ship that brings us the supply we don’t get from you! I want to know who the hell authorized this beyond-stupid move? You?”

  “That ship is in clear violation of EC regulations, sir. You are glossing that point.”

  And you, you arrogant bastard, are glossing a far larger one. Abrezio thought, then drew a breath. “Mr. Vice Admiral, do not confuse law with EC rules. Finity’s End is not an EC ship. None of them are EC ships. They choose not to abide by EC rules on their own decks, and we’re in no position to argue, because, like it or not, we rely, ultimately, on Pell’s good will for biostuffs, and will for the foreseeable future.”

  “It’s Alpha’s choice to rely on outside supply!”

  “Choice? Choice? Since before you arrived, it’s been the EC’s damn order to me to find supply so that Rights materials can occupy the whole damn pusher load! Don’t tell me the problems of finance and supply, sir. The Company should be damned grateful we’ll have Firenze’s crew staying here piling up debt somebody else agrees to pay in scrip and in rare earths, grateful that someday in a conceivably achievable future one of our two largest haulers is going to be back in full function so that supply does come to us from points farther in. I’m tired of trying to explain to our citizens about repairs that can’t be made, and lights that can’t be replaced. I’ll be damned if I let your stupidity extend those hardships to failing scrubbers and lack of flour! Right now I have a utility pusher that was taken out by a damned rock eighteen days ago, which also needs to be fixed and for which I have no spare parts. Thanks to you, Mr. Cruz, and your refusal to release supply to the station, I’m up to my ears in problems, and at the top of the list is one of our three remaining pushers, which is currently grappled to the hull of Finity’s End, and which I would like to see removed under its own power, rather than cast adrift to go banging into us or something else we don’t want it to hit. Because you refuse to take responsibility for that illegal search, I have that little detail to attend to before I get breakfast, Mr. Cruz, and I’m getting damned hungry, so I’d appreciate you getting the hell out of my office and letting me take care of the mess you created.”

  “I have been charged with the responsibility for the protection and operation of The Rights of Man, . . . sir. You may be running scared of her prototype, but I will take every opportunity to get information on it, its operations, and its activities on this station. You also have a duty, sir, as an EC officer, to protect the EC’s reputation and its resources, and not to cozy up to spies and intruders, whose purpose here is quite clear. Information. Intimidation. Humiliation. Anything to undermine the successful completion of The Rights of Man. They work for Pell, and they’re here to be sure we don’t make that link to Sol, ever. They want to see the majority of humanity isolated. Permanently. They want to relegate the EC to an historical footnote.”

  “In your opinion.”

  “My opinion? Pell calls us the Hinder Stars. The stars left behind. From their view, we are nothing but metal-poor resource-sinks of absolutely no use to their expansion. They don’t want to link up with Sol and Earth and find themselves outnumbered and out-resourced. They don’t want civilization to link up with the motherworld. No, sir! Pell is cozying up to Cyteen—how not? They’ve disconnected from us. They graciously allow a powerless EC presence, but they have far more in common with Cyteen and its reckless colonization of systems—that might provoke God knows what out there.”

  “The way Sol did at Beta?” He couldn’t believe he was actually defending Cyteen. “Fact is, they’re expanding more slowly than Sol did, in the beginning, give or take the FTL factor. Leave Cyteen and every other cliché space bogie out of this, Mr. Cruz. In fact, just get the hell out of my office.”

  Cruz drew himself up, looked down his nose at him. “Finity is in violation of the docking rules, they’re communicating back and forth with crew left aboard that ship with equipment they’re not supposed to have, for what operations we still don’t know, and if all that activity is all right with you, Director, then you and I have a strong difference of purpose and plan. I am loyal to the EC. I serve its interests, and I have a strong sense of outrage, sir, in the humiliation we’ve been served. Spacers come and go. The maintenance of law and order on Alpha is for the protection of its citizens. And you seem bent on making excuses!”

  “Finity is not the one I’m being forced to explain to the citizens. I’m not the one that sent four agents out there to make an illegal entry into a Pell-registry ship. If there’s a risk to citizens, it’s in the over-eager use of EC rules to breach laws, Mr. Cruz, a distinction on which a great deal rests. The same laws that protect the privacy of a civilian’s home cover non-EC ships. Those laws guarantee ships safety at dock and guarantee peaceful conduct of business in a regulated zone, where we give and take in a civilized way with ships that are not otherwise under our rules and regulations. We cannot appropriate them, we cannot act in ways which suggest piracy and espionage, with which we are—now—unhappily and forever tainted. It is a distinction Finity has challenged, and which we are in no position to defy. Thanks to Rights and its needs, the First Stars are no longer supported by Santa Maria and Atlantis. Thanks to Rights and its needs, we rely on a biostuffs supply chain which emanates from Pell. Thanks to Rights and its needs, we depend on Pell for the means to sustain our internal food production, we get the elements for our printers from Pell and Venture, and we get pharmaceuticals from Cyteen labs. We are interconnected, Mr. Cruz, and not with Sol . . . largely thanks to Rights of Man and its needs—so do not lecture me on the function of a system to which you arrived as a complete outsider, and have refused to understand.”

  He’d said enough. More than enough. He, in fact, hated Cruz, he hated Hewitt, and he was relatively sure it was becoming mutual.

  But they still had to work together.

  He took a breath. “I’m out of sorts and I need my breakfast, sir. Doubtless you’re on the end of a trying number of hours, yourself. Neither of us has gotten satisfaction. Nor will we, until we come to some sort of a
greement. I would offer to share a breakfast, but I have elements of this business to mop up, before I dare take the time. In lieu of breakfast, I would offer you a session this afternoon, a relaxation, if you will. We may strongly disagree, but we are required to work together. I would prefer to do so amicably.”

  “I will have to decline. I am on alterday schedule at the moment.” Cold. Deadpan cold. “It will be the middle of my night.”

  “And I will have to insist, sir,” Abrezio said, in a tone that left no room for discussion. “We cannot delay or avoid this.”

  Cruz frowned, dipped his head, and strode out.

  Chapter 8 Section iv

  An image was making an appearance, passed from com to com—before some prankster managed to get it up on one of the scheduling displays—four unidentified men wearing only towels, arriving on what looked like the lifts in the B-mast offices lobby, where a crowd had gathered.

  “What in hell?” was Ross’s reaction, when he saw it, at breakfast with Jen, in a restaurant populated by Finitys, at a table a row apart from Fallan and Mum. People turned and looked from one screen to another, and yes, it was on all the number two screens.

  Quiet surprise rippled through the room.

  B-mast. The problem with Customs.

  2.35 minutes later, the image vanished, returning the screen to the schedule board.

  “What’s going on?” Ross asked directly, and Jen drew a deep breath.

  “Customs guys. Security did what they had to do—tossed them out, confiscated whatever they came in with. We wouldn’t have hijacked the schedule feed. I don’t think Senior Captain will be happy with that.” Jen gave an impish shrug. “But security did give them towels.”

  “God.” He didn’t want to be amused. It was damned serious. But no spacer was that fond of EC Customs, and it was damned funny, given nobody got hurt. He looked at Fallan and Mum, who had their heads together over breakfast. Fallan had probably been better informed, start to finish of the incident. “Customs and the blue-coats get orders to push now and again, and, yeah, they get no sympathy from us whose heads get cracked. There’s going to be a big push when you pull out. Galway’s ready to move. We’d be a lot happier to make our run before you go, because admin is going to be frothing mad to reassert the rules. And there’s going to be cracked heads before all’s said and done. No question.”