“I don’t see any hope in that situation.”
“There is some hope,” JR said, “and it’s us. It’s our alliance. Listen. Cyteen and Pell get along—delicately, but they get along . . . because they don’t ever meet. Out past Venture, we don’t have the EC handing out orders. Merchanters do the talking and negotiating. Cyteen and Pell don’t need to see each other’s faces. Merchanters go between them, goods flow, and they don’t bother each other. We don’t have ‘Pell merchanters’ and ‘Cyteen merchanters.’ We serve a wholly different interest, which is keeping the stations healthy and letting them do what they do best. We don’t let them argue. We say what we haul and when. If Sol tries to disrupt that balance—if Sol thinks they can take over all stations and us as well—they can’t. They can’t manufacture what we are. If war happens, trade is at risk. And if trade stops, unsupported stations die. Fast. Sol needs to understand that.”
“If we don’t go,” Niall said, “if we back out of the deal, it’s six years, maybe a few for Sol to get organized, but all the same—if those jump-points are good, Sol’s still coming. And Abrezio may not hold on that long. If he goes down—Cruz is in charge. And frankly, that scares me more than testing those points.” Niall was silent, staring into some middle ground between them, seeing God knew what. Then: “I’m full-loaded with supply. I could stall out there—for one thing, we’ll be making conservative jumps: I don’t want to enter real space too close to any unmapped mass-point, and it’s apparently a two-hop.”
God. Twice rolling those dice. Three, counting Sol itself.
“And for another, I’d be a fool not to map those points on my way, and before making the return trip.” Niall met his eyes squarely. “ I can give you two . . . maybe even three years—assuming all goes well. If we’re damaged in transit and have to repair . . . you might get even more. We’ll be going out of here with just first shift, but stocked for a hundred fifty souls, and our cargo is partly foodstuffs for Glory. So, if all goes well . . . three years before you see us again, likely with passengers, and hopefully passengers that we’ll have argued into good sense. If we don’t make it, you keep Abrezio in power, get him supply, however you can. He’s disposed to support your Alliance. The most of the Monahans will be safe meanwhile, and you get your two years, minimum. Does that bring us even?”
Brave man. Good man.
“It has the organization owing the Monahans a lot if you can do that.”
“Refit?”
“Refit?” To get Sol stalled for three, maybe as much as four years? “Damned straight, yes. I don’t think I’ll even have to argue. You will get it. And we’ll do what we can to support Abrezio without ruining his credit as a hardnosed EC loyalist. As for Cruz, we’ve still got a utility pusher we’re trying to give back, but so far nobody’s shown up to claim it. And guess who’s to blame for that? Station’s already . . . disenchanted.”
That got a slight laugh. A crinkle of humor about the eyes. “JR Neihart.” Niall held out his hand. “I’m proud to do business with you. We’ll do what we can. Undock’s tomorrow afternoon, prep starts in the morning. General boarding’s at 0900. My first shift and I are going, and the rest are in your hands. Deal?”
“Deal.” They shook hands. JR said, “See you in three years or so. And I’ll be buying for at least a week when we do.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Niall left, a far happier man than he had come in. Fletcher met him at the door, to see him back through the maze of the Olympian.
JR sat still, staring at the wall and seeing star maps instead, the moving patterns that no ship could alter. Stars and worlds moved and changed relative to each other, the same, but not always the same. Things had shifted since humankind had set out, and kept shifting, and yes, sooner or later Sol would find its way to its old colonies at FTL speeds, the motherworld trying to re-enter what had become a very different environment, with different customs, different issues and different ways of dealing.
The warning and the time delay was the best they could hope to have.
Reality rode wave fronts of information. Right now they knew and Pell didn’t. There’d be a time when Pell knew and Cyteen didn’t . . . half a year at least . . . during which Pell could make some very bad decisions or some better-thought ones. Best if he delivered that news to Emilio Konstantin personally, and helped that thought process take a good direction.
Hewitt’s illicit expedition out to Finity’s End had, like a high-V missile, nudged a lot of situations—spacers’ rights, EC infringements, Rights, and the station’s economic desperation. That towel-clad image now resident on hundreds of personal coms, in various edited versions—continued to circulate. Cruz and Hewitt were at each other’s throats and both trying to push past Abrezio. Abrezio had made a move to stop them cold, and extended an offer to Niall Monahan that could upset the whole of humankind.
Had Xiao Min’s Com 2 taken that damnable picture? He strongly suspected so. Or it could have been one of the Gallis. Whoever had done it, it was beyond recall now. On such moments—such utterly unpredictable moments—the universe could shift.
He signaled Min, Asha, and Sanjay to drop by, their soonest convenience. They needed to know, first of all.
Chapter 12
Section i
Sanjay Patel asked the obvious question: “If Monahan betrays Abrezio—will he turn again on us?”
“Is it betrayal?” Min asked. “Abrezio gets our assistance, more than he could hope for otherwise, and the numbers still make it to Sol in half the time, with a wake-up call regarding the Alpha situation.”
“We knew we were running out of time,” JR said. “Sol system’s outer shell is complex. There had to be something isolated enough and close enough to the old route. And Alpha has pusher records even Cyteen lacks. I’m not totally surprised.”
“Our arrival has undoubtedly pressurized the situation,” Min said. “The Director may have been holding the data for some time, and push has now come to shove in the situation with Cruz—no love lost there, and the sudden acquisition of the coordinates seems unlikely to be a coincidence.”
JR nodded. “I think we’re seeing the start of a battle for Alpha, and unfortunately, pessimistically, Cruz is Sol’s hand-picked representative, and will have an inbuilt credibility—while Hewitt is far more likely to have living backers, which may make him stronger. Abrezio may have been content to hold Sol a decade out of synch, but now he’s risking a ship, his only reliable ship. So I agree he’s become desperate, and I fear we’ve made him so.”
“Galway is an Alpha ship,” Asha said. “Built at Venture, but she came back to try to keep Alpha alive. The Monahans are that loyal, is how I read it.”
“And trying their damnedest to save Alpha and their own way of life,” JR said. “Places and people they know. They’re far more tied to this station, this set of stations than we are to anywhere. I don’t know whether to respect that or call them crazy. But I think that’s the bottom line. I’ve had a couple of good contacts with them, and that’s what I understand.”
“They’re risking everything,” Sanjay said. “trying to save a situation I don’t think can be saved.”
“Niall Monahan has this vision that if they can keep Abrezio in office and educate Sol—they can win, they can modernize, they can have the best of both situations. Maybe join the modern universe on their own terms, as the conduit for Sol goods.” JR drew a long breath. “He wants a refit of Galway. I think he sees what we see and I don’t think any of these people are blind. The Hinder Stars are not viable except as stepping stones to and from Sol. And if there is any hope of moderating Sol’s appearance here—it probably is Abrezio.”
“It’s no secret that I have been of the opinion,” Asha said, “with Sanjay, that these outlying stations should be shut down, to afford no easy bridge for Sol to the Beyond. But many of the ships that serve these places are too small and
too old to prosper in the Beyond—and the Families have built something here, different as they are. They are different. But undoing everything they have built—there has to be an answer for them.”
“Unfortunately,” Sanjay said, “it will need to come from Sol. Fortunately—Sol will see the state of things and have to spend considerable resources fixing it before they can use it. But if their answer is hired crews and EC control of shipping, none of these people will thrive. The Gallis are the future they all face if they stay here. Broken ship, broken finance, broken system.”
“But not broken, themselves,” JR said. “Not yet. We can help the ships. We can fit them to serve the situation and make themselves useful to Sol so that, early on, they can out-perform anything Sol brings in. There will be a market for Sol’s goods, once they’re arriving at FTL speeds, and these ships could thrive and be in the market for replacement with state-of-the-art ships for these Families. We stick to the fundamental concept: make ourselves the conduit between potential adversaries, and so doing, keep them apart long enough for Sol to appreciate the system.”
“I think you are overly optimistic,” Min said. “Sol will not understand until we show our teeth.”
“That may be,” JR said, “but we’ll hope sheer distance and inconvenience is argument enough, so that if we can educate the ones they send out here, we’ll never have to take action.”
“To which end we have at best three years,” Sanjay said, the true pessimist. “Provided by a man who’s playing every side of this arrangement—the EC, Abrezio, and us—for the best advantage he can get.”
“Do not we all?” said Min. “We deal with whom we can deal. Only we can cut our losses when we choose, find other markets, other partnerships. He, unfortunately, is bound to this station and its options, and he has to come back here. We cannot predict what may be the situation here a year from now. Or whether he will come at all.”
“Our departure may need to be delayed,” JR said, “at least until we know what best to do with the Monahans left behind. He wants them transported to Bryant’s to wait. He’s worried they may be the target of some sort of retaliation. But we cannot move them unless they’re willing to be moved. And wherever they are, we have to negotiate their sleepover and food allowance. That’s our job.”
Chapter 12 Section ii
It was like every undock party, and surreally unlike—the whole family pretending to everybody that everything was normal and they were outbound to Bryant’s—pretending to everybody that came—and more, pretending to each other, and to the handful of youngest that came in and left again. Some of the minders had doubled up their charges so that Arden could come, being sister to Aileen, who was a first-shift engee, and going. Arden tried hard to be bubbly and cheerful. Too hard, Ross thought. But Aileen took her off into a corner, not to talk about what they weren’t to say, but just to talk for a bit and give her a hug and share a beer.
“Hey,” a cousin said to Ross, and punched him in the shoulder, a congratulations, or encouragement, or whatever more nobody could say. That shoulder had met so many such encouragements it was getting sore, the more so as the cousins were several beers on.
Santiagos had come to Rosie’s, which was a bar they frequented anyway. Firenze crew was there. And Qarib came early: the Qaribs, in their custom, drank only tea, mingled for a while, presenting well-wishes and a small basket of expensive fruit sweets, quickly depleted. Then they drifted out again, most of them, excepting the Third, who stayed to talk with their Fourth—old friends, those two. The Firenzes came in, clearly ready to party to all hours, happy and loud.
But Jen hadn’t shown up. Nor had Lisa Marie. Fallan had a table, and a beer, on which Fallan was making slow progress, and he had no dearth of friends to drop by and wish him well. She would come, they both would. Ross and Jen had spent the whole afternoon in Jen’s room, and she’d talked a lot about meeting at Bryant’s, which hadn’t made things easier.
But he’d said nothing to disabuse her of the idea. He’d said sure, yes, they would, and tried not to sound as if he was lying. He hoped—desperately hoped—she hadn’t seen through it and gone straight to whoever she reported to.
Maybe she’d gotten a bad feeling about him and she’d been warned off, or decided on her own not to come tonight. He hoped not. God, he hoped not. He hoped he hadn’t messed up Fallan’s relations with Jen’s Fourth. He couldn’t forgive himself if that was the case.
None of the visitor ships had shown up. Maybe their captains had laid down a no-go for some reason of politics. Maybe they were all upset. Niall had said he was going to sign with their insurance. Niall had gone to meet with JR Neihart.
Had they had a set-to that had reverberated to all the crews, all the agreements?
He cast a look toward Niall, who looked maybe a little solemn, but there was a lot to be solemn about.
And finally he found the chair next to Fallan, vacant for a moment, and dropped into it.
“Dunno,” Fallan said without being asked. And shrugged. “Haven’t given up. She is what she is. She won’t be sitting down to a long drinking session. But if she doesn’t come fairly soon, I’ll be on my third beer.”
“Did everything go all right with Niall?”
“Far’s I know it—There she is!”
It was Lisa Marie, and Finity’s Senior, with one of the Little Bear captains, and behind them a whole flood of the outsiders, streaming in. Lisa Marie took a straight course to Fallan’s table, and Ross got up with a little flourish and an offer of the chair straightaway.
He was looking immediately for Jen among the incoming crowd, and saw her headed toward him—not the tallest of anybody, and lost for a moment as she forged a passage through a wall of Firenzes and Santiagos, but she came. Manners didn’t dictate a public hug, not at their stage of an arrangement, but she hooked his arm against her and hugged it all the same. “Sorry. We had a meeting.” She took his jacket collar and pulled him down to whisper, right against his ear. “We know. First shift. Is that you?”
“Yes,” he said. God, it was scary that someone knew. He wondered if it was his fault and he couldn’t ask. She held hard to his arm.
“I want a beer. Maybe several.”
“I’ll get you one,” he said.
“God, you.” She gave him a passionate kiss right in front of everybody, and hoots followed, and laughter.
“There goes my reputation.”
Second kiss. Arms wound around his neck.
“Beer,” she said.
“Deal,” he said. And still couldn’t ask her the things he wanted to ask. He had the shore ring on his right hand, telling him the conditions on which they could be here. He took the cheerful slaps on the back, cousins and others cheering the demonstration he and Jen had just produced, everybody in high good spirits, and if it made people laugh, really laugh for a bit, that was to the good.
He made it to the bar, wedged his way in, still with his shoulders stinging. Rosie himself drew two beers and shoved them across the water-tracked surface. “On the house, Galway,” Rosie said. “You and the girl. Good luck to that.”
He took the beers. He was sure he blushed. He got back to Jen with the beers mostly unspilled, handed her hers, and nodded toward the side of the room.
It was at least less a scrum there. Enough beer had flowed that a little high humor had picked up momentum, especially with the visitor captains and crews joining in.
“We’re going to be spilling well out onto the Strip,” Ross said. “Hope to God we don’t get another blue-coat craziness.”
“Hope we don’t either,” Jen said. She was serious for the moment, dark eyes looking deep into his. “You be good. I’ll be thinking about you.”
No more about Bryant’s. She did know something. And neither of them could say it.
“I’ll be thinking about you,” he said.
“Can you come
by after this breaks up?”
“No,” he said. “Got to turn in and get some rest. Captain’s called all crew curfew at 2300. He’ll skin us else.”
“He doesn’t look that fierce.”
Niall looked downright happy, point of fact. Happier and freer than he’d been for weeks. He could be a man contemplating getting back to regular runs. He could be a man who’d just made a good deal for the ship—the protection they needed for the most of them.
Ross hoped so. Several captains were together, seeming intent on their own business, and fairly happy about it.
Was it just that a deal was made? Or was more going on, that maybe Jen knew about, and Niall knew about, and not all Niall’s shift knew?
What could make Niall happy—in these several captains, aside from the well-wishes of Firenze, Santiago and Qarib? Assurance that the Monahans would be safe? That would be the main thing. And if they gave it to him, then, yes, that accounted for it.
“Hey.” Jen reached out her fingers and turned his face toward her. “They’re fine. It’s fine.”
You know something I don’t? he wanted to ask her. But didn’t. They never knew who was listening. Ever.
The party got crazier. Rosie had to evict a Santiago from the bar top. His mates caught him as he slipped and fell and gave him several tosses before a deadly sober Santiago captain stepped in and set them down at a table, the three rowdiest.
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