Edenism, then, was dependent on habitats. And bitek habitats were only to be found orbiting gas giants. They were totally reliant on the vast magnetospheres of such worlds for power. Photosynthesis was a wholly impractical method of supplying a habitat’s energy demands; it necessitated the deployment of vast leaf-analogue membranes, and the numerous difficulties inherent in doing so from a rotating structure, as well as being unacceptably susceptible to damage from both particle impact and cosmic radiation. So the Edenists were confined to colonizing the Confederation’s gas giants.
However there was one exception, one terracompatible planet which they settled successfully: Atlantis; so named because it was a single giant ocean of salt water. Its sole exports were the seafood delicacies for which it was renowned across the Confederation. The variety of marine life below its waves was so great that even two hundred and forty years after its discovery barely one-third had been classified. A vast number of traders, both independent and corporate, were attracted to it; which was why Syrinx flew Oenone there right after their navy duty tour finished.
Syrinx had decided to go straight into the independent trading business once her discharge order came through. The prospect of years spent on He3 deliveries depressed her. A lot of voidhawk captains took on the tanker contracts for the stability they offered, it was exactly what she’d done when Oenone started flying, but the last thing she wanted was to wind up in a rigid flight routine again; the navy had given her quite enough of that already, a feeling the rest of the crew heartily shared (apart from Chi, who left along with all the weapons hardware in the lower hull). Although some doubts lingered obstinately in her mind, it was a big step from the precisely ordered navy life she was used to.
On seeing her daughter dithering, Athene pointed out that Norfolk was approaching conjunction, and spent an evening reminiscing on her own flights to collect the planet’s fabled Tears. Three days later Oenone left the maintenance station dock at Romulus; new cargo cradles fitted, a new civilian registration filed, licensed by the Confederation Astronautics Board to carry freight and up to twenty passengers, crew toroid refurbished, and crew-members in a tigerish frame of mind.
It emerged from its wormhole terminus a hundred and fifteen thousand kilometres above Atlantis, almost directly over the dawn terminator. Syrinx felt the rest of the crew observing the planet through the voidhawk’s sensor blisters. There was a collective emission of admiration.
Atlantis was a seamless blue, overlaid with rucked spirals of pure white cloud. There were fewer storms than an ordinary world, where continental and sea winds whipped up high and low air fronts in unceasing turmoil. Most of the storms below were concentrated in the tropical zones, stirred by the Coriolis effect. Both the polar icecaps were nearly identical circles, their edges amazingly regular.
Ruben, who was sitting in Syrinx’s day cabin in the shape-moulding couch beside her, gripped her hand a fraction tighter. This was an excellent choice, darling. A true fresh start to our civilian life. You know, in all my years I’ve never been here before.
Syrinx knew she was still too tense after every swallow manoeuvre, alert for hostile ships. True navy paranoia. She let the external image bathe her mind, soothing away the old stress habits. The ocean had a delightful sapphire radiance to it. Thank you. I think I can smell the salt already.
As long as you don’t try and drink this ocean like you did on Uighur.
She laughed at the memory of the time he had taught her how to wind surf in that beautiful deserted cove on a resort island. Four—no five years ago. Where did the time go?
Oenone descended into a five-hundred-kilometre orbit, complaining all the while. The planet’s gravity was exerting its inexorable influence over local space, tugging at the stability of the voidhawk’s distortion field, requiring extra power to compensate, a degradation which increased steadily as it approached the surface. When Oenone reached the injection point, it could barely generate half a gee acceleration.
There were over six hundred voidhawks (and thirty-eight blackhawks, Syrinx noted with vague disapproval), and close to a thousand Adamist starships, sharing the same standard equatorial orbit. Oenone ’s mass-sensitivity revealed them to Syrinx’s mind like muddy footprints across snow. Every now and then sunlight would flash off a silvered surface betraying their position to the optical sensors. Ground to orbit craft were shuttling constantly between them and the buoyant islands floating far below. She saw that most of them were spaceplanes rather than the newer ion-field craft. There was a quiet background hum in the affinity band as the voidhawks conversed and exchanged astrogation updates.
Can you find Eysk for me?she asked.
Of course, Oenone replied. Pernik Island is just over the horizon, it is midday for them. It would be easier to reach from a higher orbit,it added with apparent innocence.
No chance. We’re only here for a week.
She sensed the affinity link to Eysk opening. They exchanged identity traits. He was fifty-eight years old, a senior in a family business that trawled for fish and harvested various seaweeds then packaged them for transit.
My sister Pomona said I should contact you,syrinx said.
I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,eysk replied. We haven’t quite recovered from her last visit.
That’s my sister, all right. But I’ll let you decide. I’m sitting up here with a tragically empty cargo hold which needs filling. Four hundred tonnes of the classiest, tastiest products you have.
Mental laughter followed. Heading for Norfolk by any chance?
How did you guess?
Take a look around you, Syrinx, half the ships in orbit are loading up ready for that flight. And they place contracts a year in advance.
I couldn’t do that.
Why not?
We just finished a Confederation Navy duty tour three weeks ago. Oenone has spent the time since then in dock having the combat-wasp launchers removed and standard cargo systems fitted.she felt his mind close up slightly as he considered her request.
Ruben crossed his fingers and pulled a face.
We might have some surplus,he declared eventually.
Great!
It’s not cheap, and it’s nowhere near four hundred tonnes.
Money’s no problem.she could sense the dismay tweak of the crew at that blasй statement. They had all pooled their navy severance pay, and taken out a big loan option from the Jovian Bank, in the hope of putting together a cargo deal with a Norfolk roseyard-association merchant. Contrary to the firmly seated Adamist belief, the Jovian Bank did not hand out money to any Edenist on request. Between them, Oenone ’s crew had only just scraped together enough fuseodollars for a cash collateral.
I should be so lucky,eysk said. Still, anything to help out an old naval hand. Do you know what you’re looking for?
I had some unlin crab once, they were gorgeous. Orangesole, too, if you have some.
Futchi,cacus chipped in.
And silvereel,edwin said eagerly.
I think you’d better come down and have a tasting session,eysk said. Give you a better idea of what we have available.
Right away. And do you know any other families who might have a surplus we can buy up?
I’ll ask round. See you for supper.
The affinity link faded.
Syrinx clapped her hands together. Ruben kissed her lightly. “You’re a marvel,” he told her.
She kissed him back. “This is only half the battle. I’m still relying on your contact once we get to Norfolk.”
“Relax, he’s a sucker for seafood.”
Oxley,she called. Break out the flyer, it looks like we’re in business.
Joshua hadn’t expected to feel like this. He lived for space, for alien worlds, the hard edge of cargo deals, an unlimited supply of adventurous girls in port cities. But now Tranquillity’s drab matt-russet exterior was filling half of the Lady Mac ’s sensor array visualization, and it looked just wonderful. I’m coming home.
A
break from Ashly moaning about how much better life was two centuries ago, no more of Warlow’s grumpiness, an end to Dahybi’s fastidious and perfidious attention to detail. Even Sarha was getting stale, free fall didn’t provide an infinite variety of positions after all—and once you’d discounted the sex, there wasn’t much else between them.
Yes, a rest was most definitely what he needed. And he could certainly afford one after that Puerto de Santa Maria run. Harkey’s Bar was going to resemble a pressure blow-out after he hit it this evening.
The rest of the crew were hooked into the flight computer via their neural nanonics, sharing the view. Joshua guided the ship along the vector spaceport traffic control had datavised to him, keeping the ion-thruster burns to a strict minimum. Lady Mac ’s mass distribution held no mysteries now, he knew how she would respond to the impact of a single photon.
She settled without a bounce on the cradle, and the hold-down latches clicked home. Joshua joined the rest of them in cheering.
Two serjeants were waiting for him when they came through the rotating pressure seal connecting the spaceport disk with the habitat. He just shrugged lamely at his openmouthed crew as the bitek servitors hauled him towards a waiting tube carriage, all three of them skip gliding in the ten per cent gravity field, his shoulder-bag with its precious contents trailing in the air like a half-inflated balloon.
“I’ll catch up with you tonight,” he called over his shoulder as the door slid shut.
Ione was standing on the platform when it opened again. It was the little station outside her cliff-base apartment.
She was wearing a black dress with cut-away sides and a fabulously tight skirt. Her hair was frizzed elaborately.
When he stopped looking at her legs and breasts in anticipation he saw there was a daunting expression on her face.
“Well?” she said.
“Er . . .”
“Where is it?”
“What exactly?”
A black shoe with a sharply pointed toe tapped impatiently on the polyp. “Joshua Calvert, you have spent over eleven months gallivanting around the universe, without, I might point out, sending me a single memory flek to say how you were getting on.”
“Yes. Sorry. Busy, you see.” Jesus, but he wanted to rip that dress off. She looked ten times more sexy than she did when he replayed the neural nanonic memories. And everywhere he went people were talking about the new young Lord of Ruin. Their fantasy figure was his girl. It just made her all the more desirable.
“So where’s my present?”
He almost did it, he almost said: “I’m your present.” But even as he started grinning he felt that little spike of anxiety inside. He didn’t want anything to foul up this reunion. Besides, she was only a kid, she needed him. So best to leave off the crappy jokes. “Oh, that,” he murmured.
Sea-blue eyes hardened. “Joshua!”
He twisted the catch on his shoulder-bag. She pulled it open eagerly. The sailu blinked at the light, looking up at her with eyes that were completely black and stupendously appealing.
They were described as living gnomes by the first people to see them, thirty centimetres fully grown, with black and white fur remarkably similar to a terrestrial panda. On their home world, Oshanko, they were so rare they were kept exclusively in an imperial reserve. Only the Emperor’s children were allowed to have them as pets. Cloning and breeding programmes were an anathema to the imperial court, they lived by natural selection alone. No official numbers of their population were given, but strong rumour suggested there were less than two thousand of them left.
Despite the bipedal shape, they had a very different skeleton and musculature to terrestrial anthropoids. There were no elbows or knees, their limbs bent along their whole length, making their movements incredibly ponderous. They were herbivores, and, if official AV recordings of the Emperor’s family were to be believed, clingingly affectionate.
Ione covered her mouth with one hand, eyes alight with incredulity. The creature was about twenty centimetres high. “It’s a sailu,” she said dumbly.
“Yes.”
She put a hand into the bag, extending one finger. The sailu reached for it in a graceful slow motion, deliciously silky fur stroked against her knuckle. “But only the Emperor’s children are supposed to have these.”
“Emperor, Lord—what’s the difference? I got it because I thought you’d like it.”
The sailu had clambered upright, still holding itself against her finger. Its flat wet nose sniffed her. “How?” she asked.
Joshua gave her a precocious smile.
“No. I don’t want to know.” She heard a soft crooning, and looked down, only to lose herself in the adoring gaze. “It’s very wicked of you, Joshua. But he’s quite lovely. Thank you.”
“Not sure about the ‘him’. I think there are three or four sexes. There’s not much on them in any reference library. But it does eat lettuce and strawberries.”
“I’ll remember.” She eased her finger from the sailu’s grip.
“So what about my present?” Joshua asked.
Ione struck a pose, tongue licking her lips. “I’m your present.”
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Joshua got her dress off just inside the door, and in return Ione tugged at his ship-suit seal so hard it broke. The first time was on one of the alcove tables, after that they used the ornate iron stair railings for support, then it was rolling around on the apricot moss carpet.
The bed did get used eventually, after a shower and a bottle of champagne. Hours later, Joshua knew he’d missed the party in Harkey’s Bar, and didn’t much care. Outside the window the light filtering through the water had faded to a dusky green, small orange and yellow fish were looking in at him.
Ione was sitting cross-legged on the rubbery transparent sheet with her back resting against some of the silk cushions. The sailu was snuggled up in her hand as she fed it with the crinkled red and green leaves of a lollo lettuce. It munched them daintily, gazing up at her.
Isn’t he adorable?she said happily.
The sailu genus exhibit a great many anthropomorphic traits which endear them to humans.
I bet you’d be nicer if it wasn’t Joshua who brought him.
Removing the sailu from its home planet is not only in complete contravention of the planetary statutes, it is also a direct personal insult to the Emperor himself. Joshua has put you in an invidious position. A typically thoughtless action on his part.
I won’t tell the Emperor if you won’t.
I was not proposing to tell the Emperor, nor even the Japanese Imperium’s ambassador.
That old fart.
Ione, please, Ambassador Ng is a very senior diplomat. His appointment here is a mark of the Emperor’s respect towards you.
I know.she tickled the sailu under its tiny chin. face and body were both flattish ovals, joined by a short neck. Its legs curved slowly, pressing the torso against her finger.
“I’m going to call him Augustine,” she announced. “That’s a noble name.”
“Great,” Joshua said. He leant over to the side of the bed and pulled the champagne bottle out of its ice bucket. “Flat,” he said, after he tipped some into his glass.
“Proves you have staying power,” she said coyly.
He reached for her left breast, smiling.
“No, don’t,” she moved out of the way. “Augustine’s still feeding. You’ll upset him.”
He lay back, disgruntled.
“Joshua, how long are you staying this time?”
“Couple of weeks. I need to get a contract with Roland Frampton sorted out. Distribution, not a charter. We’re going for a Norfolk run, Ione. We raised a lot of capital on some of our contracts; put that together with what I had left over from scavenging, and we’ll have enough for a cargo of Norfolk Tears. Imagine that! A hold full of the stuff.”
“Really? That’s wonderful, Joshua.”
“Yeah, if I can swing it. Distribution isn’t t
he problem. Acquisition is. I’ve been talking to some of the other captains. Those Norfolk roseyard-association merchants are tough nuts to crack. They won’t allow a futures market, which is pretty smart of them actually. It would be dominated by offworld finance houses. You have to show up with a ship and the cash, and even then it’s not a certainty you’ll get any bottles. You need a pretty reliable contact in the trade.”
“But you’ve never been there, you don’t have any contacts.”
“I know. First-time captains need a cargo to sell, a part-exchange deal. You’ve got to have something the merchants can’t do without, that way you can get a foot in the door.”
“What sort of cargo?”
“Ah, now that’s the real problem. Norfolk is constitutionally a pastoral world, there’s hardly any high technology they’ll allow you to import. Most captains take cordon bleu food, or works of antique art, fancy fabrics, stuff like that.”
Ione put Augustine down carefully on the other side of the silk pillows, and rolled onto her side facing him. “But you’ve got something else, haven’t you? I know that tone, Joshua Calvert. You’re feeling smug.”
He smiled up at the ceiling. “I was thinking about it: something essential, and new, but not synthetic. Something all those Stone Age towns and farms are going to want.”
“Which is?”
“Wood.”
“You’re kidding? Wood as in timber?”
“Yeah.”
“But they have wood on Norfolk. It’s heavily forested.”
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