“Surprisingly, it does. You should try it. You look like hell, Benjamin. What have you been doing to yourself?”
“Had a small argument with the Folds.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Tactfully she didn’t inquire any further. *Tell me what happened to put you on the wrong side of the Trust.*
*You heard about Hera-3?*
*Who didn’t? Hell of a bad break. Platinum pirates and most of your colonists slaughtered. You were damn lucky to get out alive.*
*We got fifteen hundred settlers out, but I lost all but forty-seven of my crew. Wenna Phipps—remember her?—lost an arm. Most of the rest weren’t so lucky.*
*Bloody pirates!*
*It’s worse than that. Follow the money. Who ended up with the platinum from Hera-3?*
*The Trust, but you don’t mean . . . *
*I suspected an inside job, someone leaking information. I didn’t expect to find Crowder and Ari van Blaiden in it together.*
*Van Blaiden defected to Alphacorp years ago.*
*Yes, but who was his mentor in the Trust?*
*Oh, gods, Crowder.*
*Exactly.*
*And this Olyanda thing? I’ve seen the vid. Crowder and van Blaiden.*
*Platinum again, only this time Crowder decided to wipe out the whole colony with a plague. We stopped him.*
He left Cara’s part out of it altogether, figuring she would prefer not to have the details shared.
*Van Blaiden?*
*We stopped him, too.*
*And landed on the wrong side of the law,* Lake said.
*Pretty much.*
*Tell me about Garrick.*
*Clever, manipulative, ambitious, ruthless.* Ben shrugged. *Everything you might expect from someone who’s scrambled to the top of the heap on Crossways, but he’s got vision and a long-term plan that could see this place legitimized.*
*An empire builder.*
*In a way, yes, but not for personal gain. I don’t think it’s even for personal power, though don’t get me wrong, he’s not a pushover. He’s on top and he intends to stay that way. He’s a born politician, but as I understand it, raised on a prison planet for the first sixteen years of his life, not exactly the sort of environment where you can take up politics. He landed on Crossways after a few adventures around the galaxy and spent twenty years working his way to the top.*
*Can we trust him?*
*You can trust him to do what he says he’ll do.*
*That’s your considered opinion?*
*It is. He didn’t let me down. My team and the colonists would be dead if it wasn’t for Garrick and Mother Ramona.*
*Fair enough.*
*You’ve got problems on Cotille?* Ben asked.
*First couple of years were fine. We’re self-sufficient in food production now, but we export high-cost, low-volume goods such as quality cocoa beans and luxury chocolate, but more importantly, catechin and epicatechin for the pharma industry. The Trust is now only offering half the market value while trebling the cost of transport. The Elders have seen the way the Trust’s stock has nosedived since your vid hit the S-LOGS and it’s given them the push they needed to look for a better deal.*
The tubs pulled up at the central hub where the visitors could instantly appreciate the colossal waste of space of the area, open through seven levels to an artificial azure sky. Hub Park, replete with specimen trees and lush tropical plants, filled the whole of the center. Opposite, flanked by more modest but still impressive residences, stood Garrick’s Mansion House. This time they took the external stair to the grand entrance where Garrick and Mother Ramona formed a welcoming committee.
“Ms. Lake, Mr. Hoffman.” Garrick stepped forward and shook hands warmly as Ben made the introductions. Mother Ramona had dressed more conservatively than she normally did and drew Elders Gully and Zakhar along with her to the impressive state reception room with its elegant proportions and tasteful furniture. A butler and two smartly dressed waiters offered trays of drinks and canapés. Ben caught the eye of one of them and recognized her as one of Syke’s guards, then spotted the bulge beneath the bow of her apron that denoted a weapon. Garrick was taking no chances.
Ben glanced at Nan. She smiled and nodded. *Genuine,* she said. *They are who they appear to be and they’re looking for a better deal than they’re getting with the Trust.*
He felt a wash of relief. He could leave the details of the negotiation to Garrick. He’d played his part.
Four hours later he excused himself, the main points having been agreed upon. From now on Cotille’s trading agreement with Crossways included several mutual obligation clauses including a minimum market price for various staple foodstuffs and protection from everything from harassment to a full-scale attack.
Cotille’s defection from the Trust brought new complications. The jump gate system, though nominally governed by interstellar treaty, was largely controlled by the megacorporations. The usage tolls, though supposedly standardized, often had a high premium for any ship not affiliated with the gate operator, though some megacorps had reciprocal agreements. Without exception they all charged independents through the nose.
Dido Kennedy’s jump drive, if she could get it operational and iron the kinks out of it, was going to revolutionize travel and make it possible for the independents to operate a wider trading network.
“It’s the independents who are going to make a difference,” Ben said as he and Nan watched Ricky, Kai, Ronan, Cara, Max, and Hilde having a knockabout session in the smaller of Crossways’ two grapple arenas.
“You need to send out ambassadors,” Nan said. “Draw in the independents and the undecided.”
“Not me,” Ben said. “Garrick and Mother Ramona.”
It was the first real training session in null-G for Ricky, Kai and Max. Ronan, Cara, and Hilde were good teachers. Anyone who mucked around in space for long enough would encounter null-G sooner or later, and it was always better to know how to handle yourself when your world turned upside down. Learning how to negotiate obstacles and get yourself from one end of a spacecraft to the other without throwing up was a skill in itself. Unsurprisingly, Rion had turned down the offer.
Nan smiled as Ricky managed to somersault across the width of the arena from one of the projecting bars to the glass window of the referee’s box they’d settled in. He flattened his hands against the window, blew a raspberry on the glass, turned in midair and pushed off again to shoulder-charge Ronan, who had just grabbed a medonite hoop with the idea of showing Ricky how to shoot it through the loop for a goal.
“The boy’s a natural,” Nan said. “What’re the odds on his testing well for Navigation when he gets his implant?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Ben said.
“They rely on you,” Nan said.
“Huh?” Ben had lost the thread of the conversation while watching Cara gracefully glide like a slow-motion diver, snagging the hoop before Ricky could get his hands on it and passing it to Max, who promptly lost it to a tackle by Hilde.
“Garrick and Mother Ramona. Keep up, Reska!”
“Garrick’s got close to a million people on Crossways. Plenty to rely on. He doesn’t need me.”
“You think alike.”
“Are you trying to find an outlet for my talents?” He shook his head. “You know I lost it—in the Folds. A pilot-Navigator who can’t fly the Folds isn’t much good. Better retire him into administration before he kills someone.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t need to. I say it to myself all the time. Here I am trying to reassure Rion and I can’t hack foldspace myself.”
“Give it time.”
“Yeah, right. Time. That’ll help. It seems the longer I leave it the harder it gets to go back. I’ve got a date with a void dragon, but I’m terrified to keep it.”
<
br /> “You know you’ll have to sooner or later.”
“I know.” He stared out at the grapple arena without actually looking at the figures. “What were you saying about ambassadors?”
Nan accepted the change of subject. “That if it’s the independents who are going to make a difference to Crossways, you—Garrick, that is—should be sending out ambassadors to win them over.”
“We’d need someone with a real gift for negotiation to head up a team.” Ben looked at her sideways. “Are you thinking about coming out of retirement?”
“I might be.” She watched Ricky do a lazy corkscrew around Kai and this time catch the hoop. “I might even take the boy with me if Rion’s willing.”
“I’ll talk to Garrick and Mother Ramona if you talk to Rion and Ricky.”
“Deal.” She nodded. “And then you need to talk to a void dragon.”
“Let’s get Rion and Kai settled on Jamundi first.”
It was another excuse and they both knew it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
FAMILY SECRETS
BEN TOOK RION, RICKY, AND KAI TO THE FARM. Kai had been studying arcologies on Chenon’s moon as part of his university course and he wanted to see how Crossways handled intensive food production. Rion had taken some persuading, as he expressed an opinion that a farm without open sky above it wasn’t real. Ricky was happy to tag along because he wanted to see more of the station.
Of course they had to be accompanied by a phalanx of guards, in this case, Gwala, Hilde, and half a dozen of Tengue’s finest.
To keep Ricky happy Ben decided to take the long way. From Blue Seven they circled around the outer rim of the station anticlockwise, through the huge market, where it was possible to buy almost anything if the price was right, and past the public docks. Ben kept up a running commentary. From the docks they moved into an upper-class shopping area that was indistinguishable from the kind of mall that could be found in any sophisticated capital city anywhere in the colonized worlds. Toward the far end stores became smaller and shabbier and beyond them was an open souq leading onto the accommodation levels organized into gated communities occupied by clans, factions, and possibly the wealthier gangs.
Farther along still there were laboratories, engineering works, and factories which then opened up onto three huge shipbuilding and refitting yards. They’d left the privileged areas far behind by the time they came upon the ship-breakers, where the poorest gleaned a living from stripping down hulks for their component parts and reusable materials. Ben suspected not all the derelicts in there had been officially decommissioned, but some were the proceeds of piracy. He knew Garrick turned a blind eye, but had hopes of legitimizing some of Crossways’ more dubious businesses.
Rather than continue around the station’s rim, they cut in toward the central spindle and dropped a couple of levels to Hub Park before taking the radial direct to the farm.
Once at the farm, Ricky attached himself to Gwala and Hilde. Ben suspected that he figured that guard-talk would be more interesting than anything his dad and Kai were going to be discussing, and also that he didn’t want to give his father the chance to change his mind about the possibility of traveling with Nan on her ambassadorial mission.
Rion wasn’t keen on Ricky gallivanting off with Nan, but when he learned that they would be traveling in a state-of-the-art jumpship, actually Garrick’s private yacht, fully armed and with a crew used to protecting their VIP passengers, he softened toward the idea a little. Nan had reminded him that Ricky would eventually go his own way and that trying to overprotect him now was a good way of losing him later. But it was Kai’s quiet good sense that prevailed in the end, and Rion admitted that trying to settle Ricky on a planet full of farmers was the best way to make sure he never wanted to farm.
Though Rion was his usual skeptical self as they looked around the station’s farm, Kai was in his element, checking the figures on wheat production and weighing the ethics against the practicalities of intensive pork rearing. He was entranced by the community farm, too, and admitted that it was worth sacrificing a few acres of production for the project.
It had been a pleasant half day away from the demands of the Free Company and the pressures of what lay ahead, until Cara interrupted. Ben felt her implant handshaking with his own.
*Mother Ramona has just sent a message,* she said. *Crowder survived your three darts.*
And that was a good day spoiled.
“Any idea why Nan wants to talk to us all together?” Ben asked Rion as he settled the dogs in a corner of Solar Wind’s mess.
“None at all. She has a clean bill of health, hasn’t she?”
“According to Ronan she’s fitter than anyone her age has a right to be.”
“Talking about me?” Nan came in with Kai and Ricky.
“Just speculating on the family meeting,” Ben said. “I programmed the server for tea. It seemed appropriate.”
“Tea is always appropriate. I made most of my best negotiations over a cup of tea.”
“You’re negotiating?”
“Not quite,” Nan said. “Before we all go our separate ways I wanted to give you a family history lesson. There may not be time later and it could be important.” She smiled at Ricky and he winked back. “You’ve all heard of Malusi Duma?”
“President of African Unity on Earth,” Kai said.
“That’s the one. He’s your great-grandfather.” She turned to Ben and Rion. “Your grandfather.”
Grandfather. Ben heard the word but for a moment the importance eluded him.
She cleared her throat. “Don’t all speak at once,” she said into the silence.
“Sorry, Nan, still trying to take it in,” Ben said. “I mean, I knew we had a grandfather, out there, somewhere. I think I just assumed he was . . .”
“Dead?” She smiled. “No, Malusi is very much alive, though he’s had rejuv treatment and at least one new heart that I know of. I met him at university, Cambridge, way back. I was studying history and psychology and Malusi was studying politics. Always politics. I already had an implant and was signed up to the Five Power Alliance. Malusi didn’t have an implant, and still doesn’t. We stayed together through university and afterward, when I joined the Diplomatic Corps, he went back home to Pretoria and became a career politician.”
She smiled. “We had an off-and-on relationship after that, though more off than on. I was apprenticed to Gerda Swanson and learning my job. Some of our negotiations took us away for long periods, and I lost three years in cryo.
“We met up again when I was twenty-four and he was twenty-seven. I’d booked leave. I was ready to settle down and tie the knot. I wanted children, specifically his children. Oh, that man was something. Don’t look at me like that, Kai. I was young enough to have a sex life once. Get over it.”
Ben was glad she’d aimed that at Kai and not him, though his thoughts hadn’t been far from there.
“Anyhow, that’s when he told me that he was settling down, too, but not with me.” She sighed. “It seemed like a pity to waste the leave I’d booked, so we said good-bye properly and promised to stay friends forever, which we’ve done. Robert was born nine months later. Malusi doted on him and Malusi’s wife proved to be very amenable to having an extra member of the family. They eventually had five children of their own.
“Anyhow, we couldn’t travel together in cryo until Robert was six, so I did a PhD at Cambridge while I was out of commission, then the FPA called. A skirmish out on the rim that needed mediating and Gerda was busy elsewhere, so I left Robert with his father for a couple of years and went back to work. As soon as Robert was six I scooped him up again and we spent the next fourteen years jumping around the galaxy. Of course, we only aged five years in that time with all the cryo. By the time Robert was eleven he decided for himself that he wanted to go back to his father and not rack up so much cryo
time, but by then Malusi was a rising star in Pan-African politics. That was the year he was elected to the vice presidency and seconded to the FPA. He’d been widowed and had remarried, but his new wife wasn’t so amenable to having Robert around. It didn’t seem prudent to call attention to Malusi’s bastard child. There had already been several assassination attempts and it was safer to keep Robert hidden.
“Well, you know the rest. Robert decided on a boarding school, we picked Kingston College on Chenon. He graduated, married, took up farming and he never left the planet again until . . .”
“Until he left for the last time,” Rion said.
Nan nodded. “And I came to look after you two. It was Malusi who got the FPA to cancel my contract. I could never have afforded to buy myself out. We keep in touch.”
“Your best friend, Lucy,” Rion said. “All these years . . . written messages.”
“Lucy, yes, Malusi’s code name.”
“And you haven’t seen him in person since?” Ricky asked.
She shook her head. “Not in person. Anyhow, I thought you should know. Trapped in that cell for a month, I suddenly realized that I might not see you again and that there were things I hadn’t told you. Your grandfather might have remained anonymous, but he’s always taken a keen interest in your various adventures, even though it’s been at a distance.”
“I’d like to meet him one day,” Kai said.
Nan smiled. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
Rion accepted the offered sedative gratefully. As Solar Wind slipped out of dock he felt the drug making him drowsy and settled back in his bunk. It was okay for Ben, who was used to all this gallivanting through space, but Rion found it terrifying. All he could think of was his parents, gone forever into some black hell.
He may have dreamed, but whatever was floating around his brain dissipated as he woke to the sound of Kai scrabbling for his boots. Kai had also decided to sleep away the journey, though probably more to show solidarity than out of fear. There were times when Rion felt profoundly grateful for Kai, but the last few days had proved that his boy had become a young man. Maybe it was time to take stock while the farm was so far away. Kai had to make his own choices, not shape his future to placate an increasingly old-fashioned and cranky father.
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