Interstellar Mage

by Glynn Stewart

  Returning to Red Falcon, David called a meeting of his senior staff. The new ship had a lot of officers and crew, more than he was used to, but his core staff was still barely over half a dozen strong.

  Falcon, unlike his last ship, actually had a good-sized meeting room in the gravity ring, easily usable for meetings of this size or even larger. The table was cheap Navy-standard issue like most of the furniture aboard the ship, but it was more than big enough for the six of them.

  “We’re going to have work for you, Nicolas,” he told the new First Pilot.

  Fulbert Nicolas was cut from much the same short-haired, gaunt mold as Kelzin was, though ten years older than the junior pilot and with a twelve-year stint in the Tau Ceti Orbital Patrol behind him. Primarily a search-and-rescue pilot, he knew both the big and small shuttles Red Falcon carried inside and out.

  Only Campbell and Kellers were really known quantities among his senior officers, though. They’d been with him for years now, and stuck with him while the Protectorate had taken its time getting him a new ship.

  The other four, Nicolas, Skavar, Acconcio and Soprano, were all new faces. He trusted them to a point, but no one—not even them—thought their opinions carried as much weight as his old hands.

  “The Importers’ Syndicate is going to start offloading their fifty-five percent of the cargo tomorrow,” he told the pilot. “We’ll want our shuttles to help out, make certain everything goes smoothly.”

  “Easy enough,” Nicolas grunted.

  “As for my chunk, I’m in discussions with one of the lead partners of the Syndicate for them to take it off our hands,” David continued. “We’ll probably start off-loading it as soon as we’re done with the Syndicate’s share. Selling it ourselves would have us stuck here for weeks, and that doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “Most of the crew is happy so long as they get paid,” Skavar said. “But there’s always a few with permanently itchy feet. A few days? No problems. A week? A few grouches. Weeks? Yeah, we’d have problems.”

  “I don’t expect to stay that long,” David noted. “But if we do…”

  “That’s Security’s problem,” Skavar agreed. “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “I’ll sort out the fate of our current cargo and then take a look to see what I can find for new cargo. If all goes to plan, I’d expect to be on our way again in a week or so. Crew leave can run on the usual schedule; just make sure we have enough folks on hand for our safety and the cargo work.”

  “At least with Falcon, we don’t need to shut down the gravity ring to off-load,” Campbell pointed out. “Everyone can stay aboard ship.”

  Most of the freighters in the galaxy used long “ribs” for their gravity sections. Those rotated outside the cargo attachments, which meant that the ship had to shut down gravity to offload or load cargo. Since Falcon’s gravity ring was its own section of the ship in front of the cargo, there was no requirement with the new ship.

  “And we will,” David told them. “I’ve been warned that our cargo has pulled us into the middle of what looks to be a midsized economic and political clash between the Importers’ Syndicate and the elected government of Cinnamon.

  “That’s not a game we want to play,” he concluded dryly. “I’ve been in too many fights these last few years to want to get dragged into another one.”

  “Any bites on new cargo yet?” Acconcio asked. “How giant a target will we be painting on ourselves this time?”

  “Nothing yet, but hopefully not that big,” David told him. “We’re going to want to throw ourselves off the standard flight path on our next trip either way. I’m expecting our stalker to show up with friends, and I don’t see a reason to get dragged into a fight I don’t need to.”

  “Easy enough to do,” Soprano told him. “Pull the jump by a light-month each time the first four or five jumps; we’ll be half a light-year from where they’re looking for us and they’ll never have a chance to catch up.”

  “Unless we run into another Tracker,” Campbell warned, and David winced.

  “I’d like to think that’s not going to happen,” he told her. “Two in one lifetime was enough.”

  “A Tracker?” Skavar asked.

  “Someone who can follow a ship through jump instead of pursuing by guess and course estimates,” Soprano told him. “I thought they were a myth.”

  “So did I, until someone chased me when I didn’t have a course,” David replied. “I know they’re out there. It just depends on how much money whoever is chasing us has on the table.”

  That was a cheery thought. Fortunately, the only man who’d ever been willing to spend that kind of money chasing David Rice was dead.

  13

  “Hey, David, I’ve got that O’Toole fellow on the line for you again,” Wiltshire told David, his voice echoing over the intercom into the Captain’s office.

  Off-loading was still several hours away and David was going over the handful of offers he had received to compete with the Hayashis’ offer. Like Atsuko Hayashi had predicted, though, they were for portions of the cargo only. Ten million for the surface container ship here. Two million for a fusion reactor there.

  The prices suggested that her estimate of a fourfold return was about bang on, but he’d only received offers for a twentieth or so of the cargo. Selling it all would take some time.

  “Put the administrator through,” he told Wiltshire. He didn’t really want to talk to O’Toole, but regardless of what he thought of the bureaucrat, the man was in charge of Cinnamon Station’s docks.

  O’Toole’s image appeared on his wallscreen, the man somehow even more florid-faced and unhealthy-looking than he had been the first time.

  “What can I do for you, Administrator O’Toole?” David asked politely. He’d kicked the man in the ass once. There was no point being rude.

  “I wanted to get in touch again, Captain, and apologize for my earlier behavior,” O’Toole said. “The Cinnamon Government has covered your accounts, as promised, and there have been no problems.

  “Our policies are quite specific, Captain, but you were correct that your contract with our government called for an exemption,” he continued. “I appreciate your…patience.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve run into rules that haven’t been fully thought through,” David said sweetly. “I hope we won’t have any further problems?”

  “We shouldn’t,” the administrator replied carefully. “I also believe I’ve managed to track down a supplier for antimatter for you. Cinnamon has limited transmutation capability, so the government keeps the Naval stockpile under firm lockdown.

  “I’ve managed to speak to the company that owns our transmutation facility, however, and they’re willing to meet with you,” O’Toole told him. “Consider it an…apology for my earlier rudeness.”

  Well, that was something, at least.

  “I appreciate your candor and your assistance,” David said. “While we do not need to refill our antimatter tanks here, it would certainly make my life a lot easier.”

  “Of course. Mr. Rhee is available to meet with you at eleven AM Olympus Mons Time. Would that work for you?”

  O’Toole shouldn’t have been setting up meetings, but if he felt that was the best way to make up for his screw-ups, David wasn’t going to argue. And the chance to fully refuel Red Falcon couldn’t be passed up.

  “I’ll make it work,” he promised. “Send me a location. Thank you, Mr. O’Toole.”

  “The least I can do.” The administrator waved him off.

  The location came over the link and the channel cut off, leaving David looking at an address in one of Cinnamon Station’s more prestigious office districts.

  Nothing was particularly wrong about O’Toole’s actions, but it didn’t feel quite right, either.

  The solution to that, of course, was easy.

  He hit the intercom again.

  “Skavar?” he greeted his new Chief of Security. “Can you meet me in my office, please
?”

  Accompanied by two of his security team, David knocked on the door of the address he’d been given. It swung open immediately, allowing him to enter a plainly decorated front office.

  “Captain Rice?” an impeccably turned-out young woman with dark hair asked him. She was sitting behind a desk that, despite its apparent plainness, he recognized as Sherwood oak.

  Sherwood was another MidWorld, almost on the exact opposite side of human space. Wood from Earth itself would have been cheaper.

  “I am,” he told the woman. “I’m here to meet with a Mr. Rhee?”

  “Of course,” she confirmed. “He’s just making some arrangements right now; he’ll be available in a moment. Your…friends can wait out here.”

  David had half-expected that and smiled brightly.

  “I’d prefer they came in with me,” he noted lightly.

  “Mr. Rhee is quite specific about who he meets, Captain Rice,” the woman said. “The appointment is only for you.”

  He nodded his seeming acceptance and gestured the two guards to seats as he took one of his own. Having noted the quality of the desk, he carefully studied the rest of the furniture and fixtures.

  It all looked plain and austere, but…the chairs were handmade from Old Earth maple, and David’s quiet search on his wrist-comp confirmed the craftsman worked solely on Mars. The two pieces of art on the walls were originals by a famous Tau Ceti artist who’d passed away thirty years earlier.

  Everything in the room appeared simple, but the pieces he could identify alone would have paid for a heavy cargo shuttle. In many ways, the tastefully austere decoration was an even worse flaunting of wealth than many of the gaudy offices he’d visited in his life.

  David waited in silence, his two guards scanning the room with very different eyes from his. Cinnamon Station rules restricted his men to the stunguns they openly wore, but he would have been shocked to discover the ex-Marines weren’t carrying something more lethal concealed inside their jackets.

  “Mr. Rhee will see you now, Captain Rice,” the young woman told him. “Would your friends like coffee or tea while they wait?”

  “We’re fine,” the senior security woman replied instantly. David didn’t say anything, but he gave her an approving glance.

  He didn’t expect Rhee’s people to poison his guards, but he didn’t trust this meeting as far as he could throw his Falcon.

  The room the un-introduced receptionist ushered David into was designed to the same style as the outer reception area. The desk and old-fashioned wood paneling were all imported from Sherwood. The electronics came from Mars.

  When he realized that the single piece of art on the wall behind the man at the desk, encased in a carefully low-key environmental control system, was an original Van Gogh, he was quite certain what kind of man he was dealing with.

  “Please, Captain Rice, have a seat,” Rhee told him. “I am Benedict Rhee. Water? Tea?”

  “I’m fine,” David replied, taking the indicated chair. He was unsurprised when the apparently plain wooden chair quickly adjusted to his posture and size. One particular wooden strut flexed just right to release a knot he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying.

  Rhee’s office fit the man like a glove. He wore a plain white dress shirt without a tie and had short-cropped dark hair, faded brown skin and warm blue eyes. He looked the austerely calm type of man this office fit, and David suspected the shirt was as ridiculously sourced as everything else around him.

  “I’m glad Mr. O’Toole could arrange this meeting,” Rhee finally said. “I have a number of interests here in the Cinnamon System; it is my home, and I’ll admit I haven’t left as often as I should.”

  “I was told you could get me antimatter,” David replied.

  “Yes, I own and operate the Cinnamon Penal Transmutation Facility on behalf of the Mage Guild,” the businessmen confirmed. “We don’t have a lot of Mage criminals here, so our production is lower than many systems, but we maintain the stockpile the Protectorate requires and some extra.”

  “Name your price, Mr. Rhee,” David told him. “That is why I’m here, isn’t it?”

  “It is part of why you are here,” Rhee told him. “You’ve also, Captain Rice, tangled yourself up in several of my other interests, and I wanted to make sure that we cleared the air between us as to what is going to happen now.”

  There was no overt threat in Rhee’s tone. He spoke levelly, calmly, as if talking about an order for coffee—but David understood exactly what was happening.

  “You see, even the presence of your ship here means that my partners in Green Seneschal are going to have to have a conversation with Factor Nguyen,” he said genteelly. “It’s been our understanding for some time that we are prepared to tolerate only the most minor of cargos being shipped into Cinnamon under other auspices, and yet here you arrive with a megafreighter the likes of which Cinnamon has rarely seen.

  “This isn’t your pond, Captain, and you don’t know the waves you’ve stirred up. Nguyen had no authority to make the deal he made with you. No shipment of this size should have been sent on a tramp freighter, however large or impressive-looking, and he certainly had no right to sell you any portion of the shipment.

  “You now effectively find yourself in possession of stolen goods, Captain Rice,” Rhee told David. “That cargo belongs to the Importers’ Syndicate, and Nguyen’s so-called ‘sale’ to you was fraudulent.”

  That was an interesting legal perspective. One that David was quite sure wouldn’t hold up in Cinnamon’s courts, let alone Tau Ceti’s. For the moment, however, he remained silent and let Rhee continue.

  “I understand,” the businessman said magnanimously, “that you had no way of knowing this. To allow for the misunderstanding and avoid any ill will, we are prepared to reimburse you the money that Nguyen defrauded you of and honor the carriage part of the contract.”

  Rhee smiled. There was no warmth to the expression.

  “Of course, since you got tied up in Nguyen’s scheme, it would probably be best if you never came near the Cinnamon system again,” he warned. “We will off-load and refuel your ship, but then you need to leave and never come back.”

  David had to give the man points for delivery and sheer audacity. He wasn’t sure of any ship captain who would buy the line Rhee was feeding him, but then, most ship captains had a more than passing understanding of interstellar contract law.

  It took him a moment to process the sheer insanity of the man’s stated position, but once he had, he simply chuckled and shook his head at Rhee.

  “That’s an interesting fantasy,” he told the man. “One that I suppose is reassuring if you’re determined not to let a single cent slip through your fingers. It’s also legally unenforceable and we both know it, so why don’t you tell me your real offer?”

  From Rhee’s taken-aback blink, the mogul wasn’t used to being challenged on his interpretation of reality.

  “That wasn’t an offer, Captain Rice,” he replied. “It was a statement of what is going to happen.”

  “And if I refuse to go along with this sequence of events?” David asked sweetly.

  “Then I’m afraid you will suffer an unfortunate accident on your way back to your ship,” Rhee said flatly. “Since even Nguyen was intelligent enough to include a clause where, on your death, we both acquire ownership of the cargo and assume your debt.

  “Or, of course, we could simply seize your cargo and ship for your involvement in the transport of stolen goods,” he continued. “Believe me, Captain, I can make the argument of a fraudulent purchase of stolen goods hold up quite nicely in Cinnamon’s courts.

  “The accident course is easier for me, however, and I am much enamored of…efficiencies. My offer is more generous than you have any right to, Captain Rice. Accept it and get out of my system.”

  “Why is it that utter scum always think they’re in the right?” David asked conversationally. “For your information, Mr. Rhee, I regularly record c
onversations I expect to involve contract negotiations. In this case, since Mr. O’Toole did not strike me as the type to go out of his way to make an apology, that recording is also being live-streamed to my ship.

  “I’m reasonably certain that this conversation is sufficient grounds to see you arrested for a whole list of charges, not least attempted collusion in an attempt by Green Seneschal to monopolize shipping to the Cinnamon System—an attempt your own words have validated.”

  Rhee smiled.

  “Your communicator has been jammed since you arrived, Captain Rice,” he pointed out. “Your negotiating position is not as strong as you think.”

  David returned the man’s smile.

  “Isn’t it? Consider, Mr. Rhee, that my people were expecting that transmission.”

  Cinnamon Station Security didn’t even bother to knock. The exosuited trooper who led the way simply walked through the door, the bright blue and white paint on his armor emerging through the expensive wood in a spray of splinters and the extended barrel of a multi-function webber/stungun.

  “Benedict Rhee, you are under arrest for unlawful detainment,” a voice boomed from the two-meter-tall suit’s shoulders. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—”

  “Do you know who I am?!” Rhee demanded, lunging to his feet.

  The webber coughed once, a ball of sticky strands blasting past David’s head and hammering the mogul into the wall.

  “Yes, Mr. Rhee, as a matter of fact, my men do know who you are,” Harold Hayashi said dryly as he stepped up beside the armored cop. “And we’ve been waiting for an opportunity to have this conversation with you for a very long time.”

  14

  Once again in Atsuko Hayashi’s office, this time with both Soprano and Skavar hovering over his shoulder like worried hens, David gladly accepted the glass of scotch the CEO of Dancing Fox pressed upon him.

  “CSS checked,” she told him. “Someone had inserted a worm into the transfer pod controls. As soon as you got into a pod headed back to the dock, it would have run the power level to three times safe.”