Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  Rei and Baden were on the bridge, and Yuskeya was still there, too. Someone had been to the galley, since they all had empty mugs and a plate specked with crumbs sat on the console next to Baden.

  “Didn't I tell you to go and lie down?” I demanded of Yuskeya.

  She held up her hands in surrender. “I'm resting. I haven't moved from this chair since you left. Rei and I were just chatting, and we sent Baden to the galley for us.”

  “Oh, all right. Next time I'll make it an order.” I turned my attention away from her. “Baden, nothing from Chairman Buig yet?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Is Viss in Engineering?”

  “As far as I know, yes.”

  I opened up the comm to the Engineering deck. “All right, then listen up, everyone. We have reason to suspect that the intruder who boarded the ship before we left Earth might have left a tracking device on the cargo deck.”

  “He came in through cargo pod Four, Captain,” Viss said. “I got that much from that techrig he had.”

  “All right, we'll start there. What do we have for scanners? It'll probably be minuscule.”

  Baden held up his updated datapad. “This will pick up any transmission that would be strong enough to use for tracking. I'd just have to scan for the right frequencies.”

  “So that could have been a putra PrimeCorp ship behind us when we jumped for Kiando,” Yuskeya said, already halfway out the door before I could tell her to sit back down. “I'll get the datameds from the First Aid station. The implant bioware could scan for transmissions if I tweak the sensors a little.”

  “My datapad's got the same capabilities as Baden's,” Hirin said, following Yuskeya. “He got me a new one when we were on Renata. I'll be right back.”

  Diable. I didn't know Hirin had a new datapad. I think I gaped after him a little. The changes in that man just didn't stop.

  “I have a new datapad, too,” Maja offered quietly. “I bought it to come on this run. I don't know everything it does yet, but if Baden will show me how, I'll help.”

  “And if I shut down the wireblocker on the engineering deck I can scan the cargo deck from the diagnostics station,” said Viss.

  “All right. At this rate, I can't imagine not finding it, if it exists. Let's go.”

  There didn't seem to be anything for me to do but go along and . . . watch.

  I stood to one side, watching the others move around the half-empty cargo pod in their search. I wasn't sure if I hoped they'd find something, or not.

  Yuskeya tired more quickly than she'd expected and came to stand next to me, having handed her scanner over to Maja. “You know, Captain, just going through the Split might have been enough to throw anyone off our trail.”

  “Thanks, Yuskeya, but they found Mother somehow,” I said grimly. “If this was how they managed it, I guess I'd rather know.”

  I got my wish.

  “Got it!” It was Baden, over in a far corner of the cargo pod. He knelt beside a cargo lockdown slot.

  Everyone rushed over. “I can't see the damn thing yet,” he said, “but this reading shouldn't be here. There's nothing else it could be.”

  “Let me see.” Rei knelt near the lockdown slot, tucked a tendril of chestnut hair back from her face, and pressed something just behind her right ear. A bright, slender beam of light emerged from somewhere near her temple and shone wherever she looked.

  “Huh,” Baden grunted.

  “I knew this implant would be useful someday,” Rei said, not looking up from the search. “Ah-ha! There it is.” She ran a fingernail over a spot just under the lip of the lockdown slot and came up with a tiny black and silver circle on her fingertip. It was no bigger than the stud Baden wore in his ear. “Nice.”

  I hailed Viss over the comm. “We've got it. I'm bringing it up to you.”

  “Excellent, Captain,” he said, “I'll reset the wire blocker, and once it's up here it'll be mute. If I can reprogram it, it might be a handy little thing to have around, don't you think?”

  “Good idea,” I agreed. A thought struck me and sent a chill down my back. “Has this thing been transmitting to the PrimeCorp ship ever since we left the planet? Do they already know we're here, hiding behind it?”

  Viss didn't answer right away, but Baden said, “I doubt it. This type of signal would get lost really easily once we were inside a planet's atmosphere, to say nothing of all the extra chatter coming from the planet and the ships coming and going—and the Trident is still pretty far out. I don't think they'd have any chance of picking it up.”

  “Okej.” I didn't feel entirely safe, but Baden knew his stuff. Anyway, there wasn't much we could do about it now except stop the transmission and hope for the best. We left the cargo pod and climbed back up to Engineering.

  I handed the minuscule bug to Viss and Maja said suddenly, “But if PrimeCorp knew their operative had left a beacon on the ship, why did Dores Amadoro try to get me to plant one, too?”

  “What?” Hirin exclaimed, frowning. He put his hands on his hips. “Seems like I haven’t heard all of this story.”

  The others, who didn't know about the way Amadoro had conned Maja either, stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  I held up my hands. “Sorry, Hirin, you were out of the loop on that one. We’ll fill you in as soon as we’re done here.”

  He didn’t look entirely happy about that, but he nodded. I thought about Maja’s question

  “Because Amadoro wouldn't have known if this beacon was in place or not. All she—or she and Sedmamin—knew then was that the virus trick had failed, and the op hadn't come back from the mission. If they couldn't stop me from leaving, they at least wanted to be able to track me.”

  In a display of unusual tact, none of the others asked for details. Rei looked a query at me, but I shook my head a little and she seemed to accept that.

  Viss said, “The tracker probably wasn't set to start signalling until we made the first skip out of Earthspace, to minimize the chances of it being found.”

  “So when Amadoro learned that you were coming after us—”

  “She thought she could set up some 'insurance,'” Maja finished bitterly.

  I squeezed her arm. “Stop worrying about it. We've put that behind us, right?”

  She nodded. “What do you mean, 'virus trick'?”

  “That was before we left Earth, too. Chairman Sedmamin sent me a notebug infected with a virus in an attempt to get me in to PrimeCorp for some 'discussion.' It didn't affect me in the way he'd hoped, so I guess that's when he sent the operative to break in.”

  “How did you know he came from PrimeCorp?” Maja asked.

  “Well—we don't, not for sure,” I said. “He didn't have any identification, not even an ID chip. But he did try to get blood or something from me. Makes sense that he was from PrimeCorp.”

  “Too bad you can't prove it,” she said. “If you had actual proof of some of the things they've done to you, maybe you could make them stop.”

  I stared at her. “But it's . . . PrimeCorp,” I said. “We wouldn't stand a chance against them. Anything we said—they'd find a way to bury it, or make it go away. Buy people off.” I shook my head. “They're just too big.”

  Maja cocked her head at me, considering. “It's PrimeCorp, yes. But maybe they're bigger in your mind because you've spent so much time feeling attacked by them. They can't be free to act completely outside the law. Surely they can't be so big that in all of Nearspace, we couldn't find enough allies to move against them.”

  “She's right,” Baden said, leaning back against one of the Engineering consoles and crossing his arms. Viss cleared his throat and Baden stood up straight again. “I mean, you seem to have found one in Chairman Buig. PrimeCorp might think he'll accommodate them, but he's under no real obligation to. Duntmindi Corp has its own sovereignty rights on its own planets.”

  “And its own legal rights and justice system,” Hirin added slowly. “The things that happened on Earth and on Rhea�
��they're both PrimeCorp-controlled planets. I wouldn't think you'd have much luck there. But if you could manage to bring charges here . . .”

  Yuskeya snapped her fingers. “The pirate attack! That happened in open Nearspace, not on any planet, which means you can bring the charges on any planet with an ambassador in the Administrative Council.”

  My mind was whirling. “But we don't have much evidence from that. A techrig and a weapon. Maybe a bit of DNA or a fingerprint, if we could recover it from the weapon. And we'd have to be able to link that stuff to PrimeCorp.”

  “Yes, but if you start the proceedings here, you can bring in the other incidents as well,” Yuskeya said. She'd sat down at one of the auxiliary engineering consoles, but she leaned forward in the skimchair, eyes bright. Viss didn't seem to mind her sitting there. “You'd have to prove that they were all related, but you could build the body of evidence for everything at once.”

  “And maybe you don't even have to win,” Rei said thoughtfully. “If it even looks like you have a chance of winning, you may be able to get PrimeCorp to negotiate, or at least leave you and your mother alone.”

  An ally in Chairman Buig, I thought suddenly. An ally who had access to the Nearspace Database, and might be willing to access it on our behalf.

  “I need to think,” I said. Which meant I needed to pace. I opened the bulkhead leading from the Engineering station to the long corridor between the fuel storage cells, where so recently we had raced in response to the pirate attack on Cargo Pod One. Before I stepped inside, I said, “Maja, take your father up to the galley and fix him a double caff while you explain about Dores Amadoro, would you? He’s a patient man, but he has his limits.”

  Maja didn’t look like she relished the idea of telling that story again, but she nodded and took Hirin’s arm. I wasn’t too worried about how he’d react. If I’d forgiven Maja, I knew he would, too. But I had to let them handle this one themselves. I had too many other things to think about. I stepped through the bulkhead and pulled the door shut behind me, signalling my need for a few minutes alone, and stalked down the corridor. I used the easy rhythm of my feet on the decking to shuffle my thoughts into order.

  What evidence did we have against PrimeCorp, if I stacked it all up together? We had a photo of the dead intruder, which might be enough to provisionally identify him. It wouldn't be enough on its own to do much damage to PrimeCorp, but if he were identified, then we'd know if he could be linked to PrimeCorp. His techrig might not be much use, since Viss had taken it apart, put it back together, and used it since then. Body of evidence, Yuskeya had said. I wished again, mightily, that we still had the body, but put that thought aside for now.

  I had Alin Sedmamin's notebug message about the virus. I had the names of the thugs who had kidnapped me on Rhea, and I had the techrig, weapon, and if I was lucky, some DNA or a fingerprint from one of the pirates.

  I reached the end of the corridor and turned, then slumped back against the wall as another thought hit me. There was also the illegal tech cargo that the pirates hadn't managed to get, which we—or Viss, anyway—had delivered to the Protectorate agents on Kiando. That meant they now had hard evidence of PrimeCorp's manufacture of illegal tech. If they'd help us. If they could do so without jeopardizing their own case against PrimeCorp, and the things Lanar had hinted at so obliquely. I couldn't say anything to the others about that yet. I needed to talk to Lanar—securely—and find out what the Protectorate could do to help.

  I leaned my head back against the cool metal wall of the corridor, letting its solid bulk comfort me. The ship always had a way of doing that. Maybe the evidence wasn't much, even taken all together. It didn't tell me where Mother was now or why she'd disappeared as suddenly as I'd found her. But at least it gave me something to do.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Souvenirs and Circles

  I hurried back towards Engineering. It said a lot about how well the rest of them understood me that none of them had followed me into the corridor or moved from the spot. Only Hirin and Maja had gone.

  “Baden,” I said, as soon as I was within earshot. “Do you think I could talk with the Chairman for a few minutes, and send him some data packets, without jeopardizing our situation with that PrimeCorp ship?

  Baden pursed his lips. “I think so. I'll make it as narrowband as I can; the quality might suffer a bit, but the ship should still be far enough out that they wouldn't pick it up. There's lots of that other chatter I mentioned down here to mask it, and they shouldn't even be looking for us out here. If they pick us up at all, they'd likely think we were still on the planet.”

  “Okej.” I outlined what I'd been thinking. “If he'll help us, I'll send him the photo of the intruder, the names of the kidnappers, and anything we might get off that pirate's belongings. If Buig can identify any of them and link them to PrimeCorp, we'll have something to start with.”

  “We can do even a little better than that,” Rei said suddenly. “Wait right here.”

  Without another word she swarmed up the ladder to the upper deck. Everyone looked at me, but I shrugged.

  She was back inside a minute, swinging something small and soft and black from her hand, and she tossed it to me, carefully, as she passed. “I'll bet you can get a better identification of the intruder with some of his skin cells, and maybe a hair or two . . .” She dropped into one of the skimchairs and let it spin her around, looking extremely pleased with herself.

  I picked it up. It was the intruder's mask.

  “How?”

  Rei tilted her head to one side and grinned. “Souvenir,” she said. “I thought it would be a good one. I had it in the secret locker in my room so it wouldn't be out in plain sight if anyone came asking about the man. I kept it after we took it off him that night. Didn't think he'd miss the warmth. No-one else has had it on, so anything in there belongs to him.”

  I hugged her. “Remind me never to call your souvenir habit crazy again.”

  She pulled back. “You think my souvenirs are crazy?” But there was a smile in her eyes.

  “Okay, folks,” I said. “Here's what we're going to do. Yuskeya, if you're feeling up to it, would you try to extract some information from this mask and the pirate's belongings, and package the results to send to Chairman Buig? Ask Dr. Ndasa to help you. I'll go and retrieve that message from Sedmamin about the virus. Viss, you took the photo of the intruder, would you send a copy to Baden? And Baden, you can cobble all of this together, make it as small as you can, and get it ready for me to narrowband down to the Chairman after I've spoken to him.”

  A chorus of ayes met my requests, and I led the way up the hatchway ladder. Yuskeya said she'd need about half an hour, and I headed to my quarters to call up Sedmamin's nasty message from the notebug. I settled at my desk and tried to load it, the one where he'd admitted that there had been a virus in my notebug message. I should have realized he wouldn't be that sloppy, though. The message was a corrupted mess of gibberish, obviously set to self-destruct after it had been read. I made several attempts to rebuild or decrypt it with some filters I’d gotten from Lanar, but it was no use. I wondered briefly if Baden could make anything of it with his superior techrig. Somehow I doubted it. Sedmamin was a master when it came to covering his tracks. Maybe we wouldn't need it anyway.

  A knock at my door took my attention from the screen, and I crossed the room to answer it. It was Maja, and she looked pensive.

  “May I come in?”

  I nodded and pushed the door open, stepping inside and holding it for her to follow me. “Of course. How did it go with your father?”

  “Oh, fine,” she said absently. “He’s more angry at Amadoro than he is at me.”

  She crossed the room, looking around as if she'd never seen it before, and sat down in my big armchair. She stared across at the wall, saying nothing, as if she were searching for a way to begin. Her fingers drummed a nervous staccato rhythm on the arm of the chair.

  I sat on the bed and waited
. She obviously hadn’t come here because of Hirin.

  “I didn't know you'd been attacked,” she said finally. “Besides what happened to us on Rhea.”

  I shrugged. “Well, like your father said, it was before we left Earth. It wasn't a big deal.”

  She stared at the wall above my bed, not meeting my eyes. “But . . .twice? I think it was. Is. A big deal.” She met my eyes, her blue ones thoughtful. “And the things Emmage said in that vid . . .it all makes me realize that I never really listened when you tried to explain why things were the way they were.”

  I raised my eyebrows and half-smiled at her. “I noticed.”

  Maja stood, walked around the chair slowly, running her manicured fingers gently over the soft woven fabric. “All I could see was that it wasn't fair. I always seemed to be on the outside. You and Dad and Karro, even Uncle Lanar—you all loved space so much. I hated it. Never staying in one place, living on a far trader. You all thought it was so exciting. For me, it was just . . . unsettled.”

  “It isn't the life for everyone. I suppose I didn't pay enough attention to what you wanted. But there was always PrimeCorp to think about—”

  “I understand that now.” She sighed. “I just thought it was a stupid excuse then. I stayed angry about that for a long time. PrimeCorp never seemed like such a threat to me. Then it started to be obvious that you hadn't passed on whatever was keeping you young. I hated you for that, too—and you wouldn't cooperate with PrimeCorp to find out about it. And later,” she went on, as if she were determined to make a full confession, “when Dad got sick. That was your fault, too, as far as I was concerned. And then I couldn't forgive you for putting him in that facility and leaving.”

  “Maja, I—”

  “No, no, you don't have to say anything. I understand. Now I do, at least. Then when Taso and I . . . he went off with someone else.” She smiled wryly. “She was much younger. And even though it didn't make any sense, I blamed you.”

  “Honey, I'm sorry.” I didn't know what else to say.