And, therefore, the drop found Telford watching her without appearing to do so, looking to see if she contacted anyone else – even with only a look. Thus far, she had done nothing even remotely suspicious.
They all swung their seats to the front in preparation for the burn that would put them on course for Manila’s station. Telford brought out a reader, and pretended that it held his attention throughout the burn.
He sat as the passengers filed out after the burn, waiting to see who talked with whom. From what he could discern, conversations mainly concerned the feeling the drop caused.
“For that, I’d gladly go through jump repeatedly,” he heard one woman tell another. Neither ranked high in his suspicions.
“You’re Mr Telford, aren’t you?”
Telford raised his eyes to see Mary Pendleton standing over him.
He stood to address her. “That’s correct. What may I do for you Ms Pendleton?”
She seemed flattered that he knew her name and recognized her. She stepped closer to him, to allow the other passengers to get out unobstructed.
“I’ve noticed that you don’t mix much, Mr Telford. And you disappear for a lot of the activity time. Have you no wish to try zero-g room or the other amenities of the ship?”
Telford regarded her with a newfound respect. She either had him under surveillance, or possessed a good cataloguing memory. In either event, it would not pay to underestimate her.
“I travel for business, not pleasure, Ms Pendleton. My work doesn’t end with boarding the ship only to start again when we dock at Manila.”
She considered him. “Oh, and what kind of work do you do on the ship?”
Too close. “I prepare for my meetings. It pays to know all the facts and figures without having to access documents. I study.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” Pendleton said, a smile trying to get past her lips.
Telford nodded. “Fortunately, my name isn’t Jack. Good day, Ms Pendleton. I understand Manila City has a beautiful beach, and we’ve hit it midsummer. My business won’t let me get down. I hope you enjoy it.”
He stepped around her, and exited the lounge. From there, he walked back to his passenger’s cabin, closed and locked the door. He engaged the comm.
“Jackson, it’s Adrian. I do believe that Ms Pendleton just made a pass at me.”
He heard Pelburn’s surprise in his voice. “She what? Did you encourage that?”
“In no way. She approached me, knowing my name. So, that brings up many questions. Does she know who I really am? If so, is this meant to distract me, or is it meant to put me off-guard? If not, is she hunting for a younger man for a quick dalliance? Tell me, Jackson, do you think I’m a likely looking partner to someone like her?”
Jackson laughed out loud. “Adrian, I can’t answer that question. I can only say you do nothing for me.”
“Bastard.”
“But I will ask some of the women aboard for their opinions. How do you think I should phrase the question?”
Telford heard the man chuckling, and bit back an angry retort. “I’m not sure. It might start something like this: ‘I’m about to ask you the last question I’ll ever ask anyone.’ You can take it from there.”
“Right.” Pelburn’s voice returned to serious mode. “Since I’d prefer to ask more than one question during the time remaining to me in this life, how about I ask the passenger service people, and see if she’s trolling the waters?”
Now that no one could see him, Telford grinned. “Probably a better idea. I’m going to go over some files here, and then I’ll get a couple of hours sleep. I told our femme fatale that I needed to study for my business meeting on Manila’s station, and I don’t want her to see me outside my room.”
He glared at the comm, frustrated that he’d just put himself out of play.
“Ever think that she wants just that outcome?”
“Yeah, I did. That’s why I called you. Put someone on her, and let’s stay alert.”
* * *
“Captain?”
“Yes, Jan?” He turned to his comm officer.
“We’re getting the warehouseman’s report from Manila Station. She says that Sean and Doreen arrived yesterday and went right down to the planet. But they’ve left you a report. Level Three.”
“Wonderful. Tell her to send it along. Pass it to my office when you get it. Brint, you have the Bridge.”
“I have the Bridge, sir.”
Clay walked down the passageway to his office – only a few steps away in case they needed him urgently. He sat down and took the message. Coded Level Three. Not needful of hand-to-hand transmission. He copied it to a datastick, and inserted that into an isolated computer. A password, backed by retinal scan and facial recognition, allowed the file to open.
His mother’s face came up.
“Data received, Clay. You made a good decision, and I approve of your plan for misdirection. We will get to the bottom of this. Continue as you see fit, and pass on your report to any other of our ships or stations you meet or visit, warning everyone to tighten security against espionage. We might as well play it that way, though it may come back to bite us.”
Bite us? Clay wondered how, but Jenna answered that in her next sentence.
“If we say we suspect espionage, everyone will believe we have something to protect, and they will want to discover just what that is.” She gave a half-laugh. “They will, therefore, engage in it. Good luck, Son.”
Sometimes, Clay figured, you just couldn’t win for losing. But he would trade some mild attempts at espionage over going unprepared for sabotage.
CHAPTER 9
Manila City
The sun beat down on the beach. Only a few white puffy clouds floated across the sky, and Sean Williams felt content with the world. Under the shade of a beach umbrella, lying on a reclining chair, with a gentle breeze wafting in from the lake, nothing could induce him to move – except the vision of beauty that arose from the waters of the lake like a mermaid and waved a beckoning arm. With an old-man groan that did not befit his still-youthful body, he rose, smiled, and walked across the hot sand towards her.
“Come in and get wet,” Doreen called. “We have only this last day to enjoy it.”
She splashed him as he slowly waded in to the chest-deep water where she resided. He dropped down, disappearing under the water, and propelled himself towards her legs, which he took out from under her, causing the two of them to plunge into the ‘depths’.
Doreen struggled to get free, then didn’t, pulling him up to give him an underwater kiss before they broke the surface laughing.
“Race you out to the raft,” she said.
He looked at the diving platform, some fifty metres offshore and a little over to their right. Swimmers clambered on it, then dived off, heading for the next raft, some hundred metres further down the beach.
“And what do I get if I win?” he asked.
“Me.”
“Done!” he cried, and pushed off the bottom. In a fifty-metre race, he had a good chance to beat her. Longer than that, and she would pull ahead every time.
“Cheat!” he barely heard her yell as she set off in hot pursuit.
With only ten metres to go, he felt her pull up next to him. He put in all the extra effort he had in him, but could not pull ahead. They touched within moments of each other, no clear victor.
Breathing harshly, he gasped out. “I win!”
Doreen merely shook her head sadly. “I don’t think so, much as I would like it. At best, we tied; me, I think you lost.”
He pulled himself onto the raft, legs dangling in the water. He would need to rest if he wanted to make it back to the shore without drowning. He had put everything he had into winning the race.
“And if I lost, what do you get?”
“You.”
He laughed, but it degenerated into a coughing fit as he inhaled a bit of water. When he recovered, he asked. “And if we tied?”
&n
bsp; “We get each other.”
“Give me another five minutes,” he said, “and then we can go back to our room and settle this.”
“A good place for negotiations,” Doreen agreed.
Once again, as he looked up at her, sitting beside him, he wondered just what he had done in life to deserve such beauty and happiness.
Finally, the trembling of his limbs subsiding, he slipped back into the water. She stood, let him get about ten metres back towards shore, then dived in, coming up next to him. Stroke for stroke, they slowly swam back to the shore, collected their things, and walked back to their hotel.
The message waited for them.
Sean read it, and swore.
“What is it?”
“Minda’s coming down. She wants us to go back up with her just before supper. That gives us only three more hours.”
Doreen sighed. “We were supposed to have six. Ah, well.” Then she grinned. “Flip a coin to see who won?”
He nodded, picked up a planetary coin off the dresser top, called heads, and flipped it. Neither of them bent to see how it landed, but moved to each other.
* * *
“Sorry,” Minda said, as the couple boarded her shuttle. “Clay figured we could save two fares by me taking you back up.” They came with her onto the flight deck after she had insured that all passengers had strapped in properly. Her co-pilot for the drop to planet would ride back up with the passengers and attendant.
“I want to warn you, things are a little tense on Blue Powder. Clay told me I could take you into our confidence.”
The two pilots took their seats and waited.
“Not espionage, then?” Sean asked.
“No. Sabotage.” Minda saw the shocked looks come to their faces. “Someone replaced the couplers on the field generators on Starfield with worn ones that would fail on prep for jump. Brian’s engineer figures that they had a 90% chance of failing as they ramped up to jump, almost a 10% chance of achieving jump, but there remained a slight possibility that they would fail during the moment of jump itself.”
She had never had, she suspected, a more attentive audience. “You took back to Haida Gwaii word of that, so Jenna can do what Jenna does best.”
Doreen nodded. “And no one must know. If anyone suspected that this might happen on any Yrden ship, they wouldn’t want to get on it.”
“Or ship goods on it,” Minda completed for her. “We’re telling you because we feel the two of you are absolutely trustworthy – and won’t repeat this to anyone. Also, we want someone – not Family and not Security – to become friendly with one of the passengers in particular.”
“Spy and counter-spy?” asked Sean.
“Precisely. Your target is Mary Pendleton. She doesn’t seem to like the Yrdens, yet bought a one-year open ticket. You can play it however you want. If you want to be disaffected pilots, that’s fine. Just tell us, and we’ll treat you as such.”
She began the checklist, and no one said anything until after they launched.
“No,” Sean said. “I think we’ll do what we do best. We’ll be happy-go-lucky, nary-a-care-in-the-world pilots. Friendly, agreeable, and open.”
“Fair enough,” Minda agreed. “Blue Powder in twenty minutes. Ms Pendleton is on board the shuttle.” She passed Sean a reader. “That’s everything we’ve been able to dig up on her.”
For the next twenty minutes, the two studied the file. Minda brought the ship into Blue Powder with them still perusing the document.
“So, does anyone have any idea as to how we should approach this Ms Pendleton?” Sean asked. “And why us?”
“We’re going to hold the obligatory emergency drill upon leaving the station. You two will go to the Catastrophe Core with the passengers, as the senior crew.”
McTavish smiled. “Well, that, at least will get us out of doing hot and sweaty stuff, like fighting fires or plugging holes in the hull.”
Minda nodded, concentrating on bringing the shuttle down to standby, and from there to rest.
“As to why you: you’re not Family. And you’re not Security. Also, she’s taken a fancy to Mr Telford, and we’d like to free him up from her surveillance a little.”
“Telford?” Sean shook his head, then glanced at the board. “All shut down. We can debark the passengers now. That will give us a look at our target. But Telford?”
“He is kind of handsome in a rugged way,” Doreen suggested.
“You’re joking!”
“No,” Minda answered for her. “No, she’s not. I think our Mr Telford could break a few hearts if he put himself out a bit.”
Sean didn’t look like he believed it. “We’re talking about the same man, right? Adrian?”
Minda and Doreen laughed. Then the two not-Family pilots went out to help the attendant escort the passengers out of the shuttle and back to the ship, proper. They both took a close look at Mary Pendleton as she got off.
“Enjoy Manila City?” Sean asked her, smile on his face.
“Very nice,” she replied, but barely even glanced at him.
* * *
“All passengers and non-essential crew: please make your way quickly and quietly to the Catastrophe Core.”
The announcement repeated.
And, as a putative passenger, that meant him, too, Telford thought. He’d rather occupy himself with Security matters, but Clay’s decision to put him in with the paying customers had made that impossible. He gathered up his reader, and joined the line of passengers walking towards the safest part of the ship.
He frowned inwardly as he saw Mary Pendleton waiting, watching the other passengers go by. When he reached her, she joined the line.
“So, Mr Telford, we go once again to allow the captain to play his little games.”
Telford bristled. “This is no game, Ms Pendleton,” he snapped, allowing his anger to show itself. Pendleton had just offered him an out, and he intended to take it. “Haven’t you read the files on Ship’s Regs as pertaining to passengers?”
Her eyes widened at his tone. Then she glared at him. “I read all I needed to read.”
He sneered. “Then you didn’t read the appended files, the case histories where they show some of the things that have happened to ships during the last few centuries.” He had read them, and some made the hair on his neck stand up. They began to file into the Catastrophe Core. Just before he turned to get away from her, he gave one last shot that should make her resent him to the point that she wouldn’t want to be near him. And if she continued, that could only mean one thing – or maybe two.
“I certainly hope nothing happens on this trip, Ms Pendleton. I certainly do.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Why? Don’t you trust the crew?”
He put a look of disgust on his face. “Because one or more of the crew will likely have to risk their lives to save yours, as you so lightly regard their safety and your own. And they would do it – even though it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”
He just managed to catch the outrage in her eyes before he stalked off, taking a seat at the very back of the Core, next to the bulkhead where the children wouldn’t likely come. He feared that one of them might come up to him, knowing him from the crew deck.
It seemed an unlikely thing, for he did not mix much with the crew and their families, and children didn’t much take to him, either. But it could not be discounted. The Yrdens had already instructed the older ones to leave him strictly alone, but you couldn’t do that with youngsters – they might even come right up to him to ask him why.
“Welcome to the Catastrophe Core,” he heard Sean Williams say. “For those of you who haven’t travelled with us before, we’d like you all to strap in at this time. We will help the newcomers. You older hands already know what to do.”
And he and McTavish went around to ensure that all had strapped in properly. Other crew or their family members also aided in the endeavour.
“Very good time,” Williams said, glancing at the chrono
. “We thank you all.” He turned to the comm and reported in. “Catastrophe Core, Captain. All present, all strapped in. Waiting for instructions.”
He listened, then turned to the passengers.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, passengers and crew. We will remain here for one hour, while the crew practices other drills. Then we will return to our rooms. Ten minutes later, we will have an Abandon Ship exercise. Feel free to unstrap and move around. Ms McTavish and I will point out the various amenities of the Catastrophe Core, and will remain available for any questions you may have about this exercise or anything else that may come up. Feel free to approach us or any other crewmember present.”
Telford buried his nose in his reader, or at least appeared to do so. But he watched Ms Pendleton as she unstrapped and made her way forward to talk with Williams. Telford hoped that the pilot would impress her enough that she would lose her fixation on him. He hoped that Minda had alerted Williams and McTavish to the plan.
Williams smiled and began a conversation. Telford pretended to concentrate on his reader, but saw Pendleton indicate him twice. McTavish joined the conversation – too far away for him to hear – and the three began an animated discussion. It appeared that Minda had done her job.
When the hour had nearly passed, Telford rose and slipped forward to the front of the Core.
A chime sounded.
“All right, everyone,” Williams said, releasing the door. “Back to your cabins, and prepare for the Abandon Ship drill.”
He slipped out before Pendleton could buttonhole him, and walked swiftly away, taking the stairs up to the crew deck as soon as no one could see him do so. He would return to his quarters after talking to Pelburn. Fortunately, he had the foresight to get himself and Pendleton assigned to different lifeboats.
* * *
“Anything new to report?” Telford asked. The two pilots had joined him and Pelburn in Security.
“The late Mr Pendleton shipped mostly with the Nakamura family,” Pelburn said, reading from his screen. “We might possibly have given one of his competitors an edge about four years ago. Our ship arrived at Liberty ahead of the Nakamura one. Other than that, we’ve come up with nothing.”
One Trade Too Many Page 7