The Snows of Montora (The Chronicles of Montora Book 3)

by Ward Wagher

  “Found a building to rent,” Smith said. “Not large, but give you a chance to hang out your shingle.”

  “I remain to be convinced.”

  “Relax, Skipper. Have Jonesey and I ever let you down?”

  “Really depends on how you define the term, Sarge.”

  “Well, stay tuned. I think you'll like this place.”

  “I don't know. Looks like a medium sized wave would swamp the whole town.”

  “It's been here a hundred years and hasn't happened yet.”

  “Yet.”

  Smith glanced over with a raised eyebrow as they walked. “If a tsunami doesn't get you, maybe a rock will fall out of the sky on you. Keep the faith, Skip.”

  “Sorry, Cedric. I know I haven't been a lot of fun lately.”

  “Skipper, you've never been fun. I just hate to see you tearing yourself apart like this.”

  “Thanks... I think. There's Jones.” Probably a good time to change the subject anyway. I might just sit down on the boardwalk and start crying. If that happened, I don't think I would be able to stop.

  The other half of the Smith&Jones pair waited for them at the intersection of a couple of canals. Without a word, Jones turned and walked up the intersecting boardwalk. As they walked Frank looked into the water.

  “There are some big fish, or whatever, in there,” he commented as he watched some large shadows moving under the surface.

  A large torpedo shaped creature surged out of the water next to where Frank stopped to watch. An open mouth revealed a double row of teeth. Behind the mouth was an eye which reflected alien intelligence.

  “Ho-ho-holy cow, what is that thing?” Frank yelled as he danced out of the way. He vaguely heard laughter erupt from the people who happened to be outside.

  Smith grabbed his arm to steady him. “That's a Dimaton, Skipper. And you can relax, they don't eat humans.”

  “I thought I was dinner for a moment. What was it doing?”

  “Believe it or not, as I am told, they love to slip up and startle humans. As far as anyone knows, they've never eaten anybody.”

  Frank stood waiting for his pulse to slow down again. “So you're saying they're smart enough to have a sense of humor, such as it is?”

  “That's what it seems like, Skipper.”

  “I'm not sure I like something the size of a whale pulling pranks on me.” He looked over at Jones, who was smiling broadly. “And you wipe that grin off your face. We can throw you in and test the theory that they've never eaten anybody.”

  A tall overweight woman strode over to where the three men stood. “You must be Frank Nyman.”

  “Correct, and you would be?”

  “I'm Lorna Snow, the property manager. I've been expecting you. I have the building unlocked.”

  “I nearly didn't make it,” Frank said, nodding towards that water.

  “Oh, that was Charlie. You can tell by the long scar above his mouth. He's actually quite friendly if he likes you.”

  “What if he doesn't like you?” Frank asked.

  “Then you never see him. The Dimatae seem to pick out individual humans and befriend them in their fashion.”

  “Do they communicate?” Frank asked.

  “No. Charlie likes you, so he will probably hang around when you're here. It seems like they sense your emotions or something.”

  “Yeah, I could be dinner!”

  Lorna laughed. “No, Mr. Nyman, that has never happened. They actually go out of their way not to threaten or injure a human.”

  “Other than scaring the bejeebers out of them.”

  “Well, there is that. The consensus is that's how they have fun.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Okay, I guess we've had our lecture on the animal kingdom for today. What do you have to show me?”

  Smith gave Frank a warning look, but Snow jumped right in.

  “What we have is a small two story office complex. You have two offices, a reception and a fresher downstairs and an office and a conference room upstairs.”

  Frank stopped outside of the building, and looked at it carefully. “This thing looks taller than it is wide.”

  “It's not really,” Snow said. “But it is rather narrow.”

  “This whole place looks like a fishing village.” Frank said.

  “That was intentional. The idea was to build something picturesque and maybe generate some Centaurans from the tourists. There's no fishing though – the aquatic life is poisonous to humans.”

  Frank dipped his head and turned it to look at the property manager. “Poisonous?”

  “Well, not really poisonous, but rather it generates something like an allergic reaction in humans that is uniformly fatal. And the legend says that the meat is vile anyway.”

  “I guess I won't open a window and drop a hook into the water, then,” Frank said.

  Lorna tittered. “That's very funny, Mr. Nyman.”

  Frank shrugged. “Let's take a look inside.”

  “Certainly, Sir.”

  Frank and Smith followed her inside the building. Jones remained outside.

  “It's very clean,” Frank said.

  He walked through and opened doors, looking into the offices and the fresher. “Good shape too. Now this is built on piers in the water?”

  “Correct. The bedrock is only one-hundred feet down. It gives a solid set of footings for the buildings.”

  “Interesting. So there's water underneath?”

  “Swamp. Kind of mushy,” she said. “It's too thick to swim under and not stable enough to dig through..”

  “How do the canals stay open?”

  “We really don't know,” she said. “Some people theorize that the Dimatae keep the waterways open.”

  “When they're not causing heart attacks, I guess,” Frank said.

  Lorna tittered again. “That's funny, Mr. Nyman.”

  Maybe if you can discipline yourself to keep your mouth shut, Nyman, you won't have to hear that idiotic laugh of hers.

  They spent fifteen minutes looking over the offices and stopped in the reception area on the first floor.

  “Okay, how much?” Frank asked.

  “Nine-hundred Centaurans per month.”

  Frank tipped his head back and forth. “That's fair. How much to buy outright?”

  “Oh, the property is not for sale. The city holds the title on the buildings here in the lower city,” she said. “The ground is too mushy to properly survey and mark boundaries, so it's easier for the city just to hold title on the whole area and lease the buildings. Are you interested in buying something? There are some interesting properties in the city proper.”

  “Eventually,” Frank said. “Right now I just need to get operational. What do I need to go through to sign the lease?”

  “I have it here with me on my porta-comp. All you need to do is thumb-print it, and give me the credit chit for the first month's rent.”

  Frank looked over at Smith. “Any problems you see, Smith?”

  “Looks good to me, Skipper.”

  He turned to Snow. “Okay, let's set it up. I don't want to spend a couple weeks messing around with this.”

  “Very good, Sir.” She pulled out the porta-comp. “Would you like to review the lease?”

  Fifteen minutes later, Frank Nyman was the proud holder of the corporate offices for Nyman Trans-Space.

  § § §

  Frank ordered another room service dinner. Smith & Jones were out sneaking and peeking, or whatever they did. He had his plate on the small desk in the hotel suite with his porta-comp open next to it. There were no incoming messages since nothing else had entered orbit since his arrival. He was in a hurry, though, to complete a group of messages before the Ambrosia pulled out.

  Communications between star systems was problematical and would always be that way. The design of the interstellar data network dated back to the dawn of human space travel. Within planetary systems data crawled at light speed via laser, maser or old fashioned radi
o waves. But no practical method of communication between the stars had been devised, other than having it bundled and carried on starships.

  Through a complex set of algorithms a starship would receive a dump of a planetary datanet to carry to the next stop. Upon arrival at the next star system, the ship's computers would dump data to the destination planet's network. The information would be synchronized with the host planet's systems. Because the paths of the starships were unpredictable, the synchronizer would have to match multiple versions of data from various locations. Although transport was slow, it otherwise worked amazingly well.

  Frank posted a message to Charles Schubach, the master of the Forsythia, which was Frank's single starship. He dropped a note to his son Franklin, who was on Hepplewhite. He sent a note to Colonel Putin of the Baltic Brigade proposing to place Smith & Jones on the Nyman Trans-Space payroll. He had received a couple of invoices from the Colonel for services rendered and the overhead was astronomical. Putin was a friend, but that didn't prevent him from charging Frank whatever the traffic would bear.

  Frank also sent a message to Admiral Willard Krause letting him know that he was open for business in Gustav on New Stockholm. There were notes to several bankers giving them permission to open correspondent relationships with the local banking houses. He finished his last bite of an uninspired beef Stroganoff as he sent off the last message.

  Smith stepped in the door to the room. “How was the dinner, Skipper?”

  “We're going to have to find a better restaurant or a cook, Sarge.”

  “That bad?”

  “It wasn't as good as yesterday’s dinner. It'll hold me till breakfast, though.”

  Smith walked across the room and slouched into the sofa. “More info on the town, Boss.”

  Frank slid his tongue around his teeth, trying to clean off the gunk from the meal. “Do tell.”

  “As we found out, there are two factions on planet. I guess you could call them criminal. The relationship is uneasy and everyone expects warfare to break out.”

  “That's all we need,” Frank said. “I wish we would've had time to do a little more research before we came out here.”

  “Everything else is worse, Skipper, except for maybe Caledon.”

  “Caledon would have been the better choice, except it's so far out. This location isn't great, but Krause didn't want me too close to Earth,” Frank said.

  “We're definitely not that,” Smith laughed. “How long before we see your ship here?”

  “Forsythia comes through maybe twice a year. Figure three or four months. Plenty of time for us to get set up.”

  “Jones is scouting out places to buy furniture and equipment for the office.”

  “Good. We can take care of that tomorrow. And as soon as we get the office set up, I want to find a place to live. I hate living out of a suitcase.”

  “Any preferences?”

  “Someplace quiet, discreet, defensible,” Frank said.

  “Okay,” Smith replied. “Although we don't quite know yet what we're going to have to defend against.”

  “I'm sure we'll figure it out in due time.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “So, Skipper, tell me once again what we are doing here,” Smith said.

  He and Frank were sitting in a waterfront restaurant appropriately named Mudcat's. Frank had just finished working his way through a Terran Lobster. The remains of Smith's ribeye and baked potato were on his side of the table.

  “Running the company,” Frank said without hesitation.

  “You can tell me I'm being stupid,” Smith said, “but we have an office where you drink a cup of coffee each morning. I'm then taking you all around town, but I don't see much business going on.”

  Frank grinned. I really shouldn't pull his chain like this, but it's fun. “Has Jones found a groundcar yet?”

  “Nothing he's happy with.”

  “So we're not completely set up then.”

  “Okay, we got the office, we got the furniture. We're looking for a groundcar. Then what will you throw at me?”

  “I think things are going very well, Cedric,” Frank said. This really is fun.

  “Uh huh. You're not somebody I would expect to retire at age fifty.”

  “I'm not retired.”

  “Come on, Skipper, drop the other shoe.”

  “I'm waiting, Cedric. Meanwhile, I want to get our ducks in a row here on New Stockholm. We need to find transportation and then a place to live. I really am getting tired of living in a hotel.”

  “Waiting for what, Sir? With all due respect, the business is not just going to land in your lap.”

  “Okay, Cedric, I'll stop playing head games with you. I'm waiting on a delivery,” Frank said. “Willard Krause promised me he would steer some business my way. He basically told me to sit here and stay out of trouble.”

  Smith tilted his head. “Just off hand, Skipper, isn't this a bit of a long shot? We are talking about Weak Willard, after all.”

  Frank snorted. “It's been a while since I've heard him called that. And it's probably not fair.”

  “Right. I've heard the speech about preserving civilization, and I know you have, too. He uses it as an excuse to pull down his pants and drop a load all over his friends whenever the urge strikes.”

  Frank shook his head. “No, Cedric, he really is trying to hold things together. Between him and Carlo Roma, they have a tough job.” I really don't know why I'm defending the old fart.

  “Do you really believe that, Skipper?”

  “Well, I did end up with a whole lot of swampland on Hepplewhite.”

  Smith laughed loudly. “Tell me you're smarter than that, Skipper.”

  “I'm not. I mean, look at what happened on Hepplewhite. I let a bad situation get worse and ended up losing everything I valued.” And how I miss her too!

  “Are you sleeping, Skipper?”

  What business is it of his? Frank shrugged. “Just hang on a bit, Cedric. If Krause doesn't deliver, then I'll start shaking the trees.”

  § § §

  “We can offer advantageous shipping rates from Sarah's Star to most places inward.” Frank said.

  He was sitting in the office of the owner of Borgia Press. The owner, Frank Borgia, leaned back in his chair and gazed at Frank.

  “It is so interesting to deal with someone of the same name. Almost like looking in a mirror, but not quite. I manufacture ink-on-paper folio books. Nobody on the inner worlds does this anymore, so I can make a tidy living from it. But I don't have enough volume to justify using your starship.”

  Frank smiled. “Oh, I'll accept LTL. I like lining up extra cargo to fill the odd spaces in the hold. What kind of volume do you ship?”

  “Usually a half dozen pallets; rarely more. As I said, we're not a volume operation. Just me and the boy.”

  “What about your raw materials, Mr. Borgia? Personally I don't want to call you Frank.” Frank asked.

  Borgia chuckled. “I understand. I need to invite you to dinner. We could have some real fun with the waiter as we were being frank with each other.”

  Frank rolled his eyes and shook his head. “This day is really going down hill.”

  “As you asked, I import my paper from Caledon. They're trying to get a small industry going there, and it's much less expensive than hauling it all the way from Sol.”

  “That makes sense,” Frank said. “Forsythia makes the occasional stop in the Cardiff system. Since she'll be coming this way, we might be able to help each other out a bit.”

  Borgia chewed on the end of a stylus and pushed reports around the screen built into the top of his desk. “Let's see here. What are your rates from here to Sol?”

  “I'm at five hundred Centaurans system to system. Lightering is not included,” Frank said.

  Borgia looked up with raised eyebrows. “Per ton?”

  Frank nodded. “Right. That a problem?”

  “It's low. I wondered if we were on the same page.”
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  “You have dense merchandise, Mr. Borgia. The cubage is relatively low. Once I have it aboard, it's not expensive to drag about. Most shippers will nail you on the lightering. I've decided to stay out of that business. I suspect it will make the locals happier anyway.”

  “You got that right. This is a quiet planet and town, but there are some real scum around here.”

  “I've wondered.”

  “Yes, well, give me a tinkle when your ship arrives. I'll pull together a shipment and give you a try. We need some competition here, anyway.”

  Frank walked from the building to the groundcar which Jones had recently procured. The elderly Dancer was in fine condition and supremely comfortable. It wasn't a limousine, but the sedan looked like a businessman's car and wasn't expensive.

  Jones had waited in the outer office and then made sure he held the car door for Frank. Once behind the wheel, he drove away with deceptive smoothness.

  “Let me thank you once again for finding this magnificent vehicle, Jones.”

  “No prob, Skip.”

  “I don't care what Smith says about you, you are a first class scrounger.”

  Jones nodded in acknowledgement. He never spoke unless words were absolutely required.

  “We will probably need a second vehicle eventually. Any progress on finding a house?” Frank asked.

  “Couple things workin',” he grunted. “Keep you posted.”

  “Great. While you're at it, if you encounter anyone who would make a good housekeeper, let me know. I'm sure you and Smith are getting tired of eating out.”

  Jones tilted his head and shrugged as the car eased along the streets in the industrial park. Frank looked at his tablet, and reviewed the day's appointments. They had covered four businesses that morning and received commitments from three.

  “How about lunch, Jones?”

  “Preference, Skipper?”

  “Surprise me.”

  Once they had acquired the ground car, Jones had appointed himself the driver. Smith was now visiting government offices to make sure Frank wasn't violating any local ordinances with his business. In several days of travels, Jones never consulted a map or navigation unit. His early explorations of Gustav had set him in good stead.