“And your sisters and the rest they’d watch me like a hawk the whole time I was here, wouldn’t they?”
“You’d be safer,” Calvin replied. “And maybe you’d find you liked the company of some girls roughly your own age.”
Katie looked around at the park’s play structures and grass like she found them fascinating. “Maybe, but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable hanging out with people who think maybe I’m a liar.”
“I don’t think you’re a liar,” Calvin said. “And my family, even thinking I’ve a crush on you, they trust my judgment. They’re giving you at least the benefit of the doubt. Not everybody is against you. Also, I think the truth will come out in time. You only have to be patient and wait.”
“Maybe it will. I’m not sure. Only I don’t have much time if I’m to get into the Academy.”
“Katie, I’m crazy for you. You know that. I want the best for you. Not sure what that is, though. Maybe it’s not going to the Academy. You should give it some thought.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t feel the same way,” Katie replied. She wrung her hands and contemplated them. Looking for Calvin didn’t know what.
“I know that. It’s okay,” Calvin said.
“Is it? I don’t know,” Katie replied. “Anyhow, I’m not perfect. Boy, do I know that. Only this whole mess, it’s not my fault. Someone is out to get me. It’s not just something I’ve stumbled into, I think. It feels personal. Someone hates me. What have I done to make someone hate me? Who could it be? Why?”
“You think that sounds crazy, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but Calvin, I know you won’t think so,” Kate said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Billy is the only person I know that has a real hate on for you. Everyone else is only reacting to bad things they’ve heard second hand. By the way, did you hear the news about Billy and his buddies?”
“Not sure. What is it?” Katie answered. “Also, why do I think it can’t be anything good?”
“I don’t know. They all got jobs. Honest work down in the warehouse district. Courtesy of his dad, of course.”
“Guess with Chief Dingle and the Commander distracted, Mr. Boucher figured nobody take much notice,” Katie said with disgust. “Billy was bragging about it at lunch. Took great pleasure in grinding it in. Important to have the right parents.”
“Yeah.”
“You know, it makes sense in a way, but it’s also odd,” Katie mused. “Not just Billy, but all his shiftless buddies, too?”
“He said it was more for added security, but also has them doing odd stevedore jobs too.”
“It smells. Might bear some looking into. Thanks.”
Katie’s sudden enthusiasm rang alarm bells in Calvin’s gut. “Katie, you don’t need to go provoking Billy more.”
“I promise I’ll try to avoid Billy.”
“You don’t need to stir up more trouble.”
Katie jumped up. She hugged him. “Don’t worry,” she said, and ran off.
Damn. It was nice she was happy. Nice, she was happy with him.
Only backing off and keeping a low profile didn’t seem to be on her agenda.
Calvin hoped she’d be careful.
* * *
Sam was working on a docking grapple, waiting for Katie to appear.
Katie had called during breakfast this morning full of a large fraction of her normal vibrancy. Looked like she’d gone from scary, semi-suicidal funk yesterday morning to having blood in her eye. Sam knew she’d talked to her parents, and that that had not gone that well. Details uncertain, but even Dave, and especially Allie, Kincaid had their limits. Katie was close to finding that out.
Apparently, she’d been talking to Calvin Cromwell, too. Sam wondered how the boy’s parents felt about that. Somehow that’d got her even more fired up. Odd because though he didn’t doubt the boy’s courage he was a cautious soul. Calvin had a comfortable place in life. Lots to lose and not much worth taking risks for.
Sam doubted Katie appreciated that. He doubted Calvin realized how much Katie had to keep moving forward on the other hand. They were good kids. It was sad to see them at such loggerheads. Calvin would never understand how Katie had to leave. To take a progression of risks to achieve her goals. Katie didn’t see how Calvin could potentially provide the base for the leaps of faith she’d be making. How he could be the port in the storms she’d be bound to be facing.
They were both too young. Too young and destined to part ways as far as he could see. To get truly maudlin, he could see them both looking back twenty years from now and feeling regrets over what could have been.
Enough of that.
He had a docking grapple that needed some focus before Katie appeared and distracted him.
It’d been abused. A pilot got to acting like a hot shot, came in too quick, messed up, but managed to correct. Mostly. Engaged with too much force along not quite the right vectors and all of a sudden the docking mechanism needs some looking at.
Thank the gods of commerce for operators who thought it was cool to abuse their gear. It went a long way to keeping Sam in business and profitable.
Of course, he wasn’t just using his Mark I eyeball. The damage wasn’t likely to be so gross as to be visible to even his expert eye. Sam had the thing mounted on his measuring and scanning table.
The specialized lidar it had would check the dimensions of the grapple down to the nanometer. That’d pick up any subtle distortions.
Sam stepped back and triggered the descent of a seriously heavy shielding bell over the piece of docking machinery. The hard radiation it took to analyze the state of the metallic objects’ insides was nothing you wanted to be exposed to, even if you weren’t planning on having children.
Kate came just as he was in the process of checking the shielding. He waved her to silence, and back to the farthest corner of the shop. The inverse square law is your friend.
When he was done and the scan finished, he turned to Katie who’d been waiting quietly and nodded. “Sorry about that, I thought I’d be done before you arrived.”
“It’s okay,” Katie replied. “I think I was a little early.”
“Something you’re eager to discuss?”
“Yeah, you know I was really depressed because I thought the world was out to get me. I couldn’t figure out why. None of it made sense. Usually I’m good at making sense of things. I guess it scared me I couldn’t.”
“It happens to all of us,” Sam replied. His goal her was to keep her from either panicking and running off and doing something self destructive. Or getting cocky and running off and doing something self destructive. Get her to stay in the nice safe moderate middle. “Thing is not to panic. Not to freeze either, act if it’s necessary, but don’t go off and make things worse. You see?”
Katie scrunched up her face. “I understood all your words and some of how they went together,” she said, grinning.
Sam sighed. “Look at this grapple. Why do you think it’s in my shop?”
“Some would be hotshot jammed it in too fast at the wrong angle?”
“Bingo!” Sam said. “Don’t be that hotshot.”
“You know, Sam,” Katie said. “Some of your metaphors are a bit thin.”
“Not so,” Sam said. “You simply haven’t matured enough to appreciate them.”
Katie grinned again. It was good to see her back in some semblance of her normal spirits. “Calvin pointed out something interesting last night,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, this whole thing has felt strangely personal from the beginning,” Katie replied. “And weirdly close, too. I mean if I only accidentally got too near something sensitive and someone overreacted because of my reputation for, ah, curiosity then wouldn’t the cold blooded sensible thing to do be backing off and letting me go off to where I wouldn’t be a problem?”
“Say again, girl?”
“Too many coincidences. Too much over reaction. I figure e
ven if I don’t know it, I’ve got to be close to something big to merit such a strong reaction.”
“The smuggling accusation wasn’t a little misunderstanding,” Sam said.
“Yeah, but I think somebody set me, and the crew of the Sand Piper for that matter, up to look bad,” Katie said.
“That makes sense to me,” Sam said, “because I believe you when you say that you saw smuggling. Anyone else might think you’re spinning paranoid fantasies.”
“Take the smuggling as a given,” Katie said.
That she didn’t react to the idea a lot of people were beginning to think she was a paranoid nut told Sam she was intensely focused on a particular train of thought. It could be penetrating that focus of hers. It also left her open to being sideswiped. It worried Sam. “Okay,” he said.
“The crew of the Sand Piper were amateurs,” she said. “They’re not running this scam. So someone else is. That someone else tipped them off that I was going to report them.”
“Plausible, maybe true so far,” Sam allowed.
“So, that someone didn’t have to mousetrap me,” Katie asserted. “They knew ahead of time I was slotted to go on the patrol or Captain Anderson wouldn’t have tried to disqualify me at the risk of annoying Commander Tretyak. Sensible thing would have been to cancel the transfer this time. Failing that, they could have warned the crew to be far more careful. Finally, failing that, they could have squished the message to the Commander so there was no way he could do an inspection in enough time. They didn’t. They made sure to cause me the maximum embarrassment.”
“Sounds paranoid to me,” Sam said. He smiled as he said it.
“For some reason getting me disgraced and out of the picture was worth extra attention and complication,” Katie said. “Why was the extra risk worth it? Because I was already a significant threat without being aware of it is the only explanation. Questions are how? And to who?”
“Let me guess poor old Calvin gave you a clue.”
“Yep, Billy Boucher.”
“I’ve never heard much good about Billy,” Sam replied. “I’ve never heard he’s too smart, good at planning, or even very cunning. I don’t think Billy Boucher is running a smuggling operation.”
Katie put her hands on her hips and gave Sam a stern look. She knew he was being deliberately obtuse. “Not Billy,” she said. “His dad, Guy. The head of logistics. I mean to some not naturally on the up and up it’s the perfect position for a little skimming and a nice side operation providing things not legal to people not entitled to them.”
“Could have just said stealing and smuggling,” Sam observed.
“I got into a bad scrap with Billy,” Katie said. “He’s not the sort to let that go, but Guy had to think any formal light thrown onto Billy had to risk spilling over on to him and whatever he’s been up to, right?”
“Allow all your other suggestions and it adds up after a fashion,” Sam admitted. It was circumstantial and even if Guy was guilty as charged, he was a leading light on Ceres and wouldn’t go down without a fight. Sam didn’t like this train of thought.
“He’s given Billy, and all his friends too, jobs down in the warehouses,” Katie said. “He doesn’t seem to like loose ends.”
Sam didn’t like that thought at all. “If you think you’re one of those loose ends, it behooves you to be careful young lady,” he said. “Get a room with the Cromwells or get back on the Dawn Threader and stay there. Don’t remain vulnerable. Don’t stick your neck out anymore. If there’s anything to this tale of yours he’s waiting for you to give him a chance.”
Katie snorted. “I’m not soft or stupid.”
“Perhaps over confident at times,” Sam suggested. “Seriously, if you’ve provoked Guy, or someone of similar power, you’re outmatched. You need to watch yourself and not give them any openings. Understood?”
“I understand the reasoning,” Katie said. “You don’t think mine is outright crazy, do you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Sam said. “Though like I said, that’s because I’m willing to accept your version of the facts. Look if this is all true like you say it’s not going to stay hidden indefinitely. You just need to lie low and let it blow over. If Guy is a crook, I guarantee you he has a plan for leaving the table with his winnings.”
“Right,” Katie replied. “Aren’t you the one who likes to say ‘In desperate ground, fight!’”
Sam had no idea what she was planning. Not specifically. Could be she hadn’t figured it out herself yet. He could guess the nature of it. “Don’t throw away your future, the problem will solve itself,” he said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Katie said in a distracted tone, staring at the docking grapple without seeing it. “Only I’m a problem someone wants to solve. I can’t leave them the initiative. I have to solve them first.”
“You don’t have to fight this fight now at what must be bad odds. You don’t know your enemy, and I’m not sure how well you know yourself, you’re riding for a fall, Katie. Defense is stronger than attack. Give it time. In the long term this’ll sort itself out.”
“You have to get through the short term for the long term to matter,” Katie observed. “Anyhow thanks for listening me out.”
“I hope you listened to everything I said.”
“Of course, Sam,” Katie said, waving good bye as she left.
* * *
Katie felt new. Her whole world did. Nastier and more complicated than it had been before, but clearer and sharper in its outlines. It made some sense again. Katie might not like the sense it made, but the pieces made a coherent picture once more.
Katie hadn’t had any clear idea of where she was going when she’d left Sam’s shop. As she strode down the corridors of the ship chandling gravity ring where the many support businesses required by the Belt’s fleet of mining rigs and transports mainly resided she realized she’d better think about what he’d said.
She felt of a twinge of fear. Sam was no worrywart.
If he believed she was under threat and needed to watch her back, then she needed to do just that.
Katie needed to find a place nobody would expect her to be, where she’d not be noted, but it’d be hard for attackers to isolate her, and act if they did find her.
Without thinking she’d been walking towards the docks. The docks were a familiar and favorite haunt of hers. She switched directions. She’d try the admin rings. Katie had rarely been there before with the major exception of her visits to the Commander. It had several areas open to the general public including the records office. She’d spend the day in the records office.
There might be information she could use there. At the very least, it was a place nobody would expect to see her, and she could make plans in peace.
Katie would take a not obvious route there and see if she could lose anyone who might be tracking her at the same time. She found a noisy crew of miners who having finished their official business were looking to start a little recreational drinking prior to lunch. After months of being guarded and consistently responsible a little limited irresponsibility could be an addictive drug.
Katie didn’t understand the feeling herself. She’d had ample opportunity to observe the fact of its existence though. A fact that might have caused her parents some concern if they’d been aware of it. They’d not ever spent much time on Ceres. They’d not paid that much attention to the people around them during their limited time on the rock either.
In any event, the miners didn’t pay much attention when Katie inserted herself on the edge of their group and followed them down the lifts into the tunnels.
Katie flitted down a side tunnel when nobody was looking and out of the view of what few security cameras there were.
She’d move patiently through side and mainly maintenance tunnels stopping frequently to listen for the presence of any other people.
Katie had had time to think. So she now had some idea of what was going on. It was scary, but it gave her something to work w
ith.
Katie had decided on a course for her life that was bound to put her into scary situations over and over again. She wasn’t going to let that stop her now when she was facing her first major obstacle.
She’d almost doubted her own sanity when the idea occurred to her that the reason for the attack on her on the processing line was because of her fight with Billy. That it had been connected to the rumors Calvin had told her had been spreading before her success Miss Ping had seemed just as far fetched.
That it explained just how disastrously her reporting of smuggling on the Sand Piper had gone appeared like the workings of a mind eager to displace responsibility even to her.
Only, if she trusted in herself it all fit together.
Guy Boucher was head of logistics on Ceres. People did some ordering and moving about of products on their own, but for most of the movements of things on and off of Ceres, people were happy to let Guy and his people handle the nitty-gritty details.
It was a position of some trust and opportunity. Opportunity to abuse that trust and skim a bit more off the top of transactions than formally agreed to. Also to a really ambitious crook the smuggling of illegal goods promised much higher profits. Evidently Guy had failed to resist those temptations or never tried.
But even crooks have their soft spots. To Katie it looked like Billy was Guy’s soft spot. If he’d had a properly pragmatic understanding of his son, the boy would have never been allowed to become the arrogant bully that he was.
Guy was lucky Billy hadn’t brought him unfavorable attention earlier. Katie guessed he had some awareness of that fact, and had overreacted to the fact that a formal investigation of Billy’s bad behavior might ooze over on to his own activities. Billy might not be overly observant, but no doubt he knew things Guy didn’t need spread around. Things that Billy wouldn’t have the good sense to keep to himself if questioned closely.
Katie suspected the loyalty between father and son went one way. In his heart of hearts, she suspected Guy knew that too.
Katie Kincaid Candidate: Katie Kincaid One Page 18
