To Fire Called (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 2)

by Nathan Lowell

  Dan waved me forward and we went through a door in the back wall of the shop. “Hon? You’ve got some customers.”

  A slender woman looked up from a bench and smiled. “Welcome. How can I help you?”

  Dan said, “I’ll just get those carpets taken down and get the installation order in. Is this afternoon acceptable?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  He smiled and left.

  The woman stuck out a hand. “Kadi.”

  I shook her hand, her strength surprised me. “Ishmael. This is Al and Pip. I’m looking for something to put on my bare walls. Some fiber art. You came recommended.”

  She beamed. “Thanks. Do you have any idea what you want?”

  “Not precisely. Something colorful, like a Frenchette, maybe? I’m open to anything with more structure to it.”

  Her eyebrows went up and she chuckled. “Well, if you know William Frenchette you’re already ahead of most of my customers.” She hmmed and looked at the deck. “Let’s go see if anything I have appeals to you.”

  She walked even farther back and around a corner. The other side looked like a giant spider had exploded, festooning the walls with tangles of silk. Some were plain nets studded with beads. Others looked like they might have been knitted. One piece in a navy blue had a masklike quality to it that drew me. Clever knots formed the base while more cords formed the outline of eyes and a mouth, even a peaked nose running down the middle.

  “What do you see?” Kadi asked.

  “A face,” I said.

  “What expression?”

  I stepped back and blinked several times, trying to get a feel for what kind of expression I saw. “I can’t tell. I know there is one. I thought surprise at first but now it seems more like delight.”

  “The blue one? It looks a little uneasy to me,” Al said. “Like it’s not quite sure how it feels.”

  Kadi looked at Al with a kind of surprised expression of her own. “Really?”

  Al shrugged and shifted her bag of art supplies to the other hand.

  Kadi looked at Pip. “Do you see a face?”

  Pip shook his head. “Not really. Maybe. The features are there but I don’t see any expression on them.”

  “Interesting.” She moved down the wall and found another masklike hanging. “How about this one?”

  White cords and tight knots formed the shape. “I see this one as being calm. Serene.”

  Al shook her head and offered no comment.

  Pip said, “No. I don’t see any expression in this one either.”

  “Are either of these to your liking?” Kadi asked, looking to me.

  “Both of them. I like this white cord. Do you have anything else bright like this?”

  We spent maybe half a stan rummaging around in Kadi’s closets, unearthing fascinating pieces of art. In the end, I had half a dozen works lined up on her table when we left: a pair of long, narrow, knotwork panels in some natural fiber; a stylized sun sculpted from a smooth, synthetic, yellow cordage; and three of the masklike hangings—the blue and white ones we’d seen first and another one in blue.

  We settled up with Dan and Kadi and left the shop. “Shall we visit?” Al said, nodding to the striking shop across the passage.

  I shifted my grip on my purchases to get a better handle on them. It felt like they wanted to escape. “I’ve got as much as I can carry now,” I said.

  Pip shrugged and fiddled with his sketch pad. “I’m good.”

  “Let’s go back to the ship,” Al said. “I could go for a cup of coffee and a bit of a sit-down, myself.”

  I led the way back and our little parade marched silently all the way. I wasn’t sure about Pip or Al, but I know I had a lot to think about.

  Chapter 22

  Mel’s Place: 2375, May 11

  The carpet installation went off without a hitch. I was still adjusting to the change in acoustics the next morning when Pip stuck his head in. “Good, you’re here.”

  “I’m still marveling,” I said. “It even feels warmer, but I know the temperature hasn’t changed.”

  He picked his way across the carpet and plopped into the visitor’s chair. “I can’t believe I’m walking on that.” He shook his head. “The can’s locked in. They took care of it yesterday while you were decorating. How soon can we scoot?”

  “Tomorrow lets us even out the liberty schedule. The cycle begins again after that. What’s the priority?”

  He shook his head. “None. Just a straight-up transport job. We had to front a collateral payment equal to our payout, but it’s covered.”

  “How much was it?”

  “Two-fifty.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much of a payout.”

  “Two hundred fifty thousand credits.”

  My heart rate spiked. “Where’d we get that much?”

  “We did just get paid for the delivery here so our account isn’t exactly printed in red. Yet.”

  “Somehow I get the feeling this did not come as a surprise to you.”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t. We didn’t pay it, either. We bought cargo insurance to indemnify the shipper in case of loss. High Tortuga was happy to have us. It was a pretty small premium and lets us build up our rating with them.”

  “What is this collateral for?”

  “So we don’t sail off and sell the cargo on our own. If we do, we forfeit the collateral. It’s like a security deposit on an apartment.”

  “Wouldn’t we be ahead of the game if we did?”

  “Short term, yeah. Probably. Long term, we’d never get another contract.”

  “So, not the best strategy.”

  “Having the standing with High Tortuga reduces the amount of collateral we’ll need and reduces the insurance premiums we need to pay. It’s just part of doing business here.”

  Something flipped on a light in my head. “CPJCT didn’t bother with it because—in theory—you couldn’t just fly away without docking in a CPJCT port and getting caught with the stolen cargo.”

  “Yeah. Except that’s exactly what we did with the can coming here.”

  I felt my eyeballs bulging out of my head.

  “Relax. The cargo will never be reported stolen. When we dock there again, we’ll have another perfectly legit cargo. Just not the last one they saw us with.”

  I shook my head. “I’m having to trust you on this because it makes no sense to me.”

  “I know,” he said. “What do you want to do tonight? Another run at the Speakeasy?”

  “Al’s got the overnight watch. What’s the chief been doing all this time?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her to talk to since we docked.”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I haven’t seen her either.”

  “What’s to do here besides eat?” I asked.

  He looked at me with his head cocked to the side. “You thinking of a walk on the wild side or something?”

  “I was thinking music, theater, something like that?” I shrugged. “This place seems to have an active art scene. Does it include performing arts?”

  Pip frowned at me for several moments. “You want to find a concert.”

  “Or a play. Or even a club with live music.”

  Pip pulled out his tablet and started flipping screens. I did the same. It took a little searching but eventually I found a listing of coming attractions on the station net. “Fancy a play?” I asked.

  “A play?”

  “Starry Night Theatre Troupe presents ‘One Bad Act Spoils The Fish’ tonight at someplace we’d need a map to find.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “The play or the troupe?”

  “Either. Where’d you find that?”

  I flashed him the listing and we both started running through the offerings. I felt a certain level of astonishment at the sheer number of them.

  “Gallery opening?” Pip asked.

  “Doesn’t scratch the itch.”

  “Randy Robot’s Triple-X All-Nude Review?”
/>
  I raised an eyebrow at him across the desk.

  He shrugged. “Wasn’t sure what itch you were looking to scratch. Don’t blame me.”

  I spotted a small box ad. “Malty’s Falcon, Pub and Grub.”

  “Malty’s Falcon?”

  “Dunno. Beer is made with malt. Falcon is a bird.”

  “Beer is good.” Pip scrolled his screen. “There it is. They’re featuring a ‘Jazz Trio’ tonight. Whatever that is.”

  “I’m guessing it’s not a dance band with four-meter speakers and a bass line that jiggles our giblets.”

  Pip snorted. “Did you just say that?”

  “Don’t judge. Can we find this place?”

  Pip tapped his screen a few times and nodded. “It’s not that far away. Near one of the other docking galleries.”

  “Should we ask the chief and Ms. Fortuner if they want to join us?”

  “Would seem polite.” He tapped a few times. “Invites out.”

  “That settles this evening’s festivities,” I said.

  Pip nodded and holstered his tablet. “What do you want to do now?”

  “I want you to tell me what we’re doing here.”

  Pip stared at me for a couple of heartbeats. “I take it you want a more direct answer than an oral treatise on man’s existential purpose.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’m looking for a ship.”

  “Any particular ship?”

  “Yes, a very specific ship.”

  “Would you like to expand on that a bit?” I asked. “Or even just explain why you’re not telling me the full story?”

  “What do you know about the Manchester Mega?”

  “Nothing. What is it?”

  “It’s a ship. A big ship. Rumored to have a hauling capacity of nearly a thousand metric kilotons.”

  “Rumored.”

  “Rumored. I’ve never seen it but I have reason to believe that the Manchester Yards built a base out here in Toe-Hold space about twelve stanyers ago in order to build this beast.”

  “Are you looking for the ship or the base?”

  “Both.”

  “If they’d succeeded in building it, wouldn’t we have heard?”

  He bit his lower lip and glanced down at the rug. “We think they succeeded in building a prototype. We don’t know what happened to the prototype or where the base is.”

  “That’s a long time to hide a base, isn’t it?”

  Pip nodded. “It is. The only thing that travels faster than light is rumor. There might be nothing to it.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

  “About ten stanyers ago Manchester seeded some spare parts for the Mega to the chandlery at Siren. That was a couple of stanyers after the ship was reputed to be ready for trials. TIC discovered it when they busted a smuggling ring or something. I never got the full story.”

  “Seems rather an odd way to ship parts to a clandestine yard to service a ship nobody had ever seen,” I said.

  “Yeah. Which is why TIC has been trying to find out how much of the story is rumor and how much is true.”

  “Can’t they just lean on Manchester?”

  Pip turned his gaze on me and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Why not?”

  “Trade secrets. The ship is demonstrably not in a CPJCT port. CPJCT has no jurisdiction over it, wherever it might be.” He paused.

  “Because if it’s in Toe-Hold space, TIC has no jurisdiction.”

  Pip nodded and smiled. “So leaning on Manchester didn’t work.”

  “If it’s not in a CPJCT port, why would Manchester put parts in Siren?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it. Best guess is that the ship was on trials in Toe-Hold space and Manchester expected them to dock at Siren for the announcement.”

  “But it never arrived.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the sticking point. The parts were at Siren. The ship wasn’t. A Toe-Hold freighter bought the parts as spares, but some engineering third officer spotted the problem and blew the whistle on it.”

  “Which is where TIC got involved, I take it?”

  “They might have been in on it from the beginning. Could be something they stumbled on.” He shrugged. “Above my pay grade.”

  “We’ll get around to why we’re here, eventually?” I asked.

  “The ship was a ghost. Never found. Always a rumor something big was out here, but nobody had seen it themselves.”

  “What about the base?”

  “That’s where TIC had some success. They found the name of a ship that they believed serviced the base. They couldn’t be sure and they couldn’t find the ship.”

  I sat back in my chair. “The Chernyakova,” I said.

  He nodded once. “The Chernyakova.”

  “Why didn’t TIC impound the ship when we docked it at Breakall?”

  “They didn’t know about it until the second auction was underway, for one. It took a while for the news to filter up the chain.”

  “So the ship had already had one failed auction before they even found out?”

  “Yeah. That’s the story I was given.”

  “How did you get involved?”

  “The theory was that the high bidders would be Toe-Holders who knew about the ship’s history so they watched the auction. A start-up operation from Ciroda won the second auction, but they never took possession of the ship. Funding problems. That’s when the action authority tightened the rules and Jim Waters contacted me.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked. “Why are we out here instead of some TIC salvage crew?”

  He bit his lip again and stared at me. “It’s in the astrogation database somewhere.”

  “What is?”

  “The location of the Mega. And I don’t know which one it might be. There are thousands of entries in there I don’t recognize.”

  “You looked?”

  “Of course. I had plenty of time in the yards while the ship was being refurbished.”

  “It should be in the ship’s log,” I said.

  “The operative phrase there being ‘should be.’”

  “You checked.”

  “Yeah. No record in the captain’s log or the navigation logs. At least none I can recognize.”

  “You checked the captain’s logs?”

  “Of course. There’s no record in the log of any ports prior to Breakall. Not even the ports she visited in CPJCT space before the accident.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, only the captain was supposed to be able to see the captain’s log. On the other, how did Pip have the skills to accomplish it? I pushed that issue aside for the moment. “What are you looking for?”

  His jaw worked back and forth a couple of times while he stared at the deck. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked at me across the desk. “Just that. I don’t know. I figured I’d know it when I saw it, but there are a lot of unfamiliar places on that database.”

  I chuckled and sat back in my chair, enjoying his discomfort too much, probably. “You thought it would say something like ‘Mystery Ship?’”

  “No, but I thought the number of choices would be limited enough that we could check them out.”

  “And they’re not?”

  He shook his head. “At least a thousand we couldn’t identify. Not in any of my resources. They could be empty spots in the middle of the Deep Dark, private stations being kept out of view for one reason or another. Who knows. Maybe just places where the crew liked the view. That’s why I picked a can going to Dark Knight. They’ve got the best source of astrogation data for Toe-Hold space.”

  “What will that do for you?”

  “I’m hoping it’ll identify some of the places I don’t recognize.”

  “Which will limit the number of unknowns,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What if the place you want is one of the known
s.”

  He shook his head. “Too much potential for visitors. This thing has been unreported for a long time.”

  “What makes you think it’s still out there somewhere?”

  “Because the Chernyakova is supposed to have visited it just a few weeks before you found it in Breakall.”

  “That was still a couple of stanyers ago.”

  “Which makes it more likely that it’s not on any other chart or somebody would have stumbled on it.”

  “It’s not at a station, is it,” I said, pieces of the puzzle dropping into my head.

  He raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting notion. Why do you say that?”

  “Hasn’t been seen for a long time. Somebody trying to buy spares for an unknown ship. No reports. No rumors coming out of backwaters. An experimental design on trials in the Deep Dark somewhere in Toe-Hold space.” I shrugged. “Logical conclusion?”

  “It broke down somewhere,” Pip said. “Somewhere back of the beyond.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Pip’s gaze focused somewhere far away.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “Somebody else knows it’s out there.”

  “One would suspect that Manchester knows,” I said. “That would have been a huge investment.”

  “Somebody knows where to take the parts—and one might suppose—knows the parts are needed. Else why arrange to pick them up?” he said.

  “That’s a good point.”

  “Somebody sent the Chernyakova out on a resupply run as late as a couple of stanyers ago.”

  “What’s kept them from recovering the ship? Ten stanyers is a long time.”

  Pip settled into the chair and frowned. I could practically smell the wheels turning in his head. “Burleson drive failure,” he said.

  “So they can’t jump it out.”

  “They’d have to build a yard around it,” he said.

  “It could be anywhere.”

  He chuckled. “That’s always been the problem. It’s probably one of the locations in the astrogation database.”

  “One of the locations we can’t identify.”

  “Logically, yeah. We just need to narrow the field down a little. There are too many for us to follow up on until we do.”

  “So we’re going to check it out anyway?”

  He smiled. “Precisely.”