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

by Nathan Lowell

  We hadn’t gone more than a few meters into the station when Baldry stopped at an airtight door and rapped on it a couple of times before pulling the lever and swinging it inward. “Jefe? The white-haired pendejo is Carstairs.” He looked at me. “Didn’t catch your name but you got the stars so you’re probably his boss.”

  A wizened old man hunched in a powered chair beside a desk. His sparse hair fell in pale streaks across his scalp, and his face with its dark brown crevasses reminded me of a walnut meat. He turned his chair to face us and he nodded his head once. “Language, Baldry. Politeness costs nothing and often pays dividends.” His voice grumbled somewhere deep in his chest, making me think of boulders grinding together to make his words.

  Baldry looked down at his boots. “Sorry, Jefe. I beg pardon, Mr. Carstairs. Captain.”

  “I’m at fault here,” Pip said. “Thank you for your assistance, Baldry.”

  “Thank you, Baldry. Katharine has need of a strong back and a weak mind in Hydroponics. Perhaps you could provide one or both?”

  “Of course, Jefe.” He offered both of us a tentative smile. “Enjoy your stay.” With that he scooted out and the airtight door squinched shut behind us.

  “He’s a good boy. Young. To me everybody is.” The old man nodded and pointed to a pair of comfortable chairs off to one side. “Even you two. I’m Ariel Felder. Welcome to Bar None.”

  We took the offered seats and Felder wheeled over.

  “You’ll pardon me for not standing up to greet you. These days ‘waking’ is about as ‘up’ as I get.” His eyes gleamed and his face beamed at his own—probably much used—joke.

  “No problem, Mr. Felder,” Pip said. “That whole standing up and greeting people thing is over-rated, anyway.”

  “Ariel,” he said. “Christopher will bring us refreshments in a few moments. While we wait, why don’t you tell me how you come to be flying the Chernyakova?”

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “You know what happened to the ship?”

  “Yes. Tragic. You purchased her at auction?”

  “I found her,” I said.

  The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Found her?”

  “I led the salvage team that took over the ship and flew her back to Breakall.”

  His eyes widened briefly and his tongue worked across his lower lip for a moment while he stared me in the eye. “That must have been quite an experience,” he said.

  “Not one I ever want to have again,” I said.

  His head shook back and forth slightly. “No,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone would.” He looked at Pip. “And you? Carstairs? Why do I know your name?”

  “You probably know my father, Thomas.”

  “Thomas.” He mused on the name, his gaze searching Pip’s face. “Quentin’s brother.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The old man’s head bobbed a few times. “Yes. Good stock. Why’s your hair white?”

  “I didn’t like the red,” he said.

  “Heh.” The old man’s short laugh seemed to bounce out of him. “Heh,” he said again. “So I’ve got beef for you to take.” He looked back and forth between us. “You know where to go?”

  “Not really, no,” Pip said.

  The old man’s eyes widened. “So!” He paused, a grin easing onto his face. “You know what I’m talking about though, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” The single syllable erupted like a bark. “That damned Vagrant has been all over me since the Chernyakova’s recovery. I’ve done what I could over the years, but you two. You know.”

  “About the shipyard?” Pip asked.

  Felder’s smile widened even more. “Yes. The yard. The lab. The ship. You know.”

  “We know,” Pip said. “We just don’t know where.”

  “Telluride,” Felder said.

  “Telluride?” I asked.

  Pip grinned. “Of course. I was so stupid.”

  Felder chuckled, more low grinding of rocks in his chest. “You’re young, boy. You’re supposed to be stupid for a while.” His chuckling tailed off. “If this business doesn’t age ya, you’re not Thomas Carstairs’s boy.” He wheeled his chair back as the door opened up. “Christopher. Good. Get that can of food ready to go. These gentlemen will be taking it along with them when they go.”

  Christopher settled a tray of coffee and pastry onto a side table. “Of course, Jefe. What about that other party?”

  “Vagrant?” Felder spit the name into the air. “Tell you what? Fill a can from barn nine. Give it to him for free.”

  “Barn nine?” Christopher said. “That’s—”

  “Yes,” Felder said. “It’ll freeze around the edges once it’s in the can but it’ll be just about ripe by the time he gets it back. Let him dig that out when he gets to whatever hole he crawls back to.”

  Christopher nodded. “Immediately, Jefe.”

  As Christopher headed for the door, Felder said, “And, Christopher, tell traffic control that no ship registered to M. Vagrant Outfitters has docking permission here ever again.”

  “Immediately, Jefe.”

  Felder waved an arm at the tray. “Help yourself, boys. I’d pour but I tend to spill more than I get in the cup these days.” He held up one palsied hand and chuckled at his own joke. “Gettin’ old sucks, but it beats the alternatives. I’m not allowed to drink it anymore but I can enjoy the aroma.”

  “Can I ask?” Pip asked.

  “Barn nine?” Felder asked.

  Pip nodded.

  “It’s being mucked out for the new herd due. It’s only fair I return a bit of the shit he’s been shoveling my way for the last three years.”

  Pip and I shared a glance. “Mr. Felder? If you ever feel like we don’t hold you in the highest regard? Please let us know,” Pip said. “Before giving us the can?”

  Felder’s laugh, rough and brittle as it was, tickled me. “Take care of business. That’s all I ask,” he said after a few ticks of jocularity. “Just take care of business and don’t give me any shit. I won’t have cause to give you any.”

  Chapter 38

  Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29

  We got back from visiting Felder about the time his crew was ready to pull the old can and fit us with the new one. Pip thumbed the transfer documents and we watched them swap cans from the bridge.

  “It never gets old,” Pip said.

  “What? Watching them swap the cans?”

  He nodded.

  “It gets old. Once you’ve done it a few hundred times, the only thing you want to see is all the green latches without any unexpected bumps or bangs as they take one out or put one back,” I said.

  “That happens?” His eyes looked big in the dim light from the bridge consoles.

  “Not often but when it does, I always half expect to hear the hull breach alarm.”

  Pip pursed his lips and leaned closer to the armor glass. “Are we really going to find it?” he asked, his voice a bare whisper and his breath fogging the port.

  “Telluride seemed to mean something to you.”

  He nodded. “It’s one of the ports listed in the database.”

  “Is it in the right place?”

  “Right on the edge, but it’s only one of a dozen in that vicinity.”

  “You didn’t think that was significant?” I asked.

  “No, it’s in the database. Not just ours. Everybody’s.”

  “How can that be?”

  “It’s quarantined as a biohazard.”

  I stared out into the Deep Dark for a few heartbeats. “They hid it in plain sight.”

  Pip nodded. “I was looking for it and, even with the name, I wrote it off because it was listed.”

  “The name?”

  Pip sighed and looked at me. “One of the main thermoelectric substrates is made of out bismuth telluride. I dug into the records and the station was established by Victor Flores. He named it back in ’51.”r />
  “Nobody looks for a secret base in the public databases,” I said.

  “Jim Waters is going to kick himself.”

  “What do you suppose Felder meant by doing what he could?” I asked.

  “That’s bothered me, too. He supplies food. Maybe Manchester has cut the base loose and they don’t have a lot of spare credits to pay for it,” he said. “Maybe he’s feeding them on credit.”

  “There’s more than Manchester involved here.”

  He nodded and turned away from the armorglass as the last of the cargo handlers jetted away. “Mellon-Merc and Pravda had to have some interest in developing the station.”

  “If it’s a bust, why keep the station active?” I asked.

  “We’ll just have to go find out, I guess.”

  “We’ll need to stay here for at least another day,” I said. “We can get Al and Tom working on the navigation.”

  “You picked up that sense of urgency from Felder?”

  I nodded. “Things could be dire and I’d hate to think somebody will die if we don’t get this food to them.”

  Pip pulled on his lower lip with a thumb and forefinger. The deck seemed pretty interesting.

  “You don’t think so?” I asked.

  He shrugged without looking up. “Seems off, somehow.”

  “Off how?”

  He looked up at me. “Like we don’t know the whole picture here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like who’s Vagrant and what’s his deal.”

  “That’s the guy that’s getting the can of manure?”

  “Yeah, but he’s also the guy we outbid for the Chernyakova. Malachai Vagrant, CEO of M. Vagrant Outfitters.”

  “How do you remember that?”

  “I make it a point to know who might be working against us. He gave us the stink eye when we outbid him. There was even a reporter who asked if we were worried about beating him.”

  His comment struck an echo in my head. “I remember that question. I didn’t understand it.”

  “Me, either, but now we find M. Vagrant Outfitters here giving Ariel Felder problems over Telluride.”

  “He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’ll be pleased with having to get a Barbell underway with a load of frozen manure,” I said.

  “Any idea which ship it might be?” Pip asked, looking down the docking gallery.

  We had tankers on either side of us and I couldn’t see beyond them. “I can’t see another Barbell from here.”

  “Do you suppose Felder will tell him what’s in the can?”

  “For starters, it’s probably not Vagrant himself on the ship. I’m guessing just one of his captains.”

  “You familiar with him?” Pip asked.

  I shook my head. “Diurnia’s my back yard but I’ve been living in a box there with DST. I didn’t pay much attention to what else was going on.”

  “Until Maloney died,” Pip said.

  “Even then. I was so deep in DST’s pockets I didn’t even notice when Simpson was robbing mine.”

  Pip snorted and patted my shoulder. “He’s gone away for a long time.”

  “I wonder who replaced him in Victoria Dalmati’s affections.”

  “You really want to know?” Pip asked.

  “You know who Victoria Dalmati is?”

  “Last I heard she was the de facto chairman of the board for DST.”

  “You need to update your files.”

  He stopped and looked at me. “You sure?”

  “Christine Maloney is chairman of the board. She’s got her father’s stock majority.” I felt myself smile. “She’s not the kind of woman to let Dalmati play her. Not after Simpson.”

  “I’ve never met her. File says competent but unskilled.”

  “You really need to update your files. If we get back to Diurnia, I’ll introduce you. You can make up your own mind.”

  Pip grinned at me, his teeth glowing in the dim light. “Sounds like you regret letting her get away.”

  I shook my head and grinned back. “She’s a remarkable woman, but not for me.”

  “Why not? You’ve clearly got a thing for her.”

  “I’ve got a thing for good coffee but I’m not going to date a percolator.”

  He chuckled and we left the dimness of the bridge for the well-lighted passageway of officer country. I stepped into the cabin and couldn’t help but be reminded of the brilliance that burned so brightly in my ex-chef.

  I ran a hand across the arched wing of the huge shearwater painted on my bulkhead, my fingers picking out the smoother layer of the sea bird against the rougher texture of the background sky. Dierdre’s idea. Christine clearly had Ms. Darling under her wing and was teaching her to fly on her own. I thought about what might have been, but knew that we each had our own paths to fly. As much as I might have been drawn to Christine Maloney, it wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.

  I reached into the pocket of my shipsuit and pulled out the shearwater that had been Greta’s. I rubbed the ball of my thumb across the wing’s rough surface. I began to think that Mal Gains’s question about the snake’s skin was dumb.

  Snakes don’t think like that. To miss their shed skins they’d have to be aware in the same way people were. They’d have to recognize that the old skin just didn’t fit any more and that to miss it would be negating the value of the new one. They’d have to understand that the new skin couldn’t have come into being without the old skin going before and being cast aside.

  I stood there, letting my thumb rasp against the rough wood, stroking the curve over and over while I thought about my old clothes.

  It took me a while, but I finally figured out Mal Gains was a pretty smart guy.

  Pip startled me when he spoke. “You sure?” he asked.

  I turned to find him leaning on the door jamb—arms crossed, a smirk on his face.

  “You been standing there all this time?”

  He nodded. “What do you want to do now?”

  “Get Al and the chief. We need to get underway.”

  “Chernyakova to the rescue?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe just delivering a load of takeout.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I don’t. Felder wanted us to take this can. He either doesn’t have the ships or doesn’t have the crew to do it. He’s got some problem with Vagrant, which may or may not be related. In any case, we can speculate till hell freezes but we won’t get any answers until we get over there.”

  Chapter 39

  Tehas System: 2375, November 10

  We pulled out of Bar None early in the day on the 3rd. The delay chafed, but Al and the chief convinced me that spending a couple of extra days to have a rested and effective crew would be worth it. We didn’t know what we might find when we got there, and a couple of days wouldn’t matter much given how long the Chernyakova had been tied up in salvage and recovery in Breakall.

  Because of Bar None’s orbit around the system primary, we had to spend almost a week maneuvering in Tehas to get around the placement of a gas giant and get far enough out of the gravity well to make even a small jump. At one point that would have seemed a ridiculously short outbound leg. Having been spoiled by other Toe-Hold stations, the delay made my head ache.

  Al and Tom wrangled jump points for two days before they finally agreed on a solution with the chief that gave us a least-time arrival. We went to navigation stations shortly after breakfast mess on the 10th for what would be a three-day exercise in jumping and recharging.

  “Are we ready for this?” I asked as we settled into our positions.

  Al smiled at me from the main console. “Ready as we’ll ever be, Captain.”

  “Let’s get it moving then,” I said.

  “Systems?” Al asked.

  “Systems are green for go once, Ms. Ross,” Ms. Fortuner said.

  “Astrogation status, Mr. Reed?” she said.

  “Ship is in position and
on course for our first jump. Astrogation is green to go twice, Ms. Ross.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Reed. Chief?”

  “Capacitors have a full charge. Burlesons are hot and ready. Sail generators secured in stand-by mode for jump. Engineering is green for go thrice.”

  Al tapped a few keys, sliding screens around on her console. “All stations report manned and ready, Captain. Ship is green for go thrice.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Ross. Ready about, Mr. Reed,” I said. “Hard a-lee.”

  Tom slapped his keyboard and the stars shifted around us. “Jump complete,” Reed said. “Position and vector confirmed. Logged at 2375, November 10 at 0851. Waiting on course verification.”

  I knew it made no sense for me to feel the pressure to move along faster. Minutes might have mattered but I knew we were making the best time possible. I stuck my face in my coffee mug to keep from saying something before Tom gave his position update. I just had to wait out his processing of data.

  “Ship is in position and on course for jump,” he said after a very short tick. “Astrogation still green for go twice.”

  “Chief?” Al asked.

  “Three quarters charge on capacitors. Burleson drives still online and ready. Sail generators on stand-by. Engineering is still green for go thrice.”

  Al glanced at her console. “Ship is thrice green for go, Captain.”

  “Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

  His finger barely twitched and the stars shifted around us again.

  Tom started banging keys as soon as his displays refreshed. “Jump is complete. We’re long,” he said. “Logged at 2375, November 10 at 0854. Recalculating.”

  “Capacitors, Chief?” Al asked.

  “A bit under one-quarter charge on capacitors.”

  “Can we make our third jump as planned?” Al asked.

  “Yes, but we’re going to be there for a while.”

  “How long to recharge right now, Chief?” I asked.

  “Three stans to full jump range. Eight for full capacitors, Captain.”

  “Position, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

  “Jump error on that last jump was plus nine percent. We’re on the far edge of the known safe region.”

  “Meaning we could hit a rock any moment,” I said.