by Marque
“Voice analysis suggests sixties,” Rafe spoke up. “There’s that little burr—of course, he could be a heavy drinker or addicted to something that’s aged his voice.”
“That’d be Lazlo’s grandson. He’s not on the current captain list, Ky,” Stella said. “I can’t get into the old personnel stuff—it’s in the command dataset.” The one you didn’t install was unsaid but clearly communicated.
“A Vatta remittance man,” Rafe said in smug tone that made Ky want to hit him. “Skeleton in the Vatta cupboard.”
“So . . . why’s he in a Vatta ship?” Ky asked.
“Adjunct,” Rafe said. “They let him take a ship, but he’s not authorized refit, and I’ll bet he’s not authorized access to company funds, except his remittance. He sounds like a con man to me. He’s trying one on—he knows headquarters is down, he doesn’t know we have a command dataset.”
Martin said, “I don’t like the whole setup. He sounds too glib, and I find it hard to believe his crew didn’t pick us up on scan a long time ago. We haven’t tested the defensive suite against concealed weaponry; the mercs weren’t trying to hide theirs.”
“Quincy,” Ky said. The senior Engineering watch were all below, by Martin’s plan. When the old woman answered, she said, “Did you ever hear of an Osman Vatta? Related to old Lazlo?”
Quincy’s gasp was clearly audible. “That bastard? What’s he done now?”
“Well, he claims to be captain of Fair Kaleen, which right now is matching courses about a hundred klicks away. I gather you know something about him?”
“Rotten little devil,” Quincy said. “Smooth as an egg, and no morals at all. Fools you because he’s not overtly mean, but he doesn’t care for anything but himself and doesn’t see why anyone would.”
“Our defensive suite says he’s unarmed,” Ky said. “I don’t see he can do us any great harm—”
“Don’t bet on it,” Quincy said. “If he’s here and talking to you, then he sees a profit to himself in it. Figure that out and however slimy it seems . . . that’s what he’s up to.”
“Here in the middle of nowhere,” Ky mused. “What is he doing here anyway? Just randomly jumping from one unoccupied system to another? He’s a long way from any regular Vatta route.”
“Trouble,” Quincy said. “He’s trouble, through and through.”
“Quince—what did he do? Any specifics?”
“Well. I was only aboard a ship with him once. He’d gotten in a fairly serious scrape his apprentice voyage—gambling debts he tried to cover with the ship’s account. His father—Lazlo’s son, Benalj that would have been—hauled him home and supposedly straightened him out. He was in his twenties when I ran into him again. I was engineering second that voyage, pulled off my regular ship because their first was injured. He was third in command; I heard scuttlebutt that he was under some suspicion of having done something earlier in the trip. But he was a Vatta; the idea was to straighten him out. Well . . . among other things he liked pretty faces, didn’t matter what gender, and he was putting moves on an Engineering junior. I told him off for it, and he tried to bribe me.”
“Bribe you !” Ky could not imagine that.
“Oh, yes,” Quincy said. “I wasn’t a gray-haired great-granny back then. He didn’t fancy me, I don’t think, but he was willing to try, if it would shut me up. It didn’t. He tried to get me fired for insubordination; the captain wouldn’t hear of it, and I watched my back very carefully the rest of the voyage. Good thing, too, as there were several accidents that could’ve been fatal. His father died young.”
“So . . .” The knot in Ky’s stomach tightened. “It may not be an accident that he’s here, or that he wants to travel with us.”
“I don’t see how he could have figured out where we’d be,” Quincy said. “That much could be accidental . . .” She didn’t sound as if she believed it.
“Jump options from Lastway . . . how many were there?” Stella asked.
“It’s not that.” Ky’s mind raced, throwing up an image of their route since leaving Lastway. “If they have those shipboard ansibles Rafe mentioned, and they’ve tracked us by the restored ansible functions, then here is the next logical place for us to go. Another node in the web, a mostly uninhabited system with multiple jump points.”
“Couldn’t we intercept their communications?”
“No more than with any ansible,” Rafe said. “And thank you for sharing that little secret with everyone, Captain.”
“You undoubtedly have others I don’t even know,” Ky said. “And that one, if it’s operational, isn’t going to be secret for long. Once others realize that the only way for certain things to happen is ship-mounted instant communications, they’ll deduce its existence.”
“I suppose. I still think—”
“Think it later. The question is, what do we do now? If I refuse to talk to him again, he’ll know we know something’s wrong.”
“Wouldn’t you? He’ll expect you to have an implant. Surely that would tell you he’s not on the main list.”
“I guess he can’t tell I don’t . . .” A germ of an idea sprouted. She went back to the exterior com. “Sorry,” she said to Osman. “We’ve got this pet someone brought aboard, and it keeps getting into trouble.”
“A pet? You let your crew have pets?” The tone carried the implication that only young, inexperienced, sentimental captains allowed pets aboard.
“Special case,” Ky said. She could feel her neck getting hot. “But back to your problem . . . what do you understand is going on?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Frankly, I’ve been out on my own, pretty far out, not paying much attention to what’s going on back home. But it sounded like trouble, so I came back to see what I could do . . .”
To help or scavenge? That was the question. Quincy’s story was probably true, if this was the same man, but twenty years and more had tamed many a wild boy, her father always said. We don’t blame people for who they were, if they act well now, her mother had insisted. She wondered what Rafe would be like in twenty years and pushed that thought away.
“It’s pretty bad,” Ky said. “Hard to tell with the ansibles down, but it looks like someone has it in for Vatta.”
“Heard anything about your family?”
“They’re dead,” Ky said flatly.
A moment’s shocked stillness, then his face creased into a scowl. “That’s . . . that’s monstrous,” he said. “You poor kid—I mean, you’re not a kid, I can see that, but still. Poor old Gerry dead . . . how’d they get him? He wasn’t on a ship, was he?”
“No.” Ky felt again that reluctance to reveal details, at least yet. “I wasn’t there; I only heard they’d died. If the ansibles come back up—”
“I can’t believe it,” he said. His gaze was direct, his expression exactly what it should be. So why this reluctance? Just Quincy’s belief? That wasn’t fair. “Look,” he said with sudden determination, “I can help. Let me help. Either of us alone, we’re just a single ship, easy to ambush. But the two of us—I don’t mind telling you, I’ve rambled around in some pretty rough places. This old ship isn’t the worn-out hulk she looks like. We could help each other a lot. Family sticks together, eh? Blood thicker than water, all that.”
Sincerity flowed out of him like water out of a spring. Ky could not believe he was anything but a rogue coming around . . . except for the bitter memory of another sincere, pleading voice, Mandy Rocher and his problem that had become her disgrace.
“I can’t figure out why,” Ky said, talking just to keep the talk going, trying to think behind the chatter. “Why would someone—anyone—take after Vatta Transport? We’ve got a better record of service than, say, Pavrati.”
“Oh, lass. We’re rich, that’s why. The rich are always a target—”
“Not that rich,” Ky said. “I can imagine an envious minor shipping firm resenting us, but it would hardly have the resources to attack us so widely.”
“Well, no,” he said. “But this attack on the ansibles . . . Vatta’s always supported ISC’s monopoly on ansible services. Could be it’s our allies got us in trouble. Or it could be part of the humod base-stock controversy.”
“What?” Was this just a distraction, thrown out to make her lose track of his argument?
“There’s growing friction, you know, between the base-stock worlds that want to preserve what they call human nature, and the humods. From the base-stock point of view, we’re all humods because we have implants. Makes us mech deviants. I don’t suppose you’ve run into many base-stockers.”
“Only the Miznarii,” Ky said. “Back home.”
“Good grief, are they still around?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “I’d have thought they’d died out long ago; went in for natural childbirth, I thought it was. I meant places like Allgreen and Purity—they’re not on regular Vatta routes, but I’ve traded there. Took me for a criminal, they did, at first. No one has cranial implants, not even fertility mods. One of my old crew was a four-arm, genetic, and Immigration Control wouldn’t even let him off the ship at the station. You’d have thought he’d been able to spit sperm straight into their precious daughters—sorry, did that shock you?”
She had to do better with her face. “I’m shocked that anyone would refuse entry to someone just because they had four arms,” she said. Would he believe that?
“Oh, good,” he said. “I remember Gerry was something of a prude and I should have thought before saying anything, but I’m glad you’re old enough not to flinch at a little physical reality.” His laugh grated. Ky smiled, but followed him into this side topic as if really interested.
“So, do the people on Purity avoid all medical care?”
“No, but they’re strict about its limits. No genetic modifications, and no modifications that enhance normal human ability beyond a half sig above the mean. Of course that means their mean intelligence is well below that of most of us, but they get along reasonably well on their own world.”
“Are they Miznarii?”
“No, no. They’re evangelical Hurists, whatever that is. Doesn’t help them any in business dealings, I can tell you that.” He laughed again, with a wink that invited Ky into his scam, whatever it was. She wanted to wipe the screen, but knew better. “It’s the weirdest combination of paranoia and gullibility you’ve ever seen. They’re terrified of some outsider cheating them, but they make it so obvious what they’re afraid of that it’s easy to make whatever profit you want by just doing something else and pretending fear of their suspicion.”
So the rogue hadn’t reformed. “So you prefer humod planets?”
“Well, not the extremes. It’s like some of them make themselves ugly on purpose, y’know? But a lot of ’em are just like real people, only with extra. Pretty much think like us.” He peered at the screen. “You do have an implant, right?”
“Of course,” Ky said, as if offended. “Got it at seven, like everyone else.”
“So you have a current Vatta update? Because I haven’t updated in a while, been out of touch y’see.”
“Not really current,” Ky said. “I was on my way back, actually.” He couldn’t know anything different, unless he was as bent as she suspected, and then it didn’t matter. “As you probably guessed, this was my first trip, so I’m just a probationary captain, as it were. Only the most basic dataset. When I got home, I was going to get the full one, but—things happened.”
“I see.” He looked down a moment then suddenly back up, with a sharp glance that seemed intended to startle. Then his face softened again. “Well, we shall do well enough, I guess. Youth and enthusiasm, age and experience . . . we’ll be partners, shall we?”
“But we are already family,” Ky said, as if puzzled. She had been half expecting this offer, or demand. “Isn’t it forbidden to make private contracts of partnership within Vatta?”
His brows went up. “What, you think I want to cheat you?”
“No, not that.” Worse than that, but she had had four years—almost four years—in which to learn that earnest and tedious explanation of well-known rules had its uses. “But Dad said nobody should make private contracts because we should all be working for the benefit of Vatta as a whole. Private deals, he said, were like stealing from the company. And I want to save Vatta.”
Now his expression shifted to benign amusement. “I forgot,” he said. “You are Gerry’s daughter; of course you would be a stickler for all the rules. But my dear, this is an extraordinary situation. We may be the only surviving Vattas—or do you know of others?”
Ky felt a chill roll down her back. She was not about to reveal the existence of Stella or Toby. “You’re the first Vatta ship I’ve met since this happened,” she said.
“And I suppose, for your first voyage, they stuffed the ship with faithful old retainers rather than family members, eh?” he asked.
“Pretty much,” Ky said. “I hired a couple myself along the way.”
“So, under the circumstances, we should cooperate and be partners—fine, if you don’t want to enter a formal partnership, I understand that, given your father—but we can do better together than either of us alone.”
That was true, if partners were true to their defined mutual goal. Otherwise, one could gut the other even more neatly than a stranger. Ky was tempted to refuse and depart, trusting her new defensive suite to handle anything he was likely to have aboard, but what if he knew more about the conspiracy and the attacks on Vatta than he’d yet revealed?
“Where are you going next?” Ky asked, deliberately furrowing her brow. “I don’t know if we can—”
“Look,” he said, exuding a fatherly concern that bordered on sickening. “I’ll go with you, wherever you go; I can help keep you safe.” He paused for her reaction; apparently she had not hidden it well enough. “I’m sure you’re brave and resourceful; Vatta doesn’t breed idiots or cowards. But you need someone to watch your back. I won’t even pull seniority.” Onscreen he shrugged, spreading his hands. “You’re Gerry’s daughter; he was our CFO. You can take over, if you want. I just don’t want to see us die out because we couldn’t work together for mutual profit.”
He wanted her more than she wanted him. Why? And how had he known that her father was Vatta Ltd.’s CFO, if he’d been gone so many years? Unless he was legitimate in some covert way, as Rafe claimed to be with ISC.
“I suppose,” Ky said. “Look—why don’t you send me your cargo info, and I’ll compare it with what we’ve got and decide where to go next.”
“We share,” he said. “You send me yours, too.”
“Fine,” Ky said. “I’ll get my cargomaster to port it over for you.” He would learn nothing from their cargo list except that they’d bought low and hoped to sell high. He would certainly not learn about the mines she had aboard, either kind.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
He thinks I’ve got a probationary captain’s implant, with incomplete data—nothing he needs to upload to his implant, for instance.” Ky sipped a mug of nutrient-boosted tea while she waited for Osman to send her his cargo list.
“I’d be a lot happier if you had an implant at all,” Martin said. “And the Vatta command set would give you everything you need.”
“Certainly would make my head an attractive target, wouldn’t it?” Ky said. “If he thinks I’m ignorant, inexperienced, idealistic, and rule-bound, I’m the perfect front person for him. A dupe he can enjoy duping for a long time before he finds it convenient to kill me.”
“You do realize he’ll try.” It was not a question in tone, only in Martin’s expression.
“Of course,” Ky said. “I don’t expect anything less. But he will find me tougher to kill once he’s thoroughly convinced how simple it will be.”
“You continue to surprise me,” Rafe murmured.
“Good,” Ky said. “Since you’re the best model I have for how Osman Vatta thinks—he’s supposedly got a history rather
like yours.”
He blinked at her. “You really think I’m that bad? I swear, I never put pressure on the unwilling to have sex.”
Stella shifted in her seat. He looked sideways at her.
“I haven’t forgotten that lime,” Ky said. The others looked at her oddly; Rafe ducked his head.
“That was only . . . an invitation. Not pressure.”
“Quite true,” Ky said. “And if I thought you were that bad you would not be alive on this ship.”
“I shall watch my step,” he said, with a demureness that lay uneasily, like thin silk over a steel blade.
“Nonetheless,” Ky said. “Rafe is my only current contact with the kind of life we think Osman’s been leading. So when I try out ideas on him, his reaction may help me predict Osman’s.”
“As long as you don’t get us confused,” Rafe said.
“I assure you,” Ky said, “I can keep you separate in my mind, even without an implant.”
Suddenly Rafe’s eyes opened wide. “Ky—Captain—call the mercs. Now.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it,” he said. No longer languid, he sat upright, alert.
“Our whole plan is to let him think we’re alone, harmless, helpless, in this system. If I call—”
“If you don’t call,” Rafe said, “you won’t have the chance. He has an ansible on that ship. He’s one of them.”
“How do you know? And why now?”
“I know,” Rafe said through clenched teeth. “Don’t ask more—I know. He’s not just Vatta’s rotten egg; he’s deeply involved, and he’s using his shipboard ansible to call in your enemies.”
“I think he wants to toy with me longer,” Ky said. “And I still want to know how—”
“For the time it takes them to get here, maybe. Then he’ll betray you, and there won’t be time for talk. How far away are the mercs?”
“Next ansible over, I hope,” Ky said. “But how do you know he’s got one?”
“Captain . . . let’s go to your cabin.”
