by Kathryn Hoff
Archer had disassembled one of the cylinders and was reaming it with a laser abrader. He’d covered the panels with tarps to contain the dust. Most of it seemed to have found its way into his hair.
“Hey, Patch. Hand me the Prestoshine, will you?”
I stepped over pieces of engine and gave him the spray bottle and a rag. He wriggled his way farther into the cylinder bore, spritzing as he went. His voice echoed from inside the bore, “Any worron wenthay lebbus go?”
“Let us go? No, no word yet. Jamila is negotiating with the Gav priestess.”
Archer scooched out, wiping the dirt from his face onto his sleeve. As I helped him put the cylinder back together, I described Lyden’s meeting with Jamila, and Gurin’s frustration.
“We can’t get rid of them fast enough,” he grumbled. “What did you think of that half-blood sergeant? He looked at me like I was something that crawled out of the bilge. He said my appearance was a disgrace.”
“That was rude.” Archer’s appearance was a disgrace, but Sparrow’s crew was a matter for me and Kojo to deal with, not some pushy Patrol officer.
“I told him to try to stay clean lubing the couplings. I may get a little grimy, but my engines are spotless.” He put his tools away in their case, each one into the precise slot made for it.
“You’re right.” I handed him a tiny spline wrench. “He’s from a very upper-class clan. I guess it goes to his head.”
“And he’s one to talk,” Archer went on. “He looks like the cat’s breakfast. Cutting his hair short, the bastard, as if no one would notice he’s not really a Gav, with that big nose and elephant ears.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. I sat in silence, the wrench in my hand forgotten. “Some of us can’t help looking funny, Archer,” I said quietly. “Or being bastards.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no! I don’t mean you. You look all right. I didn’t mean…” He rocked from foot to foot.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I stood.
“No, Patch. Wait! You know I like you!”
“Do I?”
I walked away, blinking back tears.
I went to my cabin and looked in the mirror. Like the cat’s breakfast. Who was I to think anybody else looked strange? My features were just as misshapen.
I’d thought that Archer and I had developed an easy friendship, after he’d gotten over his shyness. I thought of him as a brother. An odd and socially inept brother. I’d been pleased as he became more friendly and confident. Confident enough to say what he really thought.
I changed to a clean jacket, washed the stray lube from my face, and ran a wide-toothed comb through my hair. I considered tying it back, or even cutting it short as I had as a child. No. Why should I try to look like somebody I wasn’t?
To hell with Archer, and Danto, too. I crammed a beret on my head to contain the mass of curls and went looking for better company.
In the wheelhouse, Kojo and Hiram stared resentfully at Betanda resting to starboard, the gateway’s gantry above her. As I watched, a massive Selkid cargo ship approached and paused, doing obeisance to the checkpoint. Before lumbering into the ether, she flashed her Cartel transponder to us—whether in sympathy or mockery, I couldn’t tell. If the Cartel hadn’t heard already that Sparrow was in custody, it would know soon.
“What I want to know,” Kojo said, “is why they don’t just take the burzing dingus and our burzing passengers, and sort it all out among themselves? Then we could go on our way.” He exchanged a glance with Hiram. “We have that client waiting for his delivery, we can’t be tied up too long. Patch, can you tell us anything about the old lady?”
“Lyden? As a priestess and a matriarch, she gets a lot of deference. I’ll bet she’s calling the shots, even with the Corridor Patrol.”
I stooped to stroke the cat. Tinker arched against my hand, but gave my thumb a soft bite to warn me against taking her for granted.
Hiram harrumphed. “I’m a little more concerned with getting this stone whatchamacallit off our ship before it makes one of us crazy. Does it give off some kind of radiation or poison or something?”
“He spoke to me,” I said.
Kojo pivoted. “Who did? The tablet?”
I looked down, embarrassed. I hadn’t intended to say it out loud. “Sergeant Danto. He said it was shameful to consort with aliens.”
Kojo snorted. “The hell he did! He’s trouble, Patch. Stay away from him.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have no interest in him at all.”
For some reason, Hiram seemed to find that funny.
We waited for nearly a full day, with no word from the Patrol. I tried to concentrate on the accounts, on trade updates, on anything but eventually gave up and brooded in my cabin.
Finally, Sergeant Danto summoned Kojo and me to the salon.
Lyden sat at the central seat on the table’s port side, flanked by Balan and her shadow Mya. Jamila sat opposite her.
Smiling, Jamila pulled Kojo into the chair next to hers. She laid a hand on his arm and turned her charm on him, full blast. “Kojo, I have wonderful news! Lyden and I have found a way forward, and we are so hoping you and Patch can help us.”
“Oh?” Even Kojo would be wary with an opening like that.
I took a seat at the foot of the table, close to the door in case of trouble. To my annoyance, Danto didn’t leave, but posted himself out of the way, staring out at Betanda with a dissatisfied air. No doubt he wished he were aboard her instead of tending a bunch of troublesome Terrans.
“You and Patch have been so helpful and accommodating in bringing us this far,” Jamila gushed, “and we, that is, Lyden and I, would like to continue to charter your ship. It could be very lucrative for you.”
I asked, “Where do you want to go?” There was no way I would let Sparrow go into Gav sectors.
Lyden answered. “We want to follow Balan’s vision. We want you to take us to Nakana.”
CHAPTER 12
Time to negotiate
“You want to charter Sparrowhawk for a voyage to Nakana?” Kojo ran a hand through his hair, leaving his curls standing on end. “You must be joking. You only have Balan’s visions to think that it even exists.”
“It exists,” Balan said, “and I will lead us there.”
“That is the purpose of the relic,” Mya said, her eyes shining. Suddenly shy, she glanced quickly at Lyden before adding, “It must be. It shows the chosen one the way to Nakana.”
Looking at Mya more closely, I realized she was not as young as I’d first guessed—her extreme deference to Lyden had misled me. She was a pretty thing, with large gray eyes and a softly rounded forehead fringed with a chestnut pelt sloping back from a delicate brow ridge.
I asked, “Where, exactly, would you want us to take you?”
Balan smiled smugly. “There is a planet in the outer sectors known as Kriti. The expedition will leave from there and proceed as I direct—Nakana is within sublight distance from there.”
Kojo and I exchanged a glance. Kriti—the place we were supposed to meet Ordalo to turn over the microbial synthreactor. But I didn’t think arriving with a ship full of Gavorans on pilgrimage was what Ordalo had in mind.
Kojo rubbed his jaw. “I know Kriti. Out at the edge of the Gloom, isn’t it?” He pulled up the charts and located the planet in sector 377.
The charts showed Kriti as an oasis of settlement in an otherwise depressingly empty star system. The system’s tenuous link to civilized sectors was a distant jump gate that connected to only a single star corridor. And on the far side of Kriti, the chart flashed a veritable wall of warnings, fencing off a vast void labeled only Gloom.
I stared at the chart, looking for habitable worlds. “You think Kriti is Nakana? Or maybe one of these moons?”
Jamila bit her lip. “Not exactly. Kriti got its name because the ruins there reminded Terrans of the Minoan structures on Crete. The Kriti ruins were a small outpost, roughly contemporaneous with the Caz
ar site we were studying. We believe that five thousand years ago, that outpost helped to guard a major cultural center in a nearby system.”
Kojo sucked in a breath and leaned back. “What system? You mean inside the Gloom?”
“Correct,” Lyden said. “Our scholars have long puzzled over the placement of the jump gate in that sector. The Kriti system by itself is not sufficiently important, in terms of resources, to justify a gateway, nor is the gateway as close to the only significant habitable world as one would expect. There must be some other system within sublight range of the gateway—one now hidden by the advancement of the dense ether we call the Gloom. Our expedition will search for that system.”
Kojo shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re saying. I’ve been to Kriti. I’ve seen the Gloom. As far as I’m concerned, life stops at Kriti.”
Danto stirred. “I also have been to Kriti. It was my first posting. The sector is populated by brigands and scoundrels who spread tales about the impenetrability of the Gloom to discourage legitimate settlers. There are known pathways into the Gloom, used by outlaws to escape pursuit. With a properly equipped ship, it would be possible to investigate a specified area.”
It figured that the Corridor Patrol would send a cross-blood recruit to its most remote outpost. Danto was right, of course. In their privateering days, Papa and Hiram had haunted the fringe of the Gloom whenever they needed to disappear for a while.
I swept a hand to indicate the salon’s threadbare couches and worn carpet. “Properly equipped, maybe. But to investigate the Gloom you need special scanners, gravimetric monitors. Not an old space hauler.” As much as I wanted to get out of our current situation, I didn’t want to get mixed up with Gav Sage worshippers, headed to space beyond anybody’s charts.
“They will be provided,” Danto said. “Your ship is a converted military cutter. With sufficient supplies, it is well able to make a journey of several weeks’ duration. You need only do what you say you are in the business of doing—transporting cargo and passengers.”
“I have no doubt,” Lyden said, “the Sages foresaw that the Gloom would overtake Nakana and left the relic to guide us. I feel certain we will discover more artifacts, perhaps even texts and prophecies. Nakana will be the key to a spiritual reawakening. For our people, it may be the beginning of a new golden era.”
“Not to mention,” Jamila added, “the very real possibility of discovering Sage technology. We’ve already been in touch with the Settlement Authority. They have authorized Evergreen University and the College of Religion to survey from orbit any planet that might have advanced technology. The Settlement Authority will lend us the equipment, as well as a scientist who will conduct the survey and, um, ensure the Authority’s regulations are respected. Once we gather basic information from orbit, we’ll report to the Settlement Authority to determine what further research should be done.” Her dry tone made it all sound almost reasonable.
I caught Mya staring at me. I stared back until she looked away. “All this is speculation,” I said. “We could spend a lifetime sailing around the Gloom and find nothing.”
“The charter will be for sixty days maximum,” Jamila replied. “The only question for you to consider is, how much would you charge us for such an expedition?”
Sixty days. Kojo’s eyes brightened. I knew what he was thinking: The voyage would be convenient cover for our rendezvous with Ordalo. Convenient, except for one thing—our delivery was due in fifty-three days, and how in Zub’s name could we manage it with a load full of unpredictable, religion-obsessed Gavorans?
Kojo opened his mouth, but I spoke first.
“It’s too dangerous.” I smiled to show my regret. “It’s fun to think about going into the Gloom and finding a lost planet, but really, it’s not feasible. We could be lost and never get back. Or be attacked by those brigands the sergeant mentioned. No amount of money would be worth that.”
Kojo shot me a glare and touched his ear to signal he wanted to take the job.
Jamila smiled engagingly at Kojo. “A sixty-day charter, although it may take far less time than that. We are prepared to be generous with the charter price.”
I tapped the table to keep eyes on me, not Kojo. “Why us? The Corridor Patrol could do this itself. Or the Settlement Authority could organize a real survey mission. Why use Sparrowhawk?”
Lyden wound together her long fingers. “The Settlement Authority regards the evidence as too speculative to commit to a full mission.”
Kojo muttered, “No surprise there.”
Jamila glanced at Danto. “We can’t use a Corridor Patrol ship or any other ship with a Gavoran crew. The relic does seem to have a disturbing influence on Gavorans.”
Danto nodded. “Even in the few days our ships have been linked, some of the guards have reported strange longings and even auditory hallucinations. Captain Gurin has limited the guards’ shifts aboard your ship. However, I seem to be immune.”
Thank your Terran blood, I thought.
Lyden smiled like a friendly shark. “Like you, Patch, Sergeant Danto is a hybrid; nevertheless, he is a highly valued member of Captain Gurin’s crew. The Sages seem to have ordained your presence, and his, on this mission. No doubt your intermediate status will be useful.”
Intermediate status. I responded with an unladylike grunt.
Mya surreptitiously glanced at Danto. Danto’s jutting nose and chin and ears were flags signaling his Terran blood. Even the scant hair on his wrists and the back of his hands, so different from a proper Gavoran’s sleek fur, smacked of a Terran father.
Danto returned her scrutiny with a glower and pulled his sleeves down.
I shook my head. “We’re traders. Going beyond the settlements would take us out of circulation too long, with no trade opportunities. Our steady customers would find other haulers.” If we had any steady customers left.
Kojo scratched his ear again.
I touched the back of my hand. I wasn’t just negotiating—taking the job would be too damned risky.
Kojo rubbed his jaw, as if assessing the pros and cons. “The area around Kriti has a reputation for hiding pirates’ lairs. Our guns could never stand up to a serious assault.”
“You would be allowed to carry midrange artillery for the duration of the mission.” Danto began to pace, hands clasped behind his back. “Indeed, in view of the threat from pirates and the need for secrecy, the Corridor Patrol has detailed me to lead the mission.” He looked less than pleased at the honor.
I touched the back of my hand again. Now I was really against it. Traveling with a Settlement Authority busybody and a Corridor Patrol officer? And trying to deliver the synthreactor to Ordalo under Danto’s prominent nose?
Danto stopped pacing and bored his gaze into Kojo’s eyes. “It will be a condition that you, and everyone on your ship, maintain absolute silence about the mission and the location of Nakana. You and your crew must remain aboard ship and maintain communications silence until the mission is complete.”
That made me squawk. “You mean we’d be prisoners!”
Jamila smiled. “Collaborators in a highly confidential endeavor.”
I shook my head. “Maybe you can find another Terran ship.”
“Unacceptable,” Lyden said. “We cannot risk information spreading further.”
Jamila purred, “If it’s just a matter of money, I’m sure we can come to some reasonable resolution.”
“Sure,” Kojo said, before I could stop him. “A hundred thousand credits, in advance.”
Lyden gasped, but Jamila’s eyes lit up.
Danto glared. “Nonsense. We could buy the ship for that.”
“But not a crew willing to go into the Gloom.” Kojo looked smug.
I held up a hand. “We’re not going, and that’s final. Kojo is captain, but I’m the business manager. We won’t take the job.”
Danto’s green eyes became hard. “In that case, the Patrol will inform the magistrate that your ship was a
pprehended carrying fugitives and extremely valuable stolen property. Your ship could be confiscated. Your licenses could be canceled.”
“I saw that coming,” Kojo muttered.
“We had no knowledge of that,” I said. “Any magistrate would rule in our favor.” I hoped.
“Doubtful,” Danto said. “In any case, it would take weeks to adjudicate the case, during which time you and your crew would be held in seclusion to ensure the security of the mission. Without compensation.”
Ancestors. Weeks in seclusion? Even if we managed to keep our ship and licenses, every moment we spent in custody would delay our delivery to Ordalo—and increase the chance the Patrol would find the synthreactor.
Damn. No help for it. “All right,” I said. “I’m willing to consider it. Subject to agreement on terms.”
Jamila smiled and folded her hands in front of her. “Good. Now, let’s discuss price. Thirty thousand credits seems fair to me.”
We settled on sixty-five thousand credits, a third up front, a third when we got to Kriti, and the last third after finishing the job.
The price was on the low side for so much time, but we were getting a lot of extra benefits. Since we faced unknown conditions, perhaps even an emergency landing without the benefits of a port’s lifters, the Patrol would install some refurbished stabilizer rockets and high-efficiency units for the engines and would help with Archer’s propulsion overhaul. I asked for a new grav generator, too, but Danto overruled it. All the provisions for the mission would come from the Patrol garrison’s supplies.
On the whole, we’d end up with a better ship and enough funds to pay down some of our debts—if we survived to enjoy it.
I stared at Betanda while counting berths. “Jamila, Mzee Lyden, and Mya?” Mya nodded. “Sergeant Danto, Balan, and the scientist. In addition to the crew.”
“And Grimbold,” Danto added.
“Bad idea,” Kojo said. “He’s trouble.”
“Another trained combatant may prove useful, and I would rather have him where I am sure he will have no opportunity to contact his friends at Rampart Militech.” Danto curled a lip. “I will ensure that he causes no trouble.”
