by Peter Grant
That’s a pity. I could have used another one, Cochrane thought. He said aloud, “I suppose you’re right. Keep the three derelict hulls in reserve, in parking orbits, in case we find a use for them, even if it’s only spare parts for the five refurbished ships. Also, from now on, charge me at normal rates for your work. You’ve been very generous in working at cost-plus-five, and I’m very grateful; but now that I have more money coming in, it’s time you earned a normal profit.”
“All right. Thank you, Captain.”
“Speaking of parking ships, I’ve got that other freighter that Commander Cousins brought here, too. She’ll have an anchor watch aboard.” They’ll be guarding the asteroids in her holds, rather than the ship herself, but Grigorescu doesn’t need to know about them, he thought with an inward smile. “Three or four more vessels may arrive over the next few months. Will you please store them in parking orbits around Constanta, along with all our other ships? Log them in Orbital Control’s records as waiting for repair at your shipyard. I know I can trust you to look after them, and the small crews I’ll leave aboard them.”
“Certainly, Captain. There’ll be a monthly fee to cover OrbCon’s charges and the use of one of my shuttles for routine traffic, of course. You can arrange with one of the spaceship chandlers to supply them with everything they’ll need.”
“Thank you. Would you please deal with the chandler on my behalf? I won’t have time – I’m heading out tomorrow. I’ll leave enough with you to cover all those expenses for the next six months.”
ROUSAY
As Cochrane took his leave of Grigorescu, voices were raised in the New Orkney Enterprise boardroom.
“Thirty-seven! Thirty-seven of the richest, most lucrative asteroids in the whole Mycenae system – and they’ve vanished without trace!” Marwick fumed.
“How do we know how many there were, if they’re all gone?” another director asked, his face white with anger.
“We know how many beacons were emplaced. Our ship queried each prospector robot as to how many they had left, and subtracted that from the total with which they started. Q.E.D.”
“What about the ship that stole them?”
“We have a monitoring satellite in the asteroid belt nearby. It can’t use active sensors, of course, or else it’d be detected; but it recorded the ship’s gravitic drive signature with its passive sensors. It wasn’t one of ours.”
“Was it one of those we made available to Captain Cochrane?” a third director demanded, dire suspicion in his voice.
“It didn’t match their drive signatures. I asked Rousay’s System Patrol Service to trace it, but they couldn’t come up with a match. They’ll inquire through the United Planets, but they tell me that if a frequency modulator was used on the drive, it’ll be almost impossible to pin it down.”
“Could Cochrane have used a frequency modulator on one of our ships, so we wouldn’t recognize its drive signature?”
“Our ships aren’t fitted with them, and such devices are very tightly controlled. They’re military hardware, and subject to all the usual restrictions on such gear. I don’t see how he could have gotten hold of one.”
“Even though he’s a former Captain?”
“He might have contacts that would get him one, but from where? If it was local, it would be logged in the System Patrol Service’s records – but none of those units are missing.”
“Could he have made his own?”
“They’re very intricate pieces of electronics. They have to be, to deal with gravitic as well as electromagnetic radiation. It would take a very highly trained specialist to make one. I suppose the Captain might know someone like that, but again, he’d have to have access to all the parts, some of which are tightly restricted.”
“On balance, I’m inclined to think the Captain wasn’t involved, or the ships we lent him,” Marissa Stone commented. “For a start, he didn’t know about our prospector robot activity. We didn’t tell him, and it’s not the sort of thing a routine sensor scan would detect. If he didn’t know where to look, it would be very difficult for him to find it.”
“There is that,” the other director admitted. “What are we going to do about the theft?”
“I think we’re going to have to tell Captain Cochrane about the existence of our prospector robots,” Marwick said with a sigh. “I know we wanted to keep that confidential, but I daresay he won’t be too surprised. If he’s aware of them, his patrols can keep an eye on them.”
“When does he take over security duties at Mycenae?”
“He asked for six months to get organized before he started work. That’ll be over at about the same time that our new satellites are installed. I sent him a message a couple of weeks ago, asking him to meet with myself and Ms. Stone as soon as possible to give us a progress report. He should get here within the next few weeks. We’ll report back to the Board about his plans as soon as we know what they are.”
“And what are we going to do now to raise funds for our initial projects in Mycenae, once we’ve got United Planets approval?”
“I’m afraid we must write off the missing asteroids. By now they’ll have been refined, and the metals and minerals they yielded will have been sold on the black market. All we can do is have our robots continue their work, this time with protection from Captain Cochrane’s security force.”
“Can he – will he – deal with any future thieves as they deserve? I don’t mean arrest them; I mean blow them out of space!”
The others looked at the speaker, tight-lipped. Marissa Stone answered at last, choosing her words very carefully, “Please don’t use such language in an official board meeting. I can only presume that was a joke in bad taste.” Her emphasis made her meaning clear. If it could be proved that directors knew about and approved of such acts in advance, they might in due course be called to account for them in a court of law.
“Ah… yes. Yes, of course. I was only joking. My apologies for not making that clearer.”
The speaker’s eyes suggested otherwise. Marwick looked at him and gave a slight nod of his head. The other director leaned back in his chair, mollified.
Henry Martin nursed his tankard of beer as he looked across the table. “You drive a hard bargain. I don’t know if I can raise that much so quickly.”
“Oh, come off it!” Frank scoffed. “You’re talking about two brand-new ships worth easily a hundred and fifty million apiece. I’m charging you only twenty percent of their combined value. What could be fairer?”
“That’s their value to an honest buyer from an honest seller. Once they’re stolen, you’ll be lucky to get a third of that from a broker on Medusa or somewhere like that.”
“Yes, but that’s not my fault. Come on, Henry. You know I’m the best there is in this business. I deliver value for money. Your sixty million will buy you everything you need, not just the ships themselves. This is a risky job, you know – much riskier than the last one you hired me for. Security at New Westray was pathetic. It’ll be a lot stricter at Goheung. These are brand-new fast freighters, being delivered to a customer by a commercial shipyard. They’ll be careful, making sure all the documentation is correct and that we’re competent before they’ll let us take the ships. We’re going to have to disguise ourselves real well, to avoid being identified and arrested later. There’s also the job of dealing with the passage crews, which is a whole new problem, plus three different sets of laws and regulations. If anything goes wrong, me and my boys will spend the rest of our lives rotting on a prison planet. Besides, you know you can trust me. Others might just sell the ships for their own account. They’d make more money that way. I won’t. I’m an honest crook. I stay bought.”
The not-so-reformed criminal heaved a sigh. “I guess you are, at that. I’ll check on whether I can come up with that much, that quickly. I’ll meet you for lunch tomorrow. If it’s a go, I’ll pay you the first half of the money. The rest will be paid when you deliver our ships.”
“I
reckon that’ll do. You’ll trust me with the ships, and I’ll trust you with the rest of my money.”
Later that evening, Henry briefed the Captain on the details. “He’s charging high, but he’s right. Not many people in his line of work can be trusted to deliver the goods, when they could make more by selling them for their own benefit. He’s built his reputation by never cheating his customers. It’ll cost us a lot, but I reckon he’s worth it – that is, if you want those ships.”
“We’re going to need those we get in exchange for them. Besides, it’ll put a crimp in the Callanish consortium’s operations until they can replace them, and they’ll have to use their own money to do so, because they paid for those new freighters using NOE’s stolen satellites. What’s more, they’ll shortly discover that they’ve lost a lot more money somewhere else, which will put them in an even more difficult position.”
“Oh? What have you been up to, Captain?”
“I’d better not say. Remember, we’re operating on a need-to-know basis. If you don’t know about it, no-one can force you to talk about it.”
“I guess not. Can you afford to pay Frank the first half of his fee?”
“It’ll clean out the rest of the gold I have on board my courier ship, and a chunk of my cash reserve as well, but yes, we can pay him. I’ll draw an interplanetary bearer bank draft for the balance of his fee, when the ships are delivered.”
“That should work; but the second payment will be just over thirty-one and a half million francs if you do it that way. There’s a five percent fee to cash those drafts, and Frank won’t be willing to pay it out of his end.”
“Dammit, I’d forgotten about that! All right. If I can’t free up that much cash or gold, I’ll adjust the amount of the draft. Did Lachlan give you enough information about the itinerary of the passage crews for Frank to set up everything he needs to do?”
“Yes, he did. Frank says it’ll be a scramble, but he can get there on time.”
As he undressed for bed, later that night, Cochrane was devoutly grateful that he’d managed to make a deal for the asteroids with the Dragon Tong, and that they’d trusted him with an advance payment. Without it, he wouldn’t have been able to pay for the current operation, not on top of all the other demands on his bank balance that were shortly to fall due.
I knew I was taking a hell of a chance when I set up this company, he reminded himself. Fortunately, so far, it’s paying off; but anything could still go wrong. We’re balanced on a knife-edge until we can cash in a couple more loads of asteroids, and order the right kind of ships to stop others pushing us around. The next couple of years are going to be critical – and we’ve barely begun them yet.
He went to sleep with that thought running around and around in his mind. His dreams were not restful.
“I came as soon as possible after I got your message, sir,” Cochrane began as he sat down in the conference room. “I’m sorry about the delay.”
“It was unfortunate,” Marwick harrumphed. “How are your preparations progressing?”
“Very well, sir. I’ve obtained several suitable vessels. The first of them should be ready by the deadline, with more to follow. I’ve also armed one of the freighters you lent me. She now has her own missile pod, along with laser cannon and the systems to guide their fire.”
The two directors sat bolt upright. “You armed our ship?” Stone expostulated. “What about when you’re finished with her? Will we be able to return her to her original condition?”
“That’s easily done, ma’am. It’ll just be a matter of taking the missile pod out of her hold, plating over the aperture we cut for it, dismounting the laser cannon barbettes and plating over their ports, and removing the sensor panels we applied to the outside of the hull.”
“I see. You should have told us ahead of time, though. People might assume we’re arming our ships, when we’re not.”
“If you let it be known that three of your vessels have been dry-leased to Eufala Corporation for three years, people won’t worry too much, ma’am. If they notice the weapons, it won’t reflect on the New Orkney Enterprise, because Rousay has licensed Eufala to operate armed ships.”
“I suppose so.”
“Will you be ready to commence operations by our agreed deadline?” Marwick demanded.
“Yes, sir, I will. When are your new satellites going to be deployed?”
“At the end of the month.”
“Good. I’ll have a ship there to keep an eye on them. Don’t tell your people about her, though, sir. She’ll be keeping out of sight, making no emissions that your ship will detect. I want to be able to surprise anyone who tries to steal the new satellites.”
Privately, Marwick wondered whether the Captain was saying that to cover up the fact that he wouldn’t have a ship there at all. Oh, stop it! he scolded himself. If he wanted to cheat us, he could have taken the billion-odd kronor we’ve paid him so far, and disappeared. He hasn’t, so he’s probably on the level.
“There’s something else we need you to keep an eye on,” the senior director told him. “We’ve got a field of prospector robots looking at part of one of Mycenae’s asteroid belts.”
Cochrane sat upright in feigned surprise. “You didn’t tell me about that when you gave me the data about what was going on in the system, sir,” he said in a half-accusatory tone.
“No, we didn’t, and that’s backfired on us,” Marwick admitted. “We’ve just learned that all the asteroids our robots had flagged for priority attention have been collected by someone else.”
“Who, sir?”
“I’m afraid we don’t know.”
Cochrane shook his head in pretended exasperation. “With respect, Mr. Marwick, you should have told me about the robots right away. If I’d known about them, I could have emplaced sensors to keep an eye on them, and note anyone who came calling.”
“We have sensors of our own, Captain. They recorded the gravitic drive signature of the ship that stole the asteroids, but we think it was disguised. For what it’s worth, here are the records.” He slid a data chip across the highly polished surface of the table to their visitor.
“I’ll have them analyzed in depth, sir,” Cochrane assured him.
Marwick nodded impatiently. “That brings up a new consideration, Captain. We need to prevent any further theft of our asteroids. A single high-value asteroid can fetch billions, even tens of billions of kronor. Our robots are picking out such asteroids for priority attention, so to have them stolen them like this represents an enormous financial loss to the New Orkney Enterprise. Therefore, we need you to arrange that anyone trying to steal them in future is… let us say, permanently discouraged from doing so.”
Cochrane stared at him, his eyes narrowing. He was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “Mr. Marwick, if pirates or smugglers attack our ships or resist arrest, we’re entitled to defend ourselves, even if that means using lethal force. This is different. Depending on the circumstances, it might verge on cold-blooded murder. Now, I don’t necessarily object to killing in the normal course of events – I’ve proved that more than once against criminals during my career, as you know – but I’m not prepared to put myself or my people in legal jeopardy.” He noted Marissa Stone’s expression change as he spoke of killing, a frisson of atavistic anticipation running through her body. Marwick wasn’t looking at her, so he didn’t notice it; but Cochrane had been expecting something like that.
“Let’s look at practical issues first, sir” he continued. “I can’t assign a ship to permanently guard your robotic prospectors. While she’s doing that, she can’t patrol the rest of the system, and I can’t afford to buy an extra ship to take her place – not on what you’re paying me. What’s more, any intruder is bound to notice the guard ship’s gravitic drive emissions. She’ll simply wait for the patrol to move past her, then sneak in behind it. If you want to catch her in the act, you’ve got to use methods she can’t detect until it’s too late. Furthermore, if w
e ‘permanently discourage’ her, we can’t be sure that some of those who do it won’t talk about it, or that sensor records won’t be made available to law enforcement in future, incriminating us. Are you with me so far, sir?”
“Yes. You’re saying you can’t do what we want.”
“Not necessarily, sir. I’m saying we need to find a better, smarter way to do it. Are you aware of this planet’s defenses against attack from space?”
Marwick blinked. “Well, we have them, I know, but… no, I can’t say I’m familiar with them.”
“The outer defense is Rousay’s System Patrol Service with its patrol craft, sir. The inner defense is orbital missile pods and nuclear space mines. The inner defenses are usually switched off, activated only if a threat is detected. After that, anything coming within range of them will be automatically destroyed, unless they’ve been programmed to ignore its drive signature, or it’s broadcasting an identification signal they recognize. If you want to protect your prospector robots and their discoveries, you’re going to have to put those sorts of defenses around them.”
“You mean, orbital missile pods and mines?”
“Not missile pods, sir. They need long-range guidance systems. Here on Rousay, Orbital Control or System Control provide that via datalink. Mycenae has no OrbCon or Syscon yet, so we’ll have to rely on space mines to do the job. They have their own gravitic drives, so they can adjust their positions as required, albeit slowly. They’re also stealthy, making them very hard to detect on radar or lidar, and they can adopt a random pattern, moving around so they’re never in one place for very long. Their drives are low-powered, so their signatures are only detectable at very close range, and not at all if they aren’t moving. They have their own sensors to aim their bomb-pumped laser warheads, which can take out any small to medium-sized ship, or badly damage a larger one. What’s more, they have no crews, so there’s no salaries to pay, no sick leave, nothing like that. They’re autonomous. You program them, then go away and leave them to get on with the job.”
