The Jupiter Pirates

by Jason Fry

Yana grumbled something under her breath.

  “You should listen to your brother,” said the woman behind the desk, her eyes on the chip in Tycho’s hand.

  “We just want the man who dropped this to know who found it for him,” Tycho said, trying to sound small and despairing.

  “I already told you that I’ll tell him,” the woman behind the desk said, eyes still on the chip. “Come back tomorrow and I’ll give you your reward—if there is one.”

  Tycho looked doubtful, and the woman sighed, exasperated.

  “What did you expect? Did you think he’d put a couple of half-grown dome rats like you on the jobs list?”

  Yana’s eyes went wide. Alarmed, Tycho kicked her in the ankle and looked pleadingly at the woman, acting as if he hadn’t heard the scorn in her voice.

  “Oh, ma’am, a job would be such a big help . . . you can’t even imagine,” he said.

  The woman behind the desk laughed.

  “You’re a little young for that line of work,” she said, and held out her hand, palm up. “Now come on. Give me the chip.”

  “We’re not giving that chip to anybody except the man who dropped it!” Yana exclaimed.

  The woman behind the desk looked from one Hashoone to the other.

  “My sister’s right,” Tycho said, putting the chip back in his pocket. “I hate to doubt you, ma’am, but these are hard times. Could you call him, please?”

  The woman behind the desk glowered at them for a moment, then activated her headset and tapped at her mediapad.

  “Is Mr. Hindman available?” she asked, then instantly began talking again. “No? How long? Really? Okay. No, no message.”

  She shut down her headset and smiled thinly at Tycho and Yana.

  “He’s in meetings all day,” she said. “So unless you want to wait . . .”

  Tycho and Yana looked at each other.

  “I guess we have no choice but to wait,” Yana said, sounding reluctant.

  “No, it’s fine, sis,” Tycho said, narrowing his eyes at Yana and hoping she’d catch the hint. “Could I borrow that envelope now, ma’am? And maybe a piece of scrap?”

  “But—” said Yana.

  “We can’t wait all day,” Tycho said, emphasizing each word. Yana fluttered her hands, clearly annoyed with him, but didn’t argue further.

  The woman handed over an envelope and a piece of paper, both of which had been recycled so many times they were a dingy beige. Tycho scrawled something on the note with his stylus, popped it in the envelope along with the chip, sealed the envelope, and wrote hindman across the front. The woman’s eyes, he saw, were fixed on the envelope.

  “I’m sorry, I can never spell his firm’s name right,” Tycho said casually, fighting the urge to hold his breath.

  “It’s just like it sounds,” the woman said quizzically. “S-M-I-T-H. Smith Maritime.”

  Yana looked away, face turning red, and put her hand over her mouth.

  “She thinks I’m an idiot,” Tycho said hurriedly. “I always want to spell ‘Smith’ with a Y, for some reason.”

  He held up the envelope, which the woman all but snatched out of his hand and immediately put in a drawer.

  “Please make sure Mr. Hindman gets that,” Tycho said.

  “Oh, I will. Don’t you kids worry,” the woman said. “Have a nice day.”

  Tycho and Yana slapped hands in the corridor, not caring about the security camera. Tycho was sure the woman behind the desk was already tossing the envelope and note in the recycling and pocketing the chip. Even if she did realize she’d been conned, the last thing she’d do was tell the mysterious Mr. Hindman of Smith Maritime what had happened.

  “I didn’t think you knew what you were doing back there, Tyke, but that was beautiful,” Yana said as they reentered the pressure dome full of equipment shops.

  “Thanks . . . I think,” Tycho said, then grinned. “I wish I could see her face when she finds out that chip barely has enough on it for a carton of jump-pop.”

  “Me too,” Yana said. “But now I want to know what Smith Maritime is.”

  “And who Hindman is,” Tycho said.

  Yana took out her mediapad and plopped down at a rickety table outside a café while Tycho bought a jump-pop and some nutrient squares to keep the owner from shooing them away.

  “The public listing doesn’t tell us much,” Yana said, showing him the result of her search. “Services for interplanetary cargo transportation, offices on Ceres and Vesta.”

  “Go back to Suud’s list of current diplomats,” Tycho suggested, biting off the corner of a square. “See if any of them work for Smith Maritime.”

  Yana brightened and nodded, fingers flying over her mediapad as she called up the list of current diplomats.

  “Yes!” she said, smiling at Tycho. “Here’s one who does. And here’s another.”

  “What about Hindman? Is he on the list?” Tycho asked, trying to keep the growing excitement out of his voice.

  “You’re drinking all the jump-pop,” Yana complained.

  “Forget the stupid jump-pop!” Tycho said. “Is Hindman a diplomat or not?”

  “Let me see,” Yana said, fingers tapping eagerly. But then her shoulders sagged. “No, he isn’t.”

  “You’re sure?” Tycho asked. He could feel the disappointment like a weight in his chest.

  “Positive,” Yana said.

  “Okay,” Tycho said. “Give me a moment.”

  His brain felt like it was spinning. He and Yana were on the right track—he knew it. They’d discovered something important, something that might explain the strange events on Ceres and why Earth suddenly had so many diplomats. A solution to their court case would look awfully good in the Log, but what was that solution?

  Tycho tried to think. There was Suud’s mustachioed aide, and the redheaded Hindman, and the pirate from the Hydra, and the bald man, and the list of diplomats, and the companies they used to work for, and they were all connected somehow. But how?

  “While you stare into space, I’m gonna get a jump-pop of my own,” Yana said, pulling a currency chip from her pocket and getting to her feet.

  Tycho glanced at the chip held in Yana’s fingertips, then grabbed his sister’s arm.

  “Hey!” she protested.

  “Hindman isn’t a diplomat,” Tycho said, tapping the currency chip. “He’s the guy who hires them.”

  Yana sank back down in her chair.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “We saw Hindman walking with Suud’s aide and a bunch of scuzzy-looking spacers—one of whom is part of Mox’s crew,” Tycho said. “Today we saw him pay the bald guy after Suud’s aide was done talking with him. The woman at Smith Maritime talked about a jobs list, and now we see that several of the new diplomats work for Smith Maritime. It all adds up.”

  Yana nodded. “That’s right. But what about all these other companies? Why would they all hire people just so they can become Earth diplomats?”

  “Look up Carnegie-Frick—Soughton’s company,” Tycho said. “See if there’s a public listing.”

  He nibbled at a nutrient square while Yana tapped and scrolled. The square was stale.

  “Carnegie-Frick, security consultants to the space-transportation industry,” Yana said. “Offices on Earth, the Moon, and Mars.”

  “Security consultants?” Tycho asked, drumming his fingers on the table. “Sounds to me like a nicer name for what Grandpa called leg breakers.”

  “It also sounds pretty much the same as the listing for Smith Maritime,” Yana said.

  “You’re right, it does,” Tycho said. “Go back to the list of diplomats. Look and see if there are public listings for the other companies they work for.”

  Englert and Brout were interplanetary shipping consultants, with offices on Mars and in the asteroid belt. Franklin-Bundy specialized in cargo security, and their offices were on the Moon. The next name they tried belonged to consultants based on the asteroid 221 Eos. Tycho pictured a succession
of dreary waiting rooms outside drab offices that were way stations for men and women who spent their lives in space.

  “Let’s call one of them and see what we can figure out,” suggested Yana. “We’ll use a public comm so they can’t track it.”

  Tycho took the carton of jump-pop, and they squeezed into the half booth of an unoccupied public communicator, its rusty exterior sporting dents and graffiti.

  “Try Carnegie-Frick,” Tycho said. “Remember to blank the screen.”

  “I know how to use a comm, Tyke,” Yana replied, copying the contact information from her mediapad. “You do the talking. You’re on a roll today.”

  Carnegie-Frick’s logo appeared on the comm’s screen, and a chime sounded.

  “Welcome to Carnegie-Frick,” said a cultured female voice. The intonation was perfectly regular—a giveaway that this was an artificial intelligence, not a person. “How may I direct you?”

  “Um, we run a small family shipping company out of Ceres,” Tycho said. “We’re wondering what services you offer.”

  “I’m sorry, Carnegie-Frick is limited to institutional customers,” the smooth female voice said. “Good-bye.”

  The screen went black.

  “Well, that was rude,” Yana said.

  “Try Englert and Brout,” Tycho said.

  The same cool, artificial female voice answered.

  “Um, is this Englert and Brout?” asked Tycho, startled.

  “It is,” the artificial voice said. “How may I direct you?”

  “It’s about my family’s interplanetary shipping company, out of . . . um, Mars,” Tycho said. “I’m interested in a services contract with your company.”

  “I’m sorry, Englert and Brout is limited to institutional customers,” the voice said. “Good-bye.”

  “That was weird,” Tycho said, but Yana shrugged.

  “They just use the same artificial-intelligence avatar. So what?” she said.

  “They also have the exact same message,” Tycho said. “Let’s try Smith Maritime.”

  “And talk to that harpy again?” Yana asked. “She must know we tricked her by now.”

  “I bet she won’t be the one answering the call,” Tycho said. “Would you want her talking to customers on the comm?”

  “Good point,” Yana said.

  “Welcome to Smith Maritime,” said a now-familiar artificial female voice. “How may I direct you?”

  “I represent an institutional shipping company,” Tycho said. “We’re looking to see if your services meet our needs.”

  “I’m sorry, Smith Maritime is not taking new customers at this time,” the voice said. “Good-bye.”

  “Huh,” Tycho said.

  “Move on to the next one?” Yana asked.

  “No,” Tycho said. “Try Carnegie-Frick again.”

  Yana looked doubtful but reentered the contact information. The Carnegie-Frick logo materialized, and the chime sounded.

  “Welcome to Carnegie-Frick,” the voice said. “How may I direct you?”

  “My firm specializes in artificial-intelligence programs,” Tycho said. “We’d like to discuss your customer-service needs with the appropriate person.”

  “All such inquiries should be directed to GlobalRex Reinsurance, a subsidiary of the GlobalRex Corporation,” the cool voice recited. “Good-bye.”

  Tycho nodded.

  “Now Englert and Brout,” he said.

  “Let me try it this time,” Yana said, dialing and listening to the artificial intelligence’s greeting.

  “I run a company that makes artificial-intelligence programs,” she said. “We’d like to discuss your customer-service needs with the appropriate person.”

  “All such inquiries should be directed—” the voice began.

  “—to GlobalRex Reinsurance,” Tycho and Yana finished, nodding at each other.

  “They’re all the same company,” Yana said. “All of Threece Suud’s fake diplomats were hired by the same place—and GlobalRex has gone to a lot of trouble to keep people from figuring that out.”

  “Except we just did,” Tycho said with a grin.

  “So what are they so determined to hide?” Yana asked.

  “Well, we know Earth is trying to stop privateering by putting fake diplomats on all their merchant ships, right?”

  “Right,” Yana said.

  “And we know—or at least we’re pretty sure—that those diplomats are just thugs like Soughton, hired by men like Hindman to work for GlobalRex’s fake companies,” Tycho said.

  “Right again,” Yana said. “Which is wrong. It has to be.”

  “I agree it’s wrong,” Tycho said. “But is it illegal?”

  “Well, forget about the diplomats. Hindman and Suud’s aide were with the pirate from Mox’s ship—that sure points to something illegal,” Yana said. “And the bald man outside the bar . . . is he a diplomat, or a pirate?”

  “Well, he sure looks—” Tycho began, then jumped to his feet and grinned at his sister.

  “I’ve got it!” he said. “Remember Grandfather said those leg breakers—guys like Soughton—were half pirate themselves? Well, men like Hindman find them, and Suud’s aide interviews them and approves them. Some of them become Earth’s phony diplomats, working for companies that are all really GlobalRex. But others become crewers for pirates like Mox.”

  Yana leaned forward, eyes widening.

  “GlobalRex doesn’t want anyone to figure it out, and Suud has arranged things so he never has to know about it,” Tycho said. “His aide handles it. That way Suud stays clean.”

  “That filthy bilge rat,” Yana said.

  Tycho nodded.

  “I should have been listening to Grandfather from the beginning,” he said. “Back on Ganymede he said some folks think it’s honorable to steal with words and computers, but not with cannons. He said they think they’re clean because they don’t know the people who do the dirty work. They say we privateers are the ones causing the war with Earth, when they’re fighting too—and twice as dirty. And it all points back to one person.”

  “Threece Suud,” Yana said.

  “Threece Suud,” Tycho agreed.

  13

  JUPITER’S TRAP

  The Jovian Union maintained a sprawling warren of offices connected to one of Ceres’s larger pressure domes. Tycho and Yana found the rest of their family there, discussing the finer points of space law with a pair of Jovian officials.

  “Can’t this wait?” asked a weary-looking Diocletia.

  “I don’t think it can,” Mavry said. “These two look like they’re going to blow a hatch seal.”

  “We are,” Yana said. “We know what Suud is doing.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Mavry.

  “I figured it out,” Tycho said. “Suud—”

  “Wait a second, you only figured it out because I noticed—” Yana began.

  “Stop,” Diocletia said. “You can argue about who gets the credit after we decide whether there’s something worth getting credit for. Tycho, go ahead.”

  Tycho decided to explain it like he was writing an essay for Vesuvia to grade. This is what happened. This is what we think it means. This is the evidence. He must have done a good job, because Yana didn’t interrupt him, and when he was halfway through, the other Hashoones began exchanging wary glances.

  “It’s circumstantial evidence, but it’s a lot of circumstantial evidence,” one of the Jovian officials said. “And it fits pretty well with things the Securitat has been seeing—the surge in new diplomats, the increase in pirate activity, the disappearance of Jovian ships.”

  “So what do we do about it?” Mavry asked.

  “I think we’d better talk to the defense minister,” the Jovian official said.

  A couple of hours later Tycho and Yana found themselves sitting in front of a secure communications link, speaking with the Jovian Union’s defense minister and a table of hard-eyed Securitat analysts and aides. Tycho and Yana explain
ed what they’d seen and what they’d discovered—with Yana showing the two pictures from her mediapad—then waited impatiently for their transmission to cross the vast distance between Ceres and Jupiter and for the defense minister’s answering transmission to return.

  The defense minister thanked them solemnly and said he’d be back in touch. That didn’t happen until the next day, though, during a meeting that neither the Hashoone kids nor Huff were invited to. When Diocletia and Mavry emerged from the meeting, they both looked grim.

  “What’s the matter, Mom?” Yana asked. “Didn’t they believe us?”

  “They do,” Diocletia said. “Let’s discuss this in private.”

  They borrowed a small, stale-smelling conference room and sat down, Huff squeezing his bulk between the table and the wall.

  “We’ve been asked to assist the Jovian Defense Force once again,” Diocletia said. “The Securitat agrees Earth is using fake diplomats to evade our privateers while recruiting pirates to damage our commerce.”

  “Why would Earth need to recruit pirates?” Carlo asked. “Can’t they just hire the existing ones?”

  “Ain’t enough of us out there anymore to do any real harm—it’s mostly dead enders like Mox,” Huff said, then grinned. “Imagine spacers findin’ work as pirates—and right here on Ceres, too! I feared them days were at an end.”

  Diocletia looked sharply at her father.

  “The people hiring pirates are our sworn enemies, Dad,” she said.

  “Was just about to say as much,” Huff muttered. “’Tis a terrible thing, of course.”

  “Anyway, the question is how to prove it,” Diocletia said. “Suud and his bureaucrats are too smart to get caught with their hands dirty, so the pirates are the weak point. Based on our sensor data, the JDF has attributed four recent pirate attacks to the Hydra—all on Jovian vessels whose last port of call was Ceres. Mox’s ship logs might have a record of Suud’s scheme . . . or maybe the pirate from Yana’s photo could be made to confess.”

  “But how are we going to get at Mox’s logs?” Yana asked. “Or get the pirate to admit anything?”

  “By capturing the Hydra,” Diocletia said.

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  “Arrr,” said Huff. “The Hydra ain’t yer typical prize. You want ol’ Thoadbone’s ship, yer gonna have to take her at cannonpoint.”