“Good for you.” Jussaro shook the boy’s hand vigorously. “You’re giving me ideas, young man. Cara, we should talk to Gen and Max’s little girl.”
“She’s not fifteen months old yet.”
“I know. Exciting, isn’t it?” The enthusiastic smile on Jussaro’s face faded as he turned to Hartwell. “So you don’t want to return to the Sanctuary business?”
She shook her head. “I’m settled now. I look after my town . . .” She waved at her people. “They look after me. We’re family. I’m too old to change again.”
“But Sanctuary . . .”
“It’s yours.”
“How can it be? I don’t have the unlock codes or the key to the network.”
“I can fix that.”
She leaned forward and touched her forehead to Jussaro’s. He stiffened and jerked backward, eyes wide.
“There. I bequeath it to you, Jussaro, the name, the idea, the codes, the key, the contacts—everything. That’s all you need. The Free Company has the resources. You know what to do and how it works. Be the change you want to be in the universe.” She laughed. “Better sit down before you fall down.”
Jussaro had that typical wide-eyed look of someone who’d recently received a huge infodump and needed time for his brain to process it. Hartwell sat him on the step. “Jonti,” she called to her son who was chatting up a teen girl and looking a little awkward. “Some water for our friend, here.”
She looked toward the gate. Lizzie Rhodes was still standing in the sled, hands on hips, watching from a distance. “I hope you weren’t kidding about a way out. She’s cranky today.”
“We have a ride,” Cara said, glancing up at the sky. “A few hours at most. But will you be okay with them out there?”
“Once you’re out of reach, they have nothing to gain by coming at us. They know we’ve nothing except osteena, and that’s not worth bleeding for. It’s not like they haven’t got stockpiles of their own. It’s hardly rare during wet season. Of course, if they could get their hands on a flyer, it might push them into being reckless.”
“It’s a bit more than a flyer, but unless they have any Navigators, they won’t get very far.”
“I wouldn’t put it past them to try for it, or maybe try for you, and use you as hostages to get access to your crew. You got a plan?”
“The beginnings of one.”
“I’ll wish you success, then.” She bent and kissed Jussaro on the cheek and handed him the water Jonti had brought. “For old times’ sake.”
He blew her a kiss in return. “For old times’ sake. Luck go with you, Zandra Hartwell.”
“And with you, Emil Jussaro. Stick it to the corporations. I know you can do it.” She turned to the gate.
Cara didn’t mind if Jake Lowenbrun lit up every warning light on Dounreay’s air traffic system as long as he arrived before the Lifers ran out of patience.
*Two hours, maximum,* he said.
*Can you make it one? You’ll have a reception committee,* Cara told him. *This Lifer gang would probably like a nice ship for a bit of upward mobility. Might need a plan.*
*Oh, yeah. I’m sure we can come up with something.* Cara could practically hear him grinning.
A little more than an hour later the air vibrated with energy as the Bellatkin dropped out of the sky, skimming the baked ground and throwing up a massive dust cloud. She was only a small freighter with a boxy belly, like a cube rounded at the corners, and a long skinny tail. Her atmospheric maneuverability was assisted by extendable rotors on a pair of stubby upper wings. She wallowed on her antigravs and came to rest farther from Wonnick’s town wall than Cara would have liked.
*Is that the best you can do, Lowenbrun?* she asked.
*You’re lucky I hit the damn planet. This heap of junk is designed for space docking. She doesn’t like atmospheres, and gravity sets off her arthritis. I see you’ve got company.*
*Yes, that’s the Lifer gang under the leadership of Lizzie Rhodes.*
A party of Lifers peeled away from the main band and circled the Bellatkin at a safe distance.
“That ship’s not for the likes of you, Lizzie,” Zandra hollered. “Call off your boys and skedaddle, and we’ll say no more about this.”
“Yeah, right. To make use of anything those guys are bringing in, they’ve gotta get their cargo from the ship to the town. I reckon we should have a percentage of that. Call it taxation or call it a toll. Hell, call it whatever you like.”
“I don’t suppose she’ll believe us if we tell her the Bellatkin isn’t carrying cargo?” Cara asked.
“Would you?”
“Probably not, but it’s the truth.”
“Your ship armed?”
“Ship-to-ship anti-piracy guns. It’s likely they’d take out the Lifers and the whole of Wonnick if we used them in the atmosphere. I presume you don’t want anyone dead.”
Hartwell shook her head. “The Lifers are a nuisance, but we’re not at all-out war with them, most of the time, anyway. And we’d rather keep it that way.”
Cara nodded. “I have an idea.”
The Bellatkin sat on the baked ground, stabilizer legs extended, but cargo- and crew-doors sealed. After ten minutes of zero activity, the Lifers crept toward her. When nothing else happened, they crept closer still. They found the cargo hatch lock and yanked on it. Slowly, the cargo ramp extended from a maw big enough to accommodate a lift-loader, or an exoskeleton. During the Battle for Crossways, the Bellatkin had even carried a pair of hornets, two-man space fighters, all thrust, and bristling with weapons. But right now, she was empty, her hold nothing more than a sealed box.
Weapons extended, but with little caution for the true danger, the Lifers slid from their cresties. While two stayed with the saurians, six of them charged the ramp in pairs, firing off a few warning rounds into the blackness of the hold.
With barely a creak of her hydraulics the ramp rose behind them.
The two riders and all the cresties bolted toward the town walls as the Bellatkin rose on antigravs and shot away.
*Easiest pickup I ever made,* Lowenbrun said. *Can you believe it? The numpties started firing at the walls. How far do you want me to drop them?*
*Fifty klicks should do it. Take them due north. Drop a smoke beacon with them. I guess they aren’t carrying much water.*
Lizzie Rhodes had her plasma rifle leveled, but with her band cut in half, she didn’t have the numbers.
“Put the weapon, down, Lizzie,” Hartwell yelled.
“You bring my boys back. Don’t think I won’t use this.”
“May I?” Cara asked Hartwell.
“Go ahead.”
“Ms. Rhodes,” Cara called. “My pilot will be giving your boys a choice right about now: either leave my ship peacefully or get taken into orbit to chew on vacuum. I’m guessing they’ll choose the nonfatal outcome. They’ll be fifty klicks north and will be given a beacon that will burn for about four hours. If you set off now, you can find them in daylight before they get too thirsty. I understand you sometimes come here to trade peacefully. Next time you come, leave your weapons at home. We’ll give the mayor, here, some basic medical supplies. Some for the town and some for trade. I guess those are even harder to come by than weapons. Call it a sign of good faith, payment for our safe passage.”
Lizzie Rhodes’ eyes narrowed, but she holstered the rifle, sat down in the sled, and gathered the reins. “You’d better be speaking the truth, girl.”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
Chapter Nine
LEAVING
BEN WAS THE FIRST TO ADMIT THAT NEWS OF the training sessions with Morton Tengue hadn’t been universally popular. The psi-tech crews had always trained according to their specialty. No one expected the catering staff to be up front in a firefight, and the Psi-Mechs had specialized in using their eng
ineering bots as weapons, and had never gone beyond basic training in hand-to-hand.
This time Ben insisted on everyone training.
Ada Levenson had been the first to express her displeasure. At the age of forty, Ada had not been in the training ring since her early days with the Trust as a new recruit. She was a large, muscular woman, tall as well as broad, but tending to heaviness with a generous bosom. She probably had a buddysuit tucked away somewhere, but she rarely wore anything other than short-sleeved kitchen whites which contrasted with her florid complexion.
“You don’t seriously expect me to sweat it out on that mat, Benjamin, do you?” She confronted Ben in the dinner queue. He knew he was in trouble as soon as she called him Benjamin instead of boss.
“You and all your staff, Ada,” he said. “No one gets out of this. We need to be ready for anything that might go down. It makes sense.”
“I’ve enough to do already. I guess you let Wenna off, huh?”
Ben shook his head. “Wenna’s in the first rotation.”
“What about you?”
“I’m in the second.”
She huffed out through her nose, snatched his coffee cup away from him, and pushed another into his hands. He sipped it on his way to the office and grimaced. She’d deliberately given him the good stuff, which he hated. Cara would love it, but it was too bitter for his palate. He put it down on the corner of Wenna’s desk.
“You brought me coffee?” she said.
“I intended to bring me coffee, but Ada Levenson’s not happy with me.”
Wenna picked it up and poured it into her own empty mug. She sniffed appreciatively. “It’s the stuff from Blue Mountain. She should be this displeased with me.”
“I told Ada I’d put you in the first rotation for the new training program.”
Wenna laughed. “It’s as good a place as any. No one gets off, right?”
“Right.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going in the second rotation. Each class has a mixture of Free Company, Tengue’s mercs and Syke’s militia. I’ll come and watch yours, though.”
A couple of hours later Ben eased himself into the training gym. The first class had drawn a small audience. Ben suspected most of them simply wanted to see what was in store for them later. Thirty individuals, dressed in softsuits, feet bare, were running through stretches followed by practice moves and, finally, some pairs work.
Wenna, gray hair pulled into a tight band, kept up with the younger participants. Ben knew that even though she appeared to be welded to her desk, she made time for gym sessions, usually early morning or late at night when no one else was around.
Ada Levenson was in the audience, frowning.
Tengue, all muscle himself, in a singlet and loose trousers, knew his business. He was hard on those he thought could do better and encouraging with those who were trying. He’d paired Wenna against Franny Fowler, the smart-mouthed mercenary. They were fairly evenly matched for height and reach, though Wenna maybe had ten pounds on Fowler, and Fowler was young enough to be her daughter.
“You want me to go easy, Ms. Phipps?” Fowler asked as they squared up to each other.
“Why?” Wenna raised one eyebrow. “You think an attacker will go easy on me because I have a prosthetic arm? Or is it that you think I’m too old for this kind of shit?”
“Yeah, whichever.”
“Come on, girl. Give it your best shot.”
“Right. You asked for it.”
Fowler closed quickly, but Wenna twisted away. Ben watched and smiled. The best defense was not to be there when someone was trying to hurt you. He watched the two women whirling together briefly and breaking apart again. Wenna had been a strong fighter in her youth and had become a canny one as she gained years and experience. She held off the younger woman, finally putting her on the mat as Fowler went for a chop and Wenna blocked it with her prosthetic arm. Wenna ended up on top.
“Good use of that arm,” Fowler said as they stood up and grinned at each other. “Though I might have had you if you hadn’t used it to block me.”
“You might, but you didn’t. You have to learn to twist disadvantages to advantages.”
“That wasn’t too bad,” Wenna said to Ben as she passed Ben on her way to the showers. “Score one for the seniors.”
“You’re hardly a senior.”
“I’m twice that girl’s age.”
“Well, you don’t look it.”
“It’s good to have a boss who knows the right things to say. You’d better think up a few good lines for when it’s Ada Levenson’s turn.” She laughed as she sashayed past him.
Jake brought the Bellatkin down on the edge of town, within a hundred meters of the north gate.
“You’re sure about this, Zandra?” Jussaro gave her one more chance to change her mind. “What about Jonti? Do you want to bring him up in Wonnick?”
“Can you guarantee any place safer?”
“Maybe not safer, but certainly more interesting.”
She laughed. “I’ve seen plenty of interesting places. Most of them came with a health warning.”
“And Wonnick doesn’t?”
“Comparatively?” She shook her head. “I’ll be sharing a beer with Lizzie Rhodes next time she passes through.”
“Would that be osteena beer?”
She smiled. “You get used to it. Wonnick has its advantages. We’re building something here, something good. Give it another couple of generations and the Lifer gangs will integrate. It’s already starting to happen. You see the girl with the rifle?”
Cara looked to where Hartwell pointed.
“That’s Emma Swithington,” Hartwell said. “Lizzie Rhodes’ niece. We tried an exchange program. Emma came here for some schooling, met Matt Swithington, and stayed. They visit to and fro with their kids.
“A couple of seasons ago we had the biggest damn osteena harvest in living memory. More than we could cope with, but it goes against the grain to waste it. Rhodes’ gang and three others negotiated to use our processing plant and worked with us on the harvest for three weeks with no trouble at all. Occasionally they overstep the mark, like today, but mostly we get on okay in spite of the fact that we’re interlopers in their territory.”
Jake carried a box of medical supplies from the main cabin. “Ma’am.” He nodded politely to Hartwell. “Antivirals, antibacterials, one-shot antibiotics, analgesics, and anesthetics—a veritable A-list. How’s that?”
“Very welcome, Mr. Lowenbrun. You’re sure you can spare them?”
“We brought them for trade, ma’am, and since our next stop is our home base, we can afford to leave them.”
Cara and Jussaro hefted their saddle packs onto their shoulders.
“Hey, off-worlders, you got plenty of room in that ship?” a young woman, swathed from head to toe in multiple skirts and tunics called out as Jake dropped the boarding ramp.
“Not for passengers,” Cara said.
“Lady, do I look as if I want to go anywhere but here? I’m not looking for passage, but I have a fine cargo of dried osteena. Sell it anywhere in the known universe and it’ll double its value. To you, only fifteen hundred creds. You’ll make a fortune.”
Cara shook her head.
“Osteena. Very nutritious. Very tasty.”
*Hey, doesn’t Crossways need supplies?* Jake said. *Spend fifteen hundred to make three thousand. Sounds like a good deal to me.*
*It’s osteena,* Cara said.
*Very tasty, according to the young lady.*
*If you like mud,* Jussaro said. *I still have a pouch in my pack. You’re welcome to try it.*
They boarded the Bellatkin, and Cara raised the ramp before anyone could make them any more irresistible offers. Once in the main cabin, Jussaro handed Jake a sealed pouch of osteena pu
lp.
“Here, suck on that before you spend fifteen hundred creds.”
“Thanks, man. Always willing to try something new.” Jake took a swallow.
“Well, how do you like it?” Jussaro asked.
Jake cleared his throat. “Tastes like mud . . . maybe with a little . . . organic matter mixed in.”
“As in . . .”
“Yeah, all right. It tastes like shit. You guys have been living on this?”
“Pulped osteena, stewed osteena, osteena cubes and, for a special treat, osteena jerky. They even make osteena wine.”
“There are ration packs in the galley.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but that sounds wonderful.” Cara helped herself and handed a pack to Jussaro, then flopped into the copilot’s chair and spooned down every last salty, savory mouthful before starting on something sweet and fruity.
“Did you get what you wanted?” Jake asked.
“I think we did,” Jussaro said. “Though Zandra couldn’t be persuaded back.”
“Sorry to hear that. It’s been a long haul.”
It certainly had. Cara had missed Ben so much. “How long do you reckon it will take us to get to Crossways?”
“About twelve hours, plus another two hours to dock if there’s a tailback. Fourteen hours maximum.”
“I’m going to talk to Ben. Is it all right to tell him about Zandra, Jussaro?”
“Sure. I’m going to write it all up anyway. I may need some help if I’m going to create Sanctuary again.”
“You’re going to do like she said.” Cara felt excitement bubble up inside her. Psi-techs had a raw deal with the megacorps. Providing them with a way out would have double benefits. Crossways’ gain was the megacorps’ loss.
“I’m thinking about it. It’s . . . important.”
“Yes, it is.”
“If I do, will the Free Company back me? We need to discuss it with Ben.”
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