by Alex Stewart
As the area covered by the image widened, a glowing crimson crescent, fading through purple to blue, betrayed the position of the sun, which was just beginning to emerge from behind the dayside limb of the planet. For the most part, however, the freckling of lights across the darkened globe began to merge almost seamlessly with the backdrop of stars behind it, seeming remarkable only for their number and density, and slightly more yellowish cast. Then the sun appeared more clearly as Sowerby trimmed our course a little, rising from behind the planet to bathe everything in warm, golden light.
“We’re on our way,” she reported, a little redundantly. Once we’d left the atmosphere, there really wasn’t anywhere else to go.
I found the right beacon, marking the rift to Iceball, and the border of the League; we were off to a good start, our boost against the mass of the planet leaving us with no real need to increase our velocity by pinballing off any other celestial objects. By my reckoning we’d be there and through in a couple of days. Add a few more, say three or four, to cross the Iceball system, if we didn’t lose too much velocity on the other side, and another couple to coast into Freedom after shooting the second rift, and I’d be feeling the soil of a League world under my boots within a week.
Idly, I noted the traffic patterns, finding them oddly similar to the vehicle routes I’d traversed in Dullingham. We’d joined a steady stream of vessels heading for the Iceball rift, while just as many were inbound; the main difference was that, unlike the ceaseless torrent of conveyances swarming the streets of the city, each one was separated by several hundred miles, rather than the mildly worrying foot or so around the fenders of the cabs I’d used. The Avalon route was equally congested, if that was quite the right term given the vast distances between ships, as were the two rift points leading to neutral systems and the Rimward Way beyond; only the rift to Rockhall seemed sparsely travelled, which I suppose was to be expected. With the situation as tense as it was, there was little trade to speak of; only a couple of Freebooter ships and a Guild mailboat were inbound from there, and only a single Guild freighter was heading for the disputed world.
Of course, once the Commonwealth claim was recognized, all that would change: Rockhall would become our second gateway port for the Rimward Way, as prominent and wealthy as Avalon, funneling trade and economic growth into most of the neighboring systems.
Something about that thought disturbed me, and it took a second or two of ratiocination before I realized what it was; I’d thought our gateway port, instead of theirs. I was a Guilder now; Commonwealth born, it was true, but no longer a part of it—but a lifetime of ingrained loyalties takes time to replace with new ones. Which, perhaps, explained why I was persisting with the commission I’d had from Aunt Jenny.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. Right now, I could be a Guilder and still keep my promises to my aunt: in fact, I was pretty much obliged to. With any luck, the two sets of loyalties would never come into conflict: and if they did, I’d just have to make a choice between them. Though, given my track record at that, I wished I could be more confident about making the right one.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In which Remington gives and receives a blessing.
The journey to the rift point was just as uneventful as I’d expected, filled with the same mixture of fetching, carrying, and broom-piloting as before. I must admit that I was a lot more nervous than I tried to appear as we came closer to shooting it, unable to shake the memory of the incident with the incoming freighter when we were making the transit from Avalon: but this time round there were no telltale bow waves to make us hesitate, and we shot through neat as you please, Sowerby reporting green lights right across the board. (Even though the physical instrumentation was about as much use to a woman monitoring the ship’s systems through her neuroware as a quill pen would have been.)
Once we were through, the constellations shifting almost imperceptibly apart from the subtraction of Iceball and the equally sudden addition of Numarkut, we continued our long trajectory towards the Freedom rift. I’d long since given up looking at the external view, in favor of the status displays Sowerby continued to monitor, as to the naked eye we might just as well have been completely motionless against the starfield. The gravitational readouts, however, told a different story, one of constant trimming against the gravity fields of every major body in the system, as she continued to squeeze the last possible iota of advantage from the space surrounding us. We’d be going nowhere near Iceball itself on this run, remaining locked in the stream of ships heading deeper into the League, although roughly a third of our fellow travelers were peeling off to make the run in towards the main center of habitation; the Eddie Fitz among them, I noted, with a sense of wry amusement. Instead, we’d make a slingshot maneuver around the largest gas giant, currently well placed to correct our course and give us a welcome velocity boost into the bargain.
“What’cha doing?” Clio asked, pausing in the task of painting over the repair she’d made to the handrail. Pointless pretending I was still sweeping up, as I’d been engrossed enough to stand completely still for several seconds.
“Watching the course change,” I admitted, sharing the data with her ‘sphere.
She nodded. “Good. You’re meant to be learning.” She poked at the tangle of trajectories, linking the two rift points and the world of Iceball in a roughly triangular skein. So what are these?
“Customs cutters,” I said, looking at the small, fast-moving dots she’d indicated. They were maneuvering far too freely to be relying entirely on gravity repulsion, although, unlike the one which had intercepted us off Numarkut, they clearly had graviton generators on board as well: which probably meant weapon systems. I isolated a small group of vessels, lying off the gas giant in a clearly defensive formation. And those are warships. To a Navy brat, their profiles and orientation, able to support one another with overlapping fire arcs, was unmistakable.
“Warships?” Clio was clearly surprised. “What are they doing there?”
“Not a lot.” I shrugged, although the answer seemed obvious enough to me. This was effectively the frontier of League space, and they’d be insane not to station at least a squadron close enough to the Numarkut rift to discourage an incursion through it. Not that the Commonwealth would ever be stupid enough to try moving any of their assets through the neutral system, as pissing off the Numarkuteers would cut them off from the Rimward Way as effectively as annoying the Guild enough to provoke a trade embargo—and however arrogant the saber-rattlers got, the Queen and her ministers were sufficiently pragmatic to avoid committing economic suicide. Though few, there were enough instances on record of governments incautious or arrogant enough to antagonize the Guild, most of which had lasted no longer than the first food riots, to provide salutary reminders of why that sort of thing was a very bad idea.
Interesting: I was back to thinking of the Commonwealth as they. My inner Guilder clearly had the upper hand at the moment.
I focused my attention on the nearest cutter, just disengaging from the vessel in front of us and firing up its reaction drive. Sure enough it was heading in our direction.
“Looks like the pirates are on their way,” I said.
Clio laughed. “Not in this system. Preachers, more like.”
If I’d been puzzled at the remark, her meaning became clear as soon as we were boarded. There were two of them this time; an earnest young man with a neatly trimmed beard, dressed in a black suit with a high collar which, judging by the tidemark of psoriasis on the back of his neck, chafed more than a little, and an older woman, whose neatly knotted tie and mirror-polished shoes positively screamed career bureaucrat. Both wore a small lapel pin in the shape of an open book, in case there could be any possible doubt that they were members of the Congregation of the Sanctified Brethren, and the woman had a small laminated card identifying her as an employee of the Tithing Bureau of Iceball clipped to her left breast pocket. Despite the local title, I noticed, it also ca
rried the seal of the League of Democracies, a salutary reminder that my Commonwealth persona was now in enemy territory; which was all the more reason to be as visibly Guild as possible. The young man produced a similar identity tag from somewhere inside his jacket, and hung it around his neck on a lanyard, which probably did his rash no good at all.
“We have a transit waiver,” Remington said, producing a piece of paper with the Farland logo clearly visible at the top, and a scrawled signature at the bottom.
The woman glanced at it, and nodded. “That seems to be in order. You have DNA confirmation of the signatory?”
“Of course.” Remington handed over the scraping of skin cells I’d been sent to collect. The young man took a small device from his jacket pocket, into which he inserted the slide. It beeped, and something scrolled up the tiny screen inset into its surface: though what it might have been I had no idea, being too far away to see it clearly. Remembering Plubek’s handheld, I tried poking it with my sneakware, but it wasn’t meshed into anything—judging by the socket on the side, it had to be physically connected to a terminal to exchange data with the wider world. Come to that, the datascape was completely blank around the pair of them: no neuroware at all, and no fuzzy ball of information betraying the presence of a data handling device of any kind.
“That seems to be in order.” He read a little more from the screen, and frowned. “But your file sample doesn’t seem to match the recipient.”
“Because it was collected by my apprentice here.” Remington gestured in my direction, and produced a copy of the docket I’d signed at the Farland reception desk.
The bureaucrat’s face took on a solemn expression. “That’s highly irregular.”
“I’m the Captain of this vessel. I’m entitled to delegate whatever tasks I see fit,” Remington said patiently.
“I’m not disputing that,” the woman replied evenly. “I merely pointed out that delegating such an important task to the most junior member of your crew was more than a little unusual.”
“He’s meant to be learning,” Remington said, “and the earlier he comes to appreciate the importance of following the correct procedure the better.” Somehow he kept his face straight, and a tone of earnest practicality in his voice, for the entire sentence.
“Quite true.” She nodded briskly, taking everything he’d said entirely at face value. “A creditable attitude, which all too many of your peers would do well to emulate.” She turned to me. “I’ll need confirmation of that, young man.”
“Of course,” I said; that was, after all, why I was there in the first place. I held out my palm, for her colleague to press his device against; it turned out to have a wooden casing, which felt warm against my hand. Something stung my palm, and he removed it, revealing a small needle mark, already beginning to fade. He consulted the screen again.
“That seems perfectly satisfactory.” He nodded to his companion.
“Then I believe we’re finished.” She inclined her head, in brusque dismissal. “Captain Remington. May your voyage be blessed.”
“And your endeavors likewise.” He returned the nod solemnly, holding his hands together, then spreading them as if opening a book. The Iceballers looked faintly surprised, and repeated the gesture, the young man juggling his genereader a little awkwardly in the process. Then they disappeared through the docking port, which ground closed behind them.
“I didn’t know you’d been Sanctified,” I said, referring to the sign of the book he’d just made.
“I’m not.” The skipper grinned. “But I gather it’s good manners among the God-botherers to return a blessing when you’re given one. And it sometimes makes them drop things.” He hesitated, glancing at me. “No offence. If you’re that way inclined, I mean.”
I shrugged. “I don’t bother God, She doesn’t bother me. We’re not exactly on speaking terms.” Although I’d never quite been able to shake the faith I was raised in either. A universe without Her guiding hand seemed a bit too cold and random to feel comfortable in.
“Fine.” Remington seemed to have lost all interest in the topic. He handed me the wodge of paperwork. “Go and put these somewhere, will you? I need to talk to Sarah.”
“And that was all there was to it,” I concluded, after filling Clio in on all the excitement she hadn’t missed while I’d been talking to the Iceball bureaucrats. “Is it always that easy?”
“Depends which system you’re in,” she said carefully. “I’ve been a few places where they board and search anyway, but most worlds don’t even bother docking a cutter when you’ve got a transit waiver. They just link nodes, and exchange the data directly.” Then she grinned. “Why would a Numarkut inspector bother coming aboard when there’s nothing to legally confiscate?”
“Good point,” I agreed, and returned to pretending to work.
We coasted on through the Iceball system without any further incident, leaving it through the Freedom rift a little over three days after we’d first entered. By this point I was beginning to feel something of an old hand at the business of rift shooting, so this time my nervousness was a little less pronounced as we went through: but I was still interested enough to be meshed in during the process, which meant I was probably one of the first people aboard to realize that things were starting to go very wrong indeed.
Not that there was any sign of trouble to begin with. We came through the rift at a fair clip, and at a good angle, which ought to have taken us to Freedom (or at any rate the orbital docks above it) comfortably within the couple of days I’d originally estimated, after some minimal course correction. The line of ships we’d followed was falling into the center of the system, or peeling off to continue their voyage through the second or third rifts to somewhere deeper within the League, shepherded by customs cutters; which, in the case of those vessels passing through, seemed just as content not to board as Clio had intimated.
Which reminded me, we should be due a visit from the local inspectors any time soon. Moved more by idle curiosity than anything else, I took a closer look at the steady stream of vessels inbound for Freedom, wondering if I could pick out the cutter heading in our direction from the mass of shipping ahead of us.
Skipper, I sent, as mental alarm bells started going off, something’s not right.
To his credit, Remington didn’t waste time telling me to sod off, he was busy, despite the obvious temptation to do so; his own ‘sphere was a blizzard of data, cascading in from the ship’s systems in the aftermath of our rift shot. Nothing ever is. Be more specific.
I meshed directly with his ‘sphere, drawing his attention to the anomalies I’d spotted. A couple of the vessels ahead of us had League ships matching their course and velocity exactly. Moreover, they weren’t just customs cutters if I was any judge: they had at least twice as much mass, and their gravitic signature hinted very strongly at heavier armament than a patrol boat would normally carry. Those freighters are under escort. By something the size of a corvette.
Which you’d know how, exactly? Despite his manifest skepticism, he focused in on them at once, filleting the data for confirmation.
You mean apart from growing up surrounded by Naval officers? Damn it, the sarcasm seemed to be contagious, and there was really no time to indulge in it. I tried to appear conciliatory. They look like system defense boats to me.
Better and better, Remington replied dryly. As their name implied, system defense boats were never intended to travel through a rift, their entire gravitic output being channeled through their weapons arrays, which made them formidable opponents size for size; the one heading in our direction could probably go toe-to-toe with a light cruiser, like the one my mother commanded, let alone an unarmed cargo ship like the Stacked Deck.
I started trying to make sense of the pattern I was looking at. Nearly all the ships heading in to Freedom were being boarded and inspected by customs cutters in the usual way; even as I looked, one undocked from a Guild merchantman, and came about to intercept the
next vessel on its list. Nothing out of the ordinary there. There must be something in particular about the ships the SDBs were targeting.
Origin was the most obvious; a quick rummage back through the sensor logs was enough to confirm that they’d all left Numarkut a little ahead of us, and sailed on through the Iceball system without so much as slowing down. Just as we had. But then so had the Guild ship that had just passed its inspection, and the majority of the other ships around us too. It must be something more specific than that.
Isn’t that your Freebooter friend? Remington asked, pointing out one of the vessels ahead of us.
Could be, I conceded, pulling up the data from its ident beacon. Sure enough, it was the Poison 4, Captain Ertica commanding. So what?
So she’s on the shit list too, Remington sent, highlighting the system defense boat closing with the Freebooter vessel. A terse exchange of messages followed, too tenuous at this distance for me to eavesdrop on, however much I’d have liked to: it would have answered all my questions then and there. One thing was certain, however, neither party to the conversation was getting the answers they wanted: without warning, the Poison 4 swung out of the shipping lane, reversing its course back towards the Iceball rift.
Neat trick, Remington commented. Wonder how she did it?
Took a boost directly off the sun Sowerby cut in, having noticed Remington’s distraction and meshed in to see what had taken so much of his attention. It’s the biggest mass in the system to push against. Which I suppose must have accounted for the Freebooter’s astonishing rate of acceleration—far more than most skippers would have countenanced, as it would have left the crew as little more than an unpleasant stain on the bulkheads if the internal field had failed. Don’t feel you have to try it.
Can’t see that I’d ever be that desperate, Remington agreed.
