“This is our rescuer?” Rafe asked, in disbelief. “We’re doomed. I almost wish they’d ignored us.”
“I’ll start messaging again,” M’Kenna said grimly, hauling her heart up from her toes. “There has to be someone competent out there who will listen to us.”
CHAPTER 21
“Please,” one of Nile’s girls begged as the Pelican floated in to dock in Way Station 46, “can we just walk around for a while? Just by ourselves? We won’t talk to anyone.”
“Please?” added the other, sounding even more desperate than the first.
“No!” Nile’s voice barked. “You stay with us. Understand? We won’t be here that long.”
Skana looked up at the ceiling from her crash couch and sighed.
“Nile, it won’t do them any harm. Where can they go?”
“Plenty of places!”
Skana started to wave her hand. The movement was stopped by the webbed straps. She let her arm fall to her chest. He couldn’t see her, anyhow.
“Let them go, Nile. They can do a little shopping, get a pedicure or a facial in a salon, or whatever. It’ll do them good. Ladies, you can take a couple of hours, but you keep your pocket secretaries on hand, and you answer when I call. That’s when, not if. Right?”
“Yes, ma’am! Thank you, Ms. Bertu.”
“And if you have a problem, I am your first call, then the station authorities.”
“Yes, ma’am!” they chorused.
“Oh, all right,” Nile growled.
Within a few moments, Captain Sigismund rang the all-clear. Gratefully, Skana freed herself from the enveloping harness. Tuk’s long face appeared above her, and a scaly paw reached down to assist her out of the couch.
“Thanks,” she said, and gestured toward the other side of the room. “Give Nile’s friends a hand.”
“Yes, madam.”
But there was no need. Skana was barely in time to see both of their scantily-clad posteriors disappearing out of the door of the lounge toward the cabins.
“What did you do to them?” Skana demanded, as Nile’s red face appeared from the depths of his couch.
“Nothing!” Nile said. He vaulted over the deep side and onto the lounge floor. His clothes were slightly askew, but he was fully clad. Skana found that surprising, considering that she knew he liked a little action among the netting. She put her hands on her hips.
“All right, what’s the problem?”
Nile brushed himself down.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing. That was a plea for help. Both of them couldn’t wait to get away from you. What is wrong with them?”
Nile couldn’t meet her eyes.
“They’re not her.”
“You knew that when we hired them.”
“I know!” He finally turned to look at her. His nose was red. Usually, that meant frustration.
“You’re not going to punish them for that.” Nile seemed about to speak, then paused. Skana glared at him. “Say it!”
The words came unwillingly, but they came.
“I’m not going to punish them for not being her. It’s not their fault. I know that! But they look so much like her!” The last sentence was almost a wail. Nile started pacing up and back between the couches. Skana watched him go back and forth.
“That is why you chose them. Do you want to send them home?”
“No. Yes.”
“Which is it? This is the last chance. We can get one of the ships coming back from the Autocracy to take them into the Core Worlds. That was the deal we made with them. After that, you’ll have to commission a ship, which will run into real money. We’ve got it, but is that how you want to spend it?”
Nile gathered a deep breath and let it out. His barrel chest deflated.
“They can stay,” he said, with a sour face. “I just need a break.”
Skana thought that the girls could probably use one from him, too. Fortunately, the Pelican had plenty of cabins. Not anywhere near as nice as their customized suites, but not austerity bunks, either. She sent a ’bot to make up beds in the two farthest away from Nile’s quarters and make sure the toiletries were topped up in the heads. When the girls checked in with her, she would tell them they could stay out until the Pelican was ready to launch again. She was under no illusions as to how petulant her brother could be when he really decided to revert to emotional infancy. She hoped he hadn’t actually hurt one of them. The odds were against it. His self control was usually pretty good with employees. Guests, maybe not. Enemies, of course not. But these women had been hired by the Bertu Corporation, and even Nile’s personal quirks got overridden by pride in their business.
She had kept a pretty close eye on his Infogrid file, to make sure he wasn’t complaining about the women in his messages. All his problems were internal. He had behaved himself pretty much. If the women didn’t deserve fallout, she would see to it that they didn’t get any. They had been no trouble at all during the trip so far. She saw no reason not to make sure they got home, with a bonus.
The girls were long gone by the time Skana and Nile emerged into the landing bay. Tuk and two bodyguards followed them.
The metal floors were still chilly underfoot from their exposure to deep space. Skana could see hot spots surrounded by rings of frost as the local systems warmed the chamber to station ambient temperature. She surveyed the gunmetal gray bulkheads. The walls displayed framed regulations in swift rotation with big, colorful, tacky advertising for the local merchants, with moving tri-dee images that left nothing to the imagination.
“Recharge with Bee-no Fuels!” “Don’t believe what you hear—come and taste our food! No reconstituted ingredients!” “Too long in the pilot’s chair? Sore muscles are our specialty. MX-435 Massage.” “Special requests? No problem. Bring them to our willing . . . therapists.”
“I’ve seen worse,” she said, with a shrug. “Pretty offputting, though.”
“No one would want to stay here who didn’t have to,” Nile said. “You know, they ought to make this place a destination in itself. Target the advertising and make it sound more welcoming. I could do it. It would drag in the money in the first year.”
“I’m sure you could,” Skana said, with a cautious look around. She couldn’t see security video or audio pickups, but they had to be there. “Maybe later. Things are going to change a lot over there really soon.”
“Yeah,” Nile said. He glanced up toward the ceiling. “Hey, service! You want to get the inspection over with? I want to get out of here in my lifetime!”
His voice echoed off the lofty ceiling. Clicks and whirs from the engines aft told them that Captain Sigismund and her crew of three were doing final checks before debarking to stretch their legs. After a long few minutes, a door slid open in the wall of the landing bay. A bronze-colored securitybot about Tuk’s height and girth emerged and rolled toward them. Its uppermost fifth was molded into a pleasant-looking mask that was not meant to look like any species in particular. Its electronically generated eyes met Skana’s.
“Captain Sigismund?”
“She’s still on board.”
“Passengers?”
“No. We’re the owners of the Pelican. Skana and Nile Bertu.”
“Good. I am Customs Inspector IN-332. Please present your documentation. What cargo do you have in the hold? A full and truthful accounting is required.”
“Five fighter scouts,” Skana said. Nile snickered. The ’bot, however, lit up with red chase lights and white flashers. Two metal hands shot out from the body and clamped around their wrists.
“Confession noted. Your identities have been noted. Please surrender immediately and prepare for prosecution. You are permitted legal representation from the moment of this arrest. If you cannot afford legal rep—”
Skana pried at the manacle with her free hand.
“I didn’t confess to anything! That was a joke. Can’t you take a joke?”
The inspectorbot swivel
ed its body toward her, and inclined its head closer.
“You realize that I am not permitted by law to have a sense of humor?” it asked.
Skana waved in its “face.”
“You customs officials never do. I’m just joking! You don’t have to get all excited about it.”
The ’bot almost appeared to sigh.
“Asking again. Second time irrevocable indictment. Cargo in hold? Identify quantity and use.”
Skana got herself under control and slowed down her breathing.
“Metals for industrial use,” she said.
“Let me have the manifests and the licenses for the goods.”
“I don’t have them.”
“I must examine the goods now. Documentation may follow.”
It wheeled its “face” toward the rear of the ship and began rolling in that direction. With the clamps on their arms, Skana and Nile had to run along behind it.
Skana strained over her shoulder at Tuk. The Croctoid and the two Human guards stood at the bottom of the ramp looking like idiots.
“Do something!” At her shout, the guards broke into a trot. They caught up with the inspectorbot and jogged alongside.
“What do you want us to do, madam?” the taller one asked.
Tuk didn’t move. He lifted his tablet and tapped at it with a claw.
At the rear of the ship, the inspectorbot halted before the cargo hatch.
“Open the hold, please.”
Skana reached for her pocket secretary, but before she could activate it, the featureless door swung open and down. The ramp unfolded and rolled to their feet. Inside, Captain Sigismund peered out.
“Are you all right, sir and madam?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“Captain Sigismund?” the inspectorbot inquired.
“Yes, sir,” the pilot said, coming down with a tablet cradled in her arm. “We’re ready for you, sir.”
A piece of the ’bot near the floor detached and dropped with a thud. The inspector reversed and rolled away from them. Skana found that she and Nile were anchored by a flexible rod to a dome-shaped piece of metal. The two of them strained at it, but they couldn’t lift it. Neither of them could walk more than a meter from the base.
“Damn it, you had to make a joke,” Nile said rubbing his wrist inside the steel loop.
“You laughed at it!”
“I know. I might have done the same thing. These robots have no imagination.”
Skana heard murmurs, clanks and thuds inside the ship. It seemed like forever until the ’bot rolled down the ramp toward them. Sigismund trailed in its wake, the ship’s half-license, a virtually indestructible piece of metal that normally rested in a bracket near the main hatch with its other half, in her hand. Skana found she was holding her breath.
The ’bot’s front torso lit up with images of skids filled with metal bars and a score of heavy barrels it had just taken inside the ship.
“Industrial supplies?” it inquired. “Ingots and powdered metal?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Licenses were presented.” The briefest of whirring came from within the ’bot’s body.
“Oh, come on,” Skana said, impatient for all of the protocol to be over. “They’re all good!”
“Registration from point of origin unclear. These must be supplied or you will be unable to import them into the Autocracy.”
“Wait a minute, you’re an Imperium citizen,” Skana said. “Why aren’t you on my side?”
“My job is to ease customs shipments, madam. I inspect goods and documentation accompanying them.”
“Otherwise, what happens? What do you do if I don’t have the registrations?”
“Confiscation. Fines.”
“What? Couldn’t we just go home?”
“I’m sorry, madam, but you would be attempting to cross a border without adequate documentation.”
Skana snorted.
“What if I never stopped in this ridiculous station to start with? Why couldn’t I just cross by myself?”
The LAI was accustomed to answering questions even from increasingly hysterical patrons. Its metal face assumed an expression of patience. The tone of its voice never rose or increased in speed.
“The wormhole device would be closed to you, madam. Colliding with it would be fatal to your ship and all on board her, including the ships, if any, in your wake. You would be liable for fines, plus damages, plus penalties for failure to yield. It is true, you could resort to ultradrive all the way in to the Autocracy central systems, but it would take you two hundred years, Imperium standard. We do not calibrate you for the more distant links in the system. You understand.”
Skana peered at the ’bot.
“You’re really skunks, you know that?”
The LAI was unmoved.
“I am purely mechanical, madam. Very little organic origin at all.”
Tuk interceded at that moment. He presented his tablet.
“I think you will find all this in order, inspector,” he said. The file on the screen transferred at once to the front display of the ’bot. A horizontal red line swept down over the page and up again.
“These are satisfactory. Why were they not presented at the beginning?”
The Croctoid offered an ingratiating smile that showed off all his rows of sharp teeth.
“I beg your pardon, inspector. The captain is not privy to this information. It is proprietary data, on a need-to-know basis. You need to know. She doesn’t.”
“Very well. Your export is approved.” A loud click sounded. The steel ring around the Bertus’ wrists opened and dropped away. The weighted dome rose a millimeter and rolled back into the housing at the bottom of the bot.
“Good,” Nile said. “We’ll launch immediately.”
“I am afraid that is not possible,” IN-332 said, not without a trace of sympathy on its face. “You will be informed as to when the frontier is open for passage. My business with you is concluded. That is all.”
The ’bot reversed half a meter, then spun on its internal axis and glided away. The Bertus went in the opposite direction, following the frantic advertisements that hoped to guide them to their respective establishments.
“Spacedust,” Nile said. He made a face. “Enstidius told us that would happen. I thought he’d already made arrangements.”
Skana hadn’t been on that many distant outposts, but she had been told by a few of their transport captains that the deepest-worn floor was always in front of the best bar. Nile looked hopefully at the assorted workers in robes or revealing lingerie hanging around the entrance to the house of negotiable affection next door, but Skana took firm hold of his arm.
“Drink first. Secure call second. Then you can do what you want.”
“By then we’ll be on our way out of here,” Nile grumbled, but he didn’t pull away.
Either of them could have described the bar in detail without more than a quick glance in the door. Every deep-space watering hole they had ever been in was a clone or a close relative to that one. The lighting glowered in a horror-movie dimness over a range of low tables, each with its own entertainment screen built into the top. News, advertising and documentaries were free, but sports, pornography and games required a personal credit number. Festooning the walls was a range of ancient junk, anything from paper posters dating back a millennium or more, toys, weapons blunted and deactivated, musical instruments, sports equipment, and mirrors, though the latter were never low enough to reflect the faces of the patrons, each of whom hunched protectively over his, her or its drink. Skana counted a couple dozen beings from several species. A few seemed to be shipmates, absorbed in shared misery, but most of them were alone. Really nondescript music murmured in the background, high enough to prevent casual eavesdropping but not loud enough to make the patrons feel unwelcome. A tri-tennis tournament was on the screen over the bar. The players threw themselves around the brightly lit court, seeming to dive toward the midd
le of the room to return a volley.
The bartender was a middle-aged female Human who looked as though she once worked at the adjacent establishment. She gave them a welcoming smile as they slid onto a couple of well-worn plastic-topped bar stools. Skana immediately noticed that she’d had her front teeth rebuilt, and not very well.
“What’s your pleasure?” the bartender asked.
“Whisky, anything but Leonian, and where can we make a secure call?”
“Ansible, message, voice or voice and video?”
“Ansible.”
“Destination?”
“None of your business. No offense.”
The bartender nodded as she set two unbreakable shot glasses on the counter and filled them with amber liquid from a bottle that bore a Pravinian label. Skana assumed it was as phony as the woman’s teeth.
“None taken. Croileg’s, around the corner,” she said. “She’s private, but it’ll cost you.”
“I’ll go,” Nile said, gulping his drink and standing up.
“What’s your hurry?” the bartender asked, with a friendly grimace. “You’re going to be here for a while.”
“No, we’re not,” he said.
He strode out of the bar and disappeared. Skana sipped the liquor, letting it roll around on her tongue. It burned smoothly, leaving a trace of woodsmoke, caramel and an indefinable fruit flavor.
“Let me see the bottle,” she said. The bartender put it down in front of her. Skana checked the seals. They were legitimate, though who knew how many times the bottle had been refilled with hooch formulated to taste like 30-year-old Bromel?
“Pretty good for the middle of nowhere,” she said.
The bartender shook her head.
“This didn’t use to be nowhere,” she said. “The new bureaucracy’s just killing trade.” She tapped the surface of the bar, and a screen full of real-estate ads popped up. “If you don’t want to live on your ship for the next three months, here’s the housing stock. For you and your husband, you might want to look at the stuff in Three-Loop. That’s the nicest. Prices aren’t reasonable, but it’s better than going home.”
“He’s my brother, and we’re not staying,” Skana said.
Fortunes of the Imperium Page 23
