“Turning back, pretty lady?” drawled a lanky man in a gray shipsuit. He had a half-drunk glass of beer in front of him.
“No, going into the Autocracy,” Skana said.
“Not in a hurry, you aren’t,” said a Wichu on the man’s other side.
Skana smiled at them. “Everyone keeps saying that! What if I thought today was my lucky day?”
A slow smile stretched the lanky man’s thin-lipped mouth.
“I’d hope you would include me in that luck—in a nice way. Buy you a drink?”
She looked him up and down. Nile had his girls with him, but she had left her latest man at home on Keinolt. Skana liked long, lean men.
“I’d enjoy that,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Colton. Del Colton. My ship’s the Warthog.”
“Really? You go in for mythical creatures, too?” Skana asked. “I’m Skana Bertu. Our ship’s the Pelican.”
“No kidding! I found my ship’s name in a book. I think I saw pelicans in there, too. Funny-looking bird. Uh, no offense. Warthogs are supposed to be pretty weird, too. I mean, if they ever existed.”
“No offense taken. How long have you been here?”
Del was about to reply, but the Wichu blared right over him.
“Three weeks. I’ve got peacocks about to hatch in my hold! They’ve gotta let us through now.”
Skana looked around the bar. Their conversation had momentarily awakened the interest of the other captains.
“Everyone else like that, too?”
“Yeah,” Del said. “I got here thirty-four days ago, just after they let the last group through, curse it.”
“That’s a mess,” Skana said.
“We’re all going broke here,” said a young human female seated at a table about two meters from Skana. “I’d blame the station, but I honestly think they’re baffled about it, too.”
Nile appeared at her shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” Skana asked. Nile leaned close to her and whispered in her ear.
“En— he needs to know how many ships besides us are waiting. Accurate count.”
Bartenders knew everything. Skana pushed her pocket secretary over the bartop toward the older woman with a tip box illuminated. She had tapped “20 credits” into the square.
“How many of us are there here? I mean, ships? How long do we have to wait to go?”
The woman swiped her hand over the nearest clear section of counter.
“Got to be sixteen with you. Wait a minute, there’s another one on its way in, about four hours out. That’ll make seventeen of you waiting.”
“Who is it?” the woman asked.
“Sportswear.”
A moan went up throughout the room.
“Why, what’s the matter?” Skana asked. Even Del had his forehead in his hand.
“Skana, Orrie Tang On is the biggest pain in the posterior who ever piloted a ship,” he said. “He scans other people’s manifests, looking to see how he can undercut you before you even dock at your next stop. He’s been known to sabotage a rival so he can reach orbit first. We’ve all tried to be nice to him, but it doesn’t pay. He takes nice as a sign of weakness.”
Nile grinned. “So do I. But how’s it work around here? First in, first out?”
“Yes, sir, that’s true. Manager FitzGreen has tried to be fair about it.”
“What if I can make sure the Sportswear doesn’t make it into the convoy?”
“If you could do that,” the young woman captain said, with hope in her eyes, “you would be my hero forever.”
“Backtrack a second,” the Wichu said. “Bertu, of Bertu Shipping?”
“That’s right,” Skana said.
“Hey, guys, we have celebrities here!” he bellowed to the room. “Guys, if you can get us through ahead of Orrie, we’ll all put your portrait on our bulkheads. So, you have some kind of connection over there?”
Nile grinned.
“Mr. Bertu, if you can get us moving, I will owe you the biggest favor in the world,” Del said.
“We all will!” the woman exclaimed. Everyone else in the bar nodded.
“Call me Nile. And I will remember that.”
“I’ll honor it. My word is good. Sometimes better than my credit rating.”
“Just be ready to move out when you hear the word.”
Skana studied him. “What are you going to do?”
“Use just a little of our cargo,” he said, his broad face as wide-eyed and innocent as a puppy’s. “The guy won’t be able to launch with the rest of us. Get the girls. We’re clearing out within the hour.”
Manager FitzGreen, a tall man with a pot belly, called all the pilots into his cramped office.
“Folks, I want to thank everyone for their patience. I’m happy to say that we got word that sixteen are going through. Pay your bills and clean up after yourselves. Get your ships ready. Remember, once you pass the jump point, you’ve got to stay in formation until you get to Dilawe. What are you all grinning at?”
“Sixteen?” asked a skinny little man at the rear of the room. “What about me? We just got here. You ain’t gonna tell me we can’t go, too! Stretch it to seventeen! I mean it! I got deliveries to make!”
FitzGreen gave the man with an expression of disgust. “Captain Tang On, you’re out of luck. Looks like you’re going to have to wait here for a while.”
“Tough luck, man,” Del Colton told him, with a wink for Skana. “But, hey, you can have the place to yourself.”
As the jubilant pilots left the office, the skinny man’s pocket com warbled. “What do you mean, the sublights broke down? How’d we get in here? On magical fumes?”
Skana nudged Nile in the back with a fingertip. He chuckled.
“I think you just made fifteen new friends,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 22
The Rodrigo felt rather cramped after the gracious size of the Bonchance, but my cousin and her friends had become old hands at coping with life aboard a starship. Banitra, who was fast proving herself to be a natural ringleader, organized a contest to see how small they could stow their possessions. I felt growing gratitude toward her and Hopeli, who also seemed a natural at staunching Jil’s natural impulse to take over a situation. As a token of my respect, I offered a prize of a precious half-ounce of dantooth caviar to the winner, who proved to be Marquessa. Naturally, it would have been absolutely impossible to sit and watch her eat it without suffering pangs ourselves, so I had Angie dole out portions to the rest of us, along with lemons, blini, onions and other delicacies. For beverages, I provided sparkling white wine and vodka.
I invited the crew on the bridge to join us in the repast.
“It would be my pleasure to share with all of you as well,” I said, as they bustled around me.
“Not now, Kinago,” Plet said, almost peevishly, from her post in the center seat. “We can’t drink on duty.”
“I had thought of that,” I said. “I have a splendid tomato-water and fennel-seed beverage that contains no alcohol, but offsets the flavors splendidly.”
“Later.” She looked up from the screentank to meet my eyes with a businesslike gaze. “Thank you.”
“Should I leave them to their party and take up my post here?” I asked, politely. Plet waved a dismissive hand.
“No. Keep them out of our way. That would help more than anything.”
“Aye, ma’am!” I said, reeling off a salute. I thought it best to humor her. Though, as I departed, it seemed to me that they preferred to have me off the bridge, too. I was not accustomed to being unwanted, and retreated to assuage my feelings with caviar. Parsons, whom I had also invited by means of a message to his viewpad in spite of my feelings about his underhanded behavior, was nowhere to be found.
By the time I returned, Jil and friends had demolished the dantooth, my share included. I had instructed Angie to put the remaining containers well out of reach, even if I begged, so I had to content myself with other
dainties, such as biscuits smeared with a soft white cheese from the southern hemisphere of Keinolt and a gripping episode of Ya! The ladies watched the program with me, but they chose to lounge in the crash couches as though they were silken divans, preferring not to be troubled by my baleful gaze. When Redius took his break from the bridge, I halted the digitavid momentarily and gave him an overview of the plot to date in the best Uctu I could render. “This the second episode of Season fifty. Iftivi has just arrived at Healer Meraul’s office and offered him a family heirloom for his services . . . .”
Redius listened carefully, smiling at my pronunciation now and again.
“Doing well,” he confirmed, as we settled down, with crackers and wine, to enjoy the fascinating unfolding of the complex plot, now over three hundred years old, but still new to me.
Full seasons of Ya! were not easily available, protected as they were by complicated copyright laws between the Autocracy and the Imperium (my own people were not innocent of the same strangulating strictures on other forms of intellectual property). Streaming broadcasts over the Infogrid were so tightly controlled that they deleted themselves from one’s storage crystals whenever they were detected. Only legal copies were allowed systemwide. My private collection had been carefully and legally amassed from fellow enthusiasts willing to sell. I had allowed it to be known that I was determined to complete a set, and would pay or trade to obtain licit copies. One dear friend had been so moved by my interest that he left me his precious boxed set of Seasons eight and nine in his will. I had hundreds of seasons yet to locate. Some of the most ancient episodes, my fellow fans and I had heard, had been lost because of poor management by the production company, and were reported to be gone for good. I hoped to fill in the gaps in my digitavid library one day. The audio novelizations that were still for sale, in the original Uctu and in translation, were just not the same.
“He goes,” Redius said, leaning toward the screen with an avid expression, as one of the actresses went to greet the male she loved. The male turned away. “No!”
“What a cad!” I exclaimed. “He snubbed her!”
“Not cad,” Redius countered. “Unaware.”
“No! I say he did it on purpose. Did you see the way he switched his tail?”
“To avoid door.”
“Bah!”
“My lord, may I have a word with you?”
I glanced away from the screen. As usual, Parsons had appeared in the room without seeming to have come through any of the doors. All I could work out was that he had risen up from beneath the floor.
“Parsons, your arrival interrupted a very intense scene,” I chided him. “We were about to discover if Neletius couldn’t recognize Iftivi when she had had her spots altered, or if he purposely ignored her at the village supper.”
“Sir, I am sorry to delay that revelation, but we are about to exit ultradrive near Way Station 46. It is the first of your diplomatic stops. Since you are to greet the station management staff on behalf of the Emperor, I wanted you to have a thorough briefing on the situation at hand.”
“Leaving!” Redius said, cheerfully, springing to his feet. “Later, Thomas. Summon?”
“Yes, I will,” I promised him. I marked the place in the episode where we had left off and switched off the screen. “We’ll get to the bottom of Iftivi’s subterfuge.”
The forward door slid closed behind him.
“If I may begin?” Parsons inquired.
“I would be wounded to the quick if you didn’t,” I said. I glanced around to make certain none of my cousin’s devices or those of her friends were nearby. I suspected that a quantity of their personal electronics had eavesdropping capabilities—vital functions, considering the insidious nature of palace gossip—and I did not want my true status blabbed on the Infogrid as a result of my carelessness.
Parsons opened his hand to reveal a gray cube so uninteresting in appearance that I would not have approached it out of curiosity even if it were the only thing inside an isolation chamber with me though I had exhausted the fascination of my own finger- and toenails. He set it down between us.
“Our conference is unheard, my lord,” he assured me. “Besides, Lady Jil is occupied with her own activities.”
I slumped leaned back in my seat and thrust my long legs out before me.
“That’s a relief. I have never been one for uninterrupted privacy, as you know, but having actual secrets to keep does change one’s perspective. I have to sweep my quarters frequently to make certain no foreign object has been left behind.”
“I am glad that you have taken such precautions, my lord,” Parsons said. “This will not take very long.”
I waved him to the other comfortable chair, the one that Redius had just vacated. Parsons lowered himself into it as gently as a hovercraft alighting. His back remained ramrod straight. That posture elicited in me a sense of peer pressure. I sat up at attention, drawing my heels down and my shoulders up. Parsons presented his own viewpad for my perusal. I drew mine close to his and was rewarded with an instantaneous transfer of the appropriate files, including personal profiles of staff, maps, and endless details of trade that occurred annually above the orbiting platform. Parsons brought up the images of five people, four Humans and one Wichu.
“Your task in Way Station 46 is to present the compliments of the Emperor and receive reports from these personnel. Each of them has specific responsibilities, which you will study before we link to the station, and will brief you on his or her concerns. I regret to say that you do not have the authority to assuage any of these concerns, but you will file notice of them with the Core Worlds Authority via Infogrid and be debriefed in person upon your return.”
“Seems a trifle redundant,” I pointed out. “They could file their own grievances in exactly the same fashion as I. Why don’t they do that?”
“Propinquity, my lord.”
I waggled a chiding finger at him.
“Aha, you thought you would catch me out with your torturous vocabulary! I know that word well. So, as on our previous mission, they will feel exalted by close contact with a representative of the Imperium, and I am to be that representative.”
“It was not my intent to ‘catch you out,’ my lord,” Parsons said, reproof writ large upon his otherwise smooth brow. “I wished to be concise. They do not often receive visitors except those in transit . . .”
“. . . Which we are,” I added.
“Indeed. But by giving them your undivided attention . . .”
“. . . I will be freeing you from theirs,” I concluded.
“If you would be so good as to allow me to complete sentences on my own, my lord?” Parsons said. The reproof had been joined by its occasional companion, irritation.
“Go on, go on,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “I’ve had my fun. And with what manner of secret operation will I be assisting this time?” I inquired, eager now that I was assured that I could not be overheard by my cousin.
“None at all, my lord,” Parsons said.
I hate to admit it, for fear of compromising my dignity, but I believe I pouted.
“I suppose you will be investigating some matter very deeply on the station?” I said, with some heat.
“My task is as prosaic as yours, my lord. I will be taking similar reports from persons with whom you would find it difficult to associate without drawing attention to them.”
“Friends of, er, Mr. Frank?”
“And others like him,” Parsons said.
I immediately leaped upon that careful phrase, like a dog upon the scent of a treat.
“There are others like him?” I asked. “Representatives of other services of the type he oversees, or colleagues within his own organization?”
“Yes,” Parsons replied, to my infinite surprise.
“Which is it?” I demanded.
“It is difficult to say, my lord. I may state that all of the persons involved act in loyal service to the Imperium.”
&n
bsp; And with that I had to be left unsatisfied.
“Commander!”
The viewpad before Parsons jangled for attention. Oskelev’s face became visible on the small screen.
“Yes, lieutenant?”
“C’mon up. We’ve got a visitor. Looks like he was waiting for us.”
Our gazes locked, we rose to our feet in unison.
“On our way.”
Plet saluted as we arrived at the bridge.
“What is it, Plet?” I asked.
She steered us toward the screen tank.
“This ship was hanging off at some distance when we emerged from ultradrive,” she said. “It would seem that this zone is a known exit point for ships going on to the frontier.”
“Pirates?” I asked, perking up a trifle.
“I doubt it.” The Wichu pilot threw an impatient hand at the scope. “They hailed us. I wanted you to see it as soon as possible. What do you want to do about it?”
A large vessel was in the screen tank. I stooped to peer at it. It was a gaudy ship, patterned in cheerful hues. It seemed to be in good condition, but I could see by its spectroscopic shadow that it had gas and radiation leaks, showing poor maintenance. It was not so far away that it couldn’t bracket us with laser strikes, but I didn’t see the usual power signatures for a heavy weapon array.
“Is it asking us for help?” I inquired. “Nesbitt could do some running repairs on it, but it is best off waiting until it reaches Way Station 46. We don’t have much capacity for in-depth analysis, but we could be of some aid—”
“No, my lord,” Oskelev said, cutting off my offer of assistance. “It’s a trader. The pilot asked to talk to the people in charge. That’s you.” She looked from one to the other of us. I don’t see why she was confused about the command structure. I was at the top, with Plet as my trusted assistant. Parsons was my aide-de-camp, not in the line of command at all.
“Don’t they see that this is a military vessel?” Plet asked.
“That never stops ’em asking, sir,” Oskelev said. “The reason you don’t hear about shy traders is that they go out of business.”
I was greatly amused.
Fortunes of the Imperium Page 24
