“Brave to the soul,” he said.
“Not really,” I said, with a self-deprecating snort. “If you had been reading my vital signs in the last few moments, you would have noticed all the signs of an imminent syncope. I just barely made it out of the landing bay on my own feet.”
“I was,” Anstruther admitted, her cheeks red. “Lieutenant Plet told me to. Why did you go in there unarmed? They could have killed you!”
“In the greater scheme of things, I am expendable,” I said modestly.
“No, you are not expendable!” she said, her cheeks red. “I . . .”
Hastily, I held up a hand.
“Please, don’t say anything you’ll regret later,” I said. “I am all right, and the crew is unhurt as well. Alas for the brandy! That was one drinking voyage I am sorry I was not on.”
Parsons shimmered into being at my elbow.
“Success, my lord. You have exceeded expectations. The emperor will be gratified. Your mother will be very pleased to see that you have come out of the situation not only unharmed but triumphant.”
“Thank you, Parsons,” I said, suddenly feeling the uplift of energy drain from my feet, leaving me a marionette with only one string attached. “I think I may go and enjoy that syncope now.” I lifted my viewpad. “Angie, I need fortification.”
“Opening a bottle of Leonine whisky, Lord Thomas. It will take a moment or two to come to temperature from cold storage.” I turned toward the next landing bay where my ship and a stiff drink awaited me.
Parsons moved smoothly into my path.
“There is no time for that, my lord. Thanks to you, we have gleaned a valuable clue we must follow up. As a member of this crew, you can be of assistance. We need to inspect the slips previously occupied by the impounded ships.”
My eyebrows rose with my curiosity.
“I was puzzled by the sudden spate of seemingly unrelated questions,” I said. “It sounds as though you have been quite busy while I was engaged within.”
“Yes,” Redius said. “Much research. Conversations. Investigations. More to be made. Transport awaits.” He gestured toward the personnel carrier, which stood with open hatch. At a signal from Parsons, we boarded it. He gave an instruction to our driver, and we were off.
CHAPTER 27
“Why did we need to know about the food shipment that the Moskowitz brought in?” I asked, as we rolled past an infinite number of identical portals and a stunning array of vending machines and advertisements.
“I don’t know,” Anstruther said. “It was just an anomaly that turned up when we crunched the numbers from the station manager’s records. This load of concentrate was only used in the bays assigned to merchants, nowhere else. It had to mean something, because it was the only thing that was out of the ordinary. Every other shipment that came here went into general use. I think . . .” Her voice sputtered to a halt as her confidence waned.
“Yes?” I encouraged her.
“. . . It’s nothing,” she said.
“You are far too good a data analyst to have found nothing,” I said.
“That is what we are going to determine,” Plet said.
“Do you know the Coppers, Obie?” I asked.
“Yes. A close-knit family. They seem considerate and friendly, but they never spoke to any of us LAIs. My information suggests that they are bio-centric in their preferences.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “Some of my best friends are artificial intelligences.”
“Sorry,” said a bearded technician who had been called in by FitzGreen to break the seals on the machines and help with our investigation. “We had a refill last week. The Moskowitz was here months ago.”
“So there is no trace of the previous contents present?” Plet pressed.
The man shook his head.
“The tanks are flushed and cleaned in between each fill,” he said. “Imperium regulations. We never mix shipments.”
“What happens to the residue?” Plet said. “It seems unlikely that the tanks run completely dry.”
“Destroyed,” FitzGreen explained. “Broken down to the molecular level. Can’t have people eating outdated food. They might sue us. Now we’re going to have to flush these machines again. I don’t want to run short. Although that’s unlikely, considering the drop in our business. The Autocracy is crazy if it doesn’t think the blockade will affect relations. It’s already causing a lot of bad feelings.”
Behind him, Nesbitt was elbows-deep in beige glop in a thousand-liter tank. The faint smell of a grainlike product wafted to my nose. It was inoffensive but at the same time entirely unappetizing. It seemed impossible that the machine could produce the meals that were pictured on the still-dancing and glowing front panel that had been removed for our convenience. The big man came dripping over to us with a rack of sealed tubes.
“These are from intervals of a half-meter, plus scrapings from the bottom,” he said, holding them out for Anstruther. She inserted a clean probe into each container in turn, then studied the screen of her viewpad. At last, she shook her head.
“Just food matrix,” she said.
“There has to have been something unusual in the previous container,” Plet said, frowning. “Otherwise, why target these bays specifically? I wish we could get a trace of the Moskowitz shipment, but it’s impossible because they have been cleaned.”
“Possible,” Redius corrected her.
“How?” Plet asked.
He dropped his jaw in amusement. “First job during school, cleaning injectors in cafeteria machines. Always residue on interior valve.”
“Wait a minute, we clean the valves, too!” the technician protested.
“Scrub?” Redius asked, pointedly. “Interior?” The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, no . . .”
Redius promptly rolled up his uniform sleeves and attacked the inside of the front panel of the machine. I jumped back just in time to avoid a spurt of food matrix that jetted five meters from a disconnected hose.
“Apologies!” Redius called over his shoulder.
The tubes within yielded to his expert ministrations, though not without spraying him, and anyone else unlucky or unwitting enough to stand close, thoroughly with sludge. By the time he returned to us, his bright black eyes were the only things not buff in color and smelling like, well, oatmeal. He extended a dripping hand. Anstruther caught the sealed pipette and attached it to the analyzer. A couple of the station employees led him and Nesbitt away, I hoped to let them wash off the sludge. The scent of it was beginning to make my eyes water. Anstruther waited until her tablet let out a modest ping. She showed her screen to Plet.
“It’s like the rest of it, sir,” she said. “Food-grade substance. No drugs, banned flavor enhancers or poisons. Kind of a high concentration of metal and silicon particles, but they’re relatively harmless. They wouldn’t interfere with digestion or flavor. No sign of machine parts or lubricants in the container itself.”
“Is that so?” Plet said, shaking her head. “Well, see if further analysis helps, Anstruther. This doesn’t help us figure out how the weapons found their way into the captured ships’ waste tanks.”
“All the ships that service the station are the same ones as always,” FitzGreen said. “The supplies were transferred on board with the electric eye picking up all the bar and burst codes for each item. Everything that ought to be there was there, and nothing unaccounted for.”
“Now analyze to whom they belong, and the chain of custody for every item supplied to the ships,” Parsons said.
“That could take weeks, sir,” Anstruther said.
“We have weeks,” I said. “We won’t get to Nacer for ages.”
“Not weeks, sir,” Oskelev said, impatiently. “Days, maybe. Just read fast.”
Very shortly, Nesbitt and Redius returned, looking very clean and shooting amused glances between them. I wanted to ask them what they found so funny, but Redius noticed my curiosity and gave a q
uick shake of his head. The story must wait.
FitzGreen hailed Odie, who drove us to the station manager’s office. The Croctoid secretary set Anstruther up with a direct port to the station’s central computer. The rest of us were offered beverages that I hoped had not come from one of the food dispensers.
“Didn’t the station’s records show where the merchants traveled before they came here?” I asked. “Any common ports of entry?”
“No,” FitzGreen said, with an upturn of his hand. “They came from all over. No sense following someone who might be carrying the same kind of cargo as you.”
“We won’t be able to tell more until we can inspect the ships themselves,” Plet said. “They are all in orbit around Dilawe now. And we have to interview the accused crews themselves.”
FitzGreen turned to face us. His homely visage was filled with deep concern, and his voice dropped from its customary foghorn blare to a murmur.
“Do what you can, my friends. The Coppers and the others are nice folks, good traders, decent people. I would never have thought of them as smugglers. I’ve watched their kiddies grow up. Something else is going on, maybe blackmail? Please try and help them.”
“That is our aim,” Parsons said.
“We have what we need for the moment,” Plet said. “When may we depart?”
FitzGreen looked discomfited.
“Well, ma’am, you might as well make yourself comfortable. You’ve heard about our bottleneck problem. They tell us we can’t let individual ships go in but every once in a while. Mostly, we have to hold them all until we have a number of them, then they all go at once. Any that arrive just behind ’em has to wait.”
“I am curious,” I said. “What number are they waiting for? Some fortunate digit like seven? A particular day of the month?”
The station manager tilted his head from side to side.
“It varies, sir. All the time. Can’t guess. The longest wait was three months, just a short time ago, because the Autocracy was waiting for thirteen. I had a few pull out and go back home. I think they were disgusted. So was I. So when lucky number thirteen showed up, I let everyone know they could all pack up.”
“But the number is not always thirteen?” I pressed him. “Is there a pattern you can discern? Perhaps I can analyze the progression, narrow it down to a sequence that appears in Uctu mythology.”
“I don’t know nothing about Uctu mythology, sir. I’m just a paper-pusher. The biggest ever was nineteen, but a flotilla of small culture-sharing vessels all came from the Museum Society, and we could let them go in a matter of days. We’ve had six, eleven, eight, even two. Last time it was sixteen. The one fellow still stuck here didn’t like that a bit. I couldn’t let him go. But I keep to a strict rota of first in, first out. Makes the shippers hurry to get here ahead of their fellows, but that’s business, too, gentlefolk.”
“Is it a joke of some kind?” Oskelev asked. “Is the Autocracy punking you?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. All a matter of the deepest seriousness from our opposite numbers. They don’t like it when we question them. They say the order comes from the very top.”
“Do you know who?”
FitzGreen shook his head.
“I hardly ever hear from the same official twice. But we’ve got an unusual situation at hand. Now, ordinarily we’ve got a bunch of ships waiting to go through the frontier, but the Autocracy hasn’t given us permission to send them.”
“And hasn’t it?” I asked. “Have you notified them that I am here?”
The station manager nodded.
“Yes, my lord, I sure have. I send messages every day telling them how bad it’s getting here, but it makes little difference. We get the word when they’re damned well good and ready, and not a microsecond before.”
“What is the current status?” Plet asked.
FitzGreen scratched the back of his big head.
“Well, we’ve got kind of the opposite problem, ma’am,” he said, looking bemused. “They sent us a number, but we don’t have enough to make it up.”
“How many are required to fill in?”
“They say eight, but there are only six ships here at the moment, including you. We’re not expecting two more ships for a few days at least. We can make you comfortable in the meantime. I have access to some nice temp quarters if you don’t want to stay on your ship. Their ladyships might like to choose first. A couple have a nice view of the main shopping arcade.”
Parsons responded by lifting his own viewpad from the pouch on his hip.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. FitzGreen,” he said. He raised the small device to his lips. “Two, captain.”
To my amazement, a voice answered back.
“Right you are, sir. They will arrive in four hours, thirty-eight minutes.”
On the screen that projected out from the station manager’s wall, I sensed rather than saw movement. So did FitzGreen. He reached for the console and opened up magnification in the quadrant. A mass of hovering blips appeared in the middle distance. Two of them detached themselves from the group and began to enlarge steadily. They were coming toward us, gaining speed as they went. The rest of the group turned around and engaged ultradrive. They were gone almost before I could open my mouth.
“How . . . ?” I began to ask, but Parsons shot me a look of the type that could cause a concert hall to fall instantly silent. I shut my mouth again.
“Huh. Changed their minds about going through to the other side, did they?” said the station manager, shaking his head. “I don’t really blame them.”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Parsons said, levitating from his chair. I sprang up at the same time. He extended a hand over the desk to the station manager, who took it in a firm clasp. “The First Space Lord will be grateful for this information. Please forward any more data if it becomes available.”
“Well,” FitzGreen said, looking gratified as I, too, took his outstretched hand. “I don’t know how I can do better than that team of yours. They make the digitavid detectives look like pathetic amateurs.”
“Life does not always copy art,” Parsons intoned. FitzGreen nodded solemnly. I followed Parsons out of the office with unanswered questions knocking at my lips.
“Tell me,” I demanded in a whisper as we made our way toward the Rodrigo. “There were eight scouts waiting there for your beck?”
“After analyzing the data Mr. Frank has received from this and other border crossings,” Parsons said, “it was determined that no more than eight would be required to fill out the requisite number.”
“Where did they come from? Did we have an escort all the way here? Were they on board the carrier?”
Parsons tried to quell me with another look, but I had developed a momentary immunity to it.
“Only two were required. They will accompany us to the capital of the Autocracy, where you will meet Her Serenity, the Autocrat. You have more studying to do, my lord, such as those fortunate numbers to which you alluded. It seems that it would be worth your while to become more familiar with such sequences.”
I was pleased that he acknowledged my expertise.
“Very well, Parsons, but the day of reckoning is coming when I expect a full disclosure of all that has been concealed from me thus far,” I said.
“As you please, sir, but not until the crisis has been resolved.”
As happened with all frustrated hopes, I felt deflated.
“Oh, very well,” I said.
Another ground car rolled to a halt at the Rodrigo’s landing bay just as we arrived. A couple of uniformed security guards popped out and began to decant my cousin and her entourage from its interior. Once she had alighted, Jil cast about until she spotted me.
“It is not fair,” she said. “All the activity took place without us! Mr. Landsman just told us that a ship crashed into the side of the station! And our ship pursued it! What happened?” Jil tucked her arm into mine. “Tell me all.”
I did no
t want to disclose the subject of the interrogation to which I had put the crew, as I never knew what Jil would post on her Infogrid file. The lifespan of a secret that one asked her to keep was only as long as it took her to find someone who had not yet heard it.
“Yes, tell us what happened!” Banitra said, as the other ladies emerged. The gaggle closed around me like a lovely barricade.
“Well,” I said, leaning down in a conspiratorial fashion. “Jil, do you recall when Nalney established his private beverage station on Keinolt’s second moon? How he intended to convey his new product home to the Imperium compound?”
Jil’s eyes danced with merriment.
“He imbibed too much of it before flying back,” she explained to the rest of our audience. “It was a disastrous homecoming.”
“Well, picture that same experience, only substitute a cargo ship for Nalney’s skimmer, and the side of this vessel for the compound’s landing pad . . .” I raised my eyebrows in a significant fashion.
Jil threw back her head, revealing her lovely throat, and gurgled with laughter.
“They were drunk?” she asked.
“On five thousand credits’ worth of Nyikitu brandy,” I confirmed.
“Oh, Nyikitu!” Marquessa exclaimed. “Can we buy some of it? It’s delicious. I have a long list of customers who would pay a nice premium to get a bottle or two.”
My face reformed itself into a mask of tragedy.
“Alas, no,” I said. “They released the rest of their load in space.”
I was rewarded with five expressions of horror.
“Are they going to jail?” Sinim said. “That is a crime against decency.”
“I do believe so,” I said, though I did not know the fate of the Moskowitz’s crew.
“Good,” Banitra said. “Wasting Nyikitu is a terrible crime.”
“Are we leaving soon?” Jil asked.
“Yes, we are.”
“Good. I don’t want to be here another moment longer,” she declared. “The others feel the same way. Absolutely nothing happens here!”
“I could not agree with you more,” I said. I offered her my arm and escorted the ladies into the ship.
Fortunes of the Imperium Page 30
