In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  Our original idea had been for me to form a partnership with Carstairs Ltd. and use the partnership as the basis for forming the corporation. Ms. Ball convinced us that it was unnecessarily complex because incorporating—and allocating ownership shares based on financial contribution—was actually a more robust scheme. It provided the protections we needed while affording us some flexibility if one or the other of the parties wouldn’t or couldn’t continue.

  It took the rest of the day to satisfy them that they had the details they needed, but we counted it time well-spent.

  At the end of the day, we still lacked two things—word from Pip’s father and a name.

  We left Ball and Associates to draw up the paperwork for both plans, minus the name which we’d plug in as soon as we had it.

  “We’ll need another day to finish adding all the boilerplate and common clauses,” Ms. Ball said. “I’d recommend incorporating in New Farnouk but you’d have to take the papers there to do it and maintain an office there.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Taxes, mostly. New Farnouk is the tax haven of the Western Annex. Part of the charter that formed the CPJCT originally and created the Annex.”

  “It’s only five points different and subjects corporate records to a higher level of scrutiny, though, right?” Pip asked.

  She nodded. “Five percent can be a lot of credits, and the scrutiny is largely automated unless they decide to call for a physical audit.”

  Pip scowled and looked to me with a small shake of his head.

  “It’s pretty common,” Ms. Ball said. “I know several reputable service companies that provide the requisite office address and records storage.”

  “We could also file in any Confederation port,” Pip said. “Like here.”

  Her eyes widened slightly at this. “Yes,” she said. “Or Diurnia, since that’s the seat of record for the quadrant.”

  Pip shrugged and pushed back from the table. “Let us think about it and get back to you when we have a name and word from my father.”

  “Of course,” she said and gave a little shrug.

  We stepped out of the cool offices into the oven of late afternoon. The buildings and sidewalks captured the system primary’s heat and held it. The only relief came from a light, onshore breeze. I felt the sweat trickling down my back under my shirt almost immediately as we shuffled our way toward the shuttle stop.

  “What’s the problem with New Farnouk?” I asked.

  Pip frowned again and shook his head. “CPJCT oversight is invasive and constant. When you file there, you report company performance monthly—not quarterly—and they monitor all your financial and operational data. If something’s out of whack, the physical audit involves flying all your assets to New Farnouk for an inventory audit.”

  I winced. “I’d hate think of how long it would take to fly a Barbell from Dree to New Farnouk. Even through the Deep Dark that would take weeks.”

  “Months, more like.”

  “How do the big carriers like Federated do it? Can you imagine having to fly every Federated ship to New Farnouk?” I asked.

  He made a gesture with his thumb and forefingers. “That five percent you save in taxes? You don’t get to keep it.”

  “Then why do they bother?”

  He grimaced. “I’m not really sure. Father registered Carstairs in Dunsany Roads. It’s not exactly the same thing as a full corporation, but a lot of the same rules apply when it comes to oversight and reporting. Private corps don’t have to make the information public, but we still have to tell the Joint Committee.” He glanced at me. “Didn’t you have to do this with Icarus?”

  “Some. I left most of it to the financial service company that set us up.”

  His eyebrows went up at that. “The same one that screwed you over for the share price?”

  “Yeah. Among other things.” I closed my eyes for a moment and tried not to see the images playing in my head.

  Pip sighed.

  “Not my problem anymore,” I said. “Christine Maloney’s got a whole fleet of accountants and lawyers to keep her in compliance.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder and we kept trudging. “Should we eat in town? We’re already here.”

  I ran a finger around the inside of my collar and unfastened another button on my shirt. “Only if it’s someplace cool.”

  “It’s all the thermal mass. Paving, buildings. It gathers the heat and the breezes just move the heat around in these plascrete canyons.”

  We took the cross street that led to the harbor proper and the wind came more directly off the water instead of being funneled through the buildings and picking up heat. The temperature felt like it dropped ten degrees just walking two blocks. Maybe I was just getting used to it.

  Pip nudged me and nodded to a restaurant on pilings stuck out over the water. A trellis shaded the back deck and the breeze fluttered the greenery. “Suppose they serve Clipper Ship?” he asked.

  The sign above the front door displayed a bird of prey with white and black plumage and a fish in its talons. “Osprey’s Nest.” I shrugged. “Local beer. Local restaurant. We can ask. You ever eat here?”

  He grinned. “Yesterday.”

  I backhanded his shoulder and he led the way in.

  The maître d’ smiled at Pip. “You’re back.”

  “Could we sit on the deck?” he asked.

  She glanced at me. “Two of you this afternoon?”

  “No, just one of me. It’s usually sufficient, but this guy—whom I have never seen before but has been following me all day—will join me.”

  She smiled at me. “Does he always talk like that?”

  I shook my head. “That’s what people usually ask about me.”

  “All right, then.” She grabbed a couple of menus from the rack and led us on a circuitous route through the dining room to an air door leading to the deck. Inside, the place felt cozy; the way the sweat on my back chilled down, I’d have bet the AC was cranking. Along the walls, and even on some of the inside pillars, paintings hung in attractive frames. Some had small stickers beside them. Most had some kind of accent lighting that showed them off against the dark wood of the walls.

  The deck outside didn’t need any decoration. The trellis held up a green canopy of some type of vine bearing thousands of tiny white flowers. It cast the entire deck in a cool, green light. A breeze teased the leaves into a regular shimmer while the vista of water, boats, and docks down the harbor drew the eye out and away.

  She stopped at a four-top, stripped away the extra place settings, and dropped the menus in the middle of the table. “Here you go, gentlemen. Daryll will be right along to take your orders.”

  We hung our jackets on the backs of our chairs and settled in. I felt the tension leaking out of me as I watched a sailboat tacking across the mouth of the harbor.

  “White Sail,” I said.

  Pip scowled at me.

  “What?”

  “Seriously? White sale?” he asked.

  I shook my head and pointed at the boat. “Not White Sale. White Sail.”

  He still shook his head. “Didn’t you ask that the other day?”

  “We’ve tried so many, I’ve forgotten.”

  Daryll showed up. Pip ordered two Clippers and Daryll left.

  “Didn’t you want anything?” Pip asked.

  Pip always made me laugh. A characteristic I thought I’d need if the deal actually went through.

  “I’ll get coffee when he comes back,” I said.

  “I’m telling you. You should take advantage of the beer while you can.”

  “Beer Barge, Inc.”

  His mouth twisted into a grimace so funny, he could have been sucking on a lemon. “We’re not changing the name of the ship. Just the company,” he said after a moment.

  “Soyuz Inc.?” I asked. “It means ‘union’ in Russian.”

  Daryll came back with the beers and Pip gave me one. “Two more of these and an order of the ca
lamari?”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  “Maybe,” Pip said, “but you’ve had three and I’m still trying to enjoy my beer. Hush, now. Lemme think.” He took a swig of beer and rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing. “Flea Market Traders,” he said after a few moments.

  “Deep Dark Delivery,” I said.

  He made a face. “Possibilities, but it’s still my turn.”

  Daryll came back with a plastic basket filled with deep-fried breaded squid and another pair of beers. “You guys know what ya want yet?”

  “We’re thinkin’,” Pip said. “Give us a couple minutes.” He reached for a menu and flipped it open while Daryll wandered back inside. “I had a burger here yesterday. Pretty good, but I bet the fish is better.”

  I grabbed a chunk of the calamari and waved it at Pip. “You know they fly this in from Blanchard, don’t you?”

  “Yeah? It’s just the next system over.” He took another bite. “How do you know?”

  “No squid here. They were never introduced. The nearest place is Blanchard.”

  He shrugged. “You’re suggesting they ship the fish in, too?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I’m still having the whitefish sandwich,” he said.

  I looked at the menu and shrugged.

  Daryll popped up again. “What can we get started for you?”

  Pip ordered his sandwich and I took a chance on the fish and chips. The menu claimed it was a local whitefish—probably mouta—beer-battered and deep-fried. I figured it should hold me to breakfast.

  I lifted my beer and poured some of it down my throat. I had to give Pip credit. Ice cold beer on a hot day, looking out over the water? It hit the spot after being locked up with the legal team all day.

  The bottle made a thunk noise when I put it back on the table. I chuckled.

  Pip looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. “What’s so funny?”

  I turned my head the way Ms. Ball had and said “Alexander?”

  He laughed, too, and the people at the next table looked at us with “Were you talking to us?” all but printed on their faces.

  “What do you suppose she pays him?” Pip asked.

  “No idea. Probably enough. That was some serious skill there.”

  He shrugged. “Less than you might think.”

  “Really? He had my file—at least the public parts—nailed down.”

  “When we go back, look in his right ear,” Pip said.

  I started to take another slug of my beer, but stopped. “His what?”

  Pip pointed to his own right ear. “He’s wired for sound. My guess is that mics in the ceiling transmitted our conversation to the bright faces in the back room that Ball was talking about. They did the research on the fly and fed the puppet in the corner.”

  “She pulled his string and they fed him the answer to the most obvious question.”

  Pip nodded. “Just a guess, but even if it wasn’t the answer she wanted, it was close enough to fool us.”

  “He perked up enough with our notes.”

  “He did. Which makes me wonder what his relationship with the charming Ms. Ball might be. He recognized the legalese and all the clauses we threw into that thing.”

  “And the retainer offer.”

  “That, too,” he said and toasted me with his bottle. “That was brilliant.”

  “That was nothing. I lost more than that in the first week of working with William Simpson.”

  “Great fish and little godlings. How much are you worth anyway?” He turned his head and pulled back a bit to look me straight in the eye. “None of this wishy-washy stuff.”

  His look made me self-conscious. “I’m not sure with any degree of accuracy. Something between a hundred forty and a hundred sixty million. Depending on how the accounting rules treat my salvage claim. I don’t count it as income until I see the credits in my account. Some of the CPCJT rules on accounting show it on my balance sheet as an outstanding receivable with an estimated value of twenty million based on the last two auctions.”

  “Ah, accountants,” Pip said and clinked the neck of his bottle to mine. “We’d be broke without them.”

  “It didn’t seem that hard in the academy. Debits on the left. Credits on the right.”

  “Yeah. That’s accounting for officers. A good accountant is worth his weight in gold because he can take one set of numbers and make them say three different—completely legitimate—things depending on what you need them to say.”

  I looked at him hard and he shrugged.

  “All right. I’m exaggerating, but only a little.”

  “Do we need to hire one?”

  He shrugged again and took a short pull from his bottle. “Probably wouldn’t hurt. We don’t want to pay Ball and Associates to run our books for us. The board would probably feel better if we had one.”

  “Where do we find an accountant?”

  Pip shook his head. “Beats me. Anybody worth having is probably too busy to take us on.”

  “We used a payroll service that Simpson lined up. They handled most of the receivables and sorting credits from our income to the various bills. Bastard was probably skimming that account, too.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned him. That name’s familiar but I can’t place it.”

  “He was the financier who set up the Icarus paperwork.”

  He frowned. “No, it was something else. Something recent.”

  “He was arrested by the TIC for assault, murder, embezzlement, and a few other things I’ve probably forgotten.”

  Pip’s eyebrows rose slowly. “And he was your money man?”

  “He came highly recommended by DST.”

  “Seriously? He had them hoodwinked, too?”

  “Oh, yeah. One of his subsidiaries through a holding company run by a shell ran a bodyguard service so well thought of that all the high-level corporate officers—and a lot of the lower ones—used it.”

  Pip’s eyes narrowed. “This can’t end well.”

  “One of the things the guards were supposed to do was protect their clients from unwanted coverage in the newsies.”

  “That’s an impossible task. Anybody with a face hanging out in public is fair game to those people.”

  “Made even doubly so because the guards regularly proved how much their services were needed by taking pictures of their clients on the sly and selling them to the press.”

  Pip looked at me, beer bottle raised halfway to his gaping mouth. “My garters and braces, that’s brilliant!”

  “Also just slightly illegal under the terms of their agency contracts.”

  He shook his head. “I bet it wasn’t.”

  “What?”

  Pip took a sip and leaned over the table toward me. “Look, this guy was a high-end money guy. I bet he wiped his butt with three-hundred-page contracts every day. He was either a lawyer besides or had two hotshots on staff. There’s no way he’s going to set this up and then make it so he’s hung by his own damn contract.” He shook his head. “If he was half the crook you say? He was way smarter than that.”

  I laughed. “Damn, I missed you.”

  Daryll brought our food and another round of beers. I looked at Pip who just shrugged.

  Daryll smiled and asked, “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Would you bring me a coffee? Black.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  He bustled off and we dug into our meals. I had to admit the view wasn’t bad. Pip must have seen my expression.

  “What? You think we came here for the food?”

  “You said you ate here yesterday and it wasn’t bad.”

  He shrugged and took another bite of his fish sandwich. “It’s not bad. And the beer is cold. And the view?” He waved a hand at the light gleaming off the water of the harbor and the picturesque view of boats and docks. “You gotta admit. Not exactly the view we get from the cottages
.”

  I sighed. “I’ll grant you all that.”

  “All right then. Quit bitchin’ and relax. We still need a name.”

  He was right. The food wasn’t bad. The chips were hot and not overly greasy. The batter on the fish was a bit heavy and the fish itself was a little soft, but it wasn’t bad.

  Daryll came back with my coffee and, predictably, it wasn’t bad.

  I sat back and listened to the wavelets lapping the pilings under us. The breezes made the leaves and flowers on the trellis dance in time with the glinting waves in the bay. I watched the boats in the harbor and forgot about it. This wasn’t something I’d see in the Deep Dark. There were no warm zephyrs in the cold vacuum between the stars.

  Pip was right. We weren’t there for the food.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Port Newmar:

  2374, June 7

  Daryll brought me another coffee and kept taking away Pip’s empties. I’d had two with him. I’d lost track of how many he’d had since. I was fairly certain he felt at least as relaxed as I did. The system primary had slipped nearly to the tree line in the west. Daryll kept asking if we wanted dessert.

  “We’ll just finish this round and go,” Pip told him.

  I might have felt guilty except the tables on either side of us were free.

  “Yanno?” Pip said. “We’re going at this wrong.”

  “You couldn’t have thought of that before we retained counsel?”

  He shook his head. “Not that. The name.”

  “Oh, yeah. Stella d’Oro.”

  “I get a gold star?”

  “No. As a name.”

  “It’s my turn.”

  “But you’re not offering any.”

  “I’m trying to tell you. Hush.”

  “All right,” I said. “You know you’re about half in the bag, though, right?”

  “Yes, but you’re not. Are you going to listen?”

  I waved a hand for him to continue.

  “We’ve been picking random names. No rhyme. No reason. They sound good, or funny, or they’re just random words that pop into our heads.”