Ship Who Searched

by Mercedes Lackey

  “But did you expect to triple your total investment?” Lee Stirling countered. “Your little seed money grew into quite the mighty oak tree while you were gone!”

  “Uh—” she said, taken so much by surprise that she didn’t know what to say. “What do you mean by total investment?”

  “Oh—your companies split their bonds two times while you were gone; you had the option of cash or bonds, and we judged you wanted the bonds, at least while the value was still increasing.” Stirling was trying to sound matter-of-fact, but couldn’t keep a trace of gloating out of his voice. “Those bonds are now worth three times what they were after the last split.”

  “Split?” she said faintly. “I—uh—really don’t know what that means. I’m—new at this.”

  Patiently Stirling walked her through exactly what had happened to her investment. “Now the question you have in front of you is whether you want to sell out now, while the value of the bond is still increasing, or whether you want to wait.”

  “What’s happening on Largo Draconis?” she asked. After all, her investment had been based on what was going to happen in the real world, not the strange and unpredictable universe of the stock market. And from the little she had seen, the universe of the stock market seemed to have very little to do with “real” reality.

  “I thought you’d ask that. Your companies have pretty much saturated their market,” Stirling told her. “The situation has stabilized—just short of disaster, thanks to them. The bond prices are going up, but a lot more slowly. I think they’re going to flatten out fairly soon. I’d get out, if I were you.”

  “Do it,” she said flatly. “I’d like you to put everything I earned into Moto-Prosthetics, preferred stock, with voting rights. Hold onto the seed money until I contact you.”

  “Taking care of it now—there. All logged in, Hypatia. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re going to invest in next.” Stirling sounded quite satisfied. “I hope you’ll stay with us. We’re a new firm, but we’re solid, we have a lot of experience, and we intend to service our clients with integrity. Miz Friesner was formerly a senior partner in Weisskopf, Dixon, Friesner and Jacobs, and the rest of us were her handpicked proteges. She’s our token softie.”

  “Token—oh! You’re all—”

  “Shellpersons, right, all except Miz Friesner. Oh, we all worked on the stock, bond, and commodity exchanges, but as systems managers. We couldn’t do any investments while we were systems managers, but Miz Friesner agreed to join us when we bought out our contracts.” Stirling chuckled. “We’ve been planning this for a long time. Now we’re relying on grapevine communications within the shell-net for those like us who want to invest, for whatever reasons—and would rather not go through either their Counselors, their Supervisors, or their Advocates.” He sent her a complicated burst of emoticons conveying a combination of disgust, weariness, annoyance, and impatience. “We are adults, after all. We can think for ourselves. Just because we’re rooted to one spot or one structure, it doesn’t follow that all of us need keepers.”

  She sent back a burst that mirrored his—with the addition of amusement. “Some of us do—but not anyone who’s been out in the world for more than fifty years or so, I wouldn’t think. Well, I’ll tell a couple of friends of mine about you, that’s for certain.”

  “Word of mouth, as I said.” Stirling laughed. “I have to tell you, after that phenomenal start, we’re all very interested in your next investment choice.”

  “I’ll have it in a couple of days at most,” she promised, and signed off.

  Well, now it was certainly time to start digging for that second choice, and she couldn’t hope to happen on it the way she had the last time.

  This time, it was going to take a combination of stupidity on someone’s part, and her own computational power. So she concentrated on sorting out those colonies that had been in existence for less than a hundred years. It was probably fair to assume that anything repetitive that she would be able to take advantage of would have to take place within that kind of cycle.

  That narrowed the field quite a bit—but it meant that she was going to have to concentrate her search by categories. Floods were the first things that came to mind, so she called up geological and climatological records on all of her candidates and ran a search for flood patterns.

  Meanwhile she and Alex were also dealing with the authorities on the Haakon-Fritz case—which looked likely to put the Practical Darwinists out of business, at least with the general public—and the Institute in regards to resupply. Tia was determined not to leave port this time without that ethological tagging kit. Alex was tired of dealing with each crisis barehanded.

  He demanded a supply of firearms—locked up until authorized if necessary, but he wanted to have something to enforce his decisions or to defend himself and others.

  “What if Haakon-Fritz had gone berserk?” he asked. “What if those canids had been more aggressive?”

  Courier Services was agreeable, but the Institute was fighting him; their long-time policy of absolute pacifism was in direct conflict with any such demand. The ban was clear; on any site where there were nearby sophonts with an Iron Age civilization or above—and “nearby” meant on the same continent—absolutely no arms were to be permitted in association with any Institute personnel, not even those under contract. And since the couriers hit at least one dig on every run that came under the ban, they were not allowed any weaponry at any time. Tia backed her brawn, and she was lobbying with CS and the Lab Schools to help. After all, her well-being was partially dependent on his. The Institute, on the other hand, was balking because there were those who would take the presence of even small arms on board the courier in the worst possible interpretation.

  Tia could see their point—but Institute couriers were the only ones not carrying some kind of hand weaponry. They were likely at any time to run into smugglers, who absolutely would be armed. If CS made a ruling on the subject, there would be no way the Institute could get around it.

  Meanwhile, on the subject of Haakon-Fritz, things were definitely heating up. The recordings of his Olympic sprint to shelter had somehow gotten leaked to the media—fortunately, long after Tia had locked down her copies—along with the following recording of Alex’s heroic dash to the rescue via grav-sled. Alex was a minor celebrity for a day—but he successfully avoided the media, and they soon grew tired of his self-deprecating attitude, and his refusal to make himself photogenic. Haakon-Fritz did not avoid the media, he sought them out—and he became everyone’s favorite villain. The Institute could not keep the incident quiet. The Practical Darwinists came to their proponent’s rescue, and only made things worse with their public statements of support and their rhetoric. People did not care to hear that they were weaklings, failures, and ought to be done away with for the good of the race. It began to look as if there was going to be a public trial, no matter how hard the Institute tried to avoid one.

  It was on the eve of that trial that Tia finally found her next investment project.

  In the Azteca system, the third planet—predictably Terran—known as Quetzecoatl.

  Interstellar Teleson, one of the major communications firms in their quadrant with cross-contracts and reciprocal agreements across known space, had just relocated their sector corporate headquarters on Quetzecoatl. The location had a great deal to be said for it—central, in the middle of a stable continental plate, good climate. That, however, was not why they had relocated there.

  It was one of those secretly negotiated High Family contracts, and Tia had no doubt that there was a lot more at stake than just the area. Someone owed someone else a favor—or else someone wanted something else kept quiet, and this was the price.

  She was doubly sure when the location came up red-flagged on her geological search. According to the survey records, that lovely, flat plain was a flood basin. Quetzecoatl did not have the kind of eccentric orbit that Largo Draconis did—just a little tilt. One that didn’
t affect anyone in the major settlements at all. But once every hundred years, that tilt angled the north pole into the solar plane for a bit longer than usual. The glaciers would start to melt. The plain below wouldn’t exactly “flood”—or at least, not all at once. It would just get very, very soggy, slowly—then, when the spring rains came, the water would rise over the course of a week or two. Eventually the entire plain would be under about two inches of water, and would remain that way for about three years, gradually drying again for the fourth as the glaciers in the north grew.

  But Interstellar Teleson’s Corporate Standards dictated that the most sensitive records and delicate instruments, and all their computer equipment, be installed permanently in sub-basements no less than four stories below surface level, to avoid any possibility of damage. Corporate Standards had been set to guard against human interference, not nature’s. Corporate Standards evidently did not consider nature to be important.

  Whoever was in charge of this project apparently completely disregarded the geological survey. Engineers complained about seepage and warned of flooding; the reaction was to order extra sump pumps. Sump pumps were keeping the sub-basements tolerably dry now, but Tia guessed that they were going constantly just to keep up with ordinary ground water. They were not going to handle the flood.

  Especially not when flood waters were seeping in through the ground floor walls and creeping over the doorsills.

  According to the meteorological data, the glaciers were melting, and the spring rains were only a couple of months away.

  Meanwhile, half a continent away, there was a disaster recovery firm that specialized in data and equipment recovery. They advertised that they could duplicate an existing system in a month, and recover data from devices that had been immersed in saltwater for over a year, or through major fires with extensive smoke damage. Interstellar Teleson was going to need them, and they didn’t even know it. Besides, Tia liked the name. Whoever these people were, they had one heck of a sense of humor.

  Chuckling to herself, Tia called Lee Stirling and made her investment—then sent out another carefully worded letter to Crash and Burn Data Recovery, Limited.

  The public trial of Doctor Haakon-Fritz was a ten-day circus—but by then, Tia and Alex had far more serious things on their minds and no time to waste on trivialities.

  Tia’s recordings—both at the site and in the main cabin—were a matter of public record now, and that was the only stake they had in the trial. The Institute only wanted to keep from looking too foolish. In return for the supply of small arms Alex demanded, they asked that he not testify at the trial, since anything he could say would only corroborate those records. They both knew what the Institute people were thinking: records were one thing, but a heroic participant, who just might sound impassioned—no, that was something they didn’t want to see. He was willing—he reckoned it was a small price to pay. Besides, there was little he could add, other than becoming another source of media attention.

  So while the media gathered, the quiet Institute lawyers and spokesmen tried to downplay the entire incident, Alex got his arms-locker, and Tia her ethological kit as the price for their non-participation. And as they prepared to head out on a new round of duties, there came an urgent message.

  The Institute contract was on hold; CS had another use for them as the only BB ship on base.

  And they suddenly found themselves, not only with a new agenda—but an entirely new employer.

  “Kenny, what is all this about?” Tia asked, when the barrage of orders and follow-up orders concluded, leaving them with a single destination, an empty flight plan, and a “wait for briefing” message. So here they were, docked with the Pride of Albion, and the briefing was coming from Doctor Kennet Uhua-Sorg.

  “This,” Doctor Kennet replied, grimly, sending the live-cam view of one of the isolation rooms.

  Alex gasped. Tia didn’t blame him.

  The view that Doctor Kennet gave them of this, the Pride of Albion’s newest isolation patient, was blessedly brief. It had been a human at one point. Now it was a humanoid-shaped mass of suffering. Somewhere in the mass of open sores were eyes, a mouth, a face. Those had been hands, once—and feet.

  Tia was the first to recover. “Who is that,” she asked sharply, “and what happened to him?”

  “Who—we don’t know,” Kenny replied, his face completely without expression. “He was from a tramp freighter that left him when he didn’t get aboard by lift-off time. We don’t know if they expected something like this, or if they were just worried because one of their bogus crew turned up missing, but they burned out of Yamahatchi Station with a speed that simply didn’t match their rather shabby exterior. He was under false papers, of course—and there isn’t enough of his fingers or retinas left to identify him. And unless he’s ever been a murder or crime-of-violence suspect, his DNA patterns could take years to match with his birth-records.”

  Alex nodded. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to deduce his ship; anyone logging into a station hostel or hotel had to list his ship-of-origin as well as filing his papers. That information was instantly cross-checked with the ship; the ship had to okay the crewman’s ID before he would be allowed to check in. Passengers, of course, used an entirely separate set of hotels.

  “That kind of speed probably means a pirate or a smuggler,” Alex said.

  “I don’t think there’s much doubt of that,” Kenny replied. “Well, when his logged time at the cheap hostel he’d checked into ran out, they opened the door to his room—found that—and very wisely slammed the door and reported him.”

  “What about the hostel personnel?” Tia asked.

  “We have them all in isolation, but so far, thank the deity of your choice, none of them are showing any signs of infection.”

  “For which favor, much thanks,” Alex muttered.

  “Just what is it that he’s got?” Tia asked, keeping her voice even and level.

  Kenny shrugged. “Another plague with no name. Symptoms are simple enough. Boils which become suppurating sores that seem to heal only to break open again. A complex of viruses and bacteria, reinforced with modified immune deficiency syndrome. So far, no cure. Decontamination sterilized the hostel room completely, and we haven’t seen anyone else come down with this thing. And, thank the spirits of space, once he checked into the hostel, door records show he never left his room.”

  “There is no reason for a pirate to come down with something like that,” Tia pointed out, “but an artifact smuggler—”

  “Precisely why I asked for you two,” Kenny replied, “and precisely why the Institute loaned you to us. Oh, Alex, in case you wondered, I’m in this because, despite my specialty, I seem to have become the expert in diseases associated with archeology.”

  Alex cast an inquiring glance at her column. Tia knew what he was asking. Could this be the same disease their mysterious “Sinor” had told them about? Could it be that the man had given them a true story, though not his true name?

  She printed her answer under Dr. Kenny’s image. It’s a coincidence. Not the same as Sinor’s phony plague—he would have been frantic if he truly had this to contend with.

  He signaled his question with his eyes. Why?

  Immune deficiency. Contact or airborne. Think about it.

  His eyes widened, and he nodded, slowly. The nightmare that had haunted the human world since the twentieth century; the specter of an immune deficiency disease communicated by an airborne or simple-contact vector. No one wanted to think about it, yet in the minds of anyone connected to the medical professions, it was an ever-present threat.

  “You two are a unique combination that I think has the best chance to track this thing to its source,” Kenny said. “Medical Services will have more than one team on this—but you’re the only BB team available. The Institute doesn’t want any of their people to stumble on the plague the hard way, so they subcontracted you to Medical for the duration. I’m delegating the planning of sear
ch patterns to you. Got any ideas on how to start?”

  “Right,” Alex replied. “Then if that’s what you want, let’s do this the smart way, instead of the hard way. First off, what’s the odds this could have come off a derelict—station or ship—out in hard vacuum?”

  “Odds? Not likely. Hard vacuum kills all of the bugs involved. That does eliminate anything like an asteroid or EsKay situation though, doesn’t it?” Kenny looked fairly surprised, as well as pleased. “Let me get Lars in on this, he’s been monitoring the poor devil.”

  It took a few moments for Lars to clear his boards enough to have attention to devote to a vocal circuit. During that time, Tia thought of a few questions she’d like to ask.

  “Lars, has he said anything?” she asked, as soon as Lars joined the conference call. “Something that could give us clues?”

  “Ravings mostly—do you think you can get anything out of that?” Lars sounded fairly dubious. “It’s not as if he was an astrogator or anything. Mostly he’s been yammering on about the weather, besides the usual; either pain and hallucinations, or about treasure and gold.”

  “The weather?” Tia responded immediately. “What about it?”

  “Here, I’ll give you what I’ve got—cleaned up so you can understand it, of course.”

  A new voice came over the circuit; harsh, with a guttural accent. “Treasure . . . gold . . . never saw s’much. Piles’n’piles . . . no moon, frag it, how c’n a guy see anythin’ . . . anythin’ out there. No moon. Dark ’s a wormhole. Crazy weather. Nothin’ but crazy weather . . . snow, rain, snow, sleet, mud—how ya s’pposed t’ dig this stuff up in this?”

  “That’s basically it,” Lars said, cutting the recording off. “He talks about treasure, moonless, dark nights, and crazy weather.”

  “Why not assume he’s complaining about where he was? Put that together with an atmosphere and—?” Tia prompted. “What do you get?”