Dragon Ship

by Sharon Lee

  Clarence waved his mug gently at the screen, his other hand forming a lazy query.

  “Folks just poking around, even with a dimension sheet, they won’t find any of the places we don’t want to people to know exist?”

  Another pause, and a pink edge around Screen Six until the catalog grids returned simultaneous with what might have been an attempted laugh.

  Theo jumped, and so did Clarence, though maybe not as far.

  “The Uncle himself designed and oversaw installation of many of the masking systems. It is my estimation that what should not be found or seen by others will not be.”

  Clarence nodded forcefully, with his following irony perhaps lost on Bechimo,

  “And who better to have in charge of fooling the universe than the Uncle, who we Disallow.”

  “His measures and those of the other Founders have served me well in times not precisely anticipated: that was the point, in fact, that I may operate autonomously, as necessary.”

  Clarence shook his head, and sipped the last of his rose tea.

  “One day when I got time, and Pilot Theo’s got time, and the proctors aren’t at the door, the three of us will have a talk about the Uncle…Meanwhile, Theo, I’ll stand as Exec to the door in the greeting parlor, and hope Bechimo will be kind enough to brighten up the Cat and the Tree-and-Dragon, seeing as how we got us a shiny bright day out there, and we want to impress these folks as pleasant and biddable and forgettable, if we can manage that.”

  On the big screen, the three green cars proved to be arriving, the brown cars just behind.

  * * *

  “Tree-and-Dragon has a good reputation.”

  The young man—Hervan, his name was—smiled as he leaned toward Theo, rather closer than she usually liked.

  “We did hear some recent odd news from Liad, which of course would represent Liad’s views. Perhaps there was a…contractual disagreement between the planet and Tree-and-Dragon; such things happen. But an organization with a thousand year history rarely makes really major mistakes.”

  Theo nodded, hands still burdened with the so-called valcomvoggen, a basket containing a bottle of wine, three stripy orange fruits, and several pale, shiny-wrapped objects that might be anything from modeling clay to cheese to high explosives, as well as his card announcing him as Hervan, Sector Arrival Director.

  The card sat atop her basket, slowly changing colors. Their tiny trade parlor was crowded, what with Clarence and Hervan and his three aides, but she didn’t want to bring port officials into the command space if she could avoid it—for the sake of her nerves and Bechimo’s.

  They’d been trading pleasantries and formal welcomes after the official exchange of port fees was accomplished by key codes, until this sudden sally into news.

  It might be, Theo thought, a push at her reserve, to see how much she was willing to gossip—and especially to gossip about Clan Korval.

  She considered that, and came to the conclusion that she was willing to gossip…not at all, and smiled.

  “Laughing Cat is a recent contractor, as I’m sure you saw, Hervan. I know very little about of the action on Liad, except, like you, by news report. Tree-and-Dragon’s trading reputation was the primary consideration for us when we were offered the opportunity to explore trade more aligned with their new seat.”

  Hervan nodded, emphatically.

  “I understand perfectly. An opportunity to partner with Korval as they enter a new phase! Surely a marked opportunity for a ship of your Bechimo’s style, which is hardly large enough to ply the great routes, yet which is far more than a mere courier. Yes, you have chosen a wise course, Theo Waitley. And wise, too, to stop at Frenzel, where there is often need for small and intermediate shipments. This port tends toward the commodity trade, and the hurry-ups and replacements and model-year changes often need a ship of your carrying capacity.”

  He smiled and nodded at the basket she held.

  “I hope you’ll take advantage of our sponsors’ offers and contacts; and be aware that I am Bechimo’s link if you should have any need on port. If your stay is extended, we have many cultural opportunities available. Please call on my office if you have trading needs, as well. I am often able to open doors and make presentations in person. Also, you must feel free to regard my time as yours—understand that I have a considerable leeway and flexibility in scheduling.”

  Clarence, having stacked his basket in a corner with the “crew basket”, took hers with a wordless nod. Hervan, holding the small official packet of ship info Theo had for him, looked momentarily nonplussed.

  Oh, Theo realized, this was also a gift exchange game, and she was without a gift, or a bribe.

  “Your sponsors,” she said firmly, making good eye contact, “are generous, Hervan. Bechimo appreciates and is gladdened by our welcome. We have, as you know, just begun our contract and our route, and are not so lucky as to be able to share samples with you at this time.”

  There was that about Hervan which was interesting despite his tendency to lean close, and it came to Theo that there was a scent, elusive and familiary…

  Vya! she thought, suddenly identifying it. Just a slight trust inducement for the potential visitor…She’d have to have Bechimo rev up the air cleaners!

  Hervan’s eyes widened slightly and she was concerned that she’d overstepped somehow. She’d need to do a better job of prepping—suppose he’d been affected by his own vya and thought she’d made an intimate offer! Then she spotted the slight off-shade behind his ear. He was wearing an aid.

  “Pilot Waitley, please,” he said reproachfully. “My goal is to see that your needs are met fully and with as little trouble to yourself as possible. Regrettably, my aides and I have not the time at the moment to take a complete tour. Rest assured, however, that I would be pleased to receive a visit from you, perhaps to show you some of the many fine restaurants and gaming places located within easy cab ride. Also, included in your baskets are chip-keys for discounted spa-style accommodations at nearby Kyhatts.”

  “I must ask—Pilot Theo, please assure me that you have a contact already. I tremble to think that you might be considering a catalog-drill for names to cold call. Have you a contact? Perhaps I might help you connect sooner.”

  Theo glanced at Clarence, who showed her an absolutely bland face. No help there! Well, Shan hadn’t said his information was secret, after all.

  “I am to contact Chaliceworks Aggregations, on-world here. I gather they are within surface transport range…”

  “Chaliceworks?” Hervan abruptly stepped back out of her personal space. “Why yes! Yes of course! Leave after breakfast and arrive before lunch, as we say. They close on the sixth day, which you’ve missed by two days.”

  He gave her a smile much less winsome than formerly, and turned to wave his aides out before him.

  “Thank you for your time Pilot Waitley, thank you! May the trade do well by you. If my office may direct you to restaurants, please do let me know!”

  “Forgive me, time presses!”

  Chapter Six

  Frenzel Port

  Theo stood on the verge, among the scant grass and weeds and some Theo-high reddish-brown brush growing through the paving. Guest Out rightly fell to Exec, she guessed; Clarence having collected them, he should’ve taken them back to their vehicles. But their dance steps had gotten muddled there at the last and it had been smoother for Theo to take them away. Guess they needed practice.

  The “tarmac” ten strides away from Bechimo’s hatch wasn’t much more than a thin coating of what Derryman, her boss during her first season at Hugglelans, had called “blackpebble.” In hot weather the thin coating of crushed stone and petroleum plasticizer might stick to shoes and mark-up floor matting—but that wasn’t an issue this day. The vegetation didn’t exactly flourish in the thin sun that faded through a light haze, and the slight breeze did nothing more than twitch her hair against her ears.

  The doors of the delegation vehicles were all closed no
w. Hervan gave her a small smile and a wave from his spacious back-of-the-car seat before turning his attention to a device his aide handed him. The window clouded then, as privacy was turned on.

  Ah, dismissed, that was, the turning to other duties. A twinge of something akin to annoyance struck her. Here she, first board and the acting captain had walked Hervan out into the dust and now, after his hint that maybe she should…well, manners. Maybe there was a right time to turn the windows to dark.

  Glancing aside, Theo noticed that the ship next to Bechimo was a Jollijon Springster, usually used for medium to high value foodstuffs. Some few items didn’t do well frozen, some had to be eaten fresh, or live. The Springster was whitebox as far as she could see—a couple of ID numbers too small to read at this distance, but nothing to show line, captain, or name.

  Beyond the Springster was a row of sixteen or seventeen neat Hights in the vertical quadpod configuration that was all the rage on some routes. If they didn’t have their Stonefort designs on every quarter, somebody had done a lot of work to make sure they were all aligned the same way. She guessed it made for an advertising statement or something—or maybe it was just line policy to ground to the north north north…

  She sighed lightly. Clarence had been particularly concerned about the baskets, and had been careful to put them in the baffle corner, actually an airlock into the other “public” section of the ship, which had been sealed, shipside. As soon as the cars were out of sight, she ought to go back inside and help inspect. Not that she really expected baskets from a branch of Port Admin itself to contain listening devices or explosives, but that was the kind of thinking people trying to sneak things onto ships counted on.

  There, the first car was starting to move, the dark windows showing a silver sheen, as if shielding had been activated.

  Theo shook her head.

  Hervan had seemed genuinely pleasant up until his ear-feed had interfered, but the hasty departure of the delegation gave Theo a chance to breathe easier. The combination of the vya and the selling, along with Hervan’s strong eye-contact, had worked oddly on her. She wondered if she’d managed to catch cabin-fever, that malaise historically attributed to spacefarers.

  Theo turned back toward Bechimo, the Laughing Cat and the Tree-and-Dragon welcoming her back. It had been some time since she’d just sat and talked with someone about just anything, especially anything that wasn’t ship-and-crew stuff.

  At least she’d met and talked with someone new, and that suddenly made a plus on the day.

  She shook herself into a dance then, recalling Father’s ability not to be seen by people he didn’t want to see him. She’d seen him avoid nosy faculty and noisy neighbors, simply by…It was like he put on a suit of “don’t look at me”—both a pose and a walk—and people didn’t see him. That would be a useful thing to be able to do, Theo thought, remembering the nidj who had followed her down Starport Gondola. Deliberately, she danced a few steps of relaxation, then slid into Father’s “I’m not here” walk.

  There was a way of holding the shoulders, and a flex in the knee, she frowned, concentrating, and then looked up, as motion twitched in the edge of her eye.

  There. Down in the haze, just this side of the Jollijon. And there, the shape of a person, and another, the brush blossoming into people.

  She spun. On the other side of Bechimo was the squat bulk of an ore carrier perched above service wagons, the Terran Seven Diamonds a rough outline on equipment that had surely seen better days. ’Round it came several human forms, carrying backpacks and hand-totes, and wearing hats or hoods.

  For all their sudden appearance, they were slow-moving; not pilots or mercenaries, surely, and the pace they set…still, a quick count showed fourteen or fifteen of them.

  Advertently, Theo removed to Bechimo, at a smart pace, unseen.

  * * *

  “The Over Pilot has returned, Less Pilot.”

  Clarence spun his chair.

  “What the devil did you do out there, lassie? All at once, there’s people everywhere!”

  His voice was stern, but she tell at a glance that he was amused rather than irritated. “You should have heard Bechimo…”

  “I didn’t do anything but watch the portmaster’s proxy run away,” Theo began, then raised a hand, wait. “Did Bechimo send something? I didn’t hear—”

  His hands wrote board to zero in sign, and she relaxed, coming forward to stand by his chair and watch the live instrument set.

  “Nah, he didn’t send, I don’t think, just he was muttering about the visitors, then muttering about imitation random walks going on in view of his sensors.”

  “Well, that’s true. There’s a dozen or more people wandering around out there. They look like refugees or campers.”

  Clarence sat up straighter, his hands roaming board-wise as if initiating pre-checks on lift-off.

  “I think we’re fine,” he said after a minute; “just a bunch of pitchmen and freeposters, hiding from the port guys. Some of them may be after left-outs, but we’re not worried because we haven’t put anything outside, and because Bechimo takes rare exception to the whole lot of ’em and tracking any within easy threat range. Ain’t that how it is, Chimmy?”

  The catalog grid on Screen Six gave way momentarily to a half-familiar background; it was a ship’s interior as seen from a comcam; an unfilled seat in the lower portion of the field; behind a courier’s tight cabin with a neat run kitchen. It was a cabin, if not a view, very familiar to Theo.

  “Arin’s Toss? Are we in touch with Arin’s Toss?”

  The image went wonky with colors; the cabin view shifted to include an angle impossible to achieve from the Toss’s locked camera and a seat behind—no, thought Theo; it was an acceleration seat set for three, so it couldn’t been the Toss, after all.

  Bechimo’s voice overfilled the command deck momentarily, and ghostly arms from elbow down appeared in the screen, hands reaching for controls that might be identifiable by comrades of the pilot who wasn’t there.

  “I do not accept the designation of Chimmy, Clarence O’Berin.”

  “You said that, right,” Clarence answered calmly. “Status?”

  “Status is that there are twenty-three free-ranging subjects within view of my cameras and sensors. All are on foot, all are carrying packages and devices. Some few seem to be in coordinated motion; the rest are, as alluded to, moving with pseudo-random walks as they approach the various vessels in this area. We as yet have none within the official rented pad space; we have several attempting to image our logos. I expect inquires on our feeds to increase shortly.”

  Theo twitched, waiting for her question to be answered.

  Clarence’s laugh was short. “Been studying, have you?”

  “I have located the Freepost Gazetteer. According to their ranking system, security in this landing yard is low. The freeposters are an unincorporated alliance of independent contractors supplying non-licensed information to vessels and crews. Some may be refugees and campers as suggested.”

  Theo took a deep breath—

  Can either one of you tell me why we’re seeing a ship in the Screen Six monitor? Are we live?”

  “’course we’re live,” Clarence said. “I see it too, but it’s not there.”

  “Pilot, I am in pursuit of my presence project and came to the conclusion that placing myself in an existing location within myself presented certain contingent reality difficulties. It also has become obvious that lack of a location is distracting to pilots; the color combinations I have attempted are insufficient for our needs. It appears that there is a paradoxical necessity for more information rather than less in order to be present. I am constructing a personal image that will confuse neither pilots nor ship.”

  Theo looked at the screen, at the hands flowing from nothing to move controls that weren’t there. She took a breath and shook her head.

  “For the moment I suggest a static screen—the hand motion is distracting. When you pick a spot t
o be from, make it so it looks like another section of the ship—from a communications room, or a weapons station, I don’t much care as long as it’s someplace we could expect to see you if you were here, and it’s not someplace that makes me feel like I could turn and talk to you in the jump seat.”

  Screen Six became the catalog grid, then a very hazy grey, with the hint of a shadow in it, except for very clear hands and fingers, moving. It roiled a bit of green around the edges, and after a few seconds Theo sighed, loudly.

  “Nice effect, the handwork, but bring it back later. If Clarence doesn’t mind, you can practice it on him—but not on me until I say so. Now—the baskets?”

  “The baskets are clean, excepting these,” Clarence picked up two pieces of flimsy from the catch-bench between their chairs and offered them to Theo.

  PLEASURE BEYOND YOUR DREAMS! SPEND YOUR HUNDRED HOURS WITH OUR TEAM OF TRAINED TECHNICIANS. CRADY’S CARNAL DELIGHTS.

  She flipped the next page up, and was immediately awash in the scent of dark chocolate.

  AMPHORIA CHOCOLATIERS. HANDMADE CHOCOLATES FOR ALL OCCASIONS. TRY OUR VYA-FILLED BONBONS!

  “That’s it?” She looked sharply at Clarence, who nodded, not seeming worried.

  “Prolly bribed somebody on staff to slip ’em in, see.” He used his chin to point in the general direction of the conference ro— Dining Room Two.

  “All this is about access to people, because people make things happen. Without people, there’s no commerce.” He shrugged. “The rest of the stuff in the baskets is sponsored, like Hervan said; nothing wrong with any of it—Bechimo scanned everything and I did, too. I put the wine in the keeper, and the fruits in the fresh-box. Buncha file keys and feelies—not much to do with them ’cept pitch ’em in recycling.”

  “All right,” said Theo, and shook her head. “I hope the sponsors don’t spend a lot of money on this. It seems kind of hit or miss.”

  Clarence shrugged again, turning his attention back to the screens and the freeposters wandering here and there among the careless ships.