“It’s my belief that we need all our ships, Captain Furman,” Stella said.
“Yes, but they’re mostly destroyed, aren’t they? Now, if I can get that imposter out of Osman’s ship, and take it over in your name, that should be worth something, shouldn’t it?”
“I’m not sure that will be necessary,” Stella said, glad for the years of practice that kept her voice smooth when a flare of white rage almost blanked her vision. The nerve of the man. He thought he could take over Vatta, did he? He had probably intended to wait out the statutory limit of his contract and then declare himself the new head of Vatta, at least in this area. Now he thought he could evict Ky from her ship on specious grounds, present it to Stella as a gift, and…what? Insist on a partnership, at the least. The way he had looked at her, he might want more than that.
“Well, no, the Katrine should be sufficient for a welcome,” he said. His smile made Stella want to smack his face. Sixteen days before she’d be close enough…she wanted to smack his face now. “But Osman’s ship would be a great addition to our fleet.”
“It’s encouraging to see you identifying so closely with Vatta Transport,” Stella said.
“I have given my whole life to Vatta Transport,” Furman said. He seemed to literally swell with pride. “We—you and I—could bring it back from this disaster.”
“I certainly couldn’t do it alone,” Stella murmured. She looked at him under her eyelashes, gauging his response. Yes. He was just as susceptible as most men.
“So…you’ll work with me?”
“I do have the advantage of the Vatta name,” Stella said.
“Yes, of course. I understand. And I expect you have useful knowledge I don’t have…corporate accounts and things like that.”
As if she’d give him that information. Stella forced a smile. “I have quite a bit of data, yes. I don’t want to share it over a public link, however. Why don’t you just go on and dock, and we’ll talk it over when I arrive?”
“Not try to seize Osman’s ship?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think it’s a situation where the Vatta name may be more useful with the authorities. More persuasive.”
“Well…” He was clearly reluctant, but finally nodded. “Well, then, I’ll just keep you informed, shall I? At least the authorities aren’t going to let that imposter depart.”
“If it is an imposter,” Stella said. “I’m still not entirely convinced.”
“I’m sure of it,” he said, as if that should convince her. “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind.”
Only, thought Stella, because his very small mind was full of his own conceit. “Then we’ll talk tomorrow,” she said. “Same time.” And cut the connection.
“That guy’s a crook!” her pilot said. “You don’t believe a word he said, do you?”
Stella looked at her. “What makes you think that?”
“His eyes, the way he changed color like a mating stripe-tail, the tone of voice—couldn’t you tell?”
“I am not,” Stella said, “disposed to believe everything dear Captain Furman says. On the other hand, it suits my purposes for dear Captain Furman to think I believe him. You will kindly not trouble the poor man’s mind with any confusion on that issue.”
“Don’t blow your cover, you mean?” The pilot’s brows went up.
“Something like that,” Stella said.
It was most annoying. She’d had such hopes of Furman, had seen him as an ally to force Ky to see reason and give up the nonsense about a space navy. She’d assumed that Furman, like her own shipmaster, would be at worst stolid but still a faithful Vatta employee, reliably hers to command. Now she had another person she couldn’t trust in a position where she couldn’t afford error. A greedy, ambitious, self-serving man, and someone who might be connected to both Osman and the conspiracy.
Not for the first time, Stella wished that Rafe had been on her ship instead of with Ky. He could have sorted out Furman, finding out more about the man than the man knew about himself. He was even closer: once Furman docked, Rafe should be able to deploy his considerable resources. But she would have to go through Ky to contact Rafe. Would Ky cooperate? She wasn’t at all sure.
Over the hours between that call and the next, waking and sleeping, Stella puzzled over Furman. Why had he been so sure Ky was dead? Wishful thinking, perhaps? They’d never gotten along. Or had he known she was a target for assassination? Had someone told him she was dead, and if so, who? Why was he so sure Osman had children? Had he known Osman?
Could it possibly be true…could this Ky possibly be a substitution for the real Ky—and if so, to what purpose? More ruin of Vatta? Something else? She was sure she knew her cousin…and yet, Ky had done things, things that bothered her, that did not fit the Ky she’d grown up with.
When she woke and could not go back to sleep, she checked the crew schedule and found that Quincy was on duty. Quincy had been with Ky from the time she came aboard; she would know.
“Of course it’s Ky,” Quincy said. “Furman’s an idiot; that’s the stupidest theory I ever heard.”
“There’s no time a substitution could have been made?”
“How?” Quincy asked. “Spaceforce Academy would have checked her identity when she went in. She came aboard from a Vatta shuttle, straight from her father’s house. I’ll admit she walked some little distance through the station, but never out of sight of monitors.”
“All the same,” Stella said. “It’s not that I trust Furman—I don’t—but a fool may still know water flows downhill. What if he’s right about this one thing?”
“Ask her about something only the two of you know,” Quincy said. “A substitute can only know things that others know as well.”
Stella wasn’t so sure. What could she and Ky alone know? Perhaps there had been some secret in their childhood, but she couldn’t think of anything that other relatives hadn’t also known, could have talked about casually sometime in the years in between. The gaggle of cousins vacationing together had always been in one another’s pockets. “What we need is a good genetic scan,” Stella said. “That would establish her identity for certain, but we need reference scans that are back on Slotter Key.”
“It’s Furman’s identity I’d be more worried about,” Quincy said. “How do we even know he’s who he says he is?”
That hadn’t occurred to her. Furman as an idiot or a traitor, yes, but a Furman who wasn’t Furman? “Ky is sure he’s Furman,” she said, realizing as she said it how foolish that was.
Quincy pointed out the obvious. “If you’re not sure she’s Ky, why would you take her word on Furman’s identity?”
Stella scrubbed at her face with her hands. “At least they’re not in this together…I hate this. Why can’t Ky be reasonable?”
_______
Ky wondered if Stella would contact Furman behind her back. Stella had been trained to be sneaky; of course she would. The one thing she could count on, though, was that Stella knew she, Ky, was not an imposter. She might be angry, she might think Ky was an idiot, but she would never think Ky wasn’t Ky. Maybe she could get that through Furman’s head.
With Furman only a day from docking, Ky wondered how she could penetrate his security. He thought she—the real Ky Vatta—was dead. Why did he think that? Had he known about the attacks on Vatta? Was he part of the attacks on Vatta? She wanted to believe that, but she knew her long-held dislike of him might be clouding her judgment. Or perhaps he wanted to discredit her simply to strengthen his own claim, as a senior Vatta captain, to speak for Vatta, to gain unquestioned access to Vatta accounts. Perhaps in the apparent collapse of Vatta’s trade empire, he’d hoped to start his own, using the ship he had and any accounts he could plunder.
Or he could be honest and mistaken, her conscience reminded her. “I don’t think so,” Ky said aloud, without thinking.
“What?” Martin was staring at her, and she realized that she’d come out with that in the middle of a meal,
with a forkful of something she hadn’t really tasted halfway to her mouth.
“I was thinking about Furman,” she said.
“Motives,” Rafe said, with a sidelong glance at Martin. She wished he wouldn’t do that. He could not resist being, or seeming to be, that fraction ahead of Martin. This time he was right, but she wasn’t going to tell him so.
“Rafe,” she said. He looked at her. “On the off chance that Furman thinks I’m dead because someone in the conspiracy told him so, I want you to penetrate his security once he docks, and look for anything interesting in his internal files.”
“Scut work,” Rafe said, his lip curling. She stared him down; finally he shrugged. “All right. But it’ll take time I could be spending doing something more interesting—”
“You’ll manage,” Ky said. She turned to Martin. “Martin, do you consider our current security adequate to frustrate anything Furman comes up with?”
“If his background is what it should be, tradeship, then yes, ma’am. If he’s a clandestine agent for Turek, then I’d put the ship on high alert.”
“Do it,” Ky said. “I used to think he was just an arrogant prig, but claiming I’m someone else…that’s scary.”
She turned to Hugh. “I’m concerned that he may withdraw substantial funds from Vatta accounts,” Ky said. “While I’m here, and Stella’s in the system, he should apply through one of us, as senior family members. But he’s denying that I am a senior family member. What if he does the same with Stella? He could then claim to be the only person authorized to have access to those accounts.”
“He is authorized now?” Hugh asked.
“Yes. Senior captains must have access to Vatta corporate accounts, both for deposit and withdrawal. In ordinary times, they report via financial ansible to the accounting department at corporate headquarters on Slotter Key.”
“If he thought that Vatta was destroyed,” Hugh said, “he might have thought he could withdraw Vatta funds without a challenge, and perhaps set up his own business.”
“I can see him doing that,” Ky said. “And in that case discrediting the legitimate heirs who showed up so inconveniently would be a necessary step.”
“You’re going to bar him from Vatta corporate accounts?”
“Perhaps. At the very least, I want his transactions monitored and withdrawals limited to those strictly necessary, such as docking fees.” She placed the call at once.
Crown & Spears, now familiar with Ky and her dilemma, put her through to her personal representative at once.
“Is Furman making sense yet?” the woman asked.
“No,” Ky said. “And it finally occurred to me that we may have a problem with the accounts.”
“We know who you are,” the woman said. “No matter what the government says, our tests show that you’re a close relative of Josephine, and that’s what matters to us.”
“And I appreciate that,” Ky said. “But if Furman had been hoping to get those accounts for himself…”
The woman smiled at Ky. “We’re ahead of you there, Captain. This wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to discredit a legitimate account owner. We have established procedures. Captain Furman will have very limited access to those accounts—none, if you’d prefer.”
“I know he’ll have the usual entry fees to pay,” Ky said.
“We can accept a direct charge from the stationmaster’s office,” the woman said.
“Does Furman usually set up a separate ship account when he comes in?”
“He’s only been here twice before,” the woman said. “Let’s see. No, he worked with the corporate accounts both time. He did deposit more than he withdrew. Would you like to see the details?”
“Yes, if that’s legal.”
“It’s quite legal. You’re the senior representative of the account owner, Vatta Transport, Ltd. You have a right to see anything pertaining to Vatta corporate accounts. Just a moment—” She looked down and away. “I’ve retrieved them…we do recommend, Captain Vatta, that in cases like this we courier the hardcopy to the account owner. Would that be acceptable?”
“Certainly,” Ky said. She looked around. “Martin—would you come here a moment, please?” He came within pickup range of the comunit. “This is Gordon Martin, my security head; he will meet the courier dockside.”
“Excellent,” the woman said. “We’ll send this over right away, within the hour. I see that Furman is scheduled to dock early first shift tomorrow. If you could let us know your wishes regarding his access to accounts by mid-third today—”
“I’ll do that,” Ky said. “I’d just like to look over those records first.”
Within the hour, as promised, she had the records. The bank had thoughtfully highlighted Furman’s transactions, making it easy to compare his expenditures with those of the other Vatta captains using the same accounts. At first look, nothing suspicious showed up. Entry fees, docking fees, supplies for the crew and ship, customs and excise, departure fees…all similar to those of the other captains. He had sold cargo and received delivery payment on both of his previous arrivals…amounts that fit fairly well with the usual income reported by the other captains.
Ky scowled at the report. She hated niggly work like this. She wished Stella were there to go over it instead of—or with—her. But secure link or no, there was always a risk in transmitting information that way. She would just have to wait…no. Martin’s experience in inventory control might be useful.
“Of course,” he said when she asked him. “I’ll be glad to work on this. Nothing obvious, you say? All the better. That makes it interesting.” Not the word Ky would have chosen, but she was glad Martin thought so. “What’s the chance, do you think, that there is something to find?”
“I don’t know,” Ky said. “He may be totally honest and just holding a grudge against me because my father transferred him out here. Certainly he’s not making the profit here he made on the route he used to have.”
“He’s not?” Martin grinned. “That’s very interesting, Captain.”
“Well, this one is new. He may not have the contacts yet—”
“Contacts, yes. I’ll get right on this, Captain. I may come up with some things Rafe should look for when he goes prying, and I should certainly have some information for you in a few hours.”
“Good,” Ky said. She felt twitchy still. Crown & Spears would protect Vatta accounts. Leary had transmitted her suspicions to the stationmaster, so Furman might not have as much influence there. Stella…Stella was an unknown quantity at the moment, but surely she’d come around and see sense. So why, as the day wore on, was she still so tense?
She’d missed something. She’d missed something important. What was it?
_______
Grace sat by the window of the upstairs sitting room as curtains of rain blew across the slope to the river. Already, summer was past its peak, here in the hills, and the late-summer rains made it seem more autumnal than it was. Her arm-bud itched abominably. She couldn’t scratch it, in its sterile hood that made such an awkward lump around the end of her stump. She could see it, what there was of it—a tiny red nub like a blood blister within the inner sleeve that provided its protective cushioning and kept its surface moist. It would not develop skin, useful skin, until later.
MacRobert had gone. He was, she presumed, back at Spaceforce Academy, making the lives of cadets miserable. The President was dead, as she had wanted; she had not told MacRobert how much she had wanted to kill the man herself, to savor again that moment of supreme power. She liked MacRobert; she knew he liked her; there were some secrets not meant to be shared even though she never expected to see him again.
The Assembly and Council, after several shaky days and what was to others a surprising number of resignations, had settled into a more normal—she hoped healthy—pattern of behavior. No more attacks had come. She had been assured no more would, and that the government—the present government—once more considered the Vatta fami
ly worthy of protection. Various ministers had expressed themselves in the strongest terms: they were appalled, they were horrified, it should not have happened, it would never happen again. They hoped…each one said this, as part of farewell…that she could find peace, and forgive those who had removed themselves from any possibility of actual punishment.
As she watched the rain, though, she seemed to see the faces of the dead wavering there, as if printed on thin gray silk…those she knew well, Gerry and Stavros and their children, those she hardly knew, the men and women who had worked at headquarters, those on the ships, those in the factories and fields. So many dead. Even that pony face into which she herself had fired the mercy shot. All out there in the rain, all unsatisfied with her…because it wasn’t over. Her duty wasn’t over.
She turned away, pinching her lips as the protective bulb on her arm bumped the chair and demonstrated that the stump could still hurt worse than the arm-bud could itch.
“Grace—are you all right?” Helen, come to check on her.
“I’m fine,” she said, knowing it was a lie.
“You’re green around the mouth again,” Helen said. Helen looked better, Grace noticed. Helen found it easy to believe the successors to a traitor President; she had slept easy, and she was eating well. The children were completely recovered, full of energy; she could hear them now, clattering up the stairs and yelling for Gramma.”
“Just tired,” Grace said. “I think I’ll skip dinner, go to bed early.” She pushed herself up with her good arm and walked off toward her room, aware of Helen’s concern like a hand on her back. The wrong hand.
Her room was dimmer yet and smelled of wet leaves and sodden grass. Grace shivered. They’d told her that her body might have unpredictable reactions to the arm-bud and its supporting interventions. They’d told her she might feel cold or hot, more tired or hyperactive, as the biochemical cocktails that sustained and accelerated the bud’s development coursed through her body. She slid under the covers, still dressed, and hoped that tomorrow’s unpredictable reaction would be on the other end of the scale.
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