Ghost Ship

by Kathryn Hoff

  That meant the casino raid had to be a local police action, independent from the Settlement Authority’s plans—but why would the garda go after Ordalo? I’d have expected a smuggler of his stature to pay the local cops well to stay away from his business.

  Maybe the garda was getting greedy, and the raid was supposed to pressure Ordalo into upping his protection payments. Or maybe there was a new player in town, trying to move in on Ordalo’s operation. If rumors had escaped that a synthreactor was being traded, some ambitious crook might have decided this was the time to turn Kriti’s garda loose on Ordalo.

  Whatever the reason, Ordalo’s arrest was screwing up the Settlement Authority’s plans—and mine. Our tagged synthreactor was circling a lonely moon on the fringe of the Gloom. Ordalo in jail meant no sale; no sale meant the Settlement Authority couldn’t follow the buyer to the illegal colony. And if the Authority didn’t find the illegal colony, Kojo and I would still be under indictment for smuggling.

  Burzing cops. You couldn’t trust any of them.

  As the hours passed, guards came and went outside the holding cell. By ones and twos, they called the names of prisoners to be taken elsewhere for questioning, to the magistrate, or for release.

  Ordalo and the three dealers were among the first to be called. I was the last. Even after everyone else was gone, the cell smelled of sweat, piss, and fear.

  Finally, a guard called, “Pachita Babatunji,” as loud as if the cell held a whole crowd of prisoners. She escorted me through hallways to a windowless room with a table and chairs bolted to the floor.

  A humorless garda with bloodshot eyes sat across the table from me. What I minded more was the Gavoran in plain robes who positioned himself behind my chair.

  The garda ran a scanner over my implant. “Ba-ba-tun-ji. Doesn’t sound like a Gav name.”

  “It’s not. I’m a hybrid, registered Terran.”

  The man behind spoke softly in Gavoran, “But you must have been born to a Gavoran mother. What is your clan?”

  I silently blessed Papa again for his foresight in making sure I had a genuine Terran implant after he’d rescued me. Any Gavoran who knew my birth clan would still consider me a runaway slave, but Kriti was a Terran jurisdiction, where Gav slaves could claim asylum.

  Without looking around, I pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “Who’s this, then? I thought Terrans ran Kriti.”

  The Terran’s jaw tightened. “The Kriti garda is cooperating with the Settlement Authority to shut down tech smuggling in this sector.”

  Cooperating with the Settlement Authority? I’d just reasoned out that the Authority couldn’t have had anything to do with the raid. What were they playing at?

  “Well, tell him I speak Terran, will you? And ask him to come around where I can see him.” The Gav was getting on my nerves, staying behind me like that.

  The garda’s cheek twitched. “What were you doing in that establishment?”

  “My brother went to gamble. I went to watch his back. Kriti has a rep for being a rough place.”

  The Gav behind me spoke, in Terran this time, “You were seen engaging in a transaction with the criminal known as Ordalo.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Criminal? You allow criminals to run casinos here?” It didn’t surprise me that the authorities kept an eye on Ordalo’s casino, but why single me out?

  The Gav bared his teeth. “What business did you transact with Ordalo?”

  “We opened up a line of credit. Is that a crime?” I didn’t worry about the lie—the escrow agent was immune from questioning, and surely Ordalo would say nothing.

  The garda officer took over. “You’re the registered owner of a vessel.”

  That information wasn’t on my implant. The garda had taken the trouble to check the port records. I wasn’t liking this a bit, but I dredged up a smile. “That’s right. Sparrowhawk, an old Selkid cutter converted to a space hauler.”

  “The owner of a space hauler conducts an escrowed transaction with a notorious dealer in illegally transported technology—we call that suspicious.”

  “We call it shore leave. We’ve been in the area a few days—you can check that with the port. The charter group we were ferrying disembarked, we made some repairs, and we’ve picked up some cargo. This was our first visit to that particular casino.”

  “Make it your last.” The garda glanced at the Gav. “I’m charging you with resisting arrest, fine of five hundred sovereigns. Pay the cashier. And be warned: Kriti may have a reputation for being rough, but that’s changing. The Kriti garda will no longer tolerate smugglers and pirates.”

  “If I see any, I’ll let them know.”

  When I left the jail, it was well into Kriti’s long night, but no stars lightened the sky—so close to the Gloom, the dense ether blocked any light from outside Kriti’s own star system. The town establishments made up for the lack with glaring signs that advertised food, drink, and short-term companionship to meet any taste.

  Kojo waited for me on the street.

  “Did you even get arrested?” I demanded.

  He quirked his crooked smile. “Nah. Slipped out the back with the bartenders. You should learn to be lighter on your feet. What’s the damage?”

  “A headache and a five-hundred-sov fine. And I only got one of my stunners back. Damn light-fingered coppers.”

  Kojo steered us into a shadowy dive and ordered ale. “Drink up, Patch, you’re pale as a ghost.”

  The stained table was an improvement over the garda’s interrogation room, but the sour ale did nothing to settle my stomach.

  “I’m worried,” I said. “Some Gav from the Settlement Authority sat in on my session with the garda. What the hell is going on?”

  “Zub knows.” Kojo leaned closer. “My guess is the raid was just for show—the local garda trying to show the Settlement Authority they’re cracking down on tech smuggling.”

  That was possible. “What happened to Ordalo?”

  “Bound over by the magistrate and transferred to jail to await trial. I checked—the casino’s closed.”

  “What a mess. This screws the Authority’s plans up good.”

  Kojo swirled the dregs in his glass. “One good thing may come of this. If no one picks up the goods in twenty-eight days, we get the releases.”

  “That still leaves us on the hook for smuggling.”

  “I’m not worried. You don’t think Ordalo will stay in jail long, do you? On Kriti? If some smart lawyer doesn’t get him out, then some corrupt judge will. Eventually, he’ll go for the merchandise. Once the Authority figures out where the goods are going, we’ll be home free.”

  Kojo. The optimism of a born gambler.

  “What about Ordalo’s claim to have a ‘business arrangement’ with the local commander of the Settlement Authority?” I asked. “Maybe that Gav was in on my questioning because somebody inside the Authority is protecting Ordalo.”

  Kojo halted, his tankard halfway to his lips. “Long odds on that. Ordalo was just blowing smoke. The only thing that really worries me is if Ordalo and his friends get it into their heads that we set them up. A garda raid right after we talk to him—that’s a little too coincidental for me.”

  For me, too. I didn’t even want to contemplate the worst case: Ordalo or his buyer finding the Settlement Authority’s locator tag on the synthreactor and coming after us for revenge. If that happened, going to prison for smuggling would be a picnic by comparison.

  As casually as I could, I scoped the tavern. “You don’t think the Authority would be stupid enough to try to get in touch with us, do you?” At least half a dozen low-life drinkers could have been watching us under cover. It made the back of my neck itch.

  “I hope not,” Kojo said. “The last thing we need is someone seeing us with them.”

  I pushed the rest of my ale aside. “Any way you slice it, we should get out of sight. We’ve got some cargo, enough to move out with. We can leave Kriti tonight.”

  Kojo nodde
d. “Agreed. Not like we’re running, but like we have someplace better to go.”

  “And if it goes bad…”

  Kojo finished the sentence for me. “If we think Ordalo and his goons are coming after us, we go rogue. Drop the transponder, stay out of the corridors, and go someplace where no one knows us or the ship. If we have to, we’ll sell the ship for scrap. Then we can buy ourselves new identities and start over.”

  Sell the ship. Ancestors, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  At the gate to the docks, Corridor Patrol officers checked our identity implants and frisked my bag for restricted tech before passing us through.

  The crowds streaming from the docked ships toward town were a boisterous lot, happy crews eager for the delights of shore leave.

  Kojo and I walked with the far drearier crews trudging back to their ships, tapped out and hung over. Some peeled off at the grand Selkid freighters parked at the closest slips with the most up-to-date lifters. Some climbed the gangways to neat Terran corvettes and frigates. A few broke off at an elegant Gavoran cruiser.

  Kojo and I straggled on to the far end, to an unobtrusive corner among the cheap slips with the low-capacity lifters, where our little space hauler Sparrowhawk berthed.

  Home.

  Sparrow was a Selkid military cutter so old she’d been decommissioned two generations ago—long Selkid generations, not Terran ones. Her battered appearance belied her ample cargo space, upgraded propulsion, and military-grade scanners. The rest of her lived up to her venerable age: tetchy maneuvering rockets, worn power bays, and shabby cabins. Technically, she belonged to me—another line of defense against Kojo’s creditors—but Kojo and I shared the profits.

  When there were profits.

  I’d just keyed the code to open the hatch when a stranger slunk up the gangway behind us.

  “Greetings, crewmates. Tell your captain I want to talk to him.”

  Kojo peered at the stranger, a gaunt Terran who would have been tall except for the twist that stooped one shoulder. “Sorry, friend. Our berths are full. Try another ship.”

  The man rasped, “Tell Captain Babatunji I want to talk to him. He owes me.”

  I shot a glare at Kojo. Another debt I didn’t know about?

  Kojo shook his head a fraction. “Look, mate, I don’t know…”

  The man clenched a stranglehold on Kojo’s jacket. “The captain. Now.”

  I drew my stun pistol. “Back off. Now.”

  The stranger squinted at me, but he released Kojo. “Tell your captain I can talk to him inside the ship, nice and private, or I can tell all of Kriti about Babatunji running out on a debt to an old crewmate. Which do you think he’d like better?”

  Ancestors! So much for keeping a low profile.

  I stepped aside so the man could board Sparrow, but I kept my pistol handy.

  As soon as the hatch was shut, the stranger strode down the passage as if he knew exactly where to go. He passed the door to the salon and galley to stop at the foot of the companionway. Looking up toward the command deck, he shouted, “Babatunji! Get your backburning, cowardly ass down here, you son of a sea slug!”

  Only silence answered.

  Kojo leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed, at ease. “I’m afraid you’re confused,” he said mildly. “I’m Captain Babatunji.”

  The man peered at Kojo, glanced at me, and crumpled into a dead faint.

  CHAPTER 3

  Old shipmates

  The unconscious man’s pulse was strong. His rasping snores reassured me his breathing was all right, he was just out cold on our passageway deck.

  He was as ill-favored a man as I’d ever seen, his face a mass of scars and deep furrows. Straggles of salt-and-pepper hair failed to hide a chewed and ragged ear. His long coat, stained and faded and sized for a more robust man, covered a threadbare shirt and worn pants. His left hand was gloved in black leather.

  Hiram peered down the companionway, a stun pistol in hand. “Who’s that shouting?”

  Kojo, still dressed in mercenary gear, looked up. “Come take a look. You know him?”

  Hiram descended to the passage, leaning his grizzled head over the stranger. “Can’t say I do. I’d remember that face.”

  In whispers, Kojo brought Hiram up to date on the fiasco with Ordalo. Meanwhile, I checked the stranger’s clothing, coming up with a blackjack, a thin knife from a boot scabbard, a vial of pills of various colors, and an injection kit with ampules of liquid.

  I held up the stash for Kojo and Hiram to see. “No pharma labels, not even a name.”

  “He must be some kind of addict,” Hiram said. “Maybe you should take him back out and leave him for the garda to find.”

  I shook my head. “He knew Papa.”

  Hiram, who’d piloted Sparrowhawk since before I was born, passed a hand over his troubled face. “Best bring him to the salon, then.”

  As I carried the old man to a couch in the ship’s salon, the remaining member of our little crew joined us from his realm on the lower deck.

  Archer leaned over the stranger, nodding hard enough to make his bushy curls dance. “Yeah, I’ve seen him. He was hanging around when I went to the shops this afternoon. Asked me the name of the ship.” He added sheepishly, “I gave him a few dracham for a drink.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Beggars seemed to have a sixth sense about our reed-thin engineer and his soft heart: in every port, they homed in on him like moths drawn to light.

  On the couch, the stranger stirred and blinked. He struggled to sit up.

  “Easy.” Kojo helped steady the man. “You passed out on us. You want us to call a med team?”

  “Nah, no need for that. I’ll be fine in a mo’.” Sharp eyes darted toward his pile of meds and weapons. “A little something to drink would go down good, though.”

  At Kojo’s nod, Archer stepped into the galley abutting the salon.

  Without comment, the old man began to distribute his belongings into his pockets.

  “Start by telling us who you are,” Kojo said.

  The stranger’s gaze fixed on Hiram, perched on one of the bolted-down chairs that circled the salon’s long table. “Whassa matter, Hiram, you old pirate? Don’t you know your old shipmate Davo?”

  Hiram’s eyes popped wide. “Davo? Holy shimmering comet clusters, what happened to you?”

  “Had some bad luck, that’s what. Lost my ship, too.” Davo’s good hand caressed his ravaged face. “Guess I can’t blame you for not knowin’ me right off.”

  Archer set down a mug of ale. Flipping his pill vial open one-handed, the stranger popped a tablet into his mouth and washed it down with a long draught.

  Hiram nodded to the old man. “This here’s Captain Davo. Your pa and I run with him awhile when we was privateering in the old days. Good pilot, can nav like nobody’s business. Captained a fine sloop called Hellbender. Davo, these are Captain Kwame’s young’uns. Kojo here is Sparrowhawk’s captain now and Patch handles the business side.”

  Davo slumped on the couch. “Kwame’s dead, then.”

  Kojo nodded. “Almost three months ago.”

  The old man used his good hand to lift his black-gloved one onto his lap. “Sorry about coming over queer like that. When I saw this rusty old bucket in port, I thought my luck had changed for sure. ‘Kwame will help you out,’ I told myself. ‘He’ll come through for the man who saved his life and saved this very ship, for sure.’ Then when I realized he was gone, it just flattened me worse than running out of juice in the middle of a jump.”

  “You got trouble, Davo?” Hiram asked softly.

  I shot a glare at Hiram. The last thing we needed was somebody else’s worries.

  The old man deflated further. “Trouble? Fact is, I’m desperate. You know what it’s like, Hiram. A captain who’s lost his ship—all of a sudden nobody knows you.” He pointed vaguely to his gloved hand and twisted back. “I been out of circulation awhile—I’m down to my last dracham.”

  Thank Zu
b, Hiram didn’t rush to offer Davo a loan or a berth. In fact, considering Hiram’s usual generosity toward old friends fallen on bad times, he was a bit standoffish, frowning at the carpet as if looking into a deep well of memory.

  Davo drank in the salon’s furnishings like a man seeing home after years away. A couple of worn couches and some cushy chairs near the entertainment consoles. The long table we used for dining when we had passengers aboard. A faded carpet, beige to match the bulkheads. The scanner, now blank. The large viewscreen showing the sparse foot traffic at this end of the docks, flanked by blue-striped curtains for a cozy touch.

  “Huh,” Davo wheezed. “Nothing’s changed. You even got them same ragged old curtains.”

  It was true, the curtains had been there longer than I’d lived on the ship. I’d stopped noticing their frayed hems.

  The old man gazed again at Kojo, and I could almost see his thought. Kojo looked so much like Papa, with his handsome brown face, black curls, and crooked smile, able to charm honey out of a sack of lemons.

  “I remember you,” Davo said. “A clumsy little brat you was, always underfoot. Kwame did you a kindness, getting you away from your ma. A screamer, that one, always ragging on a man.”

  I choked down a smile. That was an insight on Kojo’s mother I’d never heard.

  Davo switched his attention to me, taking in the heavy brow ridge and the sloped forehead only partially hidden under my yellow beret. “And you—I heard he took up with a Gav slave. I don’t hold with mixing, myself. Never could abide a Neanderthal in my bed.”

  Why, the old bastard. I scratched the back of my hand to signal Kojo that whatever this bilge rat wanted, I didn’t want any part of it. Kojo’s fingers were already on the back of his own hand. For once, we were in perfect agreement.

  Hiram cleared his throat. “Fact is, Davo, we were just getting ready to lift off. Now, I can spare you a few sovs for old times’ sake…”