Pandora’s Crew

by Gorg Huff

  “No, Captain. To call me Kgok would be to name me clanless. Along the lines of calling a human a bastard, but much farther along those lines.”

  “So, Goldgok or . . . ?”

  “Goldgok. It has to be Goldgok. It’s a crime to claim a clan name that the clan does not grant.”

  “Goldgok it is, then. And know this . . . you are welcome to the Gold, for whatever that’s worth. Then what about visiting your clan? Can you still do that?”

  “As the representative of the Gold clan, certainly.”

  “Well, we do need a cargo.” Danny grinned.

  “And there are the negotiations about the running expenses. And the negotiations I undertook with Dr. Schmitz to provide Clan Zheck with his skills and services. There is much to discuss with Clan Zheck.”

  Location: Pandora, off Gkok Station, Parthia System

  Danny went directly to the galley and drank a Banger as soon as they got back to the Pan. It was only a couple of days since he’d drunk the last one, but he knew that Ck— Goldgok had to be feeling like shit right now. And Danny wanted the bug to know it had a place with the Pan. He poured the horrible glop down his throat in one long swallow, then had the traditional milk chaser, practically gargling the milk.

  Professora Stuard watched Danny and lifted an eyebrow, then she looked at Checkgok— No— Goldgok, Danny corrected himself mentally. He followed her gaze. The Banger was working, or at least seemed to be.

  “Goldgok here,” Danny said, pointing, “is a permanent member of the Gold Clan. So sayeth the Zheck clan. They are taking the position that the adoption wasn’t just valid, but permanent. It all has to do with Parthian clan politics.”

  For a moment there was silence in the galley, then Professora Stuard said, “In that case, you probably need to clarify that you’re not part of the Gold Line from Cybrant Five anymore.”

  “Why bother? The Cybrant system is in Drake space. Besides, I’m not all that impressed with the way Clan Zheck treats its people.”

  “Just in case, Captain. And it’s about your reputation among the clans. Among the Parthians. Since Clan Zheck is playing it this way, they almost have to cozy up to us to defend their own reputation. Well, to you. But the Parthian news feeds that I have been able to translate using Sally, and what we have learned from Checkgok—excuse me—Goldgok of Parthian languages, are all over the place about us. Trade to this system is very limited. You have to be a licensed trader or a Parthian-allied clan. That’s the Fly Catcher and three others that are owned in part by Parthian clans, but crewed by humans. The rest are all owned by a couple of companies that have special licenses.”

  “Are we breaking the law, Professora?” Danny asked. “We’re here publicly, after all.”

  “No. The licensing board is breaking—or at least bending the heck out of—the Cordoba regulations. Besides, we had a Parthian clan member on board. That made us legal.” She grinned suddenly, as a thought apparently struck her. Then she looked over at Goldgok. “For your sake, I’m sorry your former clan decided to play it this way, Goldgok. But, honestly, from our point of view, it works quite well. Clan Zheck is going to have to legally recognize the ship as a clan by Parthian law. That means we are automatically licensed to trade here, and the licensing board can’t do a thing about it. It makes Parthia our legal homeworld.”

  “Yes, that will benefit the clan,” Goldgok said with lifted eyestalks. Under the influence of the Parthian Banger, it was—for the moment—quite reconciled to its new clan. How much of that reconciliation would remain after it sobered up was another question.

  Location: Zheck Clan House on Parthia

  Standard Date: 12 05 630

  “What came over you?” asked Zheckfiss, Goldgok’s mentor in the Clan hierarchy, when Goldgok showed up at its room. The room was as it had always been, somewhat cluttered with records and files. It had a prized human-built computer system and screen with a Parthian keyknob.

  “A Parthian Banger,” Goldgok said ruefully, going to its accustomed nest, then waving an eyestalk at Zheckfiss in inquiry.

  Zheckfiss waved for Goldgok to squat and said, “So Kesskox informed the council of clans. Whatever were you doing consuming such a thing?”

  “I didn’t consume anything. Captain Gold did, not knowing what it was.”

  “That seems unlikely. I suspected that this Captain Gold ambushed you with the concoction, but according to Kesskox, you were a willing participant. In fact, it describes your behavior almost from the moment you left the system as that of a spoiled tadpole with little regard for clan, or even Parthia as a whole.”

  “Actually, I was trying to avoid the scent and guessed wrong. I assumed that if someone drank a Banger, it would be either Captain Kesskox or the first mate.”

  “Could this Danny Gold have been in league with Kesskox? A plan to get you to abandon the clan’s goods? And then Gold betrayed Kesskox, in turn?”

  “No.” Goldgok was certain. “But in the first weeks after Concordia Station, I was beginning to think so. It seemed the whole universe was out to get me. And that is an important thing. I must—”

  Goldgok stopped and looked at its mentor. “I have just remembered I am Goldgok, and the knowledge gained by the Clan Gold is the property of Clan Gold, not Clan Zheck. This much I can say on the matter and no more. Clan Gold is in possession of knowledge that Clan Zheck is in need of, if it is to send more of its members into space.”

  That put a damper on the discussion and soon enough they turned back to matters of business. Goldgok could see Clan Zheck’s point of view, but the casual way that the clan sacrificed its members bothered Goldgok in a way it had never bothered Checkgok.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Zheckfiss watched the young Parthian who had been its student and friend. It had such promise, Zheckfiss thought sadly. It could have been a clan member of distinction and worth. In spite of the fact that Zheckfiss was in favor of the project, it regretted the loss of Checkgok almost as much as the loss of goods when the Fly Catcher reported. Now it looked like the loss of goods was going to be made good, at least in part, but the loss of clan reputation was another matter. It turned back to the console and began to write up its report.

  “Well,” came the voice of Zhecktitick, a neuter male and a member of the governing council of clan Zheck, “Goldgok is certainly changed. Do you think it was telling the truth?”

  “Yes, Councilor, I do. Not that it makes a great deal of difference. The Kox will maintain their claim that we defrauded them.”

  “No. They will maintain that we owed them no less than we paid when the council found against us for the running expenses of Fly Catcher, and without Checkgok to dispute their charges, they padded the accounts, just as we suspected. But they will not push the matter more. And we have too many enemies in the council of clans to dispute the matter.” Zhecktitick waved an eyestalk vaguely in what Zheckfiss realized was the wrong direction to indicate the planetary capital city. “What interests me is the notion that the Gold Clan might have information that is valuable to us.”

  “It’s still possible that the human was aware of the effects of the drink and did it intentionally in order to gain a cargo, from what Goldgok said. It . . . no . . . he was in fairly desperate straits.”

  Zhecktitick’s mouth-hand wiggled in the Parthian equivalent of a shrug. “I almost don’t care about that. To me, the important issue is that with the cargo in hand and a legal justification for keeping it all, he still returned our goods to us.”

  “Yes . . . if the records their ship sent are to be believed.” Zheckfiss waved his mouth-hand to indicate it didn’t really doubt the records. “We should check and be cautious. But, assuming that everything does check out, what are you proposing?”

  “Either way, Kgok is out of Clan Zheck now. It is Goldgok or clanless. But assume for the moment that it really is Goldgok, given in return for accidental injury and as a test, just as it claimed. Further, assume that the Gold Clan has passed the test, as it seems
now. In that case, we may have a way to recover not just most of the wealth from this fiasco but at least some of the clan’s reputation.”

  “How?”

  “We treat it as a clan test and the Gold Clan as a newly-trusted allied clan. That will put the dishonesty of this matter right in Clan Kox’s mouth-hand, even if we don’t actively challenge their overcharges in the council of clans. At the same time, we may gain a human ally, if this Gold can be trusted. You know we have been being systematically cheated by the humans and the spacer clans. Also, the Cordobas have prevented us from producing the wing ships necessary for interstellar travel. It was just luck that the Kox got Fly Catcher in settlement of that debt. And you know as well as I that the Cordoba representative never expected Kox to be able to get the wreck working.”

  “Yes, of course. Wait. . . . You think that the Gold Clan would defy the Cordoba Clan for us?”

  “Why not? We know that the other human clans object to Cordoba’s domination.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Location: Gkok Station, Parthia system

  Standard Date: 12 06 630

  Jenny walked along the station corridor, trailing three little girls on tethers. Angi resented the tether, feeling that at eight years old, she was too old to need such restraints. But Jenny wasn’t buying. This was a strange station in an alien system. There were humans who lived in the system, but not many. Most of them lived in the asteroid belt, mining the asteroids for ores and water. Parthians didn’t like deep space mining, or any sort of solitary profession.

  That did mean that Gkok Station had a human section in it with a restaurant that served safe human food. John wanted to see if he could get some recipes and maybe some human-edible Parthian foods. Jenny asked to go along because she wanted to get out of the ship. Then the brats all insisted that they wanted to go too.

  Most of the time Jenny was okay with the younger girls, but this wasn’t one of those times. This time Jenny didn’t get her way, so she was walking behind John with Angi, Rosita, and Geri trailing along.

  They came to a lock with a sign over it. Rick’s Old Earth Bar and Grill.

  An old fat man came out as they passed through the lock and said, “You the folks off Pandora?”

  “That’s right,” John said. “I’m enviro tech and ship’s cook John Gabriel and this is my apprentice, Jenny Starchild. These are daughters of Able Spacer Robert Schmitz.” He pointed. “Angi, Rosita, and Geri. We’re hoping to get a better read on foods that the Parthians and humans can both eat.”

  The fat man was gossipy and interested in the latest news. He set them up with tok-flavored ice cream, explaining that while the Parthians were fond of tok, for them you had to use non-dairy ice creams because they were allergic to something in mammalian milks. The girls played games at the table while John and Rick—whose real name was Norman—talked about foods and the political situation.

  Location: Pandora

  Standard Date: 12 06 630

  Jenny climbed onto the chair next to the galley counter. “Mr. Norman isn’t the easygoing fellow he makes out to be.”

  John blinked at Jenny, and Rosita Stuard lifted an eyebrow in question.

  “He wasn’t as happy to see us as he tried to seem,” Jenny continued, trying to explain. “He spent a lot of time asking John questions, and they weren’t about foods or recipes. He wanted to know what the Pan was doing here.”

  “Well, that’s natural enough.” John went back to placing the food and drink into the cold box. “We’re strangers here. Of course he wants to know our plans.”

  “What did he want to know?” Rosita asked, after taking a sip of coffee.

  “He kept asking about jump points and jump surveys,” Jenny said.

  “Yes,” John agreed. “He did seem to wonder about that a lot.”

  “You think he works for the Jackson-Cordoba Trading Company?” Rosita asked.

  Jenny shrugged and looked to John, who shrugged as well. They both looked back at Rosita.

  Rosita considered. The JCTC was one of the great families of the Cordoba Combine. They had acquired most of the territory in the Canova System a few years ago and had an effective, if probably illegal, monopoly on trade with the Parthians. That monopoly probably accounted for over half the family’s income and Rosita wondered how they were going to react to the presence of the Pandora.

  Location: Canova System, Station One

  Standard Date: 03 09 631

  Conrad Jackson-Cordoba returned the side party’s salute with the precision that should be expected of an admiral. He was a tall, handsome man with black hair and an olive complexion, with a hint of an epicanthic fold to his eyes. He was sixty and looked twenty-five. Forty years before, he went through the “academy within the academy” and came out a captain. He was now an admiral, but it was a political rank and only came into play when he was dealing with the Cordoba Spaceforce. He was the commissioner for Parthian Affairs for the Canova government, and of course, Vice President in charge of Political Relations for the Jackson-Cordoba Trading Company.

  But all of those jobs were just a part of his real job. He was the fixer for the Jackson-Cordoba family, the guy Uncle Tobin Jackson-Cordoba called in when he needed something done. There were half a dozen people in the Jackson-Cordoba family who outranked him, but none in the field. As it happened, he was on Canova when the Pandora passed through, but it had been on another matter.

  He was in Canova overseeing the construction of a new deep space warehouse station when Danny Gold showed up, and he sent emergency messages to their allies telling of the attack. Word arrived by way of a gray route from his uncle Tobin just days before the relieving fleet from Morland.

  After the inspection, he went directly to his meeting with Commodore Rodriguez.

  “Welcome aboard, Grand Stockholder,” Rodriguez said. “But as much as I would like to stay and chat, there has been an attack on the Cordoba Combine and I have to respond.”

  “I know, Commodore, and I’m only here to help. Have you read Commander Cordoba-Davis’ report on the battle?”

  There was a tightening around Miguel Rodriguez’s eyes. “Yes, I have, and it seems altogether out of character for the officers involved. No disrespect, Admiral, but Commander Cordoba-Davis isn’t from a real Spaceforce family.”

  “As it happens, Commodore, I think I can help you with that. But I’m going to need a favor.”

  Commodore Rodriguez waved him to a chair. “The Spaceforce is always happy to help the great families, Admiral. What can I do for you?”

  “With the Drake incursion so close, the Canova government feels the need to defend itself and would like to add some forts to the approaches to Canova.”

  “And you want me to stop . . .”

  Conrad shook his head. “Not at all. I want you to authorize it.”

  “That’s against policy, Admiral. You know that.”

  “Yes, of course. But under the circumstances, with the Drakes so close and the possibility of military reverses caused by the clearly overwhelming force that the Drakes have brought to bear, I’m sure you will agree that it’s necessary.”

  They worked it out. Canova would get its forts, and Tanya Cordoba-Davis would be told to sit down and shut up. Even more, Senior Captain Rodriguez was a cousin of Commodore Rodriguez. After Tanya’s report on the senior captain, she was going to have to resign her commission. The Rodriguez family insisted.

  The truth was that Conrad would be stretching things to force her out of the spaceforce, but he had the authorizations from Great Aunt Angela Cordoba-Davis. He would apologize later, if it proved necessary.

  But Conrad wanted those forts.

  Chapter 19

  The Parthian anatomy involves the exterior spines as a system of echolocation as well as hearing. Hundreds of spines are involved and the time difference between sounds arriving at individual spines can locate both the direction of the original sound and the echos quite effectively. In this the eyestalks act as specific amp
lifiers to the Parthian sense of location and environment. Though the echolocation is located in a different part of the brain than sight, the two senses support each other quite well.

  This had unexpected advantages in the introduction of the Parthian neural interface.

  Doctor Gerhard Schmitz, lecture on the Parthian interface system, standard date 03 15 645

  Location: Pandora, Parthia System

  Standard Date: 12 08 630

  Rosita sat at the comm station on the bridge and scanned the network with Sally translating. After three days they were finished unloading cargo, and Clan Zheck was apparently done deliberating. The text running down the left side of the screen said “Clan Zeck announces that they recognize Clan Danny Gold as a legitimate clan and an ally to Clan Zheck.”

  There was more about Danny Gold being separate from the Gold Line of Cybrant, but still a related clan.

  Rosita pursed her lips. It appeared important to Clan Zheck that the clan relationship be explicitly stated.

  On the screen there were two neuter males squatting on nests and talking. A Parthian interview.

  “It’s purely for show and a disappointing show at that,” said the representative from Clan Kox, a distinguished-looking neuter male. “We are deeply disappointed that Clan Zheck is going to such ridiculous extremes to avoid embarrassment. It is not only sad, but in a way dangerous to Parthia as a whole. You don’t know humans like our clan does. They have no sense of honor at all. They are all cheskek to one degree or another. It’s their nature and they can’t help it.”

  “From all reports, this Pandora brought a hold full of goods for Clan Zheck,” said the representative from Clan Jkap. Clan Jkap was deeply involved in the production of news and entertainment programming.