Against the Odds

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Right," Basil said, jotting notes on his compad.

  "I'll speak to—what's his name?"

  "Simon. That's all he said."

  "Right. I'll speak to Simon three or four days from now. I don't want to make him obvious at this point." He sighed, and tapped his fingers on his desk. "I don't know what's wrong with Falletta Station . . . I don't think much of a security team that didn't notice a bunch of actors and actresses, plus a whole stage set . . ."

  "Well . . . they didn't exactly look like actors and stage sets . . . remember, we had the best part of two hours," Basil said. "I wouldn't be the cargomaster I am if I couldn't dismantle and reassemble big loads to fit into available space."

  "So . . . the flats you broke down . . ."

  "No, that wouldn't have worked. We used them as is."

  "As is what?"

  "Well . . . you know the crew's rec compartment?"

  "Of course," Goonar said.

  "It's got that little raised area—actually for the cross-connecting vent pipes, but it makes like a little stage . . ."

  "Yes, I know that . . . .wait . . . you mean you made it into a stage?"

  "Yeah . . . they had scenery for more than one play, so we put up some of it, and stored the rest in plain sight, in the crew storage area. Now that wouldn't do for the costumes, or all the props, or the lighting control panels—"

  "Wait—I thought theaters had their own lighting."

  "They do, sort of, but many traveling troupes bring their own extras. It's expensive stuff, and—"

  "So—what did you do with the lighting?" Basil was dying to tell him, and Goonar thought he should know, just in case.

  "I'll show you."

  The tour that followed convinced Goonar that his cousin was wasted in the Terakian family business, as much talent as he had for it. The troupe's stage lighting panels gave the shuttle bay better lighting than it had had since old Fortune came out of the yards . . . and only by climbing up among the overheads would anyone discover that it was an addition.

  "They did compliment us on our safe lighting," Basil said, clearly referring to the Station Security team. "Said lots of ships tried to hide things in a half-dark compartment."

  The costumes, bulky and spangled, were now on the programmable mannequins shipped by a famous fashion design firm, and the data cube in the container included those images. "It's only a copy," Basil said. "We have the original, so the shippers will never know. And Security didn't know the mannequins are normally shipped neutral. They did comment that the costumes looked used, and I pointed out that they had already been through several runs—that the big shipping firms get the new stuff, and we're stuck carrying last year's trash to the smaller systems."

  "I see," said Goonar. He was not surprised when Basil handed him a revised crew list that included an astonishing number of Terakian relatives he'd never heard of before.

  * * *

  Five days later, the Terakian Fortune was still accelerating toward the mapped jump point, and Goonar was still worried. They were alive. No one had shot at them. No one was following them. No one they could detect was following them, he reminded himself. The Security team had settled in, working their assigned shifts alongside his crew. His augmented crew.

  One thing about actors, they could play a role, and they learned quickly. The Security team knew little about the crew arrangements on free traders, and had accepted that the Fortune had an entirely unlikely complement of Terakian family members aboard. Wives, sisters, cousins . . . all of them supposedly certified and practiced crew, except for the old costume mistress, who was thoroughly enjoying her role as an aged great-aunt with delusions of matchmaking. She had already queried the Security team about their status and prospects.

  Goonar had avoided talking to the troupe's leader himself—he'd had the excuse of being busier than usual—but finally he couldn't put it off any longer. She wanted to see him, she said.

  Betharnya looked as good close up as on the stage. Goonar, conscious of his role as staid merchant captain, tried to keep his gaze on her face, but he did not miss the lush shape of her, or the delicate scent.

  "I wanted to thank you, Captain Terakian," she said. "It was very brave of you—"

  "Basil didn't tell me anything about this until after the performance," he said. "Then it was too late—but I have to say that while I admire you as an actress, I am not happy to have been misled. You may have irreparably damaged not just my reputation, but that of our family. We do not involve ourselves in politics."

  "I understand," she said. "I would be angry too, if it were my ship. But when I approached Basil—your cousin—I didn't know about all that."

  "So—you are from the Benignity?"

  "No, but the kind of shows we do tend to go over better there. Traditional, you know. Like Brides."

  "I liked it," Goonar said. "I've seen it on Caskadar—"

  "We've never played Caskadar, but I've heard of it. Anyway—I suppose you want to know what happened?"

  "It doesn't matter now, sera. We're already breaking the laws, whether for good reason or bad. You will, I hope, help me explain to the authorities at our next port . . . ?"

  "Of course, Captain. I'm very sorry to have made trouble for you. Would you like to see our passports now?"

  "When we're in the next system. Um . . . I must say your people are doing a good job of being crew . . ."

  "Thank you," she said. "I'd better get back to work, in that case."

  He wished she could stay and talk, but he couldn't think of anything to say. If only she weren't an actress . . . He fantasized, after she'd gone, about meeting someone like her at a Terakian gathering, instead of in the theater.

  * * *

  "We have to tell Fleet," Goonar said, when they came out of FTL flight into the Corrigan system. The few days in FTL had been uneventful, just the way he liked it. "It's the only way to clear the family of the charges that will be levelled against us."

  Basil rolled his eyes. "I can just imagine what they'll say—we'll be held up for months while they investigate us down to the rivets."

  "We don't have rivets," Goonar said. "You know that."

  "You know what I mean," Basil said. "Down to the monomolecular seals, if you want to get technical about it. Not that we have anything to hide . . ."

  "Not other than illicit foreign nationals, a hijacked security team, and a very unhappy Benignity search team," Goonar said. "Aside from that, we're as clean as ever."

  Basil looked down.

  "Aren't we?"

  "Well . . . there might be a little sort of private stock here and there . . ."

  "Enough. We're going to turn ourselves in at the first opportunity, and explain, as best we can, how we got into this mess."

  Goonar sent a message about the situation at Falletta. The Fleet picket, now three ships in this system, tightbeamed them.

  "What kind of Benignity ship?"

  "A diplomatic mission, they said. I never actually saw the ship—we were docked on the other side of the Station. But my scans didn't show live weaponry on it."

  "Did you get any data on the captain?"

  "I got a video," Goonar said. "We record incoming communications in full, and I copied it to deep storage, just in case."

  "They threatened you? The Benignity or the Station?"

  "Some Benignity officer was in the Stationmaster's command center, and he threatened us. Told us we'd never leave the system alive if we didn't let him search the ship. I figured he wanted a way to snatch a Familias-registered independent to go spying in."

  "But he let you go in the end?"

  "Yes . . . not too happily, but he did. The Station's own Security team was aboard—"

  "Why?"

  "Well, before I realized what was up, they'd requested a routine search of one of our auto-shuttles, and I'd agreed, of course."

  "Of course. Well, we'll want that copy of the transmission—we'd prefer to get it in person, not squirted—"

&
nbsp; "So would I," Goonar said. "Who knows what's lurking out here?"

  "Nothing right now," the captain said. "But just in case."

  * * *

  At Corrigan Station, Goonar handed over the data cube to the uniformed officer who waited in the loading area. The security team from Falletta had come with him; they were all to be interviewed. Basil, luckily, wasn't on the list that Fleet wanted to speak with.

  The Fleet interviewer asked Goonar to tell what happened, and leaned back to listen. "It all started," Goonar said, "when my cargomaster, my cousin Basil, told me he'd moved the ship up in the departure queue. I asked him why, and he didn't say at first. We were on our way back to the ship, after a night on the town, and I had been looking forward to a late morning the next day."

  "A night on the town?"

  "Theater. Basil's been after me, the last few voyages, to loosen up . . . he thinks I'm too morose. My wife and children died, you see, a few years ago; he keeps trying to fix me up with beautiful women."

  "Ah . . ." the interviewer's face took on a sympathetic expression that Goonar trusted about as much as he expected the interviewer to trust his own.

  "He cares about me," Goonar said. "We grew up together, after all; we've been partners for ten years now. His daughter's my goddaughter; he had been my children's godfather. But he doesn't understand . . . I don't want another wife and family. I had the best, and lost them. Why should I risk so much again, for different people, and lose them again?"

  "It's a hard life, alone," the interviewer murmured.

  "Not really." Goonar leaned back and scratched his head. "I'm good at what I do. I'm earning a comfortable living. I have a position in our family. I don't need a wife." But he might need Bethya, his body told him. He didn't want to think about that.

  "So, your cousin had been trying to get you to loosen up, and you hadn't enjoyed it—" the interviewer prompted.

  "Well, I had, actually. I like theater, especially music dramas, as much as anyone. It had been fun, but I was sleepy, and wanted to spend another night downside, in the hotel. Basil insisted we had to get back to the ship. When we were in the shuttle, on the way, he told me he'd picked up a cargo, a theatrical troupe."

  The interviewer's eyelids twitched, then his face returned to its schooled neutrality. "Is this what you told the authorities on Falletta?"

  "No, of course not." Goonar puffed out his cheeks. "It was like this: Basil had us in the departure queue, with certified cargo. If I raised a stink, we could be stuck there for months, and I had time-critical cargo for here, among other places, with a hefty penalty for late delivery. If we hadn't been in the queue, it wouldn't have been so bad, but we were. I could cheerfully have killed Basil, but that wouldn't have done any good."

  "So you knowingly accepted illicit cargo, including passengers . . ."

  "You could put it that way. Meanwhile, the Benignity pressured the local government into delaying upshuttle flights, and departures from the Station. They said something about stolen property or fugitives—they didn't specify which, or what. I noticed that a lot of ships had left the Station as soon as the Benignity diplomatic mission arrived in the system—and they shouldn't have known anything about it until it arrived at the Station, unless the Stationmaster let them know. And he's a Conselline . . . and so were the ships that left, all under sept flags. I didn't know what was going on, but it didn't look like an ordinary search for stolen property to me. I'm not that green; I know when something's gone missing across borders—what usually happens is their police contact our police."

  "So what's the real story?"

  "I don't know it all. I told the actors' troupe leader that I didn't want to know anything—they could tell their story to you, and I'd report it as soon as we arrived in a safe place."

  "Er . . . how much of this does the Falletta security team know?"

  "Nothing of our cargo," Goonar said. "It was my judgment that the fewer people who knew about whatever it was, the better."

  "I see," the interviewer said. "And when are you going to deliver the fugitives—if they are fugitives?"

  "Whenever you say. At any rate, I'm not leaving here with them."

  "Oh, but you are," the officer said. "At least, that'll be my first recommendation. Whatever they have that the Benignity wants so badly, we don't want it rattling around out here. We have enough problems already. What's your next scheduled stop?"

  "Trinidad, then Zenebra, then Castle Rock . . ."

  "Fine. You keep them until Castle Rock, and deliver them to Fleet HQ."

  "I can't do that!" Goonar didn't have to feign dismay. "We don't—Terakian doesn't—run errands for Fleet. We're neutral."

  "Nobody's neutral now." The man leaned forward. "Listen, Captain—if you were really neutral you'd have left these people there. If you didn't care who won the next war, you wouldn't have defied the Benignity. You're not neutral: you're honest. There's a difference. I'm trusting you, here. I think, as you do, that whatever the Benignity wants that badly must be of benefit to our side, and I'm trusting you to get it to Fleet HQ, because I don't think anyone else could do it better."

  "But—if they really believe whatever it is got away, then they have to think it's on our ship. We'll be marked—"

  "There is a way around that, more or less. They can certainly think you offloaded whatever it was at this point. You can debark the Falletta security team here, for instance. As long as they don't know about the others—"

  "They're convinced the others are legitimate Terakian crew."

  "Well, then?"

  "Except for all I know, the Benignity knows how many crew a Terakian ship usually carries."

  "I doubt that. I certainly don't. It's never concerned the R.S.S., or most political entities, how many crew a ship has, only the ID of any crew who enter a station or go downside."

  * * *

  On the transit from Corrigan to Trinidad, Goonar made time to talk to Simon, the cause of the whole problem. Simon the stagehand—or fugitive—looked exactly as Basil had described him. Late middle-aged, with short silvery-gray hair going bald on top, a nondescript face, a medium-forgettable stature . . . and very bright, very intelligent brown eyes.

  "I'm Goonar Terakian," Goonar said. "Captain of this ship. Can you tell me why I shouldn't just space you for all the trouble you've caused?" He had no intention of doing it, but he thought this might startle some information out of the man who had looked altogether too self-possessed when he came in.

  "It would be a sin," Simon said slowly. "Though I'm not sure what your beliefs are—do you consider spacing people wrong, or not?" He seemed utterly unconcerned about the possibility—did he think Goonar wouldn't space anyone, or did he not care if it happened to him?

  Goonar blinked and changed his approach. "Wrong, of course. But I also think it's wrong to come sneaking aboard ships and get them in trouble with the authorities."

  "Discourteous," the man said. "I'm not sure I'd agree on wrong, at least not at the same level as spacing someone."

  This was not going to be easy. Goonar felt himself getting hot behind his ears, a bad sign. He took a slow breath, trying to stay calm and not think of what he wanted to do to Basil. "Simon, Terakian & Sons has been careful to avoid carrying fugitives—"

  "Then why didn't you let them take me off at Falletta?"

  "Once aboard, you became my responsibility. I was not going to let foreigners on my ship. But we simply cannot afford to have you destroying a reputation we've built over generations . . . I need to know why you're a fugitive, and I must tell you that I'm going to turn you over to the authorities when we get to Castle Rock."

  "I'm a heretic," Simon said. "At least, that's what they call me. Actually . . . I prefer to call myself an enlightened theologian."

  "This is . . . a religious issue?" Simon nodded. Goonar frowned. "I didn't know the Benignity cared that much about religion."

  Simon's eyes widened. "You—but—but don't you know that we're the one place where
the true faith has survived?"

  Goonar blinked. "Which true faith? I know a dozen sects—two dozen—each claiming to be the one true faith."

  "That's what is wrong with the Familias Regnant," Simon said earnestly. "Too many sects, too many different belief systems not founded on the truth."

  "And there's only one in the Benignity?" Goonar asked.

  "Yes, of course. Officially, at least. I suppose there are pockets of other beliefs here and there—people are so superstitious, you know."

  "So . . . if they think you're a heretic, does this mean you've strayed from this truth?"

  "They think I have," Simon said. "But actually I haven't. They have."

  Another religious nut. Goonar had not forgotten the young drunk in the bar at Zenebra Station, and though that one had been far more obnoxious than Simon, he still considered Simon one of the same type. At least for now.

  "So . . . why are they so anxious to catch a heretic?" Goonar asked, deciding that this was what he really needed to know. That and how anxious . . . was the Fortune going to be in danger after he'd delivered Simon to Castle Rock?

  "Because I was the Chairman's confessor," Simon said. "His last confessor, anyway."

  Goonar fished about in his mind for the term but finally had to ask: "What's a confessor?"

  "A priest someone tells their sins to. In private. Under the seal of confession, which means that priest can't ever tell anyone else what the person said. Now ordinarily, I wouldn't have been the Chairman's confessor, but I was there, in the palace, and his regular confessor got sick. A priest is a priest, at times like this, so—" He spread his hands.

  "A heretic . . ." Goonar said. It didn't seem reasonable to him.

  "Not yet declared one. I'd gone up to the city to talk to my superiors, you see. To explain where they—or their predecessors—had misinterpreted the applicable passages—but I'd not yet done so."

  "I see," said Goonar, who didn't see, but wanted Simon to finish his story.

  "Well, then, I heard the Chairman's last confession, and then he was executed—"

  "Wait! Executed?" Goonar hadn't meant to interrupt but he couldn't help himself.