“I used Captain’s Prerogative, people. I hope you will all show greater decorum than your captain.”
They laughed.
“Detectors?”
Brint, sitting in front of the screen, replied, “All clear, Captain. Ready to boost on your order.”
“Comm?”
“No messages needing replies, Captain. We’re cleared to leave orbit,” Jan Lestor replied.
“Play the recall to acceleration lounges. Alert the crew that we are fifteen minutes away from burn.”
The message sounded throughout the ship. Jan received ready reports and passed them on to her captain.
Clay, sitting as Pilot as well as captain, adjusted the ship’s attitude gently. With both Sean and Doreen gone, it looked like extra shifts for the pilots. “Give the one-minute countdown.”
When it reached zero, he began the burn to take them out of orbit. Acceleration pushed everyone back in their chairs, but only gently, so as to not alarm passengers who might have strange ideas about what constituted danger. The burn ended an hour later.
“Brint, you have the Bridge.”
“Aye, Captain. I have the Bridge.”
Clay rose and went to visit with Security.
* * *
“Hello, Captain Yrden.”
“Mr Telford, Mr Pelburn. What do you have?”
“Thus far, no one not authorized has tried to access any secured spaces,” Security Chief Pelburn replied. “By the way, your rabble-rouser is one Mary Pendleton.”
“My rabble-rouser?”
“Your wife asked us to check up on her, Captain,” Pelburn said, bringing up a photo of Ms Pendleton. “She’s quite wealthy, the widow of a Mr Raymond Pendleton, who made a great deal of money in manufacturing. Ms Pendleton has decided to make her first out-of-system trip. New Brittain tabloids have her as a caustic, mean-spirited wretch, who takes advantage of her wealth and position to make others miserable.”
Clay gave his head a small shake. “Well, she’s certainly living up to that reputation. I hope the crew doesn’t do anything rash. They’re not used to taking abuse – and I won’t have it on my ship.” He gave each of the two security people a telling look. “In my book, the customer is not always right. If anyone has trouble with her, I’ll take care of it, even if it means locking her in the brig.”
Telford almost allowed an expression to cross his face, but he stopped it quickly enough. “We’ve looked at everyone else, Mr Yrden. Nothing comes up – then again, I didn’t think it would.”
And he hadn’t thought it would, either. It seemed unlikely that anyone smart enough to get into Starfield’s engine room to change out the couplers, leaving no trace behind, would do anything to attract Security’s attention.
“You’ve changed all the door-codes?”
“Yes, Captain,” Pelburn said. “And we’ll continue changing them at regular intervals. And we have the security cameras set to take pictures of every instance of a denied attempt.”
“Which will irritate the crew no end,” Telford predicted.
Clay didn’t like that thought. “Why? They know what’s at stake. Why should they object to cameras activated at a thwarted attempt?”
“No, not that. It’s the changes of the codes. People don’t like to memorize a new number or update their passcards each day. They like things nice and steady – the same today as they found it yesterday. We’re going to have multiple error codes generated when various members of the crew forget about the code change. It will start small, but become a major irritant over time – especially if nothing untoward happens. They’ll consider it an unnecessary procedure – at least until updating passcards becomes routine.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Pelburn agreed. “We never tasked onboard security with stopping sabotage by professionals. It hasn’t come up before. Mainly, we organized it to prevent adventuresome passengers from looking around in places we don’t want them, to stop them from doing accidental damage, not to prevent wilful attacks on us. We’re a cargo ship that takes on passengers, not a top-secret lab.”
“Tough.” It didn’t matter. Only keeping the ship, crew, and passengers safe mattered. “Anyone has complaints, refer them to me.”
Telford and Pelburn looked at each other, but nodded. Pelburn spoke for the two of them. “We’ll do that, Captain.”
And Clay left it at that. His maiden voyage as captain looked to become something less than he desired, something more than he had anticipated.
CHAPTER 8
Blue Powder
They reached hyperspace without incident, and the days in hyperspace passed slowly, with the crew ever vigilant.
“Vigilance will decrease with time and no apparent threat,” Colleen warned Clay. She recalled the instruction she’d received on the matter back when she had first met Adrian Telford.
“What can I do? Hold more drills? Encourage one of the passengers to attempt to break our security?”
He straightened his uniform jacket, which fit him rather well, she thought. She would rather he stayed in – they could get someone to entertain the children.
“Even if I did that, when the crew discovered that I merely tested them, they would suffer the same lack of resolution.” He adjusted his cap. “What I’d really like is to be relieved of this dinner duty.”
Colleen laughed. “All passengers wish to sit at the Captain’s Table during a voyage. But think positive: I hear that you already know one of your tablemates.”
“Oh?” he looked at her suspiciously. Then he groaned. “Not Mary Pendleton?”
She smiled virtuously. “That very same. She approached me, saying she’d not yet had a chance at the honour, so I seated her there.” She paused, but received no reaction. He stood staring off into the bulkhead. “You can thank me any time.”
That earned her a glare.
“Thank you. It will, no doubt, aid my digestion.” His glare softened. “And what will you be doing, my love?”
“Bridge duty, as you well know. With two pilots missing – thanks to your reward for the excursion – someone has to fill in.”
“What could I do?” Clay asked. “Jenna needed to know.”
“You could have ordered them to return at once to New Brittain, and put off our undocking for a few days. We could have filled our holds.” She sighed. “But, no, you made the correct decision. And, thus, you don’t have me as backup as you venture into the dangerous assignment of leading a table at dinner.” She chuckled, straightened her own uniform jacket, and gave him a short bow.
“I must to my duty, good sir, and you to yours.”
Still laughing to herself, she walked to the bridge, not envying her husband in the least. Mary Pendleton would likely test his good humour to its limit.
* * *
“Ah, right on time,” Ms Pendleton said as he took his seat at the table. “We’re honoured by your promptness.”
And that didn’t bode well for the rest of the meal, Clay thought darkly. She hadn’t forgiven him for making her look petty during his introduction speech. He smiled at all present, who had risen at his approach. “Sit, everyone. Good to see you.”
Seven others besides Ms Pendleton sat at the round table. As fate would have it, she sat directly opposite. He’d get Colleen for this.
Piolo Ramos asked the first question, just after the wait staff served the appetizers.
“How long, now, until we arrive at Manila, Captain Yrden?”
“We should drop out of hyperspace in three days, Mr Ramos, and then it’s about sixteen hours from our drop point to the station. Anxious to get home?”
A smile took about twenty years off his age, which Clay judged to be sixty. He indicated his wife. “Rexandra and I enjoyed our voyage on Starfield immensely, but, yes, we wish to get home.” He smiled as he looked into Clay’s eyes. “Grandchildren grow in a year.”
“As do children, as I well know. I have two of my own. You’ve been gone a whole year?”
Rexandra,
a very stately-looking woman, replied, “Three hundred and seventy-one standard days – a little less than one Manila year, a little more than a standard one.”
“And you’ve spent much of the time on Yrden ships?”
“Oh, yes,” Piolo said. “We enjoy the lack of a precise schedule, the different planets and stations you go to, and, of course, the cuisine.” He indicated the plate which the server placed in front of him. “We’d never had Tinsain before.”
“It’s a dish native to Liberty. All the spices and vegetables come from that planet.”
“Yes,” Rexandra said. “But it could have come from Manila. I wouldn’t doubt that a Filipino cook made the first recipe.”
“Could be, could be,” Clay replied, though he doubted it. “I’ve eaten many a fine dish on Manila, and they do bear some resemblance.”
“I understand that our next destination after Manila is Pelgraff,” Mary Pendleton said.
“True,” Clay replied after swallowing his first mouthful. “We’ll pick up various comestibles there, along with a very fine juice made from the cindra berry.”
“I wouldn’t think that a backward planet like Pelgraff would have anything to interest galactic traders like the Yrdens. It seems hardly worth the time to stop there.”
You will get through this, you will get through this. Clay repeated the mantra to himself, though he wondered whether he’d get through it more satisfactorily without violence, or because of it.
“I think you’ll find Pelgraff a very beautiful planet, Ms Pendleton.”
“Oh, I have no intention of going down.” She looked horrified at the thought. “They have a lot of Pagayans down there. Ugly brutes. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they murder humans in their sleep.”
And Clay had had just about enough, but Mr John Smythe, also newly-boarded at New Brittain, beat him to it.
“Not a chance, Ms Pendleton,” the middle-aged, bald businessman said. “Pagayans tend to be very gentle people.”
“People?”
“Yes, people. Intelligent and kind for the most part. Pity there are none on board at this time.”
Ms Pendleton’s eyes went wide. “They travel on human ships?”
Smythe laughed. “Of course. Why not? And we travel on Pagayan ships when that’s the best way to go.”
“They’re beasts.”
Clay saw a mischievous look come to Smythe’s eyes. “Actually, they look on us as barbarians for our habit of eating flesh.” His lips curved upwards. “And yet they still deal with us. Very open-minded.”
“Quite right,” added Saburo Kobe. “And I’ve heard that the females are almost empaths, perhaps are empaths. It’s said that if you sleep with one, you have very interesting – and healing – dreams.”
“That’s disgusting,” Mary Pendleton said, lips curling.
“Sleep with, not have sex with,” Smythe said, shaking his head. “I thought everyone knew that.”
Pendleton flushed. She put her head down and forked a piece of chicken. She had it halfway to her mouth when she stopped and looked at it.
“They forgive us our barbarism,” Smythe told her soothingly.
She glared at him, popped the chicken in her mouth and chewed. Clay began to enjoy the meal.
“Ms Silverston,” he asked a matronly woman to his left, “is this your first trip away from New Brittain?”
“Third, Captain. I intend to spend several months on Pelgraff this time. I’m an anthropologist. It should make for a very interesting stay. From there, I’d like to travel to a Pagayan planet, so I can compare the two societies, figure out what the interaction with the humans has done to change them.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“But what I’d love to do is see some Damargs, go to a Damarg planet.”
That got everyone’s attention. Everyone had heard of the Damargs, few had seen one.
“They don’t allow our ships into their space, and they rarely enter ours,” Clay said. “The only time I’ve even seen one is at Daiovan – a Pagayan station near Damarg space. The Damargs regularly trade with the Pagayans, and have a small office on Daiovan.”
“Is it true that they are reptiles?” Darcy Stuart, a travelling musician according to his file, asked.
Clay shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. They look vaguely reptilian. They don’t have teeth, as such, but a tooth-ridge, much like our gums, but hard and capable of chewing vegetation. They, too, are vegetarian. How their biochemistry works, I have no idea. I’ve never actually met one to talk to. The Pagayans tell me the Damargs seem a little xenophobic, and stay much to themselves.”
“I thought you said they had an office on Daiovan,” Ms Pendleton said.
Clay nodded. “They do, but one only enters by invitation. To date – as far as I know – they have invited no humans.”
“How interesting,” Stuart said. “Do you know if they make music?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I understand that you have a tour of Manila, Mr Stuart.”
“Yes, a Filipino promoter invited me. He says my music has its adherents on his planet.”
“You are Darcy Stuart?” Rexandra asked. At his nod, she continued. “Oh, yes. Many of us just love your music. Will you play something for us in the lounge?”
Stuart exchanged glances with Clay, who shrugged. The man looked like he regretted opening his mouth.
“I practice every day in my cabin,” he said. “I suppose I could practice in one of the lounges if the captain doesn’t object.”
Clay shook his head. “No objections from the captain.”
“It wouldn’t be a concert, you understand,” he told the others. He pressed his lips together. “However, I do have some new material. You would be the first to hear it.”
“Wonderful.” Rexandra clapped her hands together. “Just wonderful, isn’t it Piolo?”
“We would be honoured,” Piolo agreed.
The final diner, a Mr Jim Little, nodded. “Honoured. Truly.”
The meal continued, and Clay found out that the music lovers amongst them diverted attention away from him, making Mr Stuart the object of their interest. He felt relieved. But, upon excusing himself, he received a calculating look from Mary Pendleton. She had it in for him for some reason. He would have to look into her file himself. Perhaps her passport might shed some light – but, no, she had just embarked on her first out-of-system trip, he recalled. Perhaps her husband had somehow run afoul of Yrden Lines at some time in the past. That might bear looking into. Had the Yrdens even had dealings with Pendleton’s company?
He smiled at her, nonetheless, before taking his leave. “Duty calls,” he lied, making his escape. He made his way straight to Security, where he found Telford deep into some file or other.
“Mr Telford, I just had a most uncomfortable meal with Ms Pendleton at the table. I’m almost sure she has a history with us. Either the Pendletons suffered at our hands, or friends of theirs did. In any event, I think she chose an Yrden ship for that reason.”
Telford looked up. “She’s a tourist, and has a one-year open ticket with Yrden Lines, so she may be with us a while. Of course, she may transfer to another ship or a station if it catches her fancy.”
Clay pressed his lips together in frustration. “I know, and I hope. But she may stick with us, and I’m damned if I want her on my ship for an entire year.”
“Don’t always get what we want, Mr Yrden.”
And Clay wondered if he referred to his love for Colleen, which neither of them had mentioned again after the day he’d offered Telford employment those fourteen years past. It made him slightly uncomfortable, even though Telford had maintained only a strictly professional relationship with them. He had never done anything that Clay could censure him for. But the fact of his infatuation lay between them always.
“No, Mr Telford, we don’t. Otherwise, I’d have sent the old biddy with Sean and Doreen to Manila via Haida Gwaii.”
Telford chuckled. “And woul
dn’t they have loved that.” He returned his eyes to his screen. “I’ll continue looking into her background – through whatever we have in our databases. If a connection exists there, we’ll find it.”
“Thank you, Mr Telford. Now, I’m going to relax by taking a shift on the Bridge. At least, there, people know better than to vex me with their species bias. She’s quite a piece of work, our Ms Pendleton. And how are things on the passenger deck?”
Telford sighed. “Touristy. And I’m no tourist. I don’t like mixing with these people; we have nothing in common. I’m contemplating becoming a hermit.” He sighed again. “At least I get to sneak off up here when no one’s looking.”
* * *
Adrian Telford sat in the starboard lounge as the ship dropped from hyperspace at Manila. Along with the twenty-five passengers who had boarded from New Brittain, he felt the slight euphoria from the drop, watched the magnificent starfield replace the swirling greys of hyperspace, and watched the rainbow colours of the spacer’s version of St Elmo’s fire run down the ship.
The oohs and ahhs of the passengers who witnessed their first drop made him want to smile. From his position in the uppermost row, nearest the rear exit, he saw several couples who had joined hands for the drop – giving them a slightly increased euphoric feeling – turn to look at each other meaningfully.
Superstition held that dropping linked – holding hands – would portend a lifetime linked together. He had done that once, just before Clay Yrden hired him and saved his life. He tried to recall her name. Ah, yes, Gella ... Gella Thompson. It hadn’t worked with them. She had found out just what kind of a man she had dropped linked to, and she had run the other way. Smart woman.
He looked at the back of Mary Pendleton’s head, and wondered just how smart she was. Not smart enough to not draw attention to herself. Anyone sensitized could see that she held the Yrdens in despite. However, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that she deliberately drew their attention to her so that a confederate might slip by unnoticed.
One Trade Too Many Page 6
