Curse of the Iris (14 page)

“Oshima,” Mavry said.

Like the Hashoones, Oshima Yakata had been one of the Jupiter pirates ambushed at 624 Hektor. But the computer virus that left the other pirates helpless hadn't affected her ship, and she'd fled as the Earth destroyers opened fire. The surviving pirates accused her of plotting against them with Mox, a charge she had answered with stony silence before selling her ship and retiring to Io.

“I remember Blink when I was jus' a middie,” Huff said. “He warn't a bad sort. Not his fault his daughter did what she did.”

“Oshima will never sell us her shares in the Collective, though,” Mavry said. “She lives in the Io outback, and the only way she sees visitors is down the barrel of a carbine.”

“Well, when it's time for that conversation, we'll bring carbines too,” Yana said.

The corners of Diocletia's mouth dipped.

“Let me make this extremely clear: no one is dying over a treasure hunt,” she said. “If we agree to keep pursuing this, no one is going to die chasing miners around Port Town, or rushing off to shoot it out with Mox, or feuding with Ganymedean lords. And definitely not confronting Oshima Yakata. She and Mox have caused our family too much pain already to risk more—particularly over a treasure that somebody else may have found before any of us were born. Do you all understand that?”

Tycho nodded. So did Carlo.

“So you think the treasure might still be out there,” Yana said eagerly.

Diocletia took a long drink of flip, her eyes closing momentarily.

“Maybe,” Diocletia said. “
If
a member of the Collective didn't use one of the missing scanners to find it. And
if
the Securitat didn't find it first—or some spacer who got lucky, like we did with the
Lucia
. But it's possible. Now, does anybody have any other questions?”

“I do, Mom,” Tycho said almost apologetically. “Carlo and I asked you to search the Log for anything regarding the
Iris
.”

Diocletia looked startled, then nodded.

“I forgot,” she admitted. “I did search Johannes's entries in the Log, but there's nothing about the
Iris
cache. In fact, there's no mention of the ship at all.”

Tycho hadn't expected the secret to be revealed so easily, but he was still surprised by the absence of
any
information.

“That's strange,” Tycho said. “We know Johannes took part in the raid.”

“It's not that strange,” Diocletia said. “Captains can restrict access to portions of the Log—and every captain, including me, has done so. Vesuvia is programmed to honor those restrictions, even after a captain's death.”

“But why would Johannes have done that?” Tycho asked, frustrated. “Why go to all that trouble for a treasure and then put it forever out of reach of his own family?”

“I don't know,” Diocletia said. “But every captain has secrets—and every captain is entitled to them.”

Tycho tossed and turned in his berth for half the night, waiting for the
Comet
's bells to announce that another half hour of sleeplessness had gone by. Finally he gave up and fumbled for his mediapad, thinking he'd tap into Vesuvia's data banks and try to learn more about the members of the Collective.

But he found it impossible to focus on that task too. He put the mediapad back on the shelf by his bunk, then nested his fingers behind his head and exhaled in frustration.

The soft glow of the pad's screen illuminated the ceiling of his cabin, which was covered with initials left by generations of previous occupants. Tycho's eyes sought out his own
TH
, located where the ceiling slanted to meet the wall, then jumped to a spot he knew by heart, above his chest.

Huff had pointed out the
HH
to Tycho on his grandson's first day as a midshipman, then handed him a stylus and watched approvingly as he added his initials to the constellation of letters on the ceiling. Now, three years later, the letters struck Tycho as small and uncertain compared with the confident slashes left by the young Huff Hashoone.

Tycho let his eyes wander over the other initials. How many of those long-dead Hashoone middies had won the captain's chair? And how many had been passed over, ending their careers with a final voyage back to Callisto and a life spent dirtside, below the stars instead of among them?

And which fate would be his?

At some point Tycho must have succumbed to sleep, because four bells woke him at 0600. He rubbed his eyes groggily, blinking at the ceiling, then sat up with a start, remembering the Securitat briefing and the mysterious message he was expecting within it.

He pulled on his jumpsuit, threw a little water on his face, then grabbed a milk and a nutrient bar from the galley. His mother and father were already on the quarterdeck and turned in surprise at the sound of his feet on the ladder.

“What kind of teenaged pirate gets up early when he's at liberty?” Mavry asked with a grin.

“Privateer,” Diocletia corrected her husband, but looked curiously at their son. “You
are
up awfully early, Tycho.”

“Couldn't sleep,” Tycho said as he settled into his chair, nibbling at the nutrient bar. He activated his terminal, called up the daily intel briefing from the Securitat, and read it quickly, his heart thudding.

There was nothing but the usual dull mix of politics and reports of fleet maneuvers.

He forced himself to read it again, looking for a reference to Threece Suud or anything else his mysterious contact might have mentioned yesterday. But nothing caught his eye. There were a few paragraphs about diplomatic contacts between Earth and the Jovian Union, followed by brief, boring items:
Hydraulics firm contracted with shipping line for . . . Earth's Parliament close to passing law addressing . . . Liability established in accident above . . . LaGrange point near Mars seen as site for . . . Ordnance limits seen unlikely for Hygeia roadstead . . . Titania ore find examined by
. . .
Yearly meteor shower to snarl Floras shipping until
. . .
Consulate of Earth renovations expected on . . . Hygeia shipping guild protests . . .
And finally,
Oberon taxation fight grinds on as
. . .

Tycho rubbed his eyes, baffled. He had assumed that since his contact had access to the intel briefing ahead of time, he or she must be a member of the Securitat. But maybe Tycho was thinking about it wrong. Maybe something in the briefing was supposed to make some other connection obvious.

He read it again, and again, and again.

Until finally he saw it.

Hydraulics . . . Earth's . . . Liability . . . LaGrange . . . Ordnance . . .

He scanned the first letter of each of the briefs, then did so again to be sure.

Titania . . . Yearly . . . Consulate . . . Hygeia . . . Oberon . . .

Read from top to bottom, they spelled out
Hello Tycho
.

Tycho reached for his keyboard, annoyed to see his hands were shaking, and called up yesterday's message.

And hello whoever you are
, he typed.
Okay, I believe you. Now what?

The answer came back immediately.

Tycho frowned. Many a pirate's career had ended with a tip about an easy prize that turned out to be an invitation to an ambush. But then tips like that didn't come from the Securitat, did they?

What's the course data?
Tycho typed.

That, Tycho thought, was the
last
thing he wanted to do.

Why do we have to meet?
he asked.

Tycho looked up from his console to where his parents sat at their stations. He should be able to make a short trip—Diocletia had promised them light duty before their departure for Jupiter, and there were plenty of gigs and taxis available to ferry him down to Ceres.

But taking the next step meant lying to his mother, who was also his captain. And that would do far more damage to his bid for the
Comet
's helm than any flaws in his piloting.

Or it would
if
he got caught. Which he wouldn't.

And wasn't this deception in service of a good cause? The prize money would help his entire family—and right now the Hashoones needed all the help they could get.

“Say, Mom,” Tycho said, yawning in a way he hoped sounded casual, “you mind if I go dirtside for an hour or so? I was thinking I'd get some dried fruit. And I, uh, need another mediapad adapter.”

Diocletia glanced back at him.

“Another one? I swear, Tycho—you and your sister have lost enough adapters to create an asteroid belt of them.”

“I know,” Tycho said. “I think I lost this one at lunch yesterday. I'm sorry.”

Diocletia looked back down at her console.

“Fine—you can have a few hours' liberty. But both the adapter and the ride are coming out of your shore allowance. And I need you back here by 1430 to check the crew roster.”

“I'll be here,” Tycho said. “No problem.”

I'm in
, he typed.

The man who sat down across from Tycho was neither tall nor short, thin nor fat, old nor young. He was completely unremarkable, from his gray jumpsuit to his expressionless face and short brown hair. His eyes were the only exception—they were dark and alert.

“Call me DeWise,” the man said. He had no accent Tycho could place.

“Is that your real name?” Tycho asked.

“Of course not. Here, you'll want to take this.”

One of DeWise's hands advanced smoothly to the middle of the table, then retreated. Tycho pocketed the piece of scrap left behind, willing himself not to look at the numbers written on it.

“Thanks,” Tycho said. “Though I still don't understand why you're doing this.”

“Like I told you—we owed you one. Maybe someday you'll owe us one.”

“What could you possibly want from me?” Tycho asked, but DeWise just shrugged, the movement no more than a brief lift of his shoulders.

“Who's to say? Solar system's a busy place. One day a smart kid like you might be in the right place at the right time, and that could be useful to us.”

“You're doing me a favor because I might be useful to you?”

“Our business is figuring out who and what might be useful to us someday. That way, when things happen, we're prepared. And things
are
happening.”

DeWise's eyes flicked around the café.

“The balance of power between us and Earth is growing unstable and threatening to tip,” he said. “Your pal Threece Suud's little scheme was a symptom of that. So too, maybe, is what's happening around Saturn. You saw that for yourself on Titan.”

“How do you know about that?” Tycho demanded.

“Relax, kid,” DeWise said. His face hadn't changed. A spacer two tables away looked over briefly, then returned to his own conversation.

“Since you know so much, tell me what's happening around Saturn,” Tycho said. “Who were the people we ran into on Titan? And who's behind them?”

DeWise's eyes flickered around the café again, then returned to Tycho.

“That question may have more than one answer,” he said. “Mix dissatisfaction and money, and you get some interesting kinds of trouble. Just what kind of trouble is something we're still trying to understand.”

DeWise leaned forward.

“Here's some free advice. Your little treasure hunt? You're too late. If you're looking to get rich, you're better off taking what I can give you.”

Tycho started to speak, then shut his mouth and waited.

“But since I know that won't stop you, listen carefully,” DeWise said. “We don't care about the money—just the other thing. Which you don't want anything to do with.”

Tycho felt himself starting to smile and forced the expression off his face. Despite what DeWise had said, the Hashoones weren't too late—the
Iris
cache was still out there. Or at least the Securitat thought it was.

“I'll make up my own mind about that,” Tycho said, trying to sound casual. “Starting when you tell me what this ‘other thing' is.”

“Information, of course.”

“Awfully old information.”

“That's right. It's useless to you—only an organization like ours would care about it. But we do. You need to remember that.”

Suddenly the history of the
Iris
made a little more sense. The ship must have been carrying some kind of sensitive information—something important enough that its loss had angered Earth, set the Securitat on the pirates' tails, and earned them longer-than-usual prison sentences. But what was it?

“You okay, kid?” DeWise asked.

“I'm fine. You know, you sure are full of advice about something you're going to find first.”

A smile flickered across DeWise's face, vanishing almost before it could register.

“That's why I like you, kid. We
are
going to find it first. But in my line of work, you always have a Plan B. And that's you, Tycho. Now get going. You don't want to miss your ship.”