One's Aspect to the Sun (8 page)

Might as well get to the point. “
Saluton,
Chairman Sedmamin. This is Luta Paixon. I'm not planning to come in and see you this visit, so I'm placing this call instead.”

“
Saluton,
Captain Paixon. Did you receive both my messages?”

“I did. Your notebugs are highly efficient. By the way, don't bother sending another one. It will not be accepted.”

Sedmamin smiled thinly. “You seem irritable, Captain. Are you feeling unwell?”

“Actually, Chairman, I'm feeling fine. Perhaps the virus in your note has malfunctioned. Or come to other grief. It was a rather unusual way of extending your hospitality, I must say.”

“You've ignored my previous invitations.” He shrugged, not an elegant gesture for him. “I felt other measures were in order.”

“Chairman Sedmamin, let's stop dancing, shall we? You want to know if I have any information on the whereabouts of my mother. I do not know where she is. You want me to come into your research facility and submit to tests to determine if I'm carrying around any bits of my mother's research that you consider to be the property of PrimeCorp. I am refusing to do so; I have a ship to run and business of my own to attend to, and I am fully within my rights. I know without asking that you have no information you're willing to share with me—”

“Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Captain Paixon, and I'm wounded by your mistrust.” He didn't look wounded in the least; in fact, he seemed to be gloating. “I have solid information that your mother was alive and well as recently as one month ago.”

“Really?” I kept my face impassive. For the second time that day my heart was going a couple of rounds with my rib cage. “And what would you call 'solid' information?”

“Would you consider a first-hand encounter with a PrimeCorp associate, who has identified her convincingly from hologrammatic representations, to be 'solid'?”

“I might. Was this associate hunting for her? He may be lying to try and impress you. What sort of evidence do you have?”

“It was a she,” he corrected me, “and she wasn't 'hunting' your mother, as you so crudely put it. She merely thought the face was familiar. She had seen a hologram of your mother here, or she would not have noticed her on—when she saw her. She then confirmed the sighting with the hologram back here at home as the woman she'd spoken to.”

“Impressive.” I did my best to look bored. “And where did this exciting face-to-face encounter take place?” He'd almost let it slip.

“Oh, no, Captain.” He waggled a chubby finger at me as if I were a naughty pet and sat back in his leather chair. “Information
exchange
is what I'm after, not a one-way transfer. Come in, let us take some samples, and I'll give you open access to the file on the most recent verified sighting of your mother.”

I sighed. “Well, I'll think about it. We ship out tomorrow. I don't know if I can fit it in.”

“Before you go,” Sedmamin said, leaning forward slightly in his chair, “I'd like you to meet some one.”

This was unusual. Generally it was just me and Sedmamin in not-so-cozy privacy. “Certainly,” I said.

Sedmamin gestured to someone off-screen and a woman moved in to my field of view to stand just behind him. It was difficult to tell, but she seemed tall, and looked fit in a sleek black pantsuit with the PrimeCorp logo embroidered tastefully on one lapel. Dark blonde hair was pulled back from her face, except for a few tendrils that curled around it, softening her angular features. She wasn't exactly smiling, but had arranged her face in a pleasantly neutral expression.

“Luta Paixon, this is one of my administrative assistants, Dores Amadoro,” Sedmamin said. Dores nodded politely. It could have been just the video feed, but her eyes seemed cold and appraising as they surveyed me, like I was an interesting specimen of something.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Amadoro,” I said.

“Likewise, Captain Paixon,” she said. I didn't get the impression she thought it was very nice at all.

“Ms. Amadoro will be your liaison with PrimeCorp for the next while,” Sedmamin said, smiling as if we were all good business partners. “She's very ambitious. Any questions or concerns, you can bring to her, and she'll be speaking to you for me. Anything that comes from her, you can assume has my approval.”

Not that I really cared, but I asked anyway. “Are you going somewhere, Chairman? Not unwell yourself, I hope.”

He kept smiling. “No, nothing of the sort. I simply have other matters to attend to, so I'm, well, delegating. Something I'm sure I should do more of.”

Ha
, I thought.
Downloading me to some poor sucker because I'm a pain in your azeno.
I would have felt sorry for Dores Amadoro if she'd seemed like a person with any feelings. Then I wondered if she'd been the one to spot my mother somewhere, and this was her reward—a step up the administrative ladder. Any hint of warmth I might have felt for her dissipated immediately.

I plastered on a smile, however. “I'm sure we'll get along just fine, then. I don't expect to be in Sol System much for the next while, however, so I guess we won't have the chance to get to know each other very well.”

“Captain,” Sedmamin said, leaning forward and trying to look solicitous, “I don't mind telling you that there are some members of the Board who feel that we've been too . . . accommodating in our dealings with you. I've done my best to convince them that polite discourse will eventually lead to a satisfactory conclusion for all of us, but they're growing restless.”

“Sending a virus in a notebug is your idea of 'polite discourse,' Chairman? It's not exactly the best way to earn my trust. And I'm within my rights under the Genetic Materials Privacy Act.”

He shrugged again. “Laws are meant to be challenged, and as I said, there are some who think we've been polite enough. As for trust, you may want to give some thought to where you've already placed it, Captain.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Dores Amadoro still stood half-behind Sedmamin's chair with that neutral look on her face. I wondered if she knew what he was talking about, or if she was just too well-trained to show any reaction.

“Call it free advice. You may not know as much as you should about that crew of yours.” He smiled in a knowing way that infuriated me.

“My crew is no concern of yours.”

“Of course it isn't. But one more thing, Captain Paixon,” he said seriously. “I like you, although we've had our differences. So here's a warning. There are changes in the wind, changes that are going to play more in my favour than in yours. It would be . . . prudent . . . on your part to simply come in, give us our samples, and go on your way. That way, there will be no complications.”

Sedmamin liked me? I doubted it, and I certainly couldn't return the compliment. “Complications? What kind of complications?”

“I can't elaborate. Let's just say it would be better to be a friend of PrimeCorp than an enemy.”

I grinned at him. “Well, that's always been true, hasn't it, Chairman? Thanks for the warning. I'll think about what you've said, and get back to you, or to Ms. Amadoro.
Gis la revido.
” I broke the connection.

I leaned back in my own chair—not leather—and closed my eyes. I hated talking to anyone at PrimeCorp, and Sedmamin was just about at the bottom of the list. My first impression of Dores Amadoro didn't put her much higher. Sedmamin had definitely stepped over a line with that virus trick—I had no doubt the idea had been his, no matter what he said about restless board members—and we'd have to be careful until we shipped out tomorrow. Chairman Sedmamin had taken my rebuff a little too graciously. He could well have other plans to delay us or try to get to me, although I couldn't imagine what they might be.

On second thought, I could imagine a few. I didn't like them.

I called Hirin and set the encryption to maximum. It took a moment for the administrator to connect us, and then his dear, wizened face came up on the screen. “Hirin, do you think you could come aboard this afternoon instead of tomorrow?”

“Are you shipping out early?”

“No, I don't have all the cargo on board yet. I'm just a little worried about . . . security, that's all.”

“Well, they're throwing me a going-away party here this afternoon, and Maja's coming over for it.” He looked uncomfortable. “I didn't tell you about it because it might be . . . awkward.”

“That's okay,” I reassured him. “I'm busy getting everything set here, anyway.”

“
Okej
, well, as soon as I've made my appearance there I could come on over. Everything's packed. I don't like to disappoint them; the only going-away parties here are usually wakes.” He chuckled until he started coughing again.

I smiled. “That'll be fine. Can I send Viss over to get you?”

He nodded. “Sure. I thought it would be you, though.”

“I think I'll stay on board until we leave. It might be wise in light of some recent developments, and you know how I love to be wise.”

“Yeah, right. Our old friends giving you trouble?” Given my history with PrimeCorp, he knew exactly what I meant.

“They might be. I'm not taking any chances. Just call when you're ready and I'll send Viss over. Enjoy your party.”

“I will. See you later.”

Just to be on the safe side, I sent messages to Maja and Karro, letting them know that PrimeCorp seemed to be at it again. Karro had had his own encounters with Sedmamin in the past, and though they were never as dramatic as mine, he didn't like the company's intrusions any better than I did. As for Maja—well, she actually seemed to get along with PrimeCorp and thought I was paranoid about the company. She didn't know why I wouldn't just cooperate with them and be done with it. Even knowing the details of my family's history with PrimeCorp didn't seem to make a difference to her. No doubt she thought I'd made half of it up or exaggerated it. She'd probably delete my warning message in a huff. I sent it anyway.

I knew one thing. If Alin Sedmamin—or this new, unknown quantity Dores Amadoro—tried to get to me through Hirin or anyone else in my family, I'd have to leave the ship in order to kill them. I really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

The only other person PrimeCorp bothered as regularly as me was my brother Lanar, but when I tried to message him I got an automated reply that he was currently outsystem, so I left it at that. With the Nearspace Protectorate fleet at Lanar's back, PrimeCorp tended to tread gently around him, anyway. I wondered if he'd know what Sedmamin might have meant by “changes in the wind,” but that could wait until the next time we spoke in real-time.

That was all I could do. Unfortunately, that left my mind free to consider the other things Sedmamin had said.

First, was the story about my mother true at all? He could have fabricated it as another ploy to get me onto PrimeCorp property, but I didn't think so. He wouldn't gloat over a lie. No, the PrimeCorp person had seen my mother—or someone they were certain was her.

A month ago. I idly punched up the star charts and wormhole routes on my own screen, including the new ones. If the story was true, and considering that the identifier was already back on Earth, she could have been in almost any inhabited system. In the time since then she could have gone anywhere in Nearspace.

The other question was, where had Sedmamin obtained a hologram recent enough to make any kind of identification likely? Whatever he'd have “on file” would be decades old.

He hadn't said anything else about her, only that she was “alive and well.” For half a second I considered actually storming in to PrimeCorp and demanding to see what else was in that file, then shook my head. Chances were I wouldn't learn a damn thing more than I knew now, and I could be walking into something very bad. It was probably exactly what Sedmamin was hoping I'd do.

As for that crack about my crew—I wanted to brush it off as nothing but pure nastiness on Sedmamin's part, but it nagged me. I trusted my crew and considered them all my friends, but in truth, I hadn't known most of them very long. I did know they all had secrets. Could one of them be keeping quiet about something that could ultimately hurt us?

I closed down my screen and went to talk to Viss about picking up Hirin. One worry at a time.

Chapter Five

Dr. Ndasa and Hirin both arrived on board just at suppertime, which made for a busy couple of hours. We got Hirin settled in the guest quarters, right across the hall from my cabin. It didn't take long. He didn't bring much with him.

He shrugged when I asked him about it. “I don't need much,” he said. “And you'd only be stuck with it after . . .”

“After you croak and we jettison you off into the depths of space?” I finished for him.

He laughed. “Exactly. Oh, Luta, I'm so glad you can joke about this. I was worried that it would be too hard on you.”

“It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.” I hugged him. “But if you can take it, I guess I can, too.”