The Bright Black Sea (20 page)

'A shipboard coup d'etat?'

Rafe looked up and I glanced back. Tenry was lounging
against the door frame with an easy smile, looking like a wharf rat
king.

'I'd be the last to know,' I admitted. 'But Rafe
assures me he's fishing for the true log.'

'Without much success,' he admitted looking through
the display.

The official log of the
Lost Star
, under all
her various names and owners, goes back more than a millennium.
It's a comprehensive list of passages, major damages and repairs.
The log is supposed to be neither alterable or erasable. But if the
yarns of the Four Shipmates have any truth in them, the current log
is a work of fiction for at least a hundred years prior to the
ship's appearance in the Azminn system.

'I believe I've located a black hole in the ship's
data system,' said Rafe, adding, 'A dark node where data can be
buried so deep in the system that it's all but undiscoverable and
unrecoverable without a very specific series of inquiries, likely
known only to the creator of the black hole.'

'Or someone like you,' suggested Tenry.

Rafe grinned and wiggled his hand. 'Maybe... I've a
rep to uphold. But even if I've found the location, it will take
some tricky fishing to wiggle anything out of it and, alas, I'm
getting old and clumsy.'

'Just out of curiosity, what makes you think Miccall
hid the real log? And how do you explain the current log?' asked
Tenry.

'Tenny my lad, there are places in the deep drifts
where one can buy a convincing ship's log to patch over a black
hole. The false log is well done, but hardly original,' said Rafe,
dissolving the display and settling back in the chair. 'But ,
you're just tweaking my beard. You know that as well as I do. It
was your business, back in the days when you was a respectable
Patrol lad, not a tramp spaceer to sniff out just such
deceptions.'

'Oh, it may've been, once, a long time ago,' Tenry
acknowledged with a grin. He switched his gaze to me. 'Why are you
having Rafe fishing for the real log?'

'I'm a cautious fellow,' I began slowly, trying to
decide how to explain my interest. 'As captain of this packet, I
think it'd be wise to see if there's any truth in the tales they
told. Because if there is, this packet might have a history that
could rear up and bite us, even now. Especially since we're slated
to go out of system. Knowing what this ship was involved in might
prove very helpful in avoiding future trouble. I'd be foolish not
to see what can be dug up before something nasty out of the Four
Shipmates' past turns up.'

He gave me a skeptical smile.

'Oh, I admit I'm curious as well, but it's more than
curiosity, it's caution.'

'You've a point,' allowed Tenry, adding, 'I'm curious
too, though I'd be surprised if Rafe finds anything. They knew how
to keep secrets. Still, it wouldn't hurt to look, if only to keep
Rafe out of mischief. For a while.'

'Looks like a long while. But the secrets are in the
system somewhere. Any professional advice to share?' asked
Rafe.

Tenry shrugged himself off the door frame and said,
'I'm certain I haven't any professional secrets you don't know,'
adding in a lower voice as he stepped over to the desk. 'However,
seeing that you're determined to dig up their past, I might as well
do my part, find the black hole and I'll help you bait the
hook.'

I stared at him. 'You can?'

Rafe just smiled. He likely knew something. He likely
knows everything.

Tenry nodded. 'But I need your promise to keep what I
know between the three of us,' he paused. 'Part of my job with the
Mins was to protect them. I failed. I don't intend to fail again
with their daughter. Young Min is already suspicious about the
crash and I don't want to encourage her to look deeper. I don't
want her going after her parents' killers. Seeing that the Four
Shipmates couldn't defeat them, they'd likely finish the job of
killing her if she found them. The more I know about those days the
better I can keep her safe, but the more she knows, the more likely
she'll get herself killed. You see where I'm coming from.'

Indeed. And I needed to chart a very careful course
or I'd betray someone's (or everyone's) confidence. I believe I was
bound to keep the assassination attempt secret, not her
intentions.

'I have to tell you, Ten, from what she's said to me,
she clearly intends to find out who killed her parents and why,
despite Captain Vinden's strong hints to stay hidden on Kimsai.
She's not going to do that. And if she'll not take Uncle Hawk's
advice, I don't think we're going to change her mind.

'Rafe, here, is working at my request, but I've no
doubt she'll have the same idea once on board. This ship is hers
and she's my owner. I'm not about to start my career as captain by
lying to my owner. I've given this considerable thought and I think
it's best to help her find those people, in the safest, most
prudent manner possible, trusting that once she sees what she's up
against she'll come to the same conclusion the Four Shipmates came
to and disappear into the 900 billion or become an adept on
Kimsai.'

Tenry gave me a hard look. 'Do you really think it's
wise?'

'I'd not be aboard if I didn't trust her judgment,' I
replied. 'The thing is, if we don't guide her, she'll do it on her
own. I'm certain of that. Helping is not an ideal choice, but the
alternative is worse.'

He considered that. His usual carefree, youthful
appearance was noticeably absent. Rafe watched us. 'You seem to
know a great deal about what she's thinking,' he said after a
pause.

A dangerously leading statement. A careful, and not
necessarily completely truthful reply was necessary. 'No, I don't.
I do know just enough to realize any objection I raise will do
nothing to stop her from doing what she wants. Still, we've a
living to make tramping, even if the logs reveal the center of the
mystery, we'll likely be years of tramping away. The Shipmates ran
for decades. Hopefully time will temper any wild ideas Min may
harbor.'

'Besides, forewarned is forearmed,' said Rafe,
watching us. 'But there's no point in raising phantoms at this
point. Fishing anything out of the black hole will be iffy unless
you actually have the key. In any event, I'll keep your
contribution secret, it'll only enhance my reputation.'

'I'll keep your confidence as well. I just wanted you
to be aware of how your contributions are likely going to be used.
There's no obligation to help, Ten.'

Tenry stared into space thinking and shrugged. 'I
don't like it, but I don't see any other course. I know her too
well.'

He pulled up another of the chairs and we gathered
around the desk. 'Here's the heads of what I know. Dates and places
I can dig out later. I first met the tramp skipper you know as
Captain Miccall, some sixty-five, seventy years ago. He was going
by the name of Dunsany Shard back and the
ship's
name
was the
Desperate Lark
out of Balbonte's Rock in
the Alantium Drifts. I remember that clear enough. The other
Shipmates all wore different names too. In fact, every time I
crossed orbits with them over the next twenty years, they were
sailing under different names,' he paused and laughed, 'I think
that's why they were always called each other by their titles,
Owner, Captain, Pilot, Purser – they'd have had a bloody Neb of a
time keeping their names straight otherwise.

'As you know, I spent most of my Patrol career in
small patrol boats – sometimes aboard Patrol Cruisers, mostly,
however, in planetary orbit – inspecting ships with black marks for
contraband and babysitting Trade Control officials who boarded to
register the cargo of drifteer ships arriving in Unity ports. For
the last century, this ship often fell into both categories. She
must've crossed my action desk under one guise or another more than
a dozen times over those years.

'The Patrol doesn't want personnel in my old slot to
get too cozy with the traffic of any one port for very long, if you
get my drift, so I was transferred to a new posting once a year and
moved from system to system. As footloose as I was, I still ran
into them every couple of years no matter where I was posted. And,
as I said, always with different names and stories, not that it
mattered...

'A ship's hard to disguise once you've seen it enough
times. Dimensions and build stay the same and scars and dents
become familiar markers since they're usually too expensive to
erase. The Patrol keeps a detailed record of our black mark ships.
Every ship arriving in port is run through our data base of
suspected ships, names and paint don't fool the Patrol...'

I glanced at Rafe, but he kept his face completely
placid. It probably wasn't news to him, and with Tenry being Patrol
Reserve, it probably wasn't a good time to suggest that we should
peek into those Patrol records if all else failed.

'Just as an aside, you shouldn't be surprised if
we're searched frequently once we leave Azminn, and especially
coming out of the drifts. Those records are still current in Patrol
offices. However, if the Shipmates ran contraband, they were
skilled enough not to get caught, so they were never tagged red.
Even so, I always made it a point to inspect them whenever they
showed up in my orbit,' he laughed. 'Just to keep them on their
toes...

'I'd take my inspection crew out and turn them loose
to give the ship our A1 inspection, while the Shipmates and I sat
around yarning in their eclectic mix of truth and lies. It was
always a pleasant time. They never seemed to sweat it.'

'How'd you first get to know them? Was it just
through inspecting them so often?'

'No, the first time was a lot hotter than a
contraband inspection... I was a young officer, five years into my
hitch... I was on a patrol in the Thousand Moons of Shadownia, in
the Alantzia system... But, well that's a long yarn for another
time...'

Alantzia. That figures.

'Anyway, I recorded all those meeting in my private
records along with what names everyone was wearing at the time and
perhaps some other fine details that might help you hook some data
out of that black hole, if it exists and the data's there...'

'Great, it's all those little details that I can tie
together, crew names, cargoes with precise Unity dates and
associated ports or planets which I can use to bait my hook. Once I
wiggle some data out, I can usually tease the rest out as well,
given time. It's getting that first strand teased out that's so
iffy.' Looking up Rafe added, ' Yes, my dear?'

'Rafe, Ten...Captain?' said Molaye, from the
doorway.

'Yes, Molaye?' I asked, hoping I didn't look guilty.
Most likely I looked startled – seeing her gave me a little jolt of
concern. She and Lili had the watch. Though the bridge was only a
few steps away, she'd not come around to just pass the time of
watch.

'Sorry to interrupt your confab, but we're reading an
object approximately five hours out and about four thousand
kilometers off our course. No laser beacon. No radio reading
either, of course. Our first read gives us an object in excess of
four kilometers in size but there's no mention of it in the charts.
We thought it best not to wait too long to inform you.'

'Right. Exactly. Luckily we have our systems' mate
right here,' I replied, nodding towards Rafe.

Rafe already had the radar scan up on the desktop and
on one of the viewpanels. It showed what appeared to be a slightly
brighter fuzzy object against a glowing background of Azminn-lit
gas and dust. It had to be big and bright to be visible at this
range.

'Notice the occasional spark near it,' added
Molaye.

Damn. We were sailing half blinded by the dust and
gas of the Nebula. By the standard of the Nebula, we were in clear
space, only in the planetary orbital path is there less dust and
gas. Yet even so, we were plowing fast enough through the dust and
gas to create a shell of ionized gas and charged particles around
the ship, severely limiting the range of our radio, conventional
radar and other sensors. The glare from Azminn made the thin veil
of dust and gas bright enough to make the laser radar less than
optimal as well. We were relying on the charts rather than our
sensors at this point, and if the charts are wrong or incomplete,
well, damn.

The object was no danger itself. But if it proved to
be a small asteroid, a likely prospect, given its size, it might
well be associated with a swarm of smaller rocks, undetectable at
this range. Depending on how that swarm lay in regards to our
course and how extensive it was, we might not have time to alter
our course to avoid it if we waited until they were detectable.
Space, even in a meteor swarm is mostly empty, so we'd likely pass
through untouched. However, with the right angle, even a half-meter
sized meteor could penetrate one of the hatches and vaporize in the
hold inflicting hundreds of casualties to our passengers. Highly
unlikely, but not unlikely enough to ignore.

I watched the screen as Rafe fiddled with the radar
controls for a bit. He couldn't make it go away. It wasn't a
phantom reading.

'Interesting. Willy my lad, the master is going to
have to retire to the main console to get a better read on this,'
he said, pushing himself to his feet with a sigh.

I turned to Molaye still in the doorway. 'Call Kai to
the bridge, Rafe always appreciates an audience to oh and ah and
tell him how clever he is, plus Kai should be able to pick up a new
trick or two.'

Molaye nodded and as Rafe followed her out the door,
he paused and said, 'With just the laser radar, this may take some
time to pin down.' He gave me a significant look.

I sighed, but I'd already realized that. I swung
around the desk and consulted the duty roster and tapped the com
link for Lilm in engineering.