The Crystal Variation (149 page)

For a heartbeat, nothing happened, then the door began, slowly, and with a long mechanical groan, to lift.

“So.” The tech notched the lever down and the door sealed. “In case the internal lights are not currently operational, we have the portable spotlights available.” He stood back, wiping his palms down the side of his coveralls, his eyes on the pod.

“If one of you gentlemen would admit the others, I believe we are ready.”

Tan Sim waved Jethri toward the pod and pushed the access hatch wide.

“Please, traders! Enter and be welcome!”

Jethri scooped up one of the portables and stepped to the side of the hatch opposite the tech.

The bay was rapidly filling, with traders and the voices of traders—rather more traders, Jethri thought, than the nine he had counted only a few moments before. A pair of taller shadows at the back of the crowd drew his eye—

“Business of the Scouts!” the unmistakable voice of Scout Captain Jan Rek ter’Astin rang out—and there was the captain himself, flanked by two women in the uniform of the Irikwae Port Proctors, striding briskly forward. The attending traders scrunched close to the walls, giving them a clear course to Jethri. He caught a glimpse of Tan Sim, gridlocked by the now-silent crowd.

The Scout and his proctors settled into position to the left of Jethri, between the hatch and the attending traders. Jethri inclined his head.

“Have you come to arrest me, sir?” He asked, for the Scout’s ears alone, not certain himself if he was joking.

Black eyes met his firmly. “That will depend on a number of things, young Jethri. And the sooner the hatch is opened, the sooner we will both know what duty demands.”

Right. Jethri looked to the tech, who stood motionless, his hands around the emergency lever. He took a breath, held it, breathed, slowly, out.

“Technician,” he said, loud enough to be heard to the back of the bay, “please open the hatch.”

“Trader,” the man murmured, and hauled down on the stick.

The hatch hesitated, and rose, moaning all the way to the top. Inside, lights flickered, and failed. Jethri pressed the switch on the porta-spot.

The beam flared, illuminating the inside of the pod with harsh blue light. Shapes leapt into being, sharply outlined. A busted stasis box, canted on its side, a large shape that reminded Jethri of the weather machine, built a hundred times bigger, another—

“Technician, close the hatch!” Captain ter’Astin ordered. “Proctors, clear the room.”

The proctors turned as one and moved toward the crowd, hands making long, sweeping motions. Jethri pressed the switch on the porta-spot, killing the glare.

“Of your goodness,” said the proctor on the right, “please leave the room. Business of the Scouts.”

“Move along,” said the one on the left, “there is nothing here for you to see. Business of the Scouts.”

Inexorably, the traders were swept back toward the door. Tan Sim held his ground, creating an eddy in the flow of departing traders. The proctor on the right paused, and moved her hands sharply.

“Please, sir. We are clearing the area. There is no business here for you.”

“There is business,” Tan Sim said, sounding a bit breathless, but calm. “Yon trader is my partner in this matter—and that is my pod.”

“That trader may remain, proctors,” Captain ter’Astin said over his shoulder. He inclined his head to the technician. “Sir, you are required elsewhere.”

The tech bowed, hastily— “Scout” —and was gone, not quite running, pushing past Tan Sim, who was striding forward. The tech darted between the proctors and vanished out the hatch. The proctors continued their sweep. Jethri bent to put the porta-spot down.

“Jethri!”

He snapped upright and spun, staring down the dim hall to find the proctors confronting two tall people and one of them was—

“Grig!” He spun back to the Scout.

“That man is my kin!”

The Scout’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed. So we will be playing with the Liaden deck? You do trade bold, young Jethri.” He raised his voice. “Proctors, those traders may remain, as well. Secure the door.”

“Not a Liaden deck,” Jethri said. “A human deck. In Terran, he’s my shipmate.”

The Scout tipped his head to one side. “I believe I begin to understand the scope of Norn’s project. So—” He flicked his gaze to Tan Sim.

“Trader pen’Akla, I am Scout Captain Jan Rek ter’Astin.”

“Sir,” Tan Sim said stiffly. “I will be interested to learn what business Scouts have in interrupting the trading day.”

Captain ter’Astin smoothed the air between them with a gentle palm. “Peace. Every matter in its time.”

The confusion near the access hatch had sorted itself out and Grig was taking long strides forward, followed by a woman who looked familiar, though Jethri was sure he’d never seen her before.

“You OK, Jeth?” Grig reached out and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing, hard and comforting.

“I’m fine,” Jethri said, though it took him a stupidly long time to get the Terran to his mouth. He glanced over Grig’s shoulder at the woman. She smiled at him and nodded, agreeable-like. Grig turned, letting go of Jethri’s shoulder.

“Don’t tell me you’re shy, now,” he said to her. “Come up here and tell Jethri ‘hey’.”

She took a couple steps and came even with Grig. “Hey, Jethri,” she said, her voice deep and pleasant. “I’m Grig’s sister, Raisana.” She held out a hand. “Call me Raisy.”

He took her hand and squeezed her fingers lightly. “Raisy. I’m glad to meet you,” he said, thinking that he’d never heard Grig mention a sister, but for all of that, they sure did—

“That’s it,” he said, the Terran coming a little
too
quick, now. “Couldn’t place why you seemed familiar. You look like Grig, is why.”

“Indeed,” Scout Captain ter’Astin said, in his mud-based Terran. “It is a remarkable likeness, even for fraternal twins.” He paused, head tipped to a side. “You
are
twins, are you not?”

Grig shrugged. “Raisy’s older’n me,” he said, eyeing the Scout’s leathers. “Field Scout, are you?”

Captain ter’Astin bowed, hand over heart.

“Grig,” Jethri said, quick, before his cousin thought of another way to provoke sarcasm out of the Scout. “What’re you doin’ here? Where’s Seeli? How’s Khat? Uncle Paitor—”

Grig held up a hand, showing palm. “Easy. Easy. Everybody’s fine. You’ll want to know that Seeli’s increasing. She sends her love. Khat sends hers, too. Paitor tells me to tell you stay outta trouble, but I got a feeling he’s too late with that one.”

“I think he might be,” Jethri said, suddenly and grimly recalled to the looming loss of six kais-six. He turned to glare at Captain ter’Astin, who raised an eyebrow and made a show of displaying empty palms.

“Tell me you did not know that this pod was filled with Old Technology, Jethri Gobelyn.”

“He did not,” said Tan Sim, speaking Terran as if it were Liaden, only much slower. He used his chin to point at the pod. “I find pod. I find manifest. Ore. Art metal. Jewels.” He paused, bruised face showing grim. “I buy pod. Jeth Ree buys contents. Partners, we are.”

“I see,” said the Scout. “And neither one of you had the skill to read the image and deduce the presence of Old Technology?”

“Prolly neither one did,” Grig said, matter of factly. “If the paper said ore, they’d’ve naturally thought the spot that caught my attention—and Raisy’s—was ore. ‘Course, I expect us three,” he continued to the Scout’s speculative eyes, “seen a lot more Old Tech than either of the youngers, there. You gonna get a blanket over that, by the way? ‘Cause, if you’re not, I’ll beg your pardon, but me, my sister, our cousin and our cousin’s partner have an urgent need to lift ship.”

“As unstable as that?” Captain ter’Astin pulled a comm from his belt and thumbed it on. “ter’Astin. Dispatch a team and a containment field to Moon Mountain Refit Shop. Level three.” He thumbed the device off and slipped it away.

“‘preciate it,” Grig said, giving him a nod. He looked to Jethri. “You seen them distortions in the scan you uploaded—kinda cloudy and diffuse?”

“Yes,” Jethri and Tan Sim said in unison.

“Right. That’s fractin sign. Non-industrial quantities of timonium being released as the tech degrades. Now, that blob—it does look convincing for ore, and the ghosts of space know I’d’ve been tempted to read it that way myself, if I was holding a paper that said ore. But what it is—it’s one of the bigger pieces going unstable, releasing more timonium—and then more. That’s why we gotta get a blanket over it right now. If it goes without being contained, it could leave a sizeable hole in this planet.”

“Is that fact or fancy?” asked the Scout.

Grig looked at him. “Well, now, I’d say fact. My sister, there, she’d argue the point. You want to open the hatch, and we’ll take a look at what else you got in there?”

“An interesting proposition,” said Captain ter’Astin. “I wonder why I should.”

“Grig an’ me’re the closest you’re going to find to experts on the Old Tech,” Raisy said, surprisingly. “There’s better, mind you, but I don’t think Uncle’d be much interested in talking with you—no offense intended.

“Now, me, I’d ask day rate, if we was gonna do the thing right and clear the stuff for you. But a quick looksee—” She shrugged. “I’m curious. Grig’s curious. The boys here are curious—and you’re curious. Where’s the harm?”

“A compelling argument, I allow.” The Scout stepped forward, grabbed the emergency stick with one hand and hauled it down.

The hatch rose, screaming in agony. Tan Sim swept forward and came up with Jethri’s portable, blue-white beam aimed inside.

“All right.” The five of them stepped close, staring into the depths of the pod.

“That big one over against the far wall,” Raisy said. “That’ll be your unstable. Look at all the busted stasis boxes around it.” She shook her head.

“Now,
that
one,” Grig said, pointing to a device that looked peculiarly coffin-like. “That one I’d recommend you hold for study. I don’t say it ain’t treacherous. All Befores are treacherous. But that particular one can heal terrible wounds.”

The Scout looked at him. “How do you know that?”

“Well, now, that’s a story. Happens our point man had made a lucky guess or he really
could
read some of them pages from ‘way back, like he claimed. No matter the how of it, we had the location of a significant cache. Biggest any of us, ‘cept Arin an’ maybe Uncle, had ever seen. Trouble is, we was about a half-Jump ahead of a couple field Scouts who’d taken it into their heads that this particular world I’m talking about was interdicted an’ so we needed to work fast.” He shook his head.

“That meant we had to use every pair of hands we could get, whether they was attached to a trained brain or not. Which is how we happened to have the kid doing his own packing. Now, he’d been told over and over not to just turn the Befores on, or ask them to do things, or think about them doing things, or listen to them, if they started to talk in the space between his ears where his brain ought’ve been. He’d
been
told, but he was a kid, and a slow learner, besides.”

“So he picked up a piece of the Old Tech and it killed him,” the Scout said, softly.

“Good guess,” Raisy said. “But it didn’t kill him—though no question he’d’ve died of the damage. Chewed his left hand to bits, fingertips to elbow. Happened so fast, he didn’t have time to scream, did so much damage, he dropped into shock. It was Arin who shoved him in the—we call ‘em duplicating units. Don’t know what gave him the idea it’d do a bit of good, but as it turned out, it was the best thing he could’ve done.

“By the time we’d gotten everything else loaded, the machine chimed, lid popped and there was the kid, a little groggy, with two good hands on him and not a drop of blood on his coveralls.”

Scout Captain ter’Astin frankly stared. “It regenerated the hand and arm?”

“Good as new,” Grig said. “Never given me a day’s worth o’trouble. Though here’s a funny thing.” He held his hands up, palms out toward the Scout. “The fingerprints on the left hand’re the same as the fingerprints on the right, just reversed.” He flexed his fingers and let both hands drop to his side. “Works fine, though.”

“So I see. A most fortunate circumstance.”

“Nothing fortunate about it. Arin told us later he’d read that the duplicating machines could do more than what we’d been using them for. He really could read them old pages—you ever seen any? Metal, but soft and flexible, like paper, with the characters etched in, permanent.”

“There are one or two specimens at Headquarters,” the Scout said. “Though I admit that deciphering them has thus far proven beyond our ability. Arin Gobelyn was an exceptional man.”

“Well, he’d been at it a long time,” Grig said, with the air of one being fair. “He’d had a key, but I’m thinking that got spaced early, right after Iza come back from identifying the body.”

“Or he may have left an abbreviated form of it in the book he had made for his heir.”

“What!” Jethri squawked, shaken out of a state of blank amazement. “My journal?”

Scout Captain ter’Astin turned stern black eyes upon him. “Indeed. Your journal. You say you did not know it?”

“There were some odd—” He stopped, seeing the pages in memory; his kid notes and next to them, the various weird squiggles of his father’s doodling . . .

“Not until this minute did I realize, sir,” he said, unconsciously dropping into Liaden. “Truly, as I had told you, I had been without the book and other remembrances of my father for many years, having only recently been reunited with them.”

“Boy didn’t get his training,” Grig said softly. “Arin died too soon.”

“You didn’t train him?” the Scout asked. Grig shook his head.

“If Iza—his mam, you understand—had even thought I was, the boy was forfeit—me, too, more than sure, though Raisy’ll tell you that’s no loss.”

“No such thing,” she said, stoutly.

“Ah,” said the Scout. “I wonder, this planet where you were a half-Jump ahead of a pair of field Scouts intent upon enforcing the interdiction—would that have been in the Nafrey Sector?”

Grig and Raisy exchanged a glance.

“Stuff’s long gone,” Grig said.