The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) (21 page)

She would probably be suspicious of his motives. Even if he had saved her life, he was still a mercenary, perhaps nothing more in her eyes. Maybe she believed that he would be like this Mingus person, someone who was attracted to her because she had some money—or could find things of value that were worth money. By her words, she had spent most of what she had to hire Mandrake Company. He felt guilty about that. He liked her enough that he would be happy to help her for free.

His mind drifted back to his earlier musings about Kalish’s father. Maybe he
could
help her. If she would only tell him the details about that, he might be able to think up a creative way to get him back for her, one that didn’t hinge on her being able to find some ancient relics that may or may not be there. If some underground heathen was the one who was blackmailing her, someone in Mandrake Company might have contacts that could help. Even if the captain tried to stay on the straight side of the law most of the time, the mercenaries had engaged in contracts often enough with shady characters to know more than a few. Some of them even owed the company favors.

An idea leaped into his mind, and Sedge sat up, almost clunking his head on the bunk again. Maybe he could find out for himself what had happened to Kalish’s father. If there had been communications with someone and they had taken place here, the records should be on the ship. If he understood the situation fully, he might be able to work with the company to surprise her with a solution.

Sedge chewed on the side of his mouth. He wanted to leap in heroically, to help her, but would she appreciate it? She was an independent and capable woman. Maybe she wanted to find her own solution, do things her way. But if this was her father, and she loved him, wouldn’t she want him safe and back with the family? No matter who made that happen?

“
Let’s figure out where he is first,” Sedge muttered, reaching for his boots and shirt. It would be a moot point if he didn’t have the power or contacts to do anything.

He checked the time before leaving his room. It was late, but Tia had still been up. Would Kalish or the mother still be up? What if they caught him wandering around the ship? The bridge would be the likely place where communications had been received, so if there was a record, the computers up there should have it. If he heard some footsteps, he could shut down the computer and pretend he had simply gone up to look at the view because he couldn’t sleep.

Nodding, Sedge slipped into the corridor. The lights had been dimmed for the night, and only a few glowing buttons and backlit displays on the bridge cast illumination, a reddish blue that was enough to guide him in that direction. He called up the view screen before sitting in the pilot’s chair, and he gazed out at the cavern for a while. They
did
have an arresting view from their landing spot beside the creek, with striated red and brown walls rising up on the sides, forming arches overhead. Fortunately, he didn’t see any hungry, giant animals strolling toward them. Something that reminded him of a mix between a bird and a bat had landed on Thatcher’s shuttle, but it did not appear too inimical.

Sedge listened as he gazed, trying to hear sounds that would indicate others were up. When fifteen minutes passed, and he didn’t hear a hatch creaking open or so much as a footstep coming from the corridor, he leaned forward and touched his fingers to the control panel. He thought about closing the hatch to the bridge, but that would make it more suspicious if he was found in here; a man did not need to be locked in a room to canyon gaze.

The control panel lit up beneath his fingers, but a retina scan came up immediately, telling him only recognized eyeballs would be allowed access. Well, he knew a few workarounds for that. He pulled out his tablet and set his base-level security hacking program to work, not expecting too much resistance from the old freighter.

As it hummed away, it occurred to him that Kalish wouldn’t appreciate this intrusion if she caught him. Her mother might try to shoot him.

You’re not going to get caught. You’re a trained spy.

Please, I’m trained to stay in the rear and catch spies.

His hacking program beat the retina scan, giving Sedge access to the computer. As soon as he started digging around, he forgot his qualms. He was committed now. Best to get in and out before he was discovered. Easier said than done. His program had won him access to the navigation controls. Another password guarded the files on the mainframe, this one requesting a simple text entry. He reached for his tablet, to call up another routine, but paused, his hand hovering in the air. Tia was the one up here most of the time, so she may have been the one to set the passwords.

Sedge typed in
honey lavender.
The computer flashed a red “Wrong password” at him. Not sure of how many attempts he could make before he was locked out, he almost reached for his tablet again, but two more possibilities floated into his mind.

Edgardo Garcia? No. What had the racquetball player’s name been? Oh, yes. Nikolay Volkov.

As soon as he entered that last
v
, the files opened to him. He hunched over the keyboard, his fingers flying faster than he could have spoken voice commands. He didn’t want to speak, anyway, not when someone might wander out to the lavatory at any moment.

He dipped into the communications records, scanning through recent exchanges with Mandrake Company, earlier ones with a banker, and some with people who shared the family surname. A series of comm calls received from a Dirk Cometrunner caught his eye. That sounded vaguely familiar. A pirate captain? Sedge would have to check the network, something that might be difficult from down here. He hadn’t tried to comm out yet, but with tons and tons of rock over their heads, he expected the signal to be weak.

Sedge entered a couple of commands to get text versions of what had been video calls and scanned through the conversations, starting with the earliest date. He read less than a sentence before he knew he had struck pay dirt. His heart pounded rapidly, the silence so thick that he heard it against his eardrums. It was as if he were about to leap into battle, not simply skim through someone else’s mail.

Kalish Blackwell, you’ll perhaps remember me as the buyer of the Stalingrad Ruby that you put up for auction last year. The piece was truly exquisite and the lady friend of mine who received it was grateful. Very grateful. Out of curiosity, I looked you up, wondering how you came to own the ruby. I see you’ve had a lucrative treasure hunting career, despite your young age. I salute you. There is a treasure I have been seeking for some time, one that may or may not exist, at least according to the academics. The system is big, and I believe one of these particular treasures must have survived, at least one, if not more. An intact one. I am talking, of course, of something the ancient aliens most assuredly left behind in their haste to leave. One of their faster-than-light spaceships. Such a find would be invaluable for what it could tell our scientists, and I, of course, have seen and done everything in our system. I am ready for the next great adventure, to return to Old Earth and find out what happened to the world from which we all came, the world that never sent another ship after the initial wave of colonists came to our system, the world we have only speculated about for the last fifteen hundred years.

Ah, but I’m certain you’re not interested in my passions and my plans. You only need to know that I want one of those ships, and I’m certain one still exists. I will trust you to find it for me.

I hope you will forgive my presumptuousness, but I am going to assume you won’t be interested in dropping all of your current projects and becoming my employee, so I have made some arrangements to assure I get what I want.

Your father was recently traveling to a conference on Dekaron VI. Alas, he was delayed. He has come to be a guest on my ship. He is safe, and will remain so as long as you return my message and confirm that you are willing to perform this task for me.

Should you become distracted or attempt to stage a rescue instead of simply embarking on this hunt, I fear I cannot guarantee his safety. It’s my crew, you see. They’re loyal to me, but an unreliable lot when it comes to guests. I’m sure that as someone who works with family, you have experienced the whims of an unreliable crew as well, such as your mother and young sister...

Sedge glared at the text, hating the man for threatening Kalish’s family. He had the father, and he was going out of his way to let Kalish know that he was aware of everyone in the rest of her close family. He skimmed through the messages, including Kalish’s responses. She hadn’t given a lot away, saying only that she would look for evidence of what Cometrunner sought and that it would take time. The pirate seemed to be willing to allow her
some
time, but he had sent weekly messages, wanting updates on her quest and also letting it be known that the father was perhaps in not so fine of a condition as he had been at the beginning of their exchanges.

Sedge’s fingers curled into a fist, and he fought the urge to punch the control panel. That wouldn’t do anything to the kidnapper, and it might get him caught.

He had the name of the pirate now. Perhaps with that information, he could do something. He had to talk to the captain, see if Mandrake Company did have any contacts who might be useful. He would also hope that the captain would be willing to use them if he
did
have them. Sedge had never asked for a favor from Mandrake, and he was loath to do so, especially since he did not know how the captain felt about him, even after almost a year. But if Mandrake knew a way to steal back Kalish’s father, then the company wouldn’t have to worry about the rest of the mission. Kalish might still want the ancient ship, if there was indeed such a craft in here, but from the bulk of the messages, Sedge had gotten the impression that she had only gone to these lengths, including trespassing on a private claim, because she wanted her father back.

A thump came from somewhere down the corridor. Sedge froze, his hand hovering over the command that would close the program. He hated to shut it down without erasing his tracks, because then Kalish or whoever logged in next would know someone had been there, and it wasn’t as if there were dozens of people roaming the ship who might be blamed. Ears straining, he listened for the telltale clank of a hatch being opened. Seconds ticked past. It didn’t come.

He licked his dry lips, then typed as quickly as he could, backing out of the program and altering the file open dates, so there wouldn’t be a record of this more recent invasion. With luck, he could return to his cabin without anyone the wiser.

A clank came from the corridor. Sedge grimaced, fingers flying as he backed the rest of the way out of the program. He wasn’t going to have a chance to flee back to his cabin after all, not if someone checked on the bridge.

Soft footsteps sounded, so soft that he wouldn’t have heard them if it hadn’t been so quiet. He turned off the control panel, wincing as the light level dropped noticeably, and leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head as he gazed out at the canyon.

“
Sedge?” came a soft voice from the door. Kalish.

Kalish watched curiously as Sedge lowered his arms and turned toward her in the seat, his face lit by the green glow of the control panel. His short hair was tousled, and his usually tucked-in shirt hung loose about his waist. He must have been in bed at some point.

“
What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“
I couldn’t sleep.” He shrugged. “I thought I would add my eyeballs to whoever’s standing watch over in the Mandrake Company shuttles. But mostly I’ve been thinking, so I don’t know how helpful those eyeballs have been.” He tapped his temple, then glanced down her form, his eyes lingering on her socks briefly.

Kalish usually padded around the ship in her socks at night—the bare floors tended to be cold—but she felt silly in them now, or maybe vulnerable. He hadn’t yet seen her in her pajamas and almost bare feet. Of course, he had glimpsed her without her shirt on in the tent, so she supposed socks wouldn’t embarrass him. She smiled at the memory of the way he had pointedly looked at the ceiling and waited for her to change.

He smiled back at her tentatively. He had an attractive smile. Tia had been right. He deserved a high ranking on the handsomeness scale, even if she had been too busy watching him sneeze and finding his list of allergies a tad odd to notice it when they had been introduced.

“
What have you been thinking about?” Kalish asked, padding onto the bridge. She could have sat in the co-pilot’s seat, but she felt the urge to be closer than that. Maybe it was the soft lighting or the fact that they were alone in the night, with everyone else on the ship asleep. It made him seem approachable, and it made her... want to approach. She stopped behind his shoulder and gazed at the view screen, the stream just visible along the bottom edge.