Trading in Danger (24 page)

“I’ve had dreams all the past week,” she said. “But this morning when I woke up, I felt better.”

“We have to hope,” he said, not sure he could.

“At least she has the right things to wear,” she said. And then, scowling, “I know you’ll think that’s trivial, but it’s not. The right things to wear just might make the difference.”

“I hope so,” Gerard said. “I sincerely hope so.”

“When are you telling the others?”

“Stavvi knows. He was there when we first got the word, and we already knew she was in Sabine system. The com watch at headquarters… but that’s it.”

“And now?”

“I think we should wait,” he said.

“I think we shouldn’t,” she said. “Not everyone—just the family—but they should know.”

“A secret shared is no secret,” he said. “I don’t want the media to get hold of this, not after the Academy mess.”

“Yes… I see your point, Gerard. All right. What can I do?”

“Nothing more than I can. Wait. Pray. At least the ship is there in one piece. Was there, when the drone reported…”

“Is there,” she said very firmly. “It is there. And for all Ky’s blunders, she’s had the habit of surviving.”

Ship’s morning brought a rash of complaints from Kristoffson that conditions were intolerable and he would hold Vatta Transport responsible for a laundry list of deficiencies. Ky looked up relevant portions of the Interstellar Universal Commercial Code to reassure herself that she was not making the company liable for vast damages and then reminded him that in time of war, which this was, passengers were obliged to cooperate fully with ship’s officers.

“I am cooperating,” he said. “You are simply being unreasonable in your demands.”

She was tempted to ask if he thought he could do it better, but he certainly did think that, and she wasn’t going to give him the opening. Her job wouldn’t be easier if he thought she could be manipulated that way.

“You will have ample opportunity to make a formal complaint later,” Ky said. “In the meantime, you will simply have to accept the reality of the situation.”

He clicked off and managed to make that mechanical sound into something snippy. Ky shook her head at Lee, who was back in the pilot’s chair. “He’s trouble,” Lee said. “I’m glad you’re not one of the temperish Vattas.”

“I am,” Ky said. “But four years at the Academy taught me to handle it.”

“How are you feeling?” Lee asked.

“Better than I could have expected,” Ky said. “From what the medic said…”

“You looked dead,” Lee said. “We were all scared. Those horrible people—”

“It was Skeldon,” Ky said. “If that idiot hadn’t tried to be a hero, Master Sergeant Pitt wouldn’t have hit me.”

“But there was no reason to hit
you
… You hadn’t done anything.”

“Protocols,” Ky said. “Just typical military; I don’t blame her.” Now that she thought about it, though, she was being remarkably calm about it. Had they tweaked her memories? Her personality?

“You’re more forgiving than I would be,” Lee said.

“It’s not forgiving, it’s understanding,” Ky said. “They figure that the captain is the key to the ship, and responsible for everything that happens. That’s in the law, too. If you suddenly went crazy and I didn’t manage it, it would be my fault.”

“So—if they blamed you for Skeldon, why didn’t they kill you, too?”

“I’m not sure,” Ky said. “But I’m happy about it, and I’m not going to annoy them.”

“This thing with the passengers… is it really a contract or did they just dump them on us?”

“It’s a contract. Strange, but a contract. A good one, too.” No reason to tell him about the clause she had insisted on adding. “I hadn’t realized that mercenary companies are… just a business, really. The contract for haulage looked just like the ones we use for regular cargo, only specifying passengers.”

“But why us? They have the other ships they’ve interned.”

“I don’t know. If I were guessing, it’s that they have a use for the other ships, or that they wanted all these individuals away from their own ships for some reason.”

“Will we make anything from it?”

“If they pay—and their credit rating is excellent—it will more than cover the cost of the sealed unit and installation. Assuming there’s anyplace to get a sealed unit and someone to install it. I asked about that, and they said, ‘Not now’ in the tone that means ‘Don’t bother us.’ But surely, when ISC replaces the ansibles, we’ll be able to communicate with home, and with Belinta…”

Gary Tobai came onto the bridge. “Belinta’s going to be furious,” he said without preamble. He looked older in some way.

“I know,” Ky said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t fight warships. We can’t jump out. We can’t call and explain. They undoubtedly know the Sabine ansibles are out, and should grasp that whatever’s happened is a genuine emergency. What we can do is survive the next few days—and hopefully it will only be a few days—get rid of our little friends, pick up our cargo, go back to Sabine, and fix the FTL drive. That shouldn’t take long if the repair yards are still there. At least we know they have the size unit we need, and there can’t be that many ships needing that size.”

“Probably not. I just hope they’re honest.”

“As honest as they can be, was my assessment,” Ky said. “And I was on their ship and met one of their officers. We do have the contract, in writing.”

“Ten days… what can they hope to accomplish in ten days? You can’t win wars in ten days. You can only lose them that fast.” Gary still looked worried.

“Which means the other side won them,” Ky said. She shrugged away speculation about the war. “My concern is the passengers’ security. With Kristoffson being such a pain, and the way they outnumber us…”

“We keep them locked in,” Gary said.

“We can’t keep them locked in all the time,” Ky pointed out. “We have to feed them, and we have only one galley. It’s my fault; I didn’t think to ask the mercs for a field kitchen.”

“I suppose you’re right. Are they all like Kristoffson?”

“No, not at all. He’s the worst, and I think he’s got a small group that he’s inciting to difficulty. But the others aren’t nearly as bad. There’s one, Paison, who’s quite sensible. I’m thinking of talking to him, seeing if he’ll monitor the situation for me.”

“One of us should do that,” Gary said.

“Why? I think it’s captain-to-captain stuff myself.”

“Well… you’re the captain. Still. Just don’t get yourself nearly killed again.”

“Not planning to,” Ky said. Unfortunately, her background gave her no insight into the management of fifty unwilling passengers in a cargo ship only roughly converted to hauling them.

She wondered if anything in the Commandant’s private library would have helped… If she’d picked out the right logbook, would she now know exactly what to do?

Probably not.

The rest of mainshift passed with little difficulty—work teams came up to the galley with clean dishes, warmed meals, took them back, washed the dishes. Captain Paison, she noticed on the monitors, was leading his crewmen and some others in calisthenics. Better than sitting around being bored. Mitt watched the environmental system closely, monitoring every slight change in values, since it was functioning near its design limits. The first surge changes had all settled down at the new equilibrium points, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Quincy, with nothing much to do since the insystem drive was shut down, came into the bridge several times to discuss the needed repairs.

After a second check around her own crew, Ky decided to interview the other captains one at a time, leaving the difficult Kristoffson for last. Paison, who had been so helpful already, she put first and asked him to come to the galley.

“Captain Paison,” Ky said. He smiled at her.

“Captain Vatta—how are things?”

“Fine so far,” Ky said. “All systems nominal at this time. And you and your crew?”

“We’re fine. I appreciate how difficult this is for you, Captain—all these passengers in your ship, and your cargo out there in vacuum. Tell me, is this your first voyage?”

“As Captain, yes, it is.” Never mind that it was only her second voyage overall. “Not exactly going the way it’s supposed to.”

“You seem to be handling the stress well, though. I confess I’m impressed with your calm.”

“Panic never helps,” Ky said, grinning. “And I have a very good, very experienced crew.”

“Ah. But not experienced at this, I suspect.”

“No. Just good.” Ky paused, then went on. “Captain Paison, I realize you may not want to answer this, but—what is your impression of Captain Kristoffson?”

“Jake? Known him for years. A hothead… not a bad guy but definitely a hothead. He is so proud of being the
Rose
’s captain—and he’s acting like a total idiot right now, which you know already.”

“My concern is that he might convince others that they should…” Ky tried to think of the right word.

“Do something stupid? Mutiny of the passengers or something?” Captain Paison laughed, a friendly laugh and not a scornful one. His eyes twinkled. “I doubt it. Jake might want them to, but I don’t think they’re that panicky, and he’s not really that brave. As long as the gravity stays put, and the air, and so on.”

“No reason it shouldn’t,” Ky said. She hadn’t really thought of mutiny, just constant complaints and harrassment, but now that Paison said the word, her stomach tightened.

He cocked his head at her. “Do you want me to keep an eye on him for you? I can understand your concern—you and your crew are outnumbered by a large margin—and if it would ease your mind I could keep a weather eye out.”

“Would you?” Ky asked, relieved that he’d suggested it himself. If he knew Captain Kristoffson that well, she hated to ask him to spy on the man.

“Sure. I truly don’t think Jake’s going to do more than whine and moan and demand special treatment—he was livid about those golden-eye raspberries, but I think you did exactly the right thing—still, you don’t need anything else to worry about.”

Paison clearly understood her various dilemmas. She was tempted to ask his advice about some of her other problems, but she knew she should keep a decent separation between herself and her passengers. She only hoped she hadn’t overstepped it already.

“Thanks,” she said. “This is not one of the situations they teach you about in—” She cut that off. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want the passengers to know about her Academy training; she was only sure she didn’t.

Back on the bridge, she found Quincy, who had taken over as third-shift watch officer, hunched over a complicated-looking readout. “How’s the cargo doing?” she asked.

“Fine,” Quincy said. “Just hanging out there the way it should. I still think we should have tethered it, just in case, but as long as nobody turns the drive on we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Nobody’s going to turn the drive on. Anything else?”

“Engineering’s fine, except for that FTL drive. I’m a little concerned about the fact that we have five senior and three junior engineers aboard—if they wanted to mess us up, they could. I’ve made sure we have someone on watch each shift, looking for intrusions.”

“I think Kristoffson is our one bad apple,” Ky said. Ship sabotage was something else she hadn’t thought of. “And Paison’s going to keep an eye on him.”

“You asked him to?” Quincy raised an eyebrow.

“No, he volunteered. Says he’s known Kristoffson for years, thinks he’s just a blowhard, but he’ll let me know if it gets serious.”

“And you’re sure Paison is trustworthy?” Quincy sounded doubtful.

“I certainly hope so,” Ky said. Her stomach twinged again. If he wasn’t, her record for trusting the untrustworthy would have another notch. “How are you getting along with the new crew? How upset are they about Skeldon?”

“They’re fine, Captain. They’re upset, of course, but he never did really fit in with them… The ship that left them behind had a crew of twelve hundred or some such. None of them had met Skeldon before that shore leave anyway—it was a random drawing, who went when. And the military cleaned up his body and your quarters, so they didn’t have to see—” Quincy’s face tightened and her voice trailed off.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Quincy shook her head, looking away. “It wasn’t pretty…”

“No.” Ky had been shown vids of postbattle cleanup at the Academy, and she could imagine the mess. The stains left by the cleaning methods showed how extensive the mess had been. She forced that thought aside. Already Skeldon’s face was blurring in her memory. “Well, I’d better do another interview.”

Captain Lucas, with no Kristoffson to spark his hostility, seemed a pleasant enough officer. Pepper-and-salt hair pulled back into a short thick braid, dark eyes difficult to read. His Insinyon accent had mellowed to a pleasant brogue, and he professed himself satisfied that Vatta Transport was doing the best it could for its passengers.

“Of course that fool of a passenger captain, that Kris—whatever”—Lucas waved his hand—”that sort always think they deserve special treatment. All he does is complain. But I am happy to cooperate. Though forgive me for mentioning it, but you seem rather young for a captain—unless of course you’re a humod variant I’m unfamiliar with…”

That was fishing. Ky smiled at him. “I first went to space as crew at thirteen,” she said. “Age and experience are independent variables.”

He laughed, a quick bark and slow chuckle. “Well said, Captain Vatta. I hope you will be able to keep us informed, as the mercenaries inform you, of the progress of their plans. Despite all else, the sooner I’m back on my own ship, heading out on my own route, the happier I will be.”

“True for all of us, Captain Lucas,” Ky said. “I appreciate your cooperation at this difficult time.”

Captain Opunts of
Bradon’s Hope
seemed quiet and contained after Paison and Lucas; he had no questions, he said. He made no complaints. No suggestions. Nothing… Ky tried repeatedly to get him to open up, but he deflected all her questions and comments with a perfect shield of calm unconcern. It was like talking to a block of polished stone. He was sure everything would be all right in the end; he said that several times. She watched him head back down the corridor and hoped very much he was right.