Trading in Danger (36 page)

“No,” Ky said. “My communications equipment, including the stored records, was damaged in the mutiny that occurred.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, let’s see. Now, you have some kind of records of the trip, don’t you? The court will want to establish whether or not your agreement with the mercenaries qualified as ‘cooperation under constraint’ or not, and whether the treatment you accorded the passengers was in line with the UCC.”

“Yes, I have those records. Do you need them in hardcopy, or do you have a filedump where I can send them?”

“A filedump will be fine, Captain Vatta. Thank you. And let me just say, I am so impressed. I really admire you—”

“Excuse me?”

Favor’s smile was brighter than ever. “I mean, I always wanted to go out in space and have adventures, but I didn’t know how… My family’s always gone into government service. I really admire someone who goes out and does things.”

Ky opened her mouth to say it was nothing much, and adventures weren’t as much fun as they were made out to be, but Favor rattled on.

“I mean, I’ve been to the adventure resorts and things, you know, with mountains and snow and all that, but space… it really is different. When I think about you, all alone out there in the empty dark and cold and all and running out of food, it just gives me the shivers. I mean, I know I could never do it.” That finished on a note of near smugness. She was clearly absolving herself of the need to move out of her own comfort zone.

“I suppose not,” Ky said, instead of the half-dozen other things she wanted to say. She hadn’t intended the sharp tone, but Favor stopped rattling and looked at her.

“I suppose you think I’m silly,” Favor said.

“No,” Ky said. “But I didn’t get into this for the adventure.”

“Really? Why did you, then?”

It was a reasonable question. “My family trucks cargo in space ships,” Ky said. “Like yours goes into government service.”

“You mean—they just expected you to? It wasn’t that you wanted to get away, get out into space, see other planets?”

She did not want to talk to this person about her past, about her dreams. “Pretty much,” Ky said instead. “And for the most part, it’s not all that exciting. Seeing other planets, sure. But the rest of the time it’s just business.”

“Oh.” Favor looked disappointed. “I suppose, if you’re used to it—”

“Right.” Ky was tired of this detour. “If you don’t need anything else, I have other appointments, and it’s getting late—”

“Oh. Of course, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I was just interested, it sounded so exciting—”

When she had twittered her way out, Ky shook her head. “I’m probably not being fair—”

“To think she’s a fluttery featherhead? Possibly not, but she’s a good imitation.” Quincy had come onto the bridge, and now shook her head.

“And I still have to cope with Captain Furman.” Ky let the resentment come into her voice there. Quincy looked at her.

“Didn’t you apprentice on his ship?”

“Yes. It was not a happy experience.”

“Apprenticeships rarely are. What’s wrong? Is he still treating you like a child?”

“Yes. You saw part of it. He’s going to want to drag me back home like a trophy failure…”

“You need something to eat,” Quincy said. “Garlan, go get her something to eat.” Garlan nodded and left the bridge.

Ky started to say
You’re not my mother
, but her stomach growled and she realized she was feeling hollow.

“All right,” she said, sinking back into the seat. “I am hungry.”

When they were alone, Quincy leaned forward. “Ky—is there more to that message your father sent?”

“Yes,” Ky said. She felt her muscles tense and tried to relax. “Said he was sending a new implant out with a Vatta ship. I suppose that’s Furman.” She could hear the sharpness in her own voice. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to let Furman take our cargo to Belinta. It’s my job—my contract—and I’m quite capable of doing it.”

“I agree,” Quincy said.

“And I don’t need the implant,” Ky said.

“I wouldn’t want to do without mine,” Quincy said. “Makes it a lot easier.”

“The implant…” Ky stopped, unable to articulate her feelings about it. She tried again. “The implant
is
Vatta, in a way. The Vatta connection: the codes, the propriety databases, the protocols, all preloaded for me. Yes, it’s easier to have it all available internally. I really like parts of it. But… when I rely on it… I’m not really thinking for myself. I can miss solutions I might otherwise come up with. We didn’t have them at the Academy… We had to
learn
to learn, remember, analyze, plan, all with our own brains.”

“You were doing fine before you were shot,” Quincy said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. It was always whispering to me, shaping what I knew… and with so much in there, I wasn’t as likely to look outside for more information, was I? And after, without it, did I do that much worse?”

“No,” Quincy said. “I have to admit you seemed just as competent without it. But everyone has one…”

“Most people, certainly spacers, yes. If I could have an empty one and choose what to put in it—”

“You could,” Quincy said. “But it seems a waste to me. You need the Vatta protocols.” She paused; Ky said nothing. “By the way, are those mercenaries trying to recruit you?”

“Why?” Ky asked, trying to conceal a guilty start.

“Well, Beeah went dockside, to try to link up with some equipment suppliers, and he told me he ran into one of them who said something about how you’d end up in their pockets.”

“Not likely,” Ky said. “I have a contract to fulfill.”

“What are you going to do if Furman orders you to turn over the ship and give him your cargo?”

“I—don’t know.”

Quincy shook her head. “Now that’s not true. I think you know perfectly well. My real question is, are you going to stop with defying Furman, or are you going to break with Vatta as well? Is that the real reason you don’t want a Vatta-programmed implant?”

“Break with Vatta? I hadn’t even thought of that.” But even as she said it, she knew she had… at some level.

“The thing is, if you decide to break with Vatta, you need to let the crew know. Those who want to stay with Vatta would probably rather leave now, and go with Furman.”

Without the Vatta component of her crew, she had only three crew, the ones she’d picked up here. And even they might not want to stay with her. She thought about them. Two experienced environmental techs, one with some bridge experience. One drives maintenance technician. Hard to run a ship with that. Impossible to run a ship with that, with no pilot, no cargomaster, no…

“Oh. Well, I hadn’t planned to leave Vatta…”

“Can you commit to that beyond Belinta? You don’t want to leave anyone stranded.”

Of course she didn’t want to leave anyone stranded. Her head ached. It was all so blasted complicated. Contracts for this, contracts for that, personnel problems.

“Here, Captain,” Garlan said, bringing in a tray. Ky’s stomach rumbled at the smell of a hearty soup. She ate quickly, aware of Quincy’s worried gaze still resting on her like a heavy weight. When she finished, the problem was still there, and her stomach knotted around the soup.

“I’m not going to abandon my crew anywhere,” Ky said. “But I hear what you’re saying, that some of the Vatta people may want to go back with Furman.”

“As long as you understand…”

“What about you?” Ky asked. “Do you want to go back?” Losing an engineering chief would be bad but not impossible, as long as she didn’t take all her supports with her.

“I haven’t decided,” Quincy said. “I’ll stay with you through repairs, anyway. But—I could retire now, and it’s been a… a difficult trip.”

“Yes,” Ky said. “It has. And you’ve certainly earned retirement. I’d like it if you stayed, though.”

“We’ll see,” Quincy said. “It all depends…”

On what? Ky wanted to ask, but she knew better. “Thanks. I’ll go talk to Furman’s representative now.”

Furman’s representative was his second in command, a cheerful stocky man in Vatta blue with a small lock-case clipped to his wrist and a large briefcase in his hand.

“Captain Vatta, I’m Bantal Korash,” he said. “I have a special package for you from your father. I’m afraid you’ll have to validate and sign this—” He pulled a plasfilm receipt from his pocket.

“And I’ll have to inspect the seals,” Ky said. That was the first, simplest level of validation for both of them.

“Here, then.” He handed it over; she turned it over and around in a specific pattern, observing that each seal was unbroken. Then she thumbprinted the receipt, signed it, and he put it back in his pocket. “And I also have some forwarded mail; your father says it’s nonurgent but wanted you to have it.” He opened his briefcase and handed her a small pile, including one with all too familiar handwriting. Her heart thudded painfully. Hal. What had he said? Had he understood? “Captain Furman would like to get everything straightened out so we can get back to our route. I understand you have cargo for Belinta?”

“Yes. There’s no reason to delay you—Captain Furman can take the
Kat
back to his route right away.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what Captain Furman says. He says he’s supposed to make sure you’re all right, and in his mind that means making sure you get back to Slotter Key safely.”

“I’m fine,” Ky said. “You can see that.”

“But the ship… and didn’t someone die?”

“The ship needs repair; we’re working on that. Gary Tobai, my cargomaster, was killed during the mutiny. His funeral’s day after tomorrow, station time.”

“Tobai! I worked with him four years ago, on another ship. What happened?”

“Furman didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“The passengers the mercenaries stashed aboard the ship included some troublemakers—some of them tried to take the ship over. They did manage to degrade the system controls, turn on the insystem drive, and destroy our communications transmitters. They took Gary hostage, threatened to kill him if I didn’t turn over command of the ship.”

“If they’d done that much, why did they need you?” Korash asked.

“I don’t know. I do know that I tried to stop them—and killed the two ringleaders—but Gary died. I couldn’t stop them in time—”

“But if they had Gary hostage, how could you—”

“I had other crew to think of, and the passengers who weren’t involved. That had to come first. He knew it—he told me not to give in.”

Korash stared at her, eyes wide. “You saw him?”

“Yes.” Ky closed her eyes briefly, where one of the rotating scenes of disaster from this trip passed before her eyes. Skeldon’s face, as she just caught sight of him in her cabin before everything went black. Gary Tobai looking her in the eye, and then… not.

“How could you—watch—” Now he sounded disgusted, as if she were something contemptible. Anger stirred; Ky pushed it down.

“You’re welcome to come to his memorial service,” Ky said. “Day after tomorrow, the station chapel. A Modulan service.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Korash said. “I’ll be back on our ship by then. But how do you feel about it?”

“Horrible,” Ky said. “I keep thinking I should have done more to prevent it—more to keep them from getting systems access, from grabbing Gary. But there were a lot of them and few of us. If I’d known who was behind it, I’d have spaced them to start with and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Spaced—you wouldn’t really space anyone—!”

Ky looked at him, a nice decent older man who had never faced what she faced. She tried to soften her voice. “Actually I would, if necessary to save my ship. Mostly it’s not necessary.”

“That’s hard,” he said. His face was two shades paler; she could see the sheen of sweat on him. “That’s really hard.” He swallowed. “I suppose that’s the sort of thing you learned in the Academy.”

“Yes,” Ky said. It saved time trying to explain what couldn’t be explained.

“Things are different in the civilian world, you know,” he said.

“I know that,” Ky said. “But my first responsibility is still to my ship and crew, even under civilian legal codes.”

He had an odd expression, somewhere between curiosity and revulsion. “How did you… er… I mean… do you carry a… a weapon?”

“You want to know how I killed them, is that what you’re asking?”

He flushed, then; “I… I guess so.”

“I shot them with a pistol bow that one of my crew had—a target bow.”

“You did that before?”

“I practiced, once I realized that we might have trouble with our passengers. My crew member taught me how to use it. I suppose that shocks you…”

“I couldn’t shoot anyone,” he said firmly. “I just couldn’t.”

Her patience snapped. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing you’ve never needed to.” Before he could say anything else, she said, “You can tell Captain Furman—or I can contact him myself—I am going to get this ship repaired well enough to take my cargo to Belinta—myself—and he can consider himself free to return to his regular route. I will check and see if any of my crew wish to return with him, and I will prepare a message for my family. I’m assuming you came in by shuttle?”

“Er… yes.”

“Well, then. When does it leave or was it a charter?”

“A charter…”

“You can spend a couple of hours here?”

“Yes… but I have to let them know when I want to leave.”

“I’ll speak to the crew shortly; I’m sure they’ll want to stay for Gary’s memorial service, at least. So Furman can leave after that, if any of them want to go with him, or earlier if they don’t. I can have that answer for you in… say… three hours. I’m sure you’d enjoy that time more on the station than on a small ship like this…”

“Er… as you wish…”

“You have an implant, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Give me your number; I’ll contact you.”

At last he left, and gave her a vague sort of salute on his way out. Ky took a deep breath and then tabbed the intercom.

“All crew, come to the rec area, please. I have an announcement.”

A few minutes later, they were all there except for Beeah, still out on the station.

“Captain Furman, of the
Katrine Lamont
, wants me to agree to sell this ship for scrap here, take all of you and the cargo aboard his ship, and go back to Slotter Key via Belinta. I’m not going to do that; I’m going to repair the ship with the money Mackensee paid me, take my own cargo to Belinta, and pick up our cargo there, and go on our original route to Leonora and Lastway. However—” She paused. “While I don’t have direct orders from Vatta headquarters to do what Captain Furman says, I suspect that his report of my decision will generate some heat. Most of you are long-term Vatta employees. I will understand if you don’t want to be involved in a dispute between me and my family’s business. I will also understand if you don’t trust me as a captain, after the death of a crew member you all knew for a long time. So I’m giving you the opportunity to transfer to the
Kat
if you want to. I’ll give you all an exemplary report for your records.”