Derelict For Trade Read online

  No one bothered them, though.

  When they reached the docks, they bounced out onto the concourse and pulled themselves swiftly toward the Queen and Captain Jellico.

  1

  They were all crowded into the mess cabin—that is, all but Karl Kosti, who single-handedly was watching the Starvenger. "Johan and Jasper know how I feel," the big man had said before he boarded the shuttle. "They’ll speak for me if there’s need."

  Dane stood in his accustomed place at the back, where his elbows and knees didn’t feel so desperately ungainly. His palms were still sweating, as they had ever since he and Rip had read that printout. He still couldn’t really believe it. How could anyone get away with what seemed to add up to legalized piracy?

  "So this is what it looks like," Van Ryke said. For once his habitual smile was gone, replaced by a serious expression that rendered him almost unfamiliar. He gestured with his right hand to one set of printouts. "Koytatik receives word that an insured Free Trader ship is coming in, one with at least one high-pri trade item. She sends word to someone—"

  "Flindyk," Rip said. "There’s a secondary set of ship names in his computer, time of arrival of messages after the lists Koytatik got. She must be forwarding these ship names to his office."

  "So the by-the-books Flindyk is part of the conspiracy?" Stotz asked.

  "Possibly," Van Ryke said. "Except he’s an executive, and as yet we have no proof that anything sent to him actually gets before his eyes. He could have any number of minions screening his mail—and using his ID to protect them from being scanned by coworkers."

  "Conceded," Jellico said. "Go on."

  "So the Ariadne was reported due in carrying an extremely rare cargo of cielanite, plus some very advanced weaponry that the Shver are always collecting. Whoever is above Koytatik somehow makes certain the Ariadne is met out in space, probably soon after snapout—"

  Wilcox nodded. "Easy enough to calculate probable jump points, and sit there watching for snapout."

  "And a ship is most vulnerable then," Stotz said. "You control-deck jockeys are busy making certain we are where we need to be, while we make certain the engines came through."

  "Even if they came out attack-ready, like some Patrol boat, what good if they don’t have weapons?" Ali asked. "And how many Free Traders carry weaponry?"

  "A few," Jellico said. "Mostly those who either are on the wrong side of the law or else ply their trade so far out on the fringes they perforce are their own law." He gestured to Van Ryke. "Continue."

  Jan said, "The pirates fire on the ship to disable, not to destroy—if they can—and space the crew. Take the cargo. Replace it with ordinary stuff from Exchange. Clean the ship, including all logs and computers, space all personal effects. Then they fire on the old registry name and paint in the

  name of a ship registered as abandoned and claim-released, then they leave it." He paused. "At that point, the probable sequence of events dwindles into mere guesswork."

  Jasper said mildly, "Aren’t those ships reported as abandoned also reported with coordinates—oh, but those are next to worthless unless the ship is dead in space," he amended.

  Wilcox nodded. "And even then it could move, especially if something hits it. Always possible, though unlikely. Mostly ships are abandoned while moving—why spend fuel slowing it down? Sure it travels in a straight line, but what if that line intersects a gravity well? Approach at the right angle, and it slingshots around and zaps off in another direction. You could probably spend the time plotting likely courses of a ship—in fact, that’s one of the things we had to do in school— but why bother?"

  "These are all minor Traders, with no one in high or influential places to call for big, expensive investigations," Van Ryke said.

  "Right." Jellico looked around at all of them. "Two things. We need the name of whoever’s at the top, and we need to know exactly what’s the purpose behind this switching of ship names. If Jan’s scenario for what happened to Starvenger —Ariadne—is correct, that’s a lot of work to go to just to leave the ship as an orbiting hulk."

  "They probably wait a certain period of time, then go out and harvest the ships," Stotz said. "For parts, if nothing else. You can get plenty for good engines, or up-to-date refrigeration units, or ship’s computers, in the right market. I’m always looking out for a good buy in spare macronucleic collimators, because they have a tendency to blow right after snapout, when we’re millions of kilometers from anywhere and moving fast. You can’t stock up on too many"—he frowned— "and until now I never thought to ask where they came from."

  "Same with the jets and jet parts," Jasper offered, his pale, mild face concerned.

  Jellico swung round to face Ya. "Can you do anything to flush out the data we need?"

  "I wish I could," Tang Ya said. "I’d need better access to Exchange’s computer system—and I’d need time to study its organization. Nunku’s

  the one to oversee it, but even genius that she is, that ferret of hers is bound to crash soon—if it hasn’t by now—and she’ll never get a second one in there. The system’s immune reaction won’t permit it. She’d almost have to be on-site to do the delving."

  Jellico’s fingers were drumming lightly on his chair arm. "All right.

  Then it’s up to us. Let’s break, and each consider what we’ve heard and what we can do. Meantime, Thorson, keep checking that mail drop—but this time I want you to take at least two people as backup."

  Dane nodded, surreptitiously wiping his hands down his pants again.

  He was slightly distracted by the sight of Tooe sliding out of the mess cabin. She probably had to go to the fresher, he thought. She faded from his mind when Rip said, "What I can’t seem to get hold of is how could anyone get away with something that big?"

  "I think I can answer that," Wilcox said, his austere Scots face grim.

  "All these ships have been insured through Trade. But except for the Lucky Lucy twelve years ago, and the Ariadne recently, none have been run by humans. Some are humanoid registered or owned, but they all seem to range from farther outside Terran spheres of influence."

  "That would explain the cats," Craig Tau said.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  "If the hijackers are used to nonhumans, that would explain why the cats were overlooked. Having ship’s cats is a custom peculiar to Terrans," he explained. "Alpha and Omega probably hid when the intruders came aboard, and if you don’t know to look for a hiding cat, you won’t find one," he finished dryly.

  Dane thought of Sinbad, who could make himself scarce when he was of a mind—even though by now there wasn’t an inch of space Dane wasn’t familiar with aboard the Queen.

  "And they were in a hurry," Rip said.

  "They wouldn’t want to risk being a blip on the screens of some ship just emerging from hyperspace, or one moving to its jump point," Jasper put in.

  Rip nodded, and continued, "Which would explain their overlooking that extra little console down in the hydro. It was pretty well hidden by plants, and there was stuff piled all over it. The woman who tended it must have come from a real jungle environment."

  "The main thing is that the hijackers are sticking to small stuff. Independents—like us," Dane said.

  "Which means even less likelihood of anyone pursuing mysterious disappearances," Ali drawled. "Company ships disappearing would occasion those big, splashy searches Van mentioned. A succession of humans disappearing from well-traveled starlanes might cause a raised brow or two. No one is going to notice a bunch of missing rockrats gathered from spaceports spread across the galaxy."

  "Which explains the correlation between the stories I heard up in the Spinner." Rael Cofort spoke for the first time. Dane could see muted pain in her dark blue eyes. "A good many of the people I met were either refugees from unexplained—uninvestigated—ship attacks, or had been left behind for one reason or another when their ships disappeared and didn’t come back for them."

  The captain smi
led very faintly. "So you’re ready to do battle on their behalf, Doctor?"

  "A system is suspect that deliberately throws away so many people who otherwise would be working happily within the law, utilizing their talents for something besides stealing food and shelter." Her voice was soft, but there were spots of color along her cheeks. Dane looked from her rigid posture to the captain’s same and wondered what he was missing. Then he felt a change near him, a kind of mental tickle that made him glance to the side, and he saw an odd expression on Ali Kamil’s face.

  Ali did not speak. Dane realized that Tooe had still not come back, and he wondered what that meant.

  Van Ryke said, "Let us each go our own way for a time, and put our minds to the problem. We all have unique talents, and varying perspectives on tackling problems. Let’s use those now."

  "We’ll discuss this again later," the captain said shortly, and he one-handed himself off his bench and catapulted through the hatchway.

  "What’s going on?" Dane asked his peers in a low voice as the others were all moving out. "The captain, I mean. And Cofort."

  Ali laughed. "The stone and the steel, my blind Viking, the stone and the steel." And he dove out the door and vanished.

  "What does that mean?" Dane asked Rip, now feeling more defensive by the second where before he was merely perplexed.

  Rip just shook his head, and Jasper said quietly, "When the captain decides he wants us to know, we’ll know."

  Dane sighed, and went off to seek Tooe.

  It all certainly seemed to add up, Jellico thought as he pulled himself down in his chair. He stared reflectively at the blue hoobat, who rocked in dreamy slow motion in his cage, making contented noises that sounded like the tearing of metal. Jellico’s mind reviewed the knot of mysteries tangling their affairs. The mysterious disintegration of their cargo deals. The spread of detrimental gossip not just among Traders but Monitors as well. The generous offer to buy the Starvenger—sight unseen—by someone who would not meet Van Ryke face to face, but sent a series of mouthpieces whose lies did not match. The postponements, the put-offs, the hounding of his crew followed by official commands to brig them. all of these could be viewed as tactics to wear the Queen's crew down, to make them want to leave as soon as they could. Even the postponements, for what that meant was added cost. Jellico had no doubt whoever was in command had a good idea how much credit the Solar Queen had, and was hoping they’d decamp and run cargoless—and maybe without taking the Starvenger, which could then quietly be made to disappear.

  You could almost do anything, if you were working within the law to commit crimes.

  Even if the others didn’t see it yet, the cold fact was: if Flindyk had commanded the hijackings, and was using his position to mask, hide, and eventually legitimize his actions, then he was going to use his position to stamp out anyone who tried to get in his way.

  Ali and the other apprentices were burning for justice for the dead crew of the Ariadne/Starvenger; Wilcox and Van Ryke were burning to get their hooks into this villain who would use Trade to hide nefarious actions and thus risk tarnishing the reputation of Free Traders forever; Rael Cofort was burning to solve the problems of the outcasts up in the Spin Axis. None of them seemed to realize that as soon as Flindyk—if it was he—tracked the ferret back to the Solar Queen, a squad of Monitors would not be far behind. Locked up in jail and unable to communicate, with the Queen impounded, they would not be able to get justice for themselves, much less for anyone else.

  Burning with the Rightness of their cause, they didn’t yet see the inevitability of this outcome. One of Miceal Jellico’s earliest memories was the realization that the universe wasn’t fair. Though everyone looked at their crossing of the threshold from child to adult in different ways—some merely by age, others by more conventional marks of passage such as graduation from tech training, or making a career choice, or marriage—Jellico’s private acknowledgment of his own adulthood was the conscious decision that, though the universe was not fair, he still could be, to the best of his endeavor. He did not expect justice, or mercy, or intervention from an indifferent cosmos, but he did want to be able to know, whenever his life came to an end, that no good person took harm at his hand, and no bad one was aided. Aid in his definition included standing by and doing nothing.

  He fully expected Flindyk, or whoever, to come after him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make some preparations of his own.

  He leaned forward and hit the com. "Ya?"

  "Captain?"

  "Come here. I’ve an idea."

  "Be right there, Chief."

  The com light went blank, and Jellico leaned back again, gently propping one boot on the edge of his desk, keeping the other magged to the deck.

  He also disliked cowardice, and the truth was, his refusal to examine his emotions concerning Dr. Rael Cofort could no longer be attributed to expedience—which meant he was a coward.

  He sighed and shut his eyes, remembering without any effort at all the

  intensity in her violet eyes, the determination expressed in every line of her slender frame when she had faced him down in the meeting. So she’d fight for her lost souls at the Spinner, eh?

  And he remembered her standing outside the lab, passionate, honest, and completely unafraid, when he threatened to ground her. What she’d fired right back at him was true: would he ground Tau?

  He knew he wouldn’t.

  So if he wouldn’t ground Tau, but he would Cofort, then. then.

  He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.

  The truth was that he had found what he had never thought to find, the companion who could keep stride with him, match wits with him, who was as intelligent as he was, and as loyal, and as passionate about doing what seemed right and to hell with the odds against. He’d seen that kind of commitment twice in his life, and both times he’d also seen the terrible grief that resulted when something happened to one partner. That was life in Trade. He’d made the decision never to risk himself that way, never to permit himself to fall in love, but it seemed that the decision had revoked itself.

  He couldn’t live Rael Cofort’s life for her. He couldn’t force her to bide in safety and contentment somewhere far from risk, to ignore the teeth of danger when she saw a true cause. If she were the sort who would permit him to hedge her round with the padding of security he would never have fallen in love in the first place.

  Ya tapped at the door.

  Jellico sighed, and keyed the door open, and— Coward! his inner voice taunted him—turned with relief to the problems at hand.

  "Now here’s what I want," he started.

  Dane had been over the Queen once, and no Tooe. She’d never before left without telling him, not since she’d understood she was on probation, so he must have overlooked her.

  At least that was what he hoped. He decided to be more methodical,

  starting with the treasure room down in the cargo area, which the crew had left untouched since the Denlieth run—and where she’d apparently hidden during her time as a stowaway.

  He was on his way when he felt a twitch of awareness behind him, as though Rip Shannon had called him in so faint a voice he almost didn’t hear it. Without thought he turned back to his cabin.

  In the corridor between his and Rip’s cabins stood Tooe, with Rip. The Rigelian’s crest was spread at its fullest, her yellow eyes so wide they seemed to glow. "Come!" she fluted. "Dane, you get help, we go now, Flindyk comp. Quick!"

  "What’s this?" he asked.

  Tooe one-handed herself up the ladder so they were on eye level. She bobbed in the air, held by her webbed fingers on the steel ladder pole as she said, "Nunku says, they find ferret soon. Nunku says, we don’t stop now, the Monitors go through Spinner, kill everyone. Nunku says, klinti help now, we go out of Spinner, we go to Flindyk office. You bring help."

  "Help? You mean Ya and Rip for computer delving?" Dane asked.

  "I think she means for muscle," Rip said with a grin.


  Tooe nodded, so violently she bobbed up again, and her crest snapped out flat as she handed herself back to the level of their heads. Dane’s mind had been distracted by the way Tooe worked to keep her head oriented in the same direction he and Rip did—as if there was normal grav—and not at the most convenient angle for her next move. She was doing her best to adapt to human ways, and yet she’d left without telling him.

  Doubts assailed him afresh. Was this after all another big game, as big in its way as the hijackers’? Was the Queen being used by the Spinner klinti to get at the authorities—and had they all been manipulated by those pitiful stories?

  Dane shook his head hard. "Wait a minute," he said. "Tooe, why did you leave? You agreed to the terms of your probation."

  "Is this the time—" Rip started.

  "Yes," Dane cut in. "Right now. She’s my responsibility. I have to get this straight."

  Tooe’s pupils flicked from slits to round, making her eyes dark. Her crest folded back at an odd angle, one he didn’t remember seeing before.

  "Do you understand my question?" he asked.

  "Tooe understand, me," she replied, her voice plangent. "Captain say, ’It’s up to us.’ Captain want plan. I go to ask Nunku—"

  "Why didn’t you ask me first?" Dane interrupted.

  Tooe’s voice went high again as she blurted out a fast answer in Rigelian, then she said, slowly and painstakingly in Trade, "Tooe always talk to Nunku when trouble. Dane always talk to captain when trouble—except when go with Tooe to Spinner, first time."

  Dane sucked in a deep breath. He’d never considered she’d observed his actions as closely as he’d observed hers. "Well, what I did was stupid, but I thought it was to protect the captain in case I. well, got myself into trouble."

  Tooe’s crest tilted in a humorous mode, but she said nothing.

  "All right," he said. "I can see you had a reason, and I know you want to save your pals up at the Spinner. Except. if you’re going to really sign on with us, then your first loyalty is going to have to be with us." He tapped his chest, then turned his thumb at Rip and up at the captain’s cabin.