Eternity's Mind (18 page)

Through his old political connections, Del Kellum began meeting with other clan heads, proposing cooperative operations, leveraging his reputation because he had no cash. Del banked on tall tales of his adventures for drinks and conversation in Roamer public establishments. He also attended the daily clan business meetings and set up separate conversations with Speaker Sam Ricks.

But times had changed. Newstation was an exuberant chaos of people rushing about, with clan members buying unexpected equipment and components of all sorts. Every surplus starship and water tanker, any kind of space industrial apparatus had been snapped up and hauled away. New supplies were bought out as soon as they arrived.

Zhett kept hearing rumors of massive new ekti operations, but she and Patrick were too busy getting Toff settled at Academ, Rex taken care of by the Governess compies, and their personal finances in order (although their accounts were so low, there wasn't much organizing to do). They all stayed together in a single set of rooms; it was crowded, but they were family. After all, in years past the Kellums had lived in “rabbit holes,” tiny hidden settlements in the rings of Osquivel.

One night her father burst in, slightly tipsy from his “information gathering.” “I sampled three of their best orange liqueurs, had to compare them with what I used to make.” He made a raspberry sound. “Nothing comes close. Maybe I should get back into that business.”

“I'm sure it would taste better than your kelp liquor,” Patrick said.

Del waved his finger. “Primordial Ooze will become legendary, mark my words. Now that they can't have it, people will want it more than ever.” He slumped into the reclining seat that folded down as a place for him to sleep. Zhett wondered what the twinkle in his eye might mean.

“I found out what all the excitement's about,” he said. “Ekti-X—Iswander's special stardrive fuel. It made him a fortune, but he wouldn't tell anyone where it came from. Now the man's been disgraced and his secret's out.” He clapped his hands. “And it's the easiest thing in the world, by damn! We can make our fortune back in no time.”

Zhett remained pessimistic. “Any time someone uses the words ‘fortune,' ‘easy,' and ‘no time,' I've got a lot of questions. If it's so simple, why isn't everybody doing it?”

Del leaned forward in the chair. “Everybody
is
doing it, my sweet! Only a week's passed since the Roamer convocation when it all came out into the open.” He described how simple equipment could pump stardrive fuel out of the bloaters, condense it, and store it in tanks.

Patrick said, “We've heard about bloaters, but nobody can explain what they are.”

“Who cares what they are?” Del said. “They're full of ekti-X! We can go fill a hundred tanks and sell it on the open market. Everybody needs stardrive fuel.”

Zhett pulled back her long, dark hair to secure it in a ponytail. “But if all the Roamer clans are harvesting ekti-X, will we be able to sell it?”

“That's why we've got to hurry, by damn!” He sounded exasperated.

“Dad,” Zhett said, “we can barely afford this room. How are we possibly going to launch an operation like that?”

Her father stroked his beard. “You leave that to me. I've got an ingenious plan.”

Zhett found the idea of his “plan” almost as frightening as the thought of another shadow cloud.

*   *   *

From his years serving as Speaker, with backroom deals and clan connections, favors passed back and forth, Del Kellum had more influence than Zhett realized.

He bullied Speaker Ricks, especially in light of all his awkward dealings—dealings that were being quietly ignored with the ekti-X rush and all the angry attention turned toward Iswander Industries. Del reminded Ricks that any Speaker could be ousted with a vote of no confidence if someone bothered to push—someone, say, as powerful and well-liked as Del Kellum. “In fact, I might even be interested in being Speaker again. I suppose I could challenge your leadership in an open session.” After the offhanded comment, Ricks was very amenable to suggestions, and Del negotiated reparations for those clans that had been caught on the short end of Ricks's bribes and favoritism. As a result, he earned the undying gratitude of the Roamer Speaker—which translated into a very solid line of credit that clan Kellum needed.

Zhett joined her father in some of his business meetings, marveling at how adept he was at interpersonal negotiations and barter. Del was a master of the art of politics.

Now that they had a chance again, Patrick and Zhett were able to reconnect with their distillery employees who had fled to Newstation after Kuivahr. They didn't have Marius Denva, who had been lost in the shadow attack, but they had plenty of competent line managers.

Zhett asked if the crew would be willing to join another Kellum industrial operation. These workers had followed them from place to place, serving first on the great Golgen skymine—which the shadows had destroyed—and then at the Kuivahr distillery, which also ended in a disaster. Zhett was touched that all these people would stay with employers who faced so many “circumstances beyond their control.” But they saw their Guiding Star, and she was glad they did.

Feeling flush and hopeful again, Del rented a banquet room in one of Newstation's eating establishments. He bought the crew dinner, and as the meal was served, Zhett, Patrick, and Del looked out at the optimistic group. She wasn't comfortable promising them something so uncertain and intangible, but Del was as blustery as ever while the eager crew ate their spiced noodles with a side dish of fresh fruit from the greenhouse deck.

Zhett tried to enjoy her meal. “I think you're promising them too much, Dad. You've got a line of credit, and we've got eager workers, but—in case you haven't noticed—other clans bought up every scrap of available equipment. A good plan isn't going to help us harvest ekti-X. We don't have the tools. How are we going to pull this off?”

“Ah, use your imagination, my sweet.” He sampled yet another clan-produced orange liqueur, which he complained about, but drank anyway.

“I can't conjure any real equipment with my imagination.”

“Maybe I can make inquiries,” Patrick said. “I still have some favors owed me back in the Confederation.”

“We've already got the equipment, by damn.” Del sounded smug.

Patrick frowned. “What? Is it invisible?”

“No, just a little inaccessible, but I'm sure it's remained intact for the last couple of decades.” He fell silent and sipped his liqueur, stringing them along. Zhett rolled her eyes at the contrived delay.

Del finally explained. “We'll get everything from our mothballed operations in the Osquivel cometary cloud. All those ships, rigs, and tankers we put up there high above the ecliptic. The equipment was old, but serviceable. We abandoned it in place after the comet-extraction operations stopped being economically feasible.”

He leaned forward and grinned at Zhett and Patrick while the rest of his workers conversed and laughed and ate food on Del's bill. “These bloaters are a thousand times more efficient. We have everything we need in cold storage—tanks, pumps, and delivery engines. I say we move the whole operation off to the first bloater cluster we find.”

Zhett grinned at her husband. She looked at Patrick, who was smiling just as widely. “That would work,” she said.

“Yes it would, by damn,” Del said. “We already own the equipment, we have our workers.” He finished off his orange liqueur and wiped his lips. “Clan Kellum is back in business!”

 

CHAPTER

28

ORLI COVITZ

Although she had enjoyed flying with Tasia and Robb aboard the
Curiosity,
Orli felt much more at ease with Garrison. As the
Prodigal Son
headed back toward Newstation, DD expressed his optimism. “I will be glad to see young Seth again. I am sure he needs me to help him with his studies.”

“You and I just left him a few days ago, DD,” Orli pointed out.

“He will still want my help,” said the compy. “Seth enjoys spending time with me.”

During the journey, Orli basked in the warmth of Garrison's company. “When I suggested that we spend a month apart to think about things, I didn't realize how hard it would be. I guess it wasn't my best idea.” Orli snuggled up against him.

“We both needed enough time to miss each other.” Garrison put his arm around her. “Now, we're sure.”

They had been worried that their attraction was one of convenience, a relationship between two lonely people—which they were—but she felt a genuine closeness to Garrison that she had never felt with her former husband. With Matthew, their interests had been more aligned than their hearts. With Garrison, their personalities seemed like interlocking puzzle pieces. When they talked, she took pleasure in the simplest conversation. Orli
liked
being with him, even doing mundane things. And Garrison liked her—so the puzzle pieces fit together even better, and their two separate lives became one larger whole.…

During the flight to Newstation, the
Prodigal Son
came upon another silent cluster of bloaters floating in the empty reaches of interstellar space. Garrison deactivated the stardrive and let the ship drift among the gray-green nodules. Orli stared through the main windowport, her face close to his. The bloaters were powerful, mysterious, far from any star. The ship's lights illuminated the mottled membranes.

Garrison said, “I was in this ship when Seth and I found the first bloaters. We had never seen anything like them, but now they seem to be everywhere. How is it possible we didn't notice them before?”

“Maybe more of them are appearing?” In her mind she felt a thrumming connection, like the last resonance from a tuning fork just out of the range of hearing. “Remember the ones we saw outside the Ikbir system—clusters and connecting chains that extended far out into space?” She looked at him. “No, we didn't just miss them before. With all of the Roamer ships flying around the Spiral Arm for centuries, it's not possible. These are something new.” She drew a deep breath, rubbed the tension at the nape of her neck. “Can you feel it? It's like a throbbing in the back of my head.”

Garrison's brow wrinkled. “No … nothing.”

Orli moved her fingers to rub her temples. “It's there. I can feel it.”

Garrison quickly withdrew the
Prodigal Son
to a safe distance when several of the bloater nuclei sparkled, giving off bright and energetic flashes. “My ship's been damaged that way before. I'm not putting you at risk.”

“When they flashed, I felt an extra tingle in my mind,” Orli said. “Maybe I have some kind of connection because I immersed myself in one of them. Do you think I was so weak from the plague that the bloaters changed something in me?”

“They certainly cured you,” Garrison said.

“That was thanks to Aelin,” she said. “Because of his treeling and telink, he forged a clear link with them. Maybe he convinced the bloaters to heal me when I was dying.”

“They're just gas bags,” Garrison said, “just … space plankton.”

“We don't know that. Nobody does, and that's the problem. The extraction operations are draining them by the thousands. What if they are alive?”

“Cabbages are alive,” Garrison pointed out. “So is algae.”

Orli frowned. “You know they're more than that. If it was just algae, I wouldn't sense anything.”

She felt a sudden uneasiness. Thousands of bloaters being drained, and she knew that it was because of her—along with Tasia and Robb. Without thinking, they had delivered the remarkable news to Rendezvous that the bloaters were filled with ekti-X, which had sparked hundreds of harvesting operations across the Spiral Arm. She had set the wheels in motion, and she worried about what she had done.

Her eyes stung as the looked out at the peaceful, enigmatic nodules hanging there. “These bloaters feel different to me, Garrison. There's more energy inside me and inside them.”

She remembered being immersed in the protoplasm, but at the time she had been delirious, weak, and lost. Her being cured had been an anomaly, a surprise. Aelin had insisted that something about the exposure worked just right in her failing body. She could not explain it, and the green priest was now gone.

Orli felt unsettled. The faint presence around her, so warm and powerful here close to the bloater cluster, made her believe there was something more to them. These nodules were not just sacks of readily available fuel.

She hoped the answer would become clear before the widespread operations drained them all.

 

CHAPTER

29

TASIA TAMBLYN

When the
Voracious Curiosity
returned to Earth after their side trip to Fireheart Station, Tasia dreaded all the administrative work that must have piled up in their absence. Rlinda certainly wouldn't have done it for them.

The big trader woman waved as they emerged from the familiar spacecraft in the Kett Shipping tower. “Glad you brought my ship back without a scratch—and that's a surprise, considering all you've been through.”

Robb looked embarrassed. “We did institute some cosmetic repairs at Newstation, so you wouldn't notice.”

Tasia added, “The Roamers were happy to help, especially once we told them that bloaters are full of stardrive fuel.”

Rlinda crossed her arms over her chest. “You all caused quite a bit of trouble by breaking the news. So, Kett Shipping is no longer delivering Iswander's ekti-X?”

Tasia blinked. “Of course not! Shizz, they wiped out half of clan Duquesne, and Elisa Enturi tried to kill us when we found their operations.”