Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (20 page)

Brock stared at Glenn. “Wow. That’s actually amazingly
clever.”

Glenn smiled. “That’s how they did it. Galaxia, Nebulaco,
all of them. The only difference is they used monopolies, price-fixing, union
busting, and bribery. I’m just doing my piracy right in the open.”

“When are you going to go legit?”

“When I have to. I have some funds put away. I have some
invested. I’ve already purchased a couple of businesses. Did you know that
there’s a lot of money in adult novelties? The markup is incredible.”

“Ah, no,” Brock said, shaking his head slowly. “I did not
know that.”

Glenn smiled. “You think I’m crazy. But I’m not going to be
a pirate forever. Mark my words.”

“Consider them marked.”

“So, the question is, do you want to be part of this vision?
Before you answer, remember that most of the men here are short-term. They
contract for a year and they get paid well, but they are never trusted with any
sensitive information. If you start along this path to the inner circle, you
won’t be able to leave it until we achieve our goal and get out of the piracy
business.”

Brock nodded. He was finally getting somewhere. This was his
ticket to the coordinates of the base.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“As well you should.”

“The corollary to this is that if you try to leave once you
have obtained a certain level of knowledge, we’ll kill you straight away. No
hesitation. I regret that ugly truth, but it’s my personal survival at stake.”

“Understood,” Brock said. Because if he indeed got the
information he was looking for, he would report to the Confed, and they would
return with enough firepower to turn the pirate base into a cinder.

Glenn extended his hand, and Brock shook it.

“Welcome to the inner circle,” Glenn said.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S
ai felt something. This was significant, because before she
had felt nothing. Not hot or cold or even the sound of silence. It was the
complete lack of sensation, a total soul-sucking emptiness that made her very
self-awareness feel as if it were fading.

She didn’t know how long she had been in the Grid. There was
no sense of duration. It was always
now
, a static state of being, and
although that state constantly altered, flipping into a new configuration like
the value of a mathematical variable, there was no sense of the measure of the
pause between those changes.

Then she felt it again, a soft touch, or maybe it was a
quiet sound just beyond her actual hearing, like air disturbed by a feather
falling. But to her it was a banquet of sensation, a feast of feeling. She
moved toward it in the darkness, drifting like a moth toward a distant glow.

There. It was closer this time, clearer. She felt that it
was a presence, a familiar essence. She reached for it, grasping desperately.

“Sai,” came the whisper.

A word. A name.
Her
name. Sai was
her
name.
Realizing that strengthened her identity. She moved toward it again … and
touched Elsa’s questing thoughts.

She exploded with joy. Elsa! A friend in the wilderness.
They met and touched and merged and knew each other. It was a time of sharing. At
first touch Sai knew that Elsa was more than a simulation, more than a complex
copy of a human psyche. Elsa was truly sentient. She had thoughts rather than
programs, feelings rather than readouts. They were different than a human’s, but
they were nonetheless alive and vibrant. She drifted and wandered into
memories.

She felt Elsa’s life as a human. She saw Elsa’s parents, a
precious toy, and then a family pet. She rollicked with her in starport bars,
rambled with a younger version of Hank as they explored for the Confed Scouts.

Then pain—the agony of a terrible accident. Surgeries,
physical therapy, but still pain, always pain. Hank was there, too. He held her
hand. He pulled her from the floor of seedy motels and carried her home when
her paralysis took hold. He cleaned her body as if she were an infant. Shame.
And love.

Finally, Sai came to the moment of Elsa’s transcendence from
humanity into something more.

Her senses expanded from the Grid to encompass Elsa’s being.
She felt each part of the ship, moving into the drive unit, shields, life
support, and communications. Sai had never been linked with a starship before. The
power was enormous. The temptation to tear away from the confines of the planet
was overwhelming. Gravity and atmosphere stifled her purpose. She was meant to
fly through the abyss of space. A nuclear heart burned in her breast. It cried
for freedom.

“Sai,” a voice spoke to her. It was Elsa. “Calm down, dear. There
will be time for flight later. Now we have to do our job, then get back to
Hank.”

Sai’s mind made the connection—Hank, Elsa, Chandler, the
mansion on Mordi. The bank system. She had so much to tell them, but she hadn’t
been able to do the one thing that would give them a hope for success and an
edge on whoever was behind this plot. But perhaps, with Elsa’s help, she could.

“Thank you, Elsa. I was a little lost for a while. Can you
help me with something? With you holding my hand, so to speak, I think we can
make this situation a lot better for us all.”

“Okay, sister. Let’s do it quickly, then get you home.”

Sai opened her eyes. She was lying on a couch in some room
in the mansion. At first, no one noticed she had returned. Randol had his nose
in a book. Hank sat in a chair across the room with his head in his hands, and
Chandler was nowhere to be seen.

Her body ached. Her legs were asleep, and her neck had a
catch in it that caused a stabbing pain, but she was thankful for every
unpleasant sensation. It was better than the alternative of emptiness.

“Well? Isn’t anyone going to welcome us back?” Sai asked,
her voice soft and weak.

Hank bolted from his chair and rushed to her side. “Are you
all right?” he asked, hugging her.

“Uh … well … ah … I can’t breathe. You’re
squeezing the life out of me, but otherwise I’m fine.”

He kissed her, then drew back. “I ought to bend you over my
knee. What were you thinking? It was too dangerous.”

She shook her head. “There was no other way, Hank. I don’t
want to be on the run for the rest of my life. We had to have some way to get
the corporation off our backs. This was our only chance.”

“Screw it. We’ll space out of here and hole up like we’d
planned—wait!” Hank slapped his forehead. He flipped on the com. “Elsa? Elsa?
Are you okay?”

Elsa laughed. “I was wondering when you were going to quit
slobbering over your tart and see if I made it.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’m just so damned
happy to have you both back with me. Thank you.”

“So tell us you love us, give her another kiss, and let’s
get this show on the road.”

“I see the ladies made a satisfactory recovery,” Randol
said, his book now forgotten.

Hank looked at Randol, who was sitting calmly. “You aren’t a
big celebration-type guy, are you?”

Randol smiled. “I’m truly happy they’re safe. It’s a
positive, but we still have a lot of negatives on the table.”

Hank pondered for just a moment and then felt a bit ashamed.
He’d gotten his people back, but Randol still didn’t have Helen. “We’ll get
your daughter back, Lord Randol.”

“As far as that puzzle goes,” Sai said as she tried to push
herself upright, “I think I have some more pieces.”

She sat up straight. “Elsa and I were able to track down and
retrieve the histories related to those questionable accounts, and record the
passwords to access them. I think I know what someone was trying so hard to
cover up.”

“Did this involve Director Casey?” Randol asked.

Sai shrugged. “I have no idea. To tell the truth, it could
be anyone.”

She stood and walked slowly and carefully to a data terminal
and pulled up the information she had dumped into the system. Columns of
numbers appeared.

“Someone has been funneling profits from the pirating of the
Nebulaco shipments into hundreds of accounts. Some are individual accounts. Some
are businesses. They are scattered all over Manspace. I can’t tell if they’re
real or just shadow identities of some kind. But I know there’s an account for
you, Lord Randol. Also one for Lady Hemming and Lord Oke.”

“I’ve never had such an account,” Randol said, obviously
somewhat insulted.

“I’m not saying you know about it. But someone set up an
account in your name. I don’t know why.”

Randol nodded. “I think I do. It gives them a way to
discredit the board if they need to. Insinuate involvement in the plot.”

Chandler grunted. “Seems like a stretch.”

“Whoever set this up wasn’t a fool,” Randol said. “They
planned this extremely well.”

Sai continued her explanation. “Each of those accounts has
also been slowly purchasing Nebulaco stock. Never too much at any one time, and
never too many purchases from any one source. The lower the price of the stock
goes due to the strain on the corporation, the easier it has become to buy the
stock.”

Hank shrugged. “Why are they buying Nebulaco stock?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Randol said. He stood and looked at the
others in the room. “Someone is buying up enough stock to get on the Council of
Lords.”

Sai nodded. “But even if they bought all the stock that the
lords don’t own, don’t you and the other lords still have a majority?”

Randol shook his head. “Not if we go through with the stock
sale that Lord Oke has proposed. We would only hold a little over forty-five
percent. How much stock has already been accumulated in those accounts?”

Sai checked the data she had retrieved. “It looks like the
combined stock from all these accounts is about forty percent.”

“They could do it. This upcoming stock sale proposed by Lord
Oke could provide them just enough leverage to take over, and there isn’t
anything anyone can do about it.”

Sai nodded. “Each of these accounts already has a pending
buy order waiting on the big Nebulaco stock sale. They are set to automatically
buy the new stock as soon as it becomes available.”

“What about the Confed?” Hank asked.

“Humph,” Randol said. “They can do nothing about fraud,
theft, and corruption in the corporations. They have a hands-off policy on that
which does not directly affect the free flow of trade in the spaceways. They
keep the pilots and the ports safe. They ensure that dictators with battle
fleets don’t start interstellar wars, not because it’s a bad thing for the
people, but because it interferes with commerce. Planetary war—hell, they
encourage that. As long as the starports aren’t shelled. That’s great for the
arms trade. They don’t care about anything else.”

“But all this money came from piracy,” Hank said. “How can
that not be a Confed concern?”

Randol shrugged. “Once the money has changed hands and gone
into the market, there isn’t much they can do. Just as when, once a stolen ship
has been refitted and is back out amongst the stars, the Confed can’t do a
thing about it.”

“He’s right,” Chandler said. “But the reasons are a little
skewed. The Confed has to let local governments govern themselves. Those
governments are the ones who choose to do nothing about corruption. As soon as
the Confed starts trying to enforce laws on the locals, they get accused of
being fascist imperial overlords. Same overall effect, though. We won’t be
getting any help from the Confed on this.”

“Well,” Randol said. “Thankfully, you found out what was
going on.”

“Damn right she did,” Hank said.

Randol approached Sai. “So who is it? Who’s been doing
this?”

She sighed. “There are hundreds of accounts. They’re held in
various names. Someone, somewhere has the account numbers and the passwords and
is controlling them. I have no idea who. They could belong to Thorne. They would be
a brilliant way to go from pirate to untouchable corporate lord in one grand
move.”

Chandler shook his head. “I just can’t imagine that he would
be so subtle. No, there has to be someone else. Someone feeding him information
from within, someone using Thorne to create this shadow empire. That’s our true
enemy.”

“So, how do we find out who it is?” Hank asked.

“We don’t have to,” Sai said and smiled. “It will be obvious
when the money flows. Elsa and I have done some tinkering.” She winked at Hank.

Aland, Randol’s butler, entered the room and whispered in
Randol’s ear. Randol gasped and nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

Aland left the room.

 Randol stood. “I have an important call. Please excuse me.”
He turned and followed Aland out the door.

Hank looked at Sai and shrugged. “What was that about?”

Sai shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t good news. That’s for sure.”