“So shift to data-courier work. That way we don’t have to physically dock with any stations. Alternatively, we just fetch
and carry cargo between Edenist habitats.”
He shifted his wineglass about on the table, uncomfortable with the idea. “That’s too much like giving in, letting him win.”
“Well, make up your mind.”
He managed a desultory smile. “I dunno.”
“Captain Meyer?”
He glanced up. A smallish black woman was standing at the end of the booth’s table, dressed in a conservative grey suit; her
skin was black enough to make Cherri seem white. He guessed she was in her early sixties. “That’s me.”
“You are the owner of the
Udat
?”
“Yes.” If it had been anywhere else but Tranquillity, Meyer would have pegged her as a tax inspector.
“I am Dr Alkad Mzu,” she said. “I wonder if I could sit with you for a moment? I would like to discuss some business.”
“Be my guest.”
He signalled to a waitress for another wineglass, and poured out the last of the bottle when it arrived.
“I require some transportation outsystem,” Alkad said.
“Just for yourself? No cargo?”
“That is correct. Is it a problem?” “Not for me. But the
Udat
doesn’t come cheap. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever carried just one passenger before.”
We haven’t,
Udat
said.
Meyer quashed a childish grin. “Where do you want to travel? I can probably give you a quote straight away.”
“New California.” She sipped her wine, peering at him over the rim of the glass.
Out of the corner of his eye, Meyer could see Cherri frowning. There were regular commercial flights to the New Californian
system from Tranquillity three or four times a week, and more non-scheduled charter flights on top of that. The Laton scare
hadn’t stopped any departures yet. He was suddenly very curious about Alkad Mzu.
OK, let’s see how badly she wants to get there. “That would be at least three hundred thousand fuseodollars,” he told her.
“I expected it to be about that,” she replied. “Once we arrive, I may wish to pick up some cargo to carry on to a further
destination. Could you supply me with the
Udat
’s performance and handling parameters, please?”
“Yes, of course.” He was only slightly mollified. Taking a cargo on somewhere was a viable excuse for an exclusive charter.
But why not travel to New California on a regular civil flight, then hire a starship after she arrived? The only reason he
could think of was that she specifically wanted a blackhawk. That wasn’t good, not good at all. “But
Udat
is only available for civil flights,” he stressed the word lightly.
“Naturally,” Alkad Mzu said.
“That’s all right then.” He opened a channel to her neural nanonics and datavised the blackhawk’s handling capacity over.
“What sort of cargo would we pick up?” Cherri asked. “I’m the
Udat
’s cargo officer, I may be able to advise on suitability.”
“Medical equipment,” Alkad said. “I have some type-definition files.” She datavised them to Meyer.
The list expanded in his mind, resembling a three-dimensional simulacrum of magnified chip circuitry, with every junction
labelled. There seemed to be an awful lot of it. “Fine,” he said, slightly at a loss. “We’ll review it later.” Have to run
it through an analysis program, he thought.
“Thank you,” Alkad said. “The journey from New California will be approximately two hundred light-years, if you’d care to
work out a quote based on the cargo’s mass and environmental requirements. I will be asking other captains for quotes.”
“We’ll be tough to beat,” he said smoothly.
“Is there any reason why we can’t know where we’re going?” Cherri asked.
“My colleagues and I are still in the preliminary planning stage of the mission. I’d prefer not to say anything more at this
time. But I shall certainly inform you of our destination before we leave Tranquillity.” Alkad stood up. “Thank you for your
time, Captain. I hope we see each other again. Please datavise your full quote to me at any time.”
“She hardly touched her wine,” Cherri said as the doctor departed.
“Yes,” Meyer said distantly. Five other people were leaving the bar. None of them space industry types. Merchants? But they
didn’t look rich enough.
“Are we putting in a formal bid?”
“Good question.”
I would like to visit New California,
Udat
said hopefully.
We’ve been before. You just want to fly.
I do. It is boring sitting on this ledge.
Udat
relayed an image of whirling stars as seen from Tranquillity’s docking-ledge, speeded up, always tracing the same circles.
The edge of the habitat’s spaceport disk started to grey, then crumbled and broke apart with age.
Meyer grinned.
What an imagination you have. I’ll get us a charter soon. That’s a promise.
Good!
“I think we need to know a little bit more about this Mzu woman,” he said out loud. “No way is she on the level.”
“Oh, really?” Cherri cooed; she cocked her head on one side. “You noticed that, did you?”
Ione let go of the image. Her apartment rematerialized around her. Augustine was walking determinedly across the dining-room
table towards the remains of the salad she had pushed away, moving at a good fifty centimetres a minute. At the back of her
mind she was aware of Alkad Mzu standing in the vestibule of the thirty-first floor of the StMartha starscraper waiting for
a lift. There were seven Intelligence agency operatives hanging around in the park-level foyer above her, alerted by their
colleagues in Harkey’s Bar. Two of them—a female operative from New Britain, and the second-in-command of the Kulu team—resolutely
refused to make eye contact. Strange really. For the last three weeks they had spent most of their off-duty hours in bed together
screwing each other into delirious exhaustion.
In my history courses I recall an incident in the twentieth century when the American CIA tried to get rid of a Caribbean
island’s Communist president by giving him an exploding cigar,
Ione said.
Yes?
Tranquillity asked loyally.
Six hundred years of progress—human style.
Would you like me to inform Meyer that Alkad Mzu will not be granted an exit visa?
Informing him I’ll blow him and the
Udat
out of existence if he leaves with her would be more to the point. But no, we won’t do anything yet. How many captains has
she contacted now?
Sixty-three in the last twenty months.
And every contact follows the same pattern,
she mused. A request for a charter fee quote to carry her to a star system, then picking up a cargo to take onwards. But
never the same star system; and it was Joshua who was asked to quote for Garissa. Ione tried not to consider the implications
of that. It
had
to be coincidence.
I am sure it is,
Tranquillity said.
I was leaking. Sorry.
There was never any follow-up to her meeting with Joshua.
No. But what is she doing, I wonder?
I have two possible explanations. First, she is aware of the agency observers—and it would be hard to believe she is not—and
she is simply having fun at their expense.
Fun? You call that fun? Threatening to recover the Alchemist?
Her home planet has been annihilated. If the humour is somewhat rough, that is to be expected.
Of course. Go on.
Secondly, she is attempting to produce a range of escape options which exceed the observers’ ability to keep track of. Sixty-three
is an excessive number of captains to contact even for a warped game.
But she must know it isn’t possible to confuse you.
Yes.
Strange woman.
A very intelligent woman.
Ione reached over to her discarded plate, and began shredding one of the lettuce leaves. Augustine crooned adoringly as he
finally reached the pile of shreds, and started to munch at them.
Is it possible for her to circumvent your observation? Apparently Edenists can induce localized blindspots in their habitats’
perception.
I would say it is extremely unlikely. No Edenist has ever succeeded in evading me, and there were many attempts in your grandfather’s
day.
Really?
She perked up.
Yes, by their Intelligence agency operatives. All failed. And I acquired some valuable information on the nature of localized
circumvention patterns they employed. Fortunately I do not use quite the same thought routines as Edenist habitats, so I am
relatively insusceptible. And Alkad Mzu does not have affinity.
Are we sure? She was missing for some time between Garissa’s destruction and turning up here, four years. She could have had
neuron symbionts implanted.
She did not. A complete medical body scan is required for health-insurance coverage for all Laymil project staff when they
start work. She has neural nanonics, but no affinity symbionts. Nor any other implants, for that matter.
Oh. I’m still unhappy over these continual encounters with starship captains. Perhaps if I had a private word with her…explain
how upsetting it is.
That might work.
Did Father ever meet her?
No.
I’ll think about what to say then, I don’t want to come over all heavy handed. Perhaps I could invite her for a meal, keep
it informal.
Certainly. She always maintains her social propriety.
Good. In the meantime, I’d like you to double the number of serjeants we keep in her immediate vicinity. With Laton running
loose in the Confederation, we really don’t want to add to Admiral Aleksandrovich’s troubles right now.
Meyer and Cherri Barnes took a lift up from Harkey’s Bar to the StMartha’s foyer. He walked with her down a flight of stairs
to the starscraper’s tube station, and datavised for a carriage.
“Are we going back to the hotel or
Udat
?” Cherri asked.
“My hotel flat has a double bed.”
She grinned, and tucked his arm round hers. “Mine too.”
The carriage arrived, and he datavised the control processor to take them to the hotel. There was a slight surge of acceleration
as it got under way. Meyer sank deeper into his cushioning; Cherri still hadn’t let go of him.
His neural nanonics informed him a file stored in one of the memory cells was altering. Viral safeguard programs automatically
isolated the cell. According to the menu, the file was the cargo list Alkad Mzu had datavised to him.
The viral safeguard programs reported the change had finished; tracer programs probed the file’s new format. It wasn’t hostile.
The file had contained a time-delay code which simply re-arranged the order of the existing information into something entirely
different. A hidden message.
Meyer accessed the contents.
“Holy shit,” he muttered fifteen seconds later.
Now that would be a real challenge,
Udat
said excitedly.
Ombey was the newest of Kulu’s eight principality star systems. A Royal Kulu Navy scoutship discovered the one terracompatible
planet in 2457, orbiting a hundred and forty-two million kilometres from its G2 star. After an ecological certification team
cleared its biosphere as non-harmful, it was declared a Kulu protectorate and opened for immigration by King Lukas in 2470.
Unlike other frontier worlds, such as Lalonde, which formed development companies and struggled to raise investment, Ombey
was funded entirely by the Kulu Royal Treasury and the Crown-owned Kulu Corporation. Even at the beginning it couldn’t be
described as a stage one colony. It couldn’t even be said to have gone through a purely agrarian phase. A stony iron asteroid,
Guyana, was manoeuvred into orbit before the first settler arrived, and navy engineers immediately set about converting it
into a base. Kulu’s larger astroengineering companies brought industry stations to the system to gain a slice of the military
contracts involved, and to take advantage of the huge start-up tax incentives on offer. The Kulu Corporation began a settlement
on an asteroid orbiting the gas giant Nonoiut, which assembled a cloudscoop to mine He3. As always within the Kingdom, the
Edenists were excluded from germinating a habitat and building an adjunct cloudscoop, a prohibition rationalized by the Saldanas
on religious grounds.
By the time the first wave of farmers arrived, the already substantial government presence produced a large readymade consumer
base for their crops. Healthcare, communications, law enforcement, and didactic education courses, although not quite up to
the level of the Kingdom’s more developed planets, were provided from day one. Forty hectares of land were given to each family,
along with a generous low-interest loan for housing and agricultural machinery, with the promise of more land for their children.
Basic planetary industrialization was given a high priority, and entire factories were imported to provide essentials for
the engineering and construction business. Again, government infrastructure contracts provided a massive initial subsidy.
The company and civil workers arriving during the second ten-year period was equal to the number of farmers.
In 2500 its population rose above the ten million mark, and it officially lost its protectorate status to become a principality,
governed by one of the King’s siblings.
Ombey was a meticulously planned endeavour, only possible to a culture as wealthy as the Kulu Kingdom. The Saldanas considered
the investment costs more than worthwhile. Although the Principality didn’t start to show a return for over ninety years,
it allowed them to expand their family dynasty as well as their influence, both physical (economic and military) and political,
inside the Confederation. It made their position even more secure, although by that time a republican revolution was virtually
impossible. And it was all done without conflict or opposition with neighbouring star systems.