Cale took a deep breath. How could he lie to Dee?
Could
he lie to Dee? No, he answered himself. Dee deserved the truth, even though it would mean the end of their budding relationship. “All right,” he began. “I know about pirates because I
was
one for awhile. But first, I was a slave. I escaped with a bunch of other slaves. We were starving, and hijacked,
pirated
an ore carrier. We became pirates. Then we found out it was just another kind of slavery – a horrible kind. I witnessed, I did, horrible things, until I could escape. As for how I got
Cheetah
, I
stole
her. I ran fast and far, and changed her identity and mine. That aunt I mentioned was
mine
; but she won't recognize me now.
Cheetah
's legal now, though, and legally mine. I’m still running. But I hate what they did to me, what they made me, with a depth of hatred I hope you never experience.” He slammed a hand on the table. “I’ll never be that kind of animal again, even if it means being enslaved again.”
He sighed. “And I don’t have a trade route mapped because I’m not a trader. I no longer know
what
I am.”
He looked at her stunned expression, and all his hope for the future died. Once again, his pirate past had killed a promising love. “Now, get out of here,” he said gruffly. “Zant and I have some plans to make, and they may not be pretty!”
She started to rise again, and then stopped, and settled once more into her seat. “No,” she said simply.
Cale’s eyebrows rose. “No?”
“No,” she repeated. She was regaining control of herself, and her expression firmed. “I can’t even guess what it must be like to be a slave, if even piracy looks like salvation. But I can imagine a slave grasping at
any
chance to escape that horror.”
Her firm expression became even harder. “But I must know one thing. Did you, personally, ever commit murder?”
Strangely, the question caused some of his tension to abate. At least he would not have to lie. “No,” he replied honestly. “I have killed three men. All were armed, and all were trying to kill me.”
She nodded soberly. “Thank you for your honesty. I have observed you very carefully these past weeks. You have never behaved with anything but honesty and integrity. Faith cared nothing about what happened to me once we lifted off. If you had cared to, you could have raped or killed me, or even sold me into slavery. Instead, you treated me with courtesy and respect. I’ve seen your hatred and fear of the pirates, and the courage and imagination with which you dealt with them. You could have restrained me or even killed me to avoid having to come to Angeles. Instead, you pandered to my naïve opinions, and took the chance of having your identity or that of your ship revealed.”
She shook her head. “No matter what you have been or done in the past, in my experience you have been an honest and honorable man. You have nothing to fear from me.”
She straightened and raised her eyes to meet his. “That is, you have nothing to fear unless you try to keep me from helping you help Ilocan, and make me demonstrate that I can outfight you any time!”
"Maybe," he said in a droll tone. "But I wasn't really concerned about your fighting ability. I'm more concerned with whether you could butcher a hog or survive being out of reach of a spa. You’ve led a very sheltered life as the daughter of the Primate, or whatever it was.”
Dee’s frown evaporated as she struggled to suppress a giggle. “Not ‘Primate’, ‘Prelate’. A primate is a monkey.”
The smile Cale was trying to suppress grew into a grin. “And the difference is . . .?”
This time the giggle burst forth, and turned into a full-throated laugh. “Now that you mention it . . .,” she replied, before being carried off by laughter again.
And so it was understood that Dee would go with Cale. He still had misgivings, but he realized that she had the right to make her own decision.
Cale struggled to regain his composure. True, he had minimized his pirate experience, but he took comfort from the fact that he hadn’t actually
lied
to Dee. She knew! She actually knew he had been a pirate, and she had forgiven him! Perhaps he had hopes of a future after all!
“All right, Dee,” he said. “We’ll talk to Zant together. But I still think you should wait for me here.”
She shook her head. “Not a chance!” A sudden smile blossomed. “You mentioned some people and places Zant might know that may not be 'nice'. There’s no way I’m going to miss seeing an honest-to-God Den of Iniquity!” Cale could hear the capitals in the last phrase.
He grinned and shrugged. “You asked for it. I’ll get Zant.”
When they were all together again, Cale explained their decision, and then turned to Zant. "How about you, Zant? You want to go get your fool head blown off in somebody else's war?" He sobered. "Seriously, if you're not interested, I'll understand. And I'll still give you a lift to any planet between here and there. Except Santiago, of course."
Zant snorted. "Except for losing my partners' money, I haven't done a damfool thing for quite a while. I'm about due. But both of you need to understand," he continued, "I've been in a war. There's nothing glamorous about what a disruptor can do to your closest friend. You'd both better think real hard before you volunteer to let unfriendly strangers shoot at you."
Cale slammed his fist on the table again while shaking his head. "No, Damn it!" he said. "I've been fighting for nothing. It's time to fight for something. Something important." He turned to Zant. "I think I'd like to talk to this 'underground newsie' you mentioned. Do you happen to know how we could track him down?"
The newsie proved helpful, once Zant began acting like a street tough. He gave them the coordinates of the system where the "Government in Exile" of Ilocan was hiding, but he flatly refused to disclose how he contacted them, which pleased Cale.
He told the man to contact the "Government in Exile" and warn them that a ship would be approaching them, but not to shoot until they had a chance to establish comms. Then he reminded the man that Santies could read, too, and that he should be very careful for a while.
They lifted from Angeles, just within their forty-eight hour deadline. Cale gave Tess the coordinates, and they boosted max for the jump point. It was two jumps to the nameless system housing the "Government in Exile," but they were relatively short. Still, it gave the three of them time to become very good friends by the time they reached their goal.
According to the
Stellar index
the system was uninhabited; but either the
index
was out of date, or it didn't consider atmosphere mines to be habitations. The mine in question was sited on a small airless moon circling a gas giant. From there, specially designed scoopships skipped along the outer atmosphere of the huge planet, scooping up and compressing the atmospheric gases. They then returned to the moon, where the gases were unloaded, separated, and purified.
Mining was still going on, but now the mine housed the refugee government of Ilocan as well.
Cheetah
emerged from the jump point and boosted max for the mine. It was only a few hours before Tess told Cale, "We're being scanned by targeting radars, Captain. We're still too far out for them to get a lock, but they are definitely trying."
Cale nodded. "We're also still too far out to establish two-way comms," he replied. "But I think I should get things started before some fool takes a shot at us. Let's record them a starter message. "Private vessel
Cheetah
to the Government in Exile of the Planet of Ilocan," he began. "We are volunteers come to help. Please do not fire. If Jessica Smith is there, please tell her John, from Peltir IV, sent us. If she is not there, please understand we are not hostile. I say again, please do not fire. We will establish comm link as soon as lag time is down to five seconds. No response is necessary, but
do not fire
!"
"Send that on a loop until we get within five light-seconds, Tess," he continued, "and let's hope Aunt Jessica is home."
She was. As soon as two-way communication was established a thin woman with streaks of gray in her hair stared grimly at Cale from the comm screen. "I haven't heard from Johnny in years. Why should I believe you?"
Cale shrugged. "I'm sorry, ma'am. John got into some political trouble, and ended up being sent to the mines. That's why you haven't heard from him."
She flinched visibly. "Let me guess. The damn fool got to poking his nose into the wrong people's business. He never had a lick of sense."
"If it's any consolation, ma'am, we did manage to escape," Cale replied with a smile.
She shook her head. "Well, I hope he's at least got enough sense to stay away from here. He isn't with you, is he?"
Cale suppressed a frown. He hated to lie to Aunt Jessie. In a certain sense, though, 'John Smith'
wasn't
here; only Cale Rankin. "No, ma'am. There's just the three of us: me, Zant Jenfu and Delilah Raum. I'm Cale Rankin. We're here to find out how we can help."
No missiles launched, no lasers flared.
Cheetah
grounded gently among several of the huge scoopships. They suited up and crossed to the mining dome, where Jessica met them with two men carrying Old Empire style blasters. The introductions went well, and soon they and six Ilocanos were sitting comfortably in a large room that evidently served as lunchroom, lounge, and meeting room.
"So," Jessica said once they all had drinks, "Exactly how do you think you're going to help?"
Cale shrugged. "That's why we came here first. Before we can even plan, we need up-to-date knowledge of the problem."
"It's a goddam standoff," replied the man who had been introduced as Ster Mong, 'Minister of Defense'. "They can't leave Homesafe without losing troops and equipment, and we can't get off-planet or resupply."
"We're pretty self-sufficient," Jessica added. "Ilocanos can live off the land. But weapons, ammunition, and supplies have to be brought in, and the Santies are running a damned effective blockade. Some of our people are down to homemade weapons, bows, and spears. It's become a war of attrition. As Ster says, it's pretty much a standoff. Our main hope lies in the fact that Santiago isn't really a very wealthy planet, and they waste what they have on giveaways to the 'poor', who then have no reason to work their way out of poverty." She waved a hand. "Sorry. I was a schoolteacher, and I still tend to lecture. Anyway, our hope is that the Santie government will decide they're throwing money down a hole, and will back off."
Ster Mong snorted. "Might work, too, in ten or twelve years! The Santies have elections coming up in a couple of years. Any official that suggested backing off now would be committing political suicide. So, we sit on our butts here and send out 'press releases'!"
Cale was getting an understanding of the situation. This 'government' wasn't really doing anything effective. Questioning revealed that their last contact with the planet itself had occurred more than a month previously. Even if they managed to sneak past the Santie picket and get near the planet itself, they had no means of contacting the Resistance that couldn't be eavesdropped by the Santies.
"So," Zant said when they were alone. "These people are amateurs. Worse, they're bureaucrats. Without an organization to manage, they're helpless. I think we should work on our own. I damned sure don't trust any of 'em with our plans." He glanced at Cale. "Except maybe your friend's aunt.
Cale shook his head morosely. "Not even her. She's a good lady, but whatever we do, we need to do it ourselves, and without any 'help' from these people."
Still, they stayed around for a few days, to meet the people in the 'government' and those outside it who were willing to volunteer to help. A surprising number of them were qualified space pilots; or maybe not so surprising, given the number of skilled atmosphere miners. It was the first good news Cale had received here, and it gave him an idea.
"Believe it or not," Cale began as the three gathered in
Cheetah
's lounge after they had lifted off, "I’m the legal owner of a surface and orbital ship scrap yard on Torlon.”
“Torlon?” Zant replied with a frown, “I heard they’d lost spaceflight.”
Cale nodded. “They have. The owner of the last operable ship deeded me his scrap yard before he left. Lots of military hulks in that yard.”
Dee frowned. “Okay, but what can you do with a bunch of scrap?”
“Maybe more than you think,” Cale replied with a smile. “Zant, I gather you’ve been kicking around this sector for quite a while.”
Zand nodded with a smile. “About thirty years.”
Cale responded with a nod of his own. “If you had, say, two thousand carats of flawless white diamonds, do you think you could hire a dozen or so men with orbital shipyard experience for a short-term job?”
Zant straightened, his casual smile gone. “Two
thousand
carats?” At Cale’s nod, he stroked his chin. “Haveta convert ‘em to gold or Alliance credits. We could do that at Freehold, if we was careful. Discount on diamonds shouldn’t be too bad.” He straightened, and his smile returned. “Sheol yeah. Go to Vishnu. They been hit pretty hard lately. They've been in a planet-wide depression for near two years, now. Lots of yards cuttin’ back, and the government is desperate for hard currencies. For two thousand carats we could damn near buy the shipyard, and pick up a load of weapons to boot.”
Cale shook his head. “We’d also have to charter a ship to get the crew to Torlon.
Cheetah
’s too small to haul that many people.”
Zant looked at Cale with a hooded expression. “Yeah. But she's a beautiful li’l thing. Perfect for a little midnight tradin’.”
Cale’s smile was noncommittal. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Zant continued. “I’ve done more’n a bit of midnight tradin’ myself.”
Dee looked puzzled. “Midnight trading?”
“Smuggling,” Cale replied. “Zant is saying that
Cheetah
would be a great smuggler’s ship.” His smile widened. “He’s right, too.”