Trade Secret (eARC) (14 page)

Then she'd turned colder than ever, and pitched it: "So we'll go with the damn fine joke, so long as I ain't sitting in the seat. Something makes us rush out, the seat decides to accept or reject the first punch. That one's not mine."

*

Khat sat second with Grig on the extra nav and Iza first. No one sat First on Iza's board except Iza, and no one sat second there, either, in case her duty was elsewhere. Just ship's rules--each ship and each captain had 'em. Khat had gotten used to sizing up a board in quick order and adjusting only enough to make her hands and feet sure--but Iza, Iza was getting firmly set in her ways and must have been a pretty problem on her out-shifts, fussing and . . .

Khat cut that line of thought, which was not the way a first mate--acting or solid--should be thinking. Ship's rules were ship's rules.

Too much time to think in the short holes between stuff: she couldn't study something new, couldn't just up and talk about what she or Grig'd been up to because Iza was never one for small talk on the working bridge. She did recalcs in her head, traded the least amount of text about meal shifts with Dyk now that they had Franticle dialed in for the second Jump.

So, they'd hit Serconia as a waypoint, not really even having to talk to folks there, but it didn't make sense to go for an uninhabited or frontier world on their first run of the new systems, after all. Serconia would mean an eightday Jump, and a layover for retests and checks, a few days orbiting there, and then Franticle. With the new approximate ingress and egress time on the Jump known, he could schedule his breakfasts per and get them a light lunch just before breakout. He pointed out a short-spot on her suggestions, and she nodded to herself and sent a query to Grig, who'd apparently been following along and had a whole grid of suggestions . . .

Right, food schedules were never a problem for him--seemed like he could eat whenever there was food, but wasn't much concerned about what it was if it wasn't much--but now he was keeping an eye out for Seeli and the babe as well.

Clock running numbers she saw, time to get to work.

"The mark's coming up on seventeen-point-five minutes, Captain. Protocol and checks will take us to three minutes even if we start at the point."

"Lead the way, First. You and Grig run it to the two minutes and then I'll take Jump."

Flight Deck,
Gobelyn's Market
, Raising Serconia Three

Serconia Three had not been quite where they'd all expected it when Jump broke, and the thing was, the numbers were good. It should have been Khat's own shift by two hours but Iza'd allowed how she'd not been getting the right sleep on account of the new blowers were too damn quiet for a body to be sure they were running proper and so she might as well just sit right here anyhow and bring the
Market
in-system . . .

And they all knew where Serconia ought to be: ships had rhythm and personality and the
Market
had always favored a little wide to port, high about a quarter sec, and with a proper motion bonus of about 20 percent over whatever it had been on Jump. Shouldn't been that way, was what theory said, but they'd got so used to it that they always allowed for it right in the calculations and--

"Well, frozen mud, will you look at that! Ain't no wonder . . ."

Iza was smooth enough, and there weren't no alarms, but--

"Grig Tomas have you ever seen the like--"

They were looking at it, and Khat had already started calling out the numbers they could all see clear enough, with Grig doing a confirm on her numbers and watching the warn-aways, all of them checking their particular instruments to be sure they had clearances and the ship reporting all-clears over comm while the flight crew started screenwise.

"Far as I can tell, Captain, we've arrived within a few percentage points of the set course; with a slow tumble."

"Yeah, we did, didn't we?" the captain allowed. Then, "Kill the tumble, Khat, while we check the rest of these numbers--I'm going to have to start shooting straighter if this is what we get now!"

The tumble was a bother, but not too bad since Iza'd allowed the gravity up a few points because of a kid on board. Without that they'd all be leaning into the back right wall of the ship by now, or tending toward it. But that shooting straighter and getting it right made Khat sigh.

That would take practice and Jumps, Khat knew--the tumble might just have been an ambient flux they hadn't caught on the way out, or one they'd caught on the way in, or a calibration they could adjust or a calibration they couldn't. But Iza'd aimed them for clear space on the elliptic, assuming a proper motion about right for a local asteroid, and instead they'd come up on the wrong side of the damn primary, giving them a retrograde orbit and more than trebling their chance of hitting nasty dust or grit or even boulders at speed. Didn't really help that they were a quarter sec or more low, Serconia having a double cloud that would pump iceballs and gas clusters in at all angles.

About then, the equipment started sorting out frequencies and getting radar returns and they were busy for a while, including a flurry of trade queries. Trade queries weren't all that unusual for a ship just Jumping in, but Khat's back brain was making notes, with some of them getting voiced and recorded and the others saved for her own recollection in quiet.

*

Khat's notes took her striding towards Paitor's trade office on break because it was no good bringing up the kid--that was Jethri's, not Grig's git--anywhere Iza could hear of it. They'd all got the security bulletin she'd drafted about the run-in with the Liaden punk claiming Jethri'd stole his kin--Iza couldn't hide from that because Gobelyn's name was in it.

Khat couldn't hide from it nor anyone else from the ship because Liadens were tricky, and it had been pure unplanned Gobelyn muscle twitch that she'd knocked the guidestars out of the lead pirate's eyes by knocking him down thorough. She was sorry for the hangover on it, but it had been the right thing: roomful of Terrans with guns weren't likely to let a couple Liadens get too overstrong in their attentions that far in the fringe. One wrong move could have left them licking vacuum from their shoes while word got out of an unfortunate collision of pilots unfamiliar with Terran routing orders . . .

Khat shook that from her head. She didn't want blood on her hands, no more than Jethri'd want it, and she knew he'd taken that suicide that happened on the ship's apron as his fault, though damned if she could see it. So there: Jeth didn't need any more blood on his hands and she oughtn't be thinking about--

Paitor stood in the sliding door, looking downpassage like
he'd
been thinking about something far away, or else avoiding the data screens hung all over his work room. He nodded, moved himself, and pointed toward the several seats, giving her a choice. The ship-to-shores were carrying on local talk and he'd got them tuned down, though a couple of the lines were open enough she could hear words she knew.

"Hey, Khat, come on in and break in a chair, why not? I got a green one and a blue one that haven't been sat on by crew yet; or you can help even out the red one or that yellow . . ."

His mouth quirked into a smile: "Dyk tells me the yard did the same kind of mix anywhere they worked--him and Cris are thinking we ought to have all the same color seats in the same places if we can."

Khat harrumphed and shook her head, pulling herself into the back corner and taking up the blue with her back to the wall, "I dunno that seat-changing's a problem, but if Cris is on it, then he'll decide."

She shook her head silently, waving her hand at the new stuff: "Iza annoyed them like a wonder and a marvel both, she did, so we'll hope it's only stuff like seats that got randomized."

He settled into the red--by the pile of flimsies, data chips, and note-knockers right there, he'd already warmed that one up.

"Come to talk about my sister, the captain?"

She looked him in the eye and sighed. He looked back, so she went on.

"Not exactly about her," she admitted slowly. "I'm in the spot, though, and the job means I gotta think ahead in case the call's mine. Not an order, but I'd appreciate it if you can give me some stats from our last fifty or a hundred Jumps. Didn't want be setting up the search with Iza right there, since it wasn't immediate need stuff, and besides, not sure I have that in a searchable base. Trade stats, kind of, but might have a bearing on security, too. And you'll have to give me a better lecture on what Arin was doing with his theory and his connections, if you can."

"We have time," he said, finally letting their shared eye contact go in favor of looking at the one screen that showed local space with course and shipping overlays rather than contacts, trade offers, and search lists.

*

Whatever he saw in that screen, it mostly kept his attention while he talked in a quiet monotone with the occasional flicker of a glance in her direction to make sure she wasn't asleep. Since she'd asked, Khat just listened.

"Pretty basic really, once you remember two things. First is that Arin and his kin, they'd been around a long time. A long time. And chances are that Arin'd been around longer than I knew--he was older than me and never quite looked it, but they come from a long-lived bunch"- here he took a look in her direction before talking at the wall again, quieter, like he didn't want his voice to carry down the passageway.

"So I figure Grig and Arin both got long view on us; if Grig claims forty-five Standards I'm guessing he's got twice that and more, same as Arin had that many and some more, too. Understand me--this is not entirely a guess: Iza did a bunch of research a little late, just after Arin come back from a long run of commissioner business with a barely born kid he claimed as his. Not the kind of thing someone who married partly for love wants to hear, I'm guessing;--well, it didn't take a lot of research then to see that Arin been married twice before, and the first time he'd been married they called him thirty Standards old and she'd thought she'd met him when he was thirty-three--'cept there was at least three of his claimed git out there working as pilots already . . ."

Khat nodded at his glance--some of this had seeped in over the years, but -

"So that's aside your point, but astride mine: these Tomas brothers and their cousins, they'd been right slick traders and dealers and spaceship types for a lot of years, but never what I'd call family of our likes--us being Gobelyn and Karter and Turnavitch and well, you know the names, because we've been loopers for a few hundred years, and so have they.

"The thing is that these Tomas folks been there at the fringes, being a little too ahead of things sometimes, and a little too knowing, and always did have a yen--including when Arin come along--to deal in just about any old-time or Before thing what was come across.

"What you'll want to do, in part, 'cause now you're officially in the line, is to look at at the logs and the Gobelyn bloodlines as way back as you don't get bored by it. I've got a database of every place this ship set down and most of the contact info . . ."

Khat sat up a little straighter. "Then you already
have
the analysis of how often we deal at mostly Liaden ports, and how often we come into Liaden space and . . ."

"I do. Arin made a study of that, like he made a study of a lot of stuff. That's why he was rousing the loopers to set things good, because he could see the Liadens coming in and he could see--and predict somewhat--about another problem, one that was face front and nobody wanted to talk about it."

"Good," she said, "so we have Arin's plan on competing and I . . ."

"Let's not get there yet, lass," Paitor said, "because there's a lot of philosophy between here and there, and some history, too. I don't have a full copy of that plan, and if Grig does he's got it against Iza's orders. Why not tell me in detail about the charts and numbers you need, and I'll trim 'em out and get 'em in your direction."

She nodded. "Right, then. I need that history that shows every time in the last half century the
Market
has come into a Terran port where there was a Liaden ship on port. I'm guessing there must be a way of doing that. If that takes going into the logs or something, I can do that part. I want how often, where, and if there was more than one Liaden Ship at the same time. If we can pull some larger database that'll show our regular routes and when Liaden--"

Paitor raised his hand for
stop
.

"Khat--I told you. Arin did that. You were too young probably to listen, but he did that and I have some of it. What I don't have, I guess Grig's got anyhow, or can tell us who still does. If he won't tell,
Wilde Toad
had some of it before they went down, and I so expect their cousins on
Nubella
,
Nubella Run
, and
Balrog
have some. We're not alone in this, you know."

She looked at him with a sudden dread.

"Iza don't put that information on her boards. I mean, maybe we ought to be running with notifications, and charting these things. There's got to be something here that . . ."

Paitor sighed, and stood up.

"Here's where there's a problem, Khat. There's a couple ways of looking at this, and we're flying on a ship with captain and mission that says our job's pretty clear. We fly our loop and we take what comes our way and we live on it. How it is, how it's been, how it will be."

She nodded.

"Iza's set that way, I know."

He looked away, letting his eyes wander the screen, letting them catch the changing infostreams offered and available, seeing the ships he knew from experience were dropping into a queue for one of the stations, seeing others that were off to do private transactions away from the eyes and probes of the planet-bound. Gathering himself, he made the hand-sign of apology, and faced her squarely.

"What's happening is that there are changes, though, and Iza's pretty plans aren't going to work. There's some that see what's coming, and some that won't see, and a dozen sides to each and a couple of major philosophies."

He paused again, let the phrases find themselves.

"Cris, he's been on the side of sister Iza, mostly. He did a brave thing to give that chair up to you, and I honor him for it. Else I pity him."

Khat stiffened involuntarily, preparing to defend her elder -

"Can't do it that way, Khat. This isn't just about your comfort. See, the Tomas contingent and their uncle, they got ideas that they see what's coming--and Iza wouldn't hear it, wouldn't see it was a problem for us, seeing that it's a problem fourteen years out or forty years out or a hundred and forty or five hundred and forty.

"What Arin said all along, was that the Commission could do this proper, and keep the looper ship's running their courses--and us loopers staying in trade with a few changes here and there, and maybe, just maybe, get a leg up on the Liadens and whoever else. Me, I'm on the 'here and there' side, myself. But then the Befores started being trouble, and Arin's uncle said they had to be picked up and studied and collected before something bad happened. Really bad.

"Me, I didn't see that. Damn fractins didn't seem to hurt no one, and the other stuff--the handholds and minipods--it was mostly one-offs, as far as I could see. I heard that if you wanted it bad enough there was timonium in those things, but it wasn't hardly recoverable and it was mostly at end of usable half-life."

He fluttered his hands then, the
is as is
sign, fact are facts.

"So the thing is that Cris has always lined up with Iza, thinking this scheme of changing how we do business--of changing how
everyone
does business--that it don't make sense. She does think we can maybe do better in the way of ships, and she and Arin, they threw their marriage portions together on a project some of the other loopers went in on. The
Wilde
's did, and we did, and all the branches of DeNobli . . . supposed to be a small shipyard doing research. The Commission was with the deal for a while, too, but then it turned out there were a lot of politics going on, a lot of sneak, and people trying to take the project over, take it back to some idea of building really big ships to just rival the Liadens lock to lock."

Paitor shook his head. "So everything fell back to this research shipyard and then Iza had Jethri to deal with, and found out about the age discrepancies. And found out that Arin wasn't talking about exactly where the shipyard was, either.