Trading in Danger (33 page)

The amount Quincy came up with after a few minutes seemed huge to Ky, but she transmitted it to the Sabine stationmaster’s office anyway.

The answer came back from Sabine Station after a decent interval. Acting Stationmaster Dettin looked serious, but his voice was pleasant.

“On behalf of Sabine Station, I am prepared to accept this counterclaim of damages caused by this station’s civilian management. Since the claims made here are substantially larger than the balance due on the fines and docking use fees on the books, it is my decision that
Glennys Jones
be allowed to dock here, and that all tug and docking fees will be waived for a period of twenty days. However, the final decision, and any monetary damages to be paid other than this offsetting, will be determined by a court at some later date. Acceptance of this proposal is not binding in law as later adjudication may choose to impose additional fines, penalties, or costs on either party.” That came out in a near monotone, as if he were reciting text from some legal tome. Probably he was.

“Are you willing to accept these terms and defer funds transfer until adjudication is complete?”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“Thank you, Captain Vatta,” the man said. “Now, do you wish tug services immediately?”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“I can assign you…” He looked blank for a moment. “You can expect a tug to contact you in about six hours. Estimated time until docking will be… nine hours four minutes. Is this acceptable?”

“Yes,” Ky said again, beginning to feel like an automaton. “I will inform the passengers,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Our pleasure,” Dettin said. “When you arrive, there are ISC and Mackensee personnel who wish to confer with you at your earliest convenience. And I understand you have remains…?”

Remains. It took her a moment to realize that the stationmaster meant someone’s body.Gary’s body. “Yes,” she said. “Gary Tobai, one of my crewmen…”

“We will have a funeral representative ready to receive the remains.”

“Thank you,” Ky said.

“By the time you’ve arrived, we will have limited commercial communications service back up; your passengers will be able to contact their vessels from the station. They have been assigned priority-one access.”

“They will appreciate that,” Ky said. “I’ll tell them. If you’ll excuse me, I need to ready my ship for docking procedures—”

“Of course, Captain Vatta. There is another Vatta Transport vessel in the system—have they contacted you?”

As if he didn’t know. “Yes,” she said. “I presume we will communicate more fully later.”

“Captain Furman has requested permission to retrieve your cargo; is this permissible?”

“Er…” If she said yes, he would have her cargo in his possession and be able to preempt her contract. If she said no, he would be furious and for all she knew her father would be furious, too. She didn’t need more enemies. She didn’t need to start her career breaking contracts, either. “No,” she said, feeling a great hollow opening inside her. “Not at this time. I haven’t determined whether I will be able to meet contracted terms without his help. I would prefer to confer with Vatta headquarters before making that decision, after we have a repair estimate on my ship.”

“I see.” Was that a twitch of amusement? She hoped not, but she could imagine the kinds of things Furman had said about her.

“We’ll expect the tug contact in six hours, then,” Ky said. She would try to catch a nap before then, and another snack.

By the time the tug’s call came, Ky had slept a few hours, eaten again, showered, and started a list of necessary repairs and their projected costs. Refueling the insystem drive. Purging and reinitializing the ship’s control systems. Obtaining a new, certified ID chip for the beacon. Replacing the sealed unit of the FTL drive and the damaged liner section. Removing the plumbing fixtures from the cargo holds—she presumed that Mackensee would want their toilet and sink units back, but that could wait. Repairing or replacing the communications modules. The credits mounted up, a few hundred here, a few thousand there. She compared the total to the amount that Mackensee owed her for transporting their prisoners… a squeak, but she might make it.

Once they docked at the orbital station, Ky spoke to the station security about unloading her passengers. In only a short time, they were all out of the ship, onto a dock area secured from the media. Ky had begun to relax when a series of dockside calls came in. A Mackensee officer—she had no idea what rank, but he seemed very young—asked permission to come aboard and arranged for the removal of their property. An ISC official also asked permission to come aboard; she named herself “Assistant to the Incident Investigator-General.” A representative of the Sabine Prime government’s Department of Foreign Affairs wanted to talk with her about her knowledge of the involvement of Captain Paison in the Secundus affair. A representative of Interstellar Transient Transformations wanted information on Gary Tobai’s faith and the type of ceremony desired. And an officer from the
Katrine Lamont
claimed to have urgent communications from Captain Furman and Vatta Transport, Ltd.

She groaned inwardly. What she wanted most was an uninterrupted sleep shift, but clearly she wasn’t going to get it. She tried to think what should come first.

“Quincy—what kind of service would Gary have wanted?”

The old woman shook her head. “We never talked about it. He was a Modulan, I know that much, but that’s all.”

“Well… what would be best for the crew, then?”

“Modulan’s always safe. But you Vatta are something else, aren’t you?”

“Saphiric Cyclans, yes, but it doesn’t matter about me.” Even as she said it she wondered why. Why shouldn’t she matter? “What about his family? Did he ever talk about them?”

“Had a granddaughter out in the Necklace Islands; I don’t know about the rest.”

“We’ll do Modulan and have the box made up for her, then. Do you know her name?”

“Angelica,” Quincy said.

Ky called Interstellar Transient Transformations and gave them this information.

“Our condolences, Captain, to you and your crew,” the ITT representative said. “I’m Selon Bahandar, and I will be assisting you through this sad time. We’ll need to discuss chapel availability, once we’ve collected the… er… remains.”

“Chapel availability?”

“Yes. We have many other services scheduled, you understand…”

She didn’t. But then, she’d never attended any religious service on a space station.

“It’s a matter of finding the open time slot most suitable to you and to his memory.”

“I see.”

“You are familiar with the process, I presume?”

She wasn’t. They hadn’t had a funeral in the family since Aunt Pellit’s, and that was over on North Coast when she had an ear infection and couldn’t fly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I haven’t dealt with this before.”

His smile managed to combine extreme sympathy with extreme satisfaction; Ky found it extremely annoying. “My dear Captain Vatta, again let me express our condolences. Interstellar will be happy to assist you in every detail, as I’m sure you all wish to show the utmost respect for your comrade.”

“Uh…”

“You may not have known that orbital stations usually allot only one space for religious purposes, a holographic chapel which is preprogrammed to offer a variety of religious spaces suitable for practically every faith and ceremony. Now as you’ve indicated your loved… er… lost one was himself a Modulan, let me show you the Modulan setting…” Up on the screen, a window opened to show the interior of a typical Modulan chapel, very like that at the Academy except for the lack of a Spaceforce seal. The restful curves, even to the seat backs, the soft golden glow of the lighting, the Focus of Faith in gleaming pewter. “If you want to personalize this in some way—” The display flickered, and morphed to an exaggerated style, with banks of pink flowers along the side walls and a beam of light striking down at an angle to rest on the Focus.

“No,” Ky said, slightly repelled as always by the Modulan color scheme of soft greens, but even more repelled by the deliberate drama of the variant form.

“Very well. Now about the Box…”

The box, Ky knew, was nothing but a symbol, small enough to fit in the hand; Bahandar’s tone added the capital and implied extraordinary worth.

“Traditional Modulans still prefer the plain wood with the Focus on the cover,” Bahandar said, implying that traditional Modulans were far behind the times. “But we have a very nice selection of boxes—enameled, inlaid—”

“The plain wooden box,” Ky said firmly. “Gary was very traditional.” She didn’t know how traditional he was in the practice of his religion, but she did know how traditional he was about spending money on things that were not necessary to the ship or its cargo. He would come back to haunt her if she indulged in any fancy additions to his service.

“Very well. And the chaplain,” Bahandar said. “There’s the recorded service, the Interactive service with counseling subroutines…”

Ky had never imagined anything like this. “I thought there was just a chaplain—”

“Oh, if you want a live chaplain, that’s certainly possible—” His voice warmed. “We have to arrange to bring someone up from Prime—that is a little expensive…”

“No, that’s all right,” Ky said. “I’m sure one of the other methods will do very well. But you’ll have to excuse me—I have other commitments to meet here. If you’ll collect his body, I can get back with you later.”

“It’s a good idea to go on and make arrangements early,” Bahandar said. “There are still a lot of casualties coming in—”

She hadn’t considered that. “What is the schedule then?”

“With a holographic chaplain, or the recorded or AI version of the service, we can fit you in… let me see… at 1330 hours the day after tomorrow. That includes a one-hour slot in the… that’s the Modulan basic-plan chapel, with provision for either the recording or the interactive audio service. If you wanted the half hour of grief counseling in the chapel, the first open slot is 0730 three days from now.”

“The recorded version,” Ky said. “We won’t require the grief counseling.” If the crew needed grief counseling—she didn’t let herself think about whether she did—Vatta Transport could provide it somewhere else, as part of their health coverage. Not from a smarmy little man who was annoying her more by the second.

“Very well. You’re entered for 1330, day after tomorrow, that’s Senket, in local calendars. Please be sure that you vacate the chapel on time, as there is a service scheduled after yours. The actual recording begins when you press START and takes thirty-four minutes.”

“We will be out on time,” Ky said.

“And to what account should this be charged?” Bahandar asked.

“Vatta Transport, Ltd.,” Ky said. She had no qualms about that; their insurance would cover it.

“Very well. Now—where is the… er…”

“In the cooler,” Ky said. “One of my crew will show your personnel.”

“Within the hour,” Bahandar said.

She switched off, feeling slightly ill and not sure why. It seemed wrong to treat the end of Gary’s life as a series of practical choices such as whether or not to have a hologram or a recording as the chaplain… but she’d just done it. In the military, they handled these things better. Tradition took over. If he had been military, his funeral would have fit that final heroism better; she could imagine the draped coffin, the slow march. There would have been no smarmy little man. She rubbed her head hard, trying to stave off tears and think clearly.

What next? Mackensee or ISC? Mackensee—she was fairly sure she knew what they wanted.

Their contact was a fresh-faced young officer, Lieutenant Sanders, as he introduced himself. He seemed inordinately cheerful, and fully familiar with Ky and the situation.

“Captain, we can send a crew over to remove our equipment, starting at 0900 tomorrow.”

“That sounds good. I’ll need to talk to someone about our contract—”

“That’ll be Major Harris; I’ll patch you through in a moment. Colonel Kalin would like to see you at 1400—”

It was 1100 local time now. Her eyes felt gritty. “I can’t leave the ship,” she said.

“Of course. The Colonel knows that. If 1400 is open…”

It was open. That was not how she wanted to spend the afternoon which felt like midnight, but she might as well get it over with. “Fourteen hundred is fine,” Ky said.

“I’ll switch you now to Major Harris,” the lieutenant said.

Major Harris, when he answered, smiled less brightly than the lieutenant, but it was a smile.

“I understand you had some problems with a few of the passengers,” he said. “Good job, only losing three. Under the circumstances, we’re amending the contract, if you agree, to compensate for the extra days, without reference to the smaller number of passengers. We took the liberty of consulting Vatta, Ltd., while we were outsystem, and their legal staff approved the amended contract, pending your agreement. Have you had a chance to confer with them yet?”

“No,” Ky said, feeling grumpier than before. “I haven’t had access to ansible communication yet.”

“Ah. That’s right, the system’s not completely up yet. Well, we can defer this matter until you have had a chance to talk to them, or I can transfer funds into an account for you now, if you’re willing to take my word for it.”

The last time she’d taken his word for something, the ten days and docile passengers had turned into several weeks and a mutiny that cost the life of her crewman. “Let me see the amended contract,” Ky said. “What’s the compensation rate?”

The contract came up onscreen, and the printer hummed—soon she’d have hardcopy. “You’ll notice, when you get to the bottom, that there is a Vatta Transport approval seal from their—your—legal department. There’s also a release from liability, protecting Vatta from suits referencing experiences aboard your ship, and Mackensee from suits by Vatta against us…”

“I… see.” Ky had scrolled quickly past the familiar paragraphs of the original contract, to the amendments and the compensation. She struggled to keep a straight face. That was a lot of money… and the Vatta Transport, Ltd., seal had the right date codes for this quarter. She wanted that money. She wanted every credit of it, in her accounts, right now. Surely if the company’s legal department had approved, it was all right…