A Mind For Trade Part 9

Tooe's crest flickered in a complicated reaction, then she said, "Dane. You ask for translation. You hear Rigelian, or not hear it?"

Dane hesitated. Tooe had never lied to him-but she had to know what lies were, having lived on Exchange, and among the Kanddoyds. They were probably the galaxy's masters of indirect discourse.

He looked up, to find Ali's eyes on him. But the engineer was uncharacteristically quiet.

It seemed a bad precedent to set with a new crewmember. On the other hand, he was reluctant to tell her that he'd asked Lossin to translate in order to distract him so that Rip could do whatever he'd needed to do on their computer platform. He didn't want to say why he'd done it, and he knew that Tooe was quite capable of questioning him until she'd gotten every sc.r.a.p of data that she wanted. As yet none of the other crew members knew about the psi link.

Dane shrugged, choosing his words.

Then Rip rescued him. "I wanted Dane to distract Lossin," he said. "I wanted to check their com unit. Just to know. But I hoped to do it without them knowing I was checking. Seemed easier, after the mistakes we made before." He smiled.

Tooe nodded slowly, her crest still at inquiry mode.

Then Ali spoke. "So you think they know there are three pirate ships...o...b..ting this planet, apparently waiting for us to lift?"

"One way or the other," Rip replied.

Dane felt his heart slam in his chest.

"And we can't ask," he said.

Chapter Ten.

Jellico reflexively anch.o.r.ed himself more firmly in the micro-gravity of the freely orbiting North Star as Karl Kosti whirled around the engine room of the ship, touching various readouts and giving succinct-sometimes cryptic-explanations of the data on each. Unlike the Solar Queen, every millimeter of which Jellico knew well enough to maneuver in without light, this ship was still unfamiliar-something he and his crew of five had been working almost nonstop to rectify.

Kosti said, "There are some decidedly odd tweaks in these engines, just as Ali warned me. And some of them make sense if you're used to varigrav." He pulled himself into a low framework of pipes linking two of the engine cores.

"How's that?" asked Jellico, knowing that Kosti was this talkative to take his mind off free fall, which the big jet tech loathed. The Queen had only been orbiting a couple of Standard Days, but already it felt like a week.

"Excuse me," Kosti said as he abruptly twisted around in the maze of pipes enclosing him. Now his face was upside-down to Jellico, and the captain was struck by how meaningless, at least at first, an upside-down face was. Was Kosti seeing the same thing?

"These plasma guides, for example," Kosti mused as he applied a sonic impeller to a dull gray pipe. "This maze is part of the tuning, and it's also an efficient work cage for maintenance in micrograv." He braced himself against the pipes behind him and triggered the big, hypodermic-like tool.

A m.u.f.fled bang hammered Jellico's ears; he let the impact wash past. "What you're saying is, the designers of this ship are better engineers than Terrans?"

Kosti grinned at him. "Yes. Out here. But you'll never see a design like this in central Terran s.p.a.ce. Not really built for planetside."

Jellico knew his crew as well as he knew the Queen. He repressed the urge to smile, and permitted himself a small nod of agreement. He knew Karl had disagreed about sending the four apprentices down in the Queen, though Kosti hadn't said anything. Not after the decision was stated as an order. Apparently the grizzled jet tech now thought better of his disagreement. The hint was good enough for Jellico. He was pleased to be corroborated; no need to rub anyone's nose in a change of mind.

But Kosti, apparently, was not satisfied with an apology by implication. "I thought you were coddling Shannon by sending him and his bunch down in the Queen," he admitted, squinting at Jellico. "Did you run the calcs on how much more fuel the Star would gulp in landing planetside, or was that one of your lucky guesses?"

"It was one of my. guesses," Jellico admitted in his turn, letting the smile come. That was as far as he'd go in speaking of his own priorities for his decision; he knew that it was too easy to figure from a stated list of positive factors the negatives that might have been balanced against them, and he did not want anyone worrying unduly about Rip Shannon's fitness for this a.s.signment.

That was his own worry, part of the responsibilities of command.

But apparently he was not, after all, as subtle as he thought; Kosti touched a readout connected to some unfamiliar tubing, grunted, then said, "You trained 'em. They'll pull it off."

"We trained 'em," Jellico said.

Kosti extricated himself from the work cage and magged his boots to stand in front of Jellico. His craggy face creased in an expression of humorous irony. "So if they fail, we fail as well."

Jellico was considering what to say when the com interrupted. Kosti braced himself against recoil and tapped the comlink with a huge fist.

"Captain." It was Rael Cofort, her soft voice brisk and businesslike, as it always was on duty. "When you have a moment, would you stop by the survey lab?"

Jan Van Ryke, the cargo master, added in his mellow voice, "You have to see this."

Kosti keyed the transmit, and Jellico said, "On my way.''

He turned to Karl. "How much ore could we lift with this ship? If we didn't have to worry about evasive action."

Kosti shook his head. "Nominally, in excess of forty thousand metric tons. But converting cielanite is tricky business, and I don't know how stable the tuning parameters for these engines are. The Queen could-will-handle it. This ship."

He rubbed his heavy jaw, his eyes now completely serious. "I'd throw away ten thousand tons for the sake of the engines, unless the cielanite ore is highly refined."

"That bad?"

Kosti shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. "Not too much difference between a blown-out engine and a colloid blaster- except an engine only does it once."

Jellico's mood was somber as he bounce-pulled himself along in free fall toward the survey lab, which had been converted from a cargo hold.

He considered Kosti's words-and what had been unsaid. His crew were not only trustworthy, but adaptable. Two ne-cessities if a ship captain wanted to live to a reasonable age in an indifferent universe.

Adaptability meant considering all possibilities. What Kosti had implied, and Jellico understood, was the fact that if the unknown ships turned out to be unfriendly, Jellico would have to sacrifice the cargo capacity of the North Star just to pull any profit out of this trip-out of the contract. There wouldn't be any way to refuel the ship; therefore, the Star would have enough fuel to either engage in evasive maneuvers to cover the takeoff of the Queen-or to flee to a rendezvous with the Queen later to refuel.

Not both.

As he handed himself past the last closed cargo bay to the new lab that the scientists in the crew had set up, he dismissed the problem for later consideration. Entering the lab, he let his gaze take in the impressive banks of instrumentation patched together from the piece-kits his crew had built over years of successful Trading, and come to rest at the last on the fair countenance of Dr. Rael Cofort, his wife.

She was immediately aware of his presence; she glanced across the lab, her dark blue eyes smiling. Even wearing the severe non-gender-specific gear of the lab technician, with her rich auburn hair severely pulled back and braided on the crown of her head, she was beautiful-a beauty enhanced by her intelligent, fast-a.s.sessing gaze, her sensitive, expressive mouth. In a long and lonely life he had never thought to find this kind of companionship-not just of the body, but of the heart, of the mind. Every time he saw her after an interval apart, he reexperienced a belief in the miraculous.

"Come look," Rael said, gesturing.

Jellico handed himself into the high-ceilinged room with its huge viewscreen. Van Ryke, his bushy white brows knit, was busy at an adjacent console, tapping commands as a stream of data filled the bottom of the big viewscreen.

Rael hovered directly in front of the screen, her slim body at a relaxed angle; more experienced with free fall than the Queen's Traders had been, she had adapted quickly to micro-gravity.

"Look," she said, gesturing at the display with her free hand; a sticky-glove anch.o.r.ed her other to the viewscreen. An orbital plot spilled across the screen, six points of light in synchronous...o...b..t around Hesprid IV. "Tang Ya found six com-sats the Traders of the Ariadne put in orbit. He's more than tripled our data feed."

Jellico thrust himself away from the entry and came to rest across the hold from the bottom of the screen, well below Rael, which left her plenty of maneuvering room without blocking his view.

Her hand brushed across the vast planet below. Bright swirls of cloud glared sunlight up at them from the dayside half. Beyond the terminator, the lands of night shone dimly, illumined by the reflection from the three moons.

As Jellico watched, the lab lights flicked off, leaving Rael a harlequin figure of light and shadow against the glow of Hesprid IV. And in the darkness of the planetary surface. below her outspread fingers, as though cast by magic, faint pulses of light ringed outward, like ripples from pebbles cast in a pond.

"False color," Van Ryke spoke from behind him.

The screen flickered, and now the pulses had complex internal structures, delicate webs of color, fractal in complexity.

"Up into the infrared, even some ultraviolet from high atmospheric layers," the cargo master went on.

"Resonances from the cielanite EM pulses dayside," said Rael.

"More cielanite?" Jellico asked.

"No," said Van Ryke. He brought the lights back up.

Jellico could hear the faint rhythmic sound of her gloves pulling loose as Rael hand-over-handed down the screen to join them.

"But almost everything else at the high end of the periodic table. All the major superheavies. A rich prize."

"One worth killing for, to some," said Jellico, connections flashing in his mind like puzzle pieces snapping into place. "Now Flindyk's plot makes real sense," he said.

"Exactly," Van Ryke said, smiling benignly. A tall, broadly built man, his unlined face and shock of white hair as well as his calm, melodious voice gave no hint to the subtle intellect and impressive memory that made him one of the best Traders Jel-lico had ever met. "Once the Patrol, acting in accordance with the Terran-Kanddoyd-Shver Treaty, hear of this planet's riches, they'll put a base here, because it can be largely self-sustaining."

"And mining will be a concession, carefully controlled by the three-way government at Exchange," Rael said.

"At immense profit," Jellico murmured, scanning the viewscreen again as he imagined how many rare elements were to be found down below, and in what quant.i.ties-and no indigenous sentients.

"Profit," Van Ryke repeated. "The prospect of which seems to generate a corresponding greed."

Rael frowned. "That's why they killed the Ariadne's crew, then," she said. "Not just to keep the planet for themselves, but to keep the Patrol from hearing about the planet's resources; that would have been the first thing Trade Admin would have reported, once the Ariadne docked at Exchange."

"Right," Jellico said. "So if our mysterious company out here has anything to do with Flindyk's organization, they're going to see to it that none of us live long enough to talk."

Rael Cofort reached for another bulb of jakek as she studied Miceal Jellico's face. Lean, blaster-scarred, hard-boned, her beloved looked exactly like what he was: a tough Free Trader captain who never compromised his convictions. One glance at his narrow gray eyes, the steady gaze of one who always told the truth as he saw it, and even the most undiscerning would know him for an honest man. He was her safe harbor; after a life of dangers and sudden changes, she'd found a mate to match her. Wherever Miceal Jellico went was home to Rael. She smiled at him as she sipped at her jakek.

Jellico paused in collecting their dishes and glanced up inquiringly.

Obligingly she said, "I was just trying to picture you fast-talking some wild-eyed pirate."

"Not likely. Leave that to Jan." He grinned, then leaned forward, bracing himself against a bulkhead, and hit the cage containing the blue hoobat Queex.

The cage rocked; the weird creature that looked like a parrot crossed with a toad clung with all six claws to a branch inside the cage and squawked happily. The specially sprung cage would rock and shake for hours now, keeping Queex content.

"Time for the shift change," Jellico said, lifting his chin in the direction of the control cabin.

The captain, Rael, and the other four crewmembers had set themselves eight-hour shifts; the idea was to be rested, but all of them had spent rest time doing "just one more ch.o.r.e."

Jellico had had to force Steen Wilc.o.x to his cabin, after he'd stayed awake twenty-four hours after the long shift that had brought them out of hyper, saw the two ships cabled together, and the Queen launched on its mission.

Tang Ya was now on the control deck, but he, too, had gone too long without rest. The ship was on auto, but the com-until they knew who else was out there-required constant attention.

Jellico's thoughts were paralleling hers-again. He said, "You've been at it for two shifts. Are you going to get some rest?"

"Same two shifts you've been working," Rael said, smiling at him. "I'm fine. And I have plenty to do, correlating the fresh data. We'll be in range of the Queen in, what, six hours? Anyway, I'd like to squirt down some data for Tau, which means it needs to be prepared. I'll take the next shift as a rest period."

Which meant they could be together. Jellico gave her a brief grin, then he picked up the dishes and swung himself out of the cabin.

Rael followed, intending to find out if Ya had culled any news from the com before she retreated to the survey lab and buried herself in the mountains of statistics the instruments had been gathering.

With the jakek bulb still in one hand, she used the other to propel herself after the captain, who moved with the speed and efficiency of the born athlete.

Ya looked up in obvious relief when they arrived, though he said nothing. They'd all gone too long without rest, but it had seemed more important to master this unfamiliar ship as quickly as possible. No one had disagreed with the captain when he split the crew unevenly, eight to go planetside and only six to maintain the Star; they would need all eight if they were to mine enough ore to make the trip worthwhile.

"Any news?" Rael asked Ya. "Nothing," the Martian-born comtech said, stretching before he released himself from his seat. "So I've put in another shift playing with this computer."

"And?" Jellico prompted.

Ya shrugged his broad shoulders. "I guess I know it about as well as I'm going to." He levered himself up, reaching with one long arm to swing himself out of the com couch. "I'm for something to eat, and rack time, in that order."

"Good. I'll take over." Jellico moved above him, ready to drop onto the couch and strap himself in. His blue eyes were already scanning the readouts. Rael watched him at it, enjoying the speed with which he a.s.sessed the situation-then saw him frown.

Feeling a spurt of alarm, Rael shifted her gaze to the com console.

"What's this?" Ya jerked himself back into the couch, and one hand fastened him in as the other tapped keys.

Data flashed across the screen, too quick for Rael to comprehend, but Ya followed it without difficulty. "Unknowns- signal via moonbounce."

Jellico gave a short nod. "So we don't know where they are-"

"But they have an idea of where we are."

Jellico exchanged a glance with Rael, then said, "Put them on."

Ya worked his console, and the com screen displayed the head and shoulders of a woman. She looked about Jellico's age, her features somewhat blocky, her skin deeply lined.

Rael stared in silence. The screen began to jitter.

"Damp that static," Jellico murmured.

"Not static," Ya replied, his hands busy at his keypads. Other "screens lit, some blooming into multiple windows. Scans, Rael realized, watching for the other ship.

As they watched, the woman's face seemed to break up, then crystallize; Rael realized the instability in the picture was because of the weakness of the signal. At the same time, she saw in Ya's and the captain's faces that they realized it as well.

"Umik Lim, communications officer for Trade ship Golden Sails out of Ovaelo III. Our sister ship, Wind Runner, is Ovaeli."

The woman spoke Trade lingo with a heavy accent. Rael frowned at the screen, wondering what it was that bothered her. Ovaelo system? she thought-and Jellico typed the words into the computer, which threw a prompt overlay on the screen.

Rael scanned it swiftly as Ya identified himself and the North Star. Ovaelo HI appeared to be an ocean world like Hes-prid, but with far better weather. Also, the planet had.85 gee.

". you did not respond to our initial com query?" Ya was saying.