Dark Age - Patriot's Stand Part 5

"I don't know. He didn't have a name on his shirt," Grace said, bracing herself and pulling the hatch open. A heavy wrench sailed through the hatch, missing her by only a centimeter. "He also just tried to kill me," she added.

"Ship's Sergeant at Arms, take anyone not essential to moving ship and settle this. Where's all this happening?"

Grace glanced around-speaker but no camera. She read the numbers off the hatch to the captain.

"He's heading into the cargo holds," the captain said.

"And I'm following," Grace said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the wrench out of the air.

"It's dangerous in there, young woman."

Lord, another old man."I jogged around in there on the way up here. I probably know theDyev 's cargo holds as well as anyone." And she was there and they weren't. She went.

Jogging in a vast s.p.a.ce full of pipes, machinery and narrow walkways was one thing. Coasting from one handhold to another while searching for a man who'd tried to bash her brains out was something else entirely. Grace moved cautiously.

A computer voice began announcing the minutes until the ship would put on acceleration. "That's weight for you ground types," a man's voice added.

The thief was moving quickly, but he was noisy. Grace could hear him inside the s.p.a.ce of huge tank ends, ice-caked compressors and pipe after pipe-some hot, some cold, most dangerous. She went as quickly as caution allowed, searching for the next handhold before launching from the last. The chase could kill her as dead as the hunted. Ahead of her, the man quit making noise. Grace paused at her handhold.

Behind her, some crew members-five, Grace estimated-were complaining about their a.s.signment as they moved with the fast efficiency of those experienced in micro-G. A man with an impressive beer gut and two chevrons with crossed pistols on his collar caught up with Grace.

"You the woman what lost her jewels?"

The other men snickered at the joke.

"If your captain doesn't want to pay out a small fortune, you're the ones who are going to find them."

Grace smiled, showing teeth and the hard face she used when a new work crew wondered why they were taking orders from a woman.

"Yes, ma'am," the guy in charge answered, not looking her in the eye. "Abe, you and Bo cover the right.

Den and Jess, take the left. This nice woman and I will cover the walkway."

"Okay," "Yeah" and a "Yes, sir" from the youngest followed as the men split up.

"He got quiet about the time you fellows started chattering along this metal sidewalk," Grace said, intentionally calling things what she wanted.

"How far ahead was he?" the Sergeant at Arms asked, pulling a sonic stunner from his back pocket.

"Hard to tell." Grace glanced around at the huge spheres that held liquid gas or chilled oil. "I'd say about two bays farther up. Don't you have a pistol?"

"Woman, no one in their right mind uses a slug thrower in here. Some of those tanks have liquid gas at a thousand psi. You ding one of them and this whole bay would be filled with gas slush in, what, ten seconds. You'd be an icicle before you could turn around."

"He know that?" Grace said, nodding toward the thief ahead.

"If it's the mess boy what I think it is, no, but I checked his bag when he came off leave and there weren't no pistol."

"Seen any sleeping pills?"

The man glanced away. "TheStar of Dyev 's a drug-free ship. We don't keep crew who do drugs."

But for the right price, you'll look the other way, won't you,Grace thought.

"There he goes!" someone below them shouted as the thief broke from behind an ice-covered compressor, going hand over hand along the metal walkway. Now four men howled at his heels.

"That's Iav," the Master at Arms shouted. "Iav, give it up! We've got you!"

The boy kept going. Grace made a note of the number 38 that was written above the compressor the kid had hidden behind. He might have ditched the diamonds. She pushed off in chase right about the time the computer voice said, "Acceleration in zero minutes," and went crashing down as 1G was restored.

The s.p.a.cers found her yelp of pain hilarious. Her only consolation was that Iav fared no better.

But for five minutes more the boy fled farther aft. "Boy, you ain't going into reactor country-not if you ever want kids, you ain't," the Sergeant at Arms taunted him. The thief hooked a right, and they found him huddled behind a compressor, trembling from exhaustion. Maybe from fear.

"Come on out, boy. You got no place else to run."

"You were supposed to be asleep," the young man whined at Grace. "The other guys were."

"I don't follow instructions very well," Grace said gently. "Toss the diamonds out, and I'll talk to the captain for you." Grace didn't really mind what happened to the kid once she got her trading stock back.

A shot rang out. More like a pop, but there was no missing the slug's wind as it shot past Grace's ear too d.a.m.n close.

"What the h.e.l.l-" the Sergeant at Arms yelled.

The young thief was looking down at the bag of jewels he'd been about to throw to Grace. His eyes grew wide as he took in the hole in his chest and fell back against a pressure vessel before collapsing on the walkway. The sacks of jewels fell from his hands, clattering as they fell to the machinery below.

Grace could hear the small tinkling of jewels spilling free. She had a hunt ahead of her. Wonder how many of the diamonds will end up in other hands?

Turning, Grace faced the shooter. The Sergeant at Arms' face was purple, his mouth was open, but no words were coming out.

"h.e.l.lo. Mr. Santee, is it?" Grace said, intentionally mangling the name.

"Alfred Santorini," the shooter corrected her. "At your service."

"You seem to have shot an unarmed man," Grace said.

"I thought he was about to throw explosives at us," Santorini said, with almost enough sincerity to convince a well-bribed judge.

"I'll get the boys hunting for what he dropped, ma'am," the Sergeant at Arms said, apparently more than happy to leave this conversation.

"I posted an inventory, complete with photos of each jewel, with the purser when I came aboard,"

Grace informed the Sergeant at Arms. "The diamonds are also numbered. You might mention that to your crew."

"Right about the diamonds," he said. Which said nothing about the jade, turquoise and emeralds. But with luck, she'd at least cut her losses.

"I didn't know you were aboard," Grace said, turning her attention to the man who'd destroyed her chance to find out who had come up with the idea of the theft and provided the drugs to pull it off.

"I came aboard at the last moment. Since my business proposal did not appear to meet your planet's needs, it seemed senseless to waste any more of my time there."

"And I never saw you in the mess?"

"I rented the captain's cabin," Santorini said lightly, "the better to get some work done on this enforced break. I take my meals in my cabin."

"That poor young man wouldn't happen to be the one who brought you your meals?" Grace said, nodding at the body being bagged by two of the crew.

"I really wouldn't know. A mess steward is hardly the type of person I bother myself with. Do you know the name of the last waitress who touched your life?"

Grace ignored the question as she leaned over the rail, watching as s.p.a.cers used hand vacuums to scour the equipment for wayward jewels. Santorini didn't offer an explanation as to how he'd come to join in the chase for the thief. No doubt he would have just as empty an alibi. Grace wasn't sure she could stomach any more of his transparent lies.

"Are you going to Galatea?" she asked his retreating back.

"I have no business there." He paused for a moment to glance back. "I will transfer to another JumpShip immediately for transport to Nusakan. Your mad idea has cost me time and money. I have no more to waste on a backwater like Alkalurops. There are many other planets standing in line for an offer as fine as mine. I wish you luck finding mercs willing to help you."

"And I wish you the same luck," Grace said, keeping her face straight. For a moment the mask he wore wavered, and for a moment Grace thought she might get a look inside the man, but he turned away and quickly made his way out.

The Sergeant at Arms presented Grace with the two sacks the thief had dropped as he died. Both were about half the weight she remembered. "Keep hunting," she said, "there's a lot more down there."

An hour later the Sergeant at Arms stood by as each of the hand vacs was emptied in Grace's presence.

The diamond sack now felt over three-quarters of its former weight. The other sack was a bit lighter than that. "We'll keep looking, ma'am. The kid could have dropped some as he ran."

"Possibly," Grace agreed, then opened the emerald sack. "Would you take your pick, sir? You've led a good hunt and deserve a reward."

"Why, thank you, ma'am. There's no call for this."

"Yes, but you have helped me, and I pay for what people give me. Take your pick, and I will register you as the owner with the captain." He didn't quibble with her twice but picked the largest emerald in the sack. Grace didn't bat an eyelash. He probably had no idea he'd pa.s.sed up several more perfect stones for that less valuable one.

"And line up your work crew. Each one gets a stone from me." That didn't take very long, and Grace noticed two fellows who seemed a bit shamefaced at her largesse. She was not surprised when the Sergeant at Arms handed her a dozen more diamonds that seemed to have gotten "hung up in the hand vacs."

Two hours later Chato and Jobe came out of their enforced sleep, begging for water. "Land and Sky, I don't want to do another jump like that," Chato breathed.

"You won't. Next time you skip the drugs," Grace said, and then brought them up to date.

"Dead," Jobe said, "and that one walks among us."

"Or stays in the captain's cabin, busy with planning," Grace corrected.

"May his plans keep him far away from us," Chato said.

Nine days later theDyev grounded at Galaport. Grace had hidden the loose jewels in the seams of her clothing. Her mom had always insisted that sewing would come in handy. Jobe converted the strongbox to a backpack, and the rest of their gear was packed in two duffels, which Grace and Chato could handle.

This port was large, busy, dirty and noisy. Grace led the way, Jobe beside her. Chato followed, keeping an eye on Jobe's backpack. As they rode an underground walkway toward the central terminal, Grace tried to get her bearings. She'd never seen so many people in so small a place. They were moving in every conceivable direction, but purposefully. Electric trucks and Loader-'Mechs shared the s.p.a.ce, ch.o.r.eographing a dance in which one misstep could leave someone a puddle on the floor.

"This place smells bad," Jobe said. The blend of ozone, oil, sweat and other odors Grace could not identify left her wondering how anyone could say Alkalurops' air smelled bad. They pa.s.sed a men's room that was backed up and gushing water and noxious smells.

"Bad, and not just the smell," Grace said. The place needed paint. Tiles were off the walls. The driveway beside the slidewalk had potholes in it, and the slidewalk moved with enough fits and starts to make her stomach queasy.

"If I never leave White River again, it will be too soon," Chato muttered. "This headman business is not what my sister told me it would be."

"You should tell your women what to do, not let them tell you," Jobe shot back.

"And you think you are running the Donga River Valley, not your wives, huh?" the Navajo said, the slightest hint of a smile curling his lips. "Tell me again why you are here with us and not with one of your willing wives?"

Grace let the men retreat into their familiar banter as the slidewalk dropped them at the main terminal.

She hefted her duffel and made herself a promise not to be run over by bigger traffic. There wasn't a risk.

While the slidewalk ended in an immense room with a gla.s.s ceiling that made it hard to see where the dirty gla.s.s ended and a dusty sky began, heavy traffic was shunted to an underpa.s.s to the floors below.

Grace began the trek to the doors with overhead flashingEXIT signs. Around her were men and women, hard of muscle, hard of face, booted and dressed in shades of military tan and green. They talked in clipped sentences and the words "rally point" ended most of them.

"Light Horse, fall in here," came in a voice that carried through the babble. It wasn't so much volume but a hard edge to the words that let them cut through every other sound.

Around Grace, several people stopped, turned to locate the order-giver, and marched in step for him.

Not all.

"No, man, you don't what to be one of those horse's a.s.ses," someone near Grace said. "There's bound to be a Highlander recruiter around after that big fight on Terra."

"Oh, so I'm going to war in a skirt?" a young man responded. "No thanks."

"Ya like to live dangerously, don't ya, boy?"

"I like to ride where I'm going. There's the recruiting sergeant for the Twenty-first Centauri Lancers.

That's the man for me."

Now the vast room began to make sense to Grace. Along the wall behind her were ticketing agents. In front of her were small groups of men and women eyeing a couple dozen others, some with banners-guidons, if she guessed right from her reading. Some she recognized. The plaid of the Highlanders, displayed in the kilts of their recruiters, was impossible to miss. Similarly, the ax of Bannson's Raiders was unmistakable. Other outfits were harder to place, or their emblem too stylized to recognize. What was clear was that they wanted fighters and they were none too picky.

One man caught Grace's eye. Standing alone and tall in flowing, if somewhat tattered robes, he scanned the crowd with his right hand resting lightly on the pommel of the long sword that hung from his left hip.

Other than the slight turning of his head from side to side, he did not move for the entire time Grace studied him. Most gave him a wide berth. One man stomped up to him, bowed at the waist, then took station behind him without speaking a word. Now the two of them stood like statues, studying the crowd.

"That one looks like a hard case," Jobe muttered.

"Anyone have a plan for us?" Chato asked.

"I'm thinking," Grace said as they came to the end of the row of recruiters, where two men in tan uniforms stood in that kind of relaxed stance as only powerful men can. They were talking to each other, but the taller and older one's eyes missed nothing. He cracked a smile as he took in Grace and her companions.

"Only the best make it this far," he said, extending a hand.

"We haven't made up our minds," Grace said, taking it. The handshake was firm-maybe a bit of a test.

She squeezed just a tad more than he did. Unlike some insecure men, he didn't turn the handshake into a contest to see if he had a tighter grip than a woman. She liked that.