Star Song and Other Stories Part 19

Seventy thousand neumarks...

"You don't think I'm serious," she went on into my sudden silence, reaching into her jacket and pulling out what looked like a pre-paid money card. "Go on,"

she invited, holding it out toward me. "Check it."

Carefully, suspiciously, I reached out and took the card. Pulling out my reader, I slid it in.

As the owner of a transport plying some of the admittedly less-than-plum lanes, I had long ago decided that buying cut-rate doc.u.ment software would ultimately cost me more than it would save. Consequently, I'd made sure that the Sergei Rock's legal and financial authenticators were the best that money could buy.

Scholar Kulasawa's money card was completely legitimate. And it did indeed have three hundred thousand neumarks on it.

"You must be crazy to carry this around," I told her, pulling the card out of my reader as if it was made of thousand-year-old crystal. "Where in the worlds did you get this kind of money, anyway?"

"From my university, of course. No-keep it," she added, waving the card back as I held it out to her. "I prefer payment in advance."

With a sigh, I stood up and set the card down on the seat next to her.Seventy thousand neumarks... "I already told you this trip's been contracted for," I said. "Talk to me when we reach Parex." I turned to go- "Wait."

I turned back. For a moment she studied my face, with something that might have been grudging admiration in her expression. "I misjudged you," she said. "My apologies. Allow me to try a different approach."

I shook my head. "I already said-"

"Would you accept my offer," she cut me off, "if it would also mean helping people desperately in need of our a.s.sistance?"

I shook my head. "The Patrol's got an office on Parex," I said. "You want help, talk to them."

"I can't." Her carefully jeweled lip twisted, just slightly. "For one thing, they have no one equipped to deal with the situation. For another, if I called them in they'd take it over and shut me out completely."

"Shut you out of what?"

"The credit, of course," she said, her lip twisting again. "That's what drives the academic world, Captain: the politely savage compet.i.tion for credit and glory and peer recognition." She eyed me again. "It would be so much easier if would trust me. Safer, too, from my point of view. If this should get out..."

She took a deep breath, still watching me, and let it out in a rush. "But if it's the only way to get your cooperation, then I suppose that's what I have to do. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Freedom's Peace?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar," I said, searching my memory. "Is it a star transport?"

She snorted gently. "You might say it was the ultimate star transport," she said dryly. "The Freedom's Peace was one of the five Giant Leap ark ships that headed out from the Jovian colonies 130 years ago."

"Oh-right," I said, feeling my face warming. Nothing like forgetting one of the biggest and most spectacular failures in the history of human exploration.

The United Jovian Habitats, full of the arrogance of wealth and autonomy, had hollowed out five fair-sized asteroids, stocked them with colonists, pre-a.s.sembled ecosystems, and heavy-duty ion-capture fusion drives, and sent them blazing out of the solar system as humanity's gift to the stars.

The planetoids had stayed in contact with the home system for a while, their transmissions growing steadily weaker as the distances increased and there was more and more interstellar dust for their transmission lasers to have to punch through. Eventually, they faded out, with the last of the five going silent barely six years after their departure. The telescopes had been able to follow them for another five years or so, but eventually their drives had faded into the general starscape background.

And then had come the War of Reclamation, ruthlessly bringing the Habitats back under Earth dominion and in the process wiping out virtually all records of the Giant Leap project. By the time humanity started riding flapblacks and were finally able to go out looking for them, they had completely vanished."Okay-the Freedom's Peace. What about it?"

"I've found it," she said simply.

I stared at her. "Where?"

"Out in s.p.a.ce, of course," she said tartly. "You don't expect me to give you its exact location until you've agreed to take me there, do you?"

"But it's somewhere near Parex?" I prompted.

She eyed me closely. "It's accessible from Parex," she said. "That's all I'll say."

I pursed my lips, trying to think, listening with half an ear to the Brahms playing in the background. At least now I understood why there was so much money involved. Never mind the academic community; a historical find like this would rock the whole Expansion, from the Outer March colonies straight up to Earth and the Ten Families. Not to mention putting the discoverers permanently into the history books themselves.

Which did, however, bring up an entirely new question. "So why me?" I asked.

"Your university could hire a much better transport than the Sergei Rock with the money you're willing to spend."

Her thin lips compressed momentarily. "There are-compet.i.tors, shall we say-who want to reach the Freedom's Peace first. I know of at least one group that has been watching me."

"You're sure they don't know the location themselves?"

"I'm sure this group doesn't," she retorted. "But there are others, and some of them may be getting close." She waved a hand at the cabin around her. "I had to grab the first transport that was heading anywhere near it."

"But you are authorized to use that money card?" I asked.

She smiled coldly. "Trust me, Captain: if I succeed here, the university will gladly authorize ten times what's on that card. The historical significance of the furnishings alone will send shock waves through the Expansion. Let alone all the rest of it."

"All the rest of what?" I asked, frowning. I'd have thought the historical artifacts they would find aboard would be all there was.

"I thought I mentioned that," she said with a sort of malicious innocence.

"When I asked about people needing a.s.sistance, remember? The Freedom's Peace isn't just drifting dead in s.p.a.ce-it's still underway.

"Obviously, someone is still aboard."

The same rule book that said the musicmaster had to take a thirty-minute break every four hours also said that the crew was never to all be away from their posts at the same time, while in flight, except under extraordinary circ.u.mstances. I decided this qualified; and the minute Jimmy went on break, I.

hauled the three of them into the dayroom.

"I don't know," Bilko mused when I'd outlined Scholar Kulasawa's proposition.

"The whole thing smells a little fishy."

"Which parts?" I asked.

"All parts," he said. "For one thing, I find it hard to believe this race is so tight she had to settle for a transport like the Sergei Rock."

"What's wrong with the Sergei Rock?" I demanded, trying not to take it personally and not entirely succeeding. "We may not be fancy, but we've got a good clean record."

"And don't forget those boxes of hers," Jimmy put in. I didn't have to ask how he was leaning-he was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement over the whole thing. "She needed a transport that could carry them."

"Yes-let's not forget those boxes," Bilko countered. "Did our esteemed scholar happen to tell you what was in them?"

"She said it was her research equipment," I told him.

"That's one h.e.l.l of a lot of research equipment."

"Historians and archaeologists don't make do with a magnifying gla.s.s and tweezers anymore," I said stiffly.

"Why are we all arguing here?" Jimmy put in earnestly. "I mean, if there are people out there who are lost, we need to help them."

"I don't think Scholar Kulasawa cares two sparkles about whoever's aboard,"

Bilko growled. "It's Columbus Syndrome-she just wants the credit for discovering the New World."

"Shouldn't it be the Old World?" Jimmy suggested.

Bilko threw him a glare. "Fine. Whatever."

I looked at Rhonda. "You've been pretty quiet," I said. "What do you think?"

"I don't think it matters what I think," she said quietly. "You're the owner and captain, and you've already made up your mind. Haven't you?"

"I suppose I have, really," I conceded. "But I don't want to steamroll the rest of you, either. If anyone has a solid reason why we should turn her down, I want to hear it."

"I'm with you," Jimmy piped up.

"Thank you," I said patiently. "But I was asking for dissenting opinions.

Bilko?"

"Just the smell of it," he said sourly. "I might have something solid if you'd let me look into those crates of hers."

I grimaced. "Compromise," I said. "You can do a materials scan and sonic deep-probe if you want. Just bear in mind that Angorki customs would have done all that and more, and apparently pa.s.sed everything through without a whisper.

Other thoughts?"

I looked at Rhonda, then at Bilko, then back at Rhonda. Neither looked particularly happy, but neither said anything either. Probably had decided that arguing further would be a waste of breath. "All right, then," I said after a minute. "I'll go tell Scholar Kulasawa that we're in and get the coordinates from her. Bilko and I will figure out our vector and then you, Jimmy, will work out a program. Got it? Good. Everyone back to your posts."

Kulasawa accepted the news with the air of someone who would have found it astonishing if we hadn't fallen properly into line behind her. The location she gave me would have been a ten-hour trip from Parex, but as it happened was only about six hours from our current position. I couldn't tell whether she was genuinely pleased by that or simply considered it another example of the Universe's moral obligation to reconfigure itself in accordance to her plans and whims.

Regardless, the distance was reasonable and the course trivial to calculate.

By the time Bilko and I had the vector worked out, Jimmy was ready with several alternative programs. I got him started on a four-hour program-he argued briefly for doing the entire six hours in one gulp, but I'd already stretched the rules enough for one trip-and had him get us underway.

And then, when everything was quiet again, I headed back to the engine room to see Rhonda.

Most of the engineer's job involved the lift and landing procedures, leaving little if anything for her to do while we were in deep s.p.a.ce. Despite that, we almost never saw Rhonda in the dayroom. She preferred to stay at her post, watching her engines, listening to Jimmy's concert in solitude, and creating the little beadwork jewelry that was her hobby.

She was working on the latter as I came in. "Thought I'd check and see how you were doing back here," I greeted her as I stepped in through the hatchway.

"Everything's fine," she a.s.sured me, looking up from her beads.

"Good," I said, stepping behind her and peering over her shoulder. The piece was only half finished, but already it looked nice. "Interesting pattern," I told her. "Good color scheme, too. What's it going to be?"

"A decorated comb," she said. "It holds your hair in place in back." She twisted her head to look thoughtfully up at me. "For those of us who have enough hair to need holding, of course."

"Funny." I came around to the front of the board and pulled down a jumpseat.

"I.

wanted to talk to you about this little side trip we're making. You really don't like it, do you?"

"No, I don't," she said. "I have no quarrel with locating the Freedom's Peace or even going there, though reneging on a contract is going to damage that clean record you mentioned in the dayroom."

"I know, but we'll make it right," I promised. "Kulasawa's given us more than enough money to cover that."

"I know," Rhonda said sourly. "And that's what's really bothering me: your motivation for all of this. Altruistic noises aside, are you sure it's not just the money?"

"If you'll recall, I turned down the money when she first offered it," I reminded her.

"But was it the money or the fact you didn't know anything about the job?"

she countered.

"Some of both," I had to concede. "But now that we know what we're doing-"

"Do we?" she cut me off. "Do we really? Has Scholar Kulasawa thought through-I mean really thought through-what she intends to do once we get there? Is she going to volunteer the Sergei Rock pa.s.senger cabin to take them all back to Earth? Make grandiose promises of land on Brunswick or Camaraderie orsomewhere that she has no authority to make?"

She waved a hand in the general direction of the pa.s.senger cabin. "Or maybe she doesn't intend to bring them home at all. She could be planning to leave them out there like some lost rain-forest culture for her academic friends to study.

Or maybe she'll organize weekly tour-groups for the public and sell tickets."

"Now you're being silly," I grumbled.

"Am I?" she countered. "Just because she's a scholar and has money doesn't mean she's got any brains, you know." She c.o.c.ked her head slightly to the side.

"Just how much above our expenses is she offering you?"

I shrugged as casually as I could. "Seventy thousand neumarks."

Her eyes widened. "Seventy thousand? And you still don't see anything wrong with this?"

"There's prestige involved here, Rhonda," I reminded her. "Prestige and academic glory. That's worth a lot more to any scholar than mere money. Remember, we know next to nothing about the Great Leap colonies-all that stuff went up in dust when the Ganymede domes were hit late in the war. We don't know what kind of astrogation system they had, how you create a stable ecosystem that compact, or even how you set about hollowing out eighteen kilometers' worth of asteroid in the first place. Scholars go nuts over that sort of thing."

"Yes, but three hundred thousand neumarks worth?"

I shrugged again. "It's the bottom line of being the ones who go down in history," I reminded her. "And remember, the Tower's own records showed that we were the only transport headed for Parex for over a week. If her compet.i.tors have their own ship, then we're her only chance to get there first."

Rhonda shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I find that utterly incomprehensible."

"Frankly, so do I," I readily admitted. "That's probably why we're not scholars."