Crossways (50 page)

Forward of the ship, as Ricky had said, there was a quickly raised town ready to shelter ten thousand new settlers before they set off to conquer whatever was out there. Beyond the buildings, clearings had been torn into the virgin earth and stacks of lumber were lined up ready for use. Two heavyweight plows trundled along, eating green and shitting out strait brown furrows.

Brother Ben, looking seriously austere in his all-purpose buddysuit, was talking to a man and two women on the edge of town. One of the women spotted him and said something. Ben looked up and waved him over. She was in settler garb, casual soft trousers and tunic, made for comfort not for fashion. It made him feel at home already.

“Rion, come and meet Mrs. Lorient and Jack Mario. They're in charge,” Ben said. “And this is Suzi Ruka, the Free Company's agronomist.”

Agronomist. Just a fancy name for a farmer who didn't like to get dirty, but Rion noticed the soil under Suzi Ruka's fingernails. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

“Paruna grain.” Suzi anticipated his first question. “Fastest-yielding crop for this type of ground.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “What are you going to diversify with? I've always favored spelt over bio-engineered wheat.”

“Spelt, oats, corn, linseed, barley, beans. Vegetables, of course: potatoes, parsnips, carrots, brassicas of all kinds.”

“I've always been fond of peppers and tomatoes.”

“We've got acres of grow-tunnels . . .”

And they were off, comparing cultivation methods and seed varieties. The conversation drifted to stock raising and Suzi mentioned Charolais cattle. He countered with Blonde d'Aquitaine and Belgian Blue and the composite breed he raised on Chenon, the Russolta Brindle, which she admitted was a very fine breed for beef production and asked his opinion on the Magenta lineage, which he almost knew by heart.

It was only when he caught Ben's meaningful expression
that he realized he'd been totally ignoring Mrs. Lorient. Luckily she laughed when he apologized.

“It's a good thing we've got four hundred acres marked out for you, Mr. Benjamin,” she said.

“Please, call me Rion. Four hundred acres?” He glanced at Kai, who grinned back. Well, that would do very nicely to be going on with.

“We're not exactly short of land here. If you need more . . .”

“Thank you.”

“And cattle. Good breeding stock, though I can't promise you Russolta Brindles.”

Rion felt himself smiling. “We'll take what we can get, won't we, Kai?”

“We need good farmers,” she continued. “I hope you'll stay. You and Kai and Ricky.”

“I'm going with Nan,” Ricky piped up.

Rion didn't mean to frown.

“For a while, anyway.”

Rion sighed. “My youngest is determined to be a psi-tech and be like his Uncle Ben.”

Rena Lorient smiled. “He couldn't have picked a better role model.”

Ben looked sheepish. Damned idiot never could take a compliment.

Cara was supervising the unloading of crates from
Solar Wind
's hold with the help of some psi-techs he didn't recognize. Seeing him glance around, she waved and pointed to a livestock carrier. Tam and Lol! Tam barked once through the door's grid.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Lorient—my dogs.”

“I like a man who knows how to treat his animals. Go ahead. I'll see you after you've said hello to your dogs and good-bye to your family.”

Rion hurried over and let the two dogs out of the carrier to frolic around him. He gave then a few minutes to run and sniff and mark their territory before he called them to heel.

He heard Nan's laughter before he saw her. She was with a couple of psi-techs who had apparently been showing her around the embryonic settlement. The dogs broke away from him and streaked toward her. She stooped and gave them both scritches along their curly-coated backs.

“They're going to miss you,” Rion said. “I'll miss you.”

“Nonsense. You and Kai will have everything organized before I get back, and you'll enjoy not having me under your feet. I'll keep in touch via Jack's wife, Saedi. If you have any messages for me, send them via her.”

“Will do.”

With promises to visit and to keep in touch, Ben headed back to his precious ship.

Nan hugged Rion and Kai, not once, but twice. “We'll be back soon,” she said, “and I have a full set of schoolwork for Ricky, so he won't miss out while he's traveling.”

“Aww, Nan . . .” Ricky started to protest, but she gave him one of her this-is-how-it-will-be looks and he shut up remarkably quickly.

Ricky's good-bye to Kai was a brotherly punch on the arm, neither sure whether they wanted to lose their dignity by hugging, but Rion pulled Ricky into a gruff embrace. “You'll never be too old to hug, son. Behave yourself and don't get into trouble.”

“I won't.” Ricky straightened up and started to turn, then shot back, clamped his arms around Rion's chest and squeezed. “I love you, Dad.”

“Course you do.” The lump in Rion's throat kept his response necessarily brief. “Now go on and don't keep Uncle Ben waiting.”

The clouds rolled closer as they said their good-byes, and it started to rain as
Solar Wind
rose on her antigravs, which was just as well since Rion's face was already wet.

Ricky wanted to make the journey to Crossways on the flight deck, but Uncle Ben said no very firmly and he didn't feel he could argue. It wasn't too late for them to turn around and take him back to Jamundi.
Best behavior
became his mantra.
Best behavior. Best behavior.

They arrived back on Crossways to find that Mr. Garrick had made his own private yacht, the
Glory Road
, available for Nan and Ricky's ambassadorial trip. Next to
Solar Wind
it was the coolest ship ever. Yacht made it sound small, but it was much bigger than a runabout and sleekly elegant, decked out in green livery with a red flash, just like Mr. Garrick's guards. In fact all the crew had the same smart
uniform. Surely it didn't take thirty people to fly a ship of this size.

“My own personal flight crew,” Mr. Garrick explained. “Smart as whips, the lot of them, and dangerous when backed into a corner.” He walked down the lineup on the dockside with Nan and Ricky. “This is Captain Nelka Dorinska, a fine pilot and a Psi-3 Navigator extricated from the clutches of Arquavisa when she took out two senior officers in a bar fight. She hasn't touched a drop of yahto ever since, have you, Captain?”

“Not a drop, sir, not of yahto, anyway.” Dorinska saluted smartly. “Please to have you on board, Miss Benjamin, and you, too, Master Ricky.”

Master Ricky. Did being the ambassador's great-grandson give him a title now?

They followed Mother Ramona up the ramp and through the open air lock. “The best way to attract friends is to look like you don't need them,” she said as she showed Nan the elegant reception cabin. Cabin was hardly the word for it. Salon was the word he thought he heard Mother Ramona use. It was all so . . . so . . . fancy. Ricky ran his fingers across the plush sofa, noting that it was firmly clamped into place in case of loss of gravity.

The master cabin opened off one side of the salon. It had a huge soft bed, a couple of easy chairs and a desk, once again, all clamped down. It was sumptuously cushioned and only a little less fancy than the salon.

“There's a cabin for Ricky next door,” Mother Ramona said. “And you'll have a personal staff of four, including Chander Dalal from the Free Company, a Psi-2 Telepath and also an excellent cook. He'll be your contact person.”

“Namaste.” Chander gave them a palms-together greeting, which Nan returned elegantly and Ricky more awkwardly, but was rewarded with a quick smile and a nod of approval. Good, he didn't fluff it too badly.

“There are two other Telepaths in the crew,” Mother Ramona said. “And everyone has a receiving implant.”

“Wow,” Ricky said, looking around the cabin. “Is all this for real?”

“Real enough,” Nan said. “But none of it prevents you from doing your schoolwork. Deal?”

“Deal. If I do extra can I go on the flight deck?”

He saw Nan glance at Captain Dorinska and she gave a brief nod. He felt himself start to grin.

Crowder's recovery was slow, but while his body trapped him in a hospital bed, he began to plan. Aggie, true to her word, didn't come back, and though he tried to send messages to his daughters they were returned unwatched. Stefan French visited with paperwork that confirmed Aggie's diagnosis. He was, indeed, off the Board and out of a job, or at least on extended personal leave. In his weakened state this hardly seemed to matter, but as he recovered he began to seethe.

He'd only done what any one of them wished they had the guts to do.

Lawrence Archer was holding Crowder's post as head of Colony Operations temporarily. He was efficient, but had no vision. Crowder had Stefan, who had not been told to cut off his former boss from the information stream, comm the hospital three times a day. He wanted to know everything that Archer did and all the news as it happened.

Cotille Colony's declaration of independence incensed Crowder. Sofia Lake had served the Trust well for thirty years and now she'd turned traitor. He got Stefan to check the records. Damn! He'd forgotten she'd worked with Benjamin.

He watched the vid that Aggie had warned him about. That particular cat was well and truly out of the bag now, but since the Monitors weren't standing guard outside his door he presumed that the Trust had enough influence to ensure he wouldn't be called to account. Someone would be answering awkward questions, but for the moment it wasn't him. He decided that extended leave, for personal reasons, suited him just fine as long as he could keep up his contacts and influence. He'd bide his time until it all blew over.

He called Tori LeBon only to be fobbed off and left worrying for a day. When she eventually called him back it was with accusations.

“You were careless,” Tori said of the vid. “You left the Board no choice. We reluctantly accepted your resignation.”

“I didn't tender my resignation,” he growled.

She merely looked at him, expressionless.

“John Hunt?”

“Was the first to say you should go, but not the only one.”

Crowder shrugged, outwardly calm, but inwardly raging. He'd get the bastards.

“What's done is done.” He sighed theatrically. “There will always be leaks. Speaking of which, you know I have an insider in Alphacorp?” Several insiders, actually, but he wasn't going to reveal that.

“You'd better put me in contact.”

“I don't think so. You know I have every respect for you, Victoria, but there are some things that remain sacred. I will however, while I remain on extended personal leave, work on the Trust's behalf, and my own of course.”

“Of course.”

“You'll get the benefit of my considerable network of contacts and my business advice. I want back in.”

“Of course you do.”

“Not right now, naturally, but when the time is right.”

“It's a pity your contacts didn't warn you about the vid, or Benjamin's destination.” The long silence and the sour look on her face told him exactly what she thought of the fiasco on Norro.

“Is Benjamin back on Crossways?”

“As far as we know.”

“We need to do something about that.”

“We've tried. Alphacorp has tried. Their security is tight and getting tighter.”

“Doesn't Alphacorp have a claim on Crossways?”

“Theoretically.” She frowned. “It's not enforceable.”

“Might it be enforceable if they had help? Den of thieves. Should be cleared out for the good of everyone traveling the space lanes. Yadda, yadda . . . Scare tactics. Didn't Arquavisa lose two ships last month?”

“Probably in foldspace.”