Crossways (9 page)

“Good to be off duty, huh?”

“Sure is.”

“I'm not spoiling any plans, am I?”

“Not a bit of it. I was going to Ag One, but I can go later. There's a community farm there. I volunteer.”

“On a farm?”

“Community farm. They keep domestic animals, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, a horse, a couple of ponies, and cows in milk. It's for the kids. Crossways kids only ever get to see animals like that on vids. It does them good to see what they feel like and smell like, even though most of their protein comes from a vat. There's nothing bigger than a cat allowed outside of the farming area, and that's only to keep the rat population down.”

“And you volunteer?”

“Sure. I show the kids how to milk the cow and I lead them around on the ponies. Not just me, of course. There's a rota.”

“Well, you are a surprise, Mr. Orton. I'd love to see your farm sometime.”

He held out his hand and Kitty took it.

“H
OW ARE YOU FEELING, MR. JUSSARO?” Crowder leaned over the recovery bed. “Dr. Zuma tells me the implantation was a complete success. Ready to join the living again?”

Jussaro blinked, then smiled.

“Before we activate your implant fully, there are conditions, but you knew there would be, didn't you?”

“I guessed as much.” The smile faded, replaced by wariness.

“You'll be leaving as soon as you've recovered. I want you to go and find your friend, Carlinni. That's no great hardship, is it? We'll even give you passage and a cover story.”

“I won't kill for you.” Jussaro's mouth was set into a hard line, but there was worry behind his eyes.

“Of course not. I wouldn't ask you to.”

“Information, then, is it?” Jussaro looked relieved.

That was the trick. Make them think the worst and then when you asked for something smaller it didn't seem so bad.

“Information.” Crowder nodded. “I'm not a mind reader, but I'm guessing right about now you're wondering what's to stop you from skipping out on your obligations. Am I right?”

Jussaro didn't answer.

“Of course you are. So you need to know about the modification to your implant.”

This was almost too easy. Jussaro's reactions were too predictable. He began to wonder whether the man was as naïve as he seemed. Maybe he was feeding Crowder the reactions he thought were expected of him. It didn't matter. Crowder had him sewn up.

“Modification?”

Was that a hint of fear in Jussaro's question? He hoped so.

“There's a switching device in your implant; effectively a kill switch.”

Jussaro shrugged, not giving anything away in his expression now. “What does it do, blow the top of my head off?”

“Nothing so crude. It induces an electrical cascade in your brain, a stroke. You might survive it, barely, in some kind of vegetative state perhaps, but your implant won't.”

Crowder let the information sink in. “We can trigger it from anywhere. You can run, but you can't escape. And just in case you're wondering, there's a dead-man switch. If I don't hear from you every seven days your implant is toast. And, of course, if I die . . .”

Jussaro's eyes widened.

“Carlinni and Benjamin have several good reasons to want me dead. You have a very good reason to want me alive. I'll expect to hear from you on a regular basis, or rather, my Telepath, Mr. Leyburn will. I won't be opening up myself to the possibility of attack. I know what Cara Carlinni did to Mrs. McLellan. Your friend is a dangerous woman.”

“Is she? Tell me more.”

Ben had an appointment with Norton Garrick and Mother Ramona before going to the warehouse.

“Coming?” he asked Cara. “Or would you rather meet me there?”

“I'll come.”

He felt absurdly pleased.

They took a tub hubward, accompanied by two silent guards in full-face helms, hurtling into the fast lane to make the six-kilometer journey in just under ten minutes. The Mansion House was right in the middle of Crossways, in a
district known as Center-Spindle. It faced out across Hub Park, a green space surrounded by the homes of the wealthy. The artificial azure sky, far above their heads, seemed convincingly real. Built on Palladian lines, the Mansion House's main living area was above street level and accessed by an impressive outer staircase leading to a columned portico. It almost looked like real stone, a clever artifice. On the ground floor, below stairs, Norton Garrick had his personal offices, distinct from Crossways' administrative headquarters, which were a block back from the hub.

Garrick's slight figure and pale skin stretched tight across the planes of his face spoke of deprivation in his youth, but his clothes and the single small diamond in his earlobe showed the restrained good taste of someone who no longer needed to flaunt excessive wealth. His brown wavy hair, cropped stylishly short and graying at the temples, could have belonged to a businessman rather than the pirate that he was, or maybe had been. Whatever Garrick's former occupation, he'd reinvented himself as an entrepreneur and politician. Crow's feet around his eyes spoke of a ready smile.

He wasn't smiling today.

“Bastards!” Garrick spat the word out and then looked up. “Not you two. Bloody Alphacorp. They just stopped a shipment of provisions at the Athabasca Terminus. The bogus quarantine notice for Olyanda has been extended to Crossways. We appear to have taken in ten thousand plague victims and are now in imminent danger of infecting all human life in the known universe. Any ship docking on Crossways won't be allowed to dock in Alphacorp or Trust ports without spending ninety days in a designated quarantine holding area. In other words, the independents can deliver their cargo here, but they're not going to be able to trade anywhere else for three months after that.”

“Just Alphacorp and the Trust?” Ben asked.

Mother Ramona entered the main office from a door at the back of the room. Today she wore an elegant business suit that contrasted sharply with her marbled skin. “Arquavisa has just been panicked into joining in. The rest will follow. That means we're under an effective trade embargo. No supplies in, no goods out—from and to the megacorps-held planets anyway.”

No station in space, especially one the size of Crossways, was entirely self-sufficient, despite intensive food production. It would take a while for shortages to kick in, probably nonessentials at first, but once it started to hit the staple food stocks it wouldn't be pretty.

“How long before supplies run out?” Ben asked.

“A couple of weeks before people start to notice they can't get everything they want. A couple of months before supplies get dangerously low. We could introduce rationing, but that's going to cause unrest.”

“You don't need this,” Ben said. “Forget the warehouse, we'll go.”

“Where to?” Garrick gave him a level look.

“Fair point.” Ben shrugged.

“Besides, Alphacorp has always wanted an excuse to stick it to us. You could leave tomorrow, but they wouldn't lift the embargo. We have to change our trading patterns to deal with the independents only—build up new networks.”

“Where are the nearest independent planets?” Cara asked.

Mother Ramona hit a panel on the desk and a holographic galaxy materialized in the center of the room. It was very like the one Crowder had in his ops room, and for a moment Ben was back to being a young ex-copper staring at Crowder's favorite toy in amazement as colonies twinkled in front of his eyes. In the intervening years he'd helped to put more bright white dots on the map. He located them: Rostov, Occania, Kemp's World, New Canada, Eyonore . . . and there was Hera-3, glowing blue to designate it as a platinum planet administered by the Trust.

Alphacorp's colonies were green, Arquavisa's yellow, Ramsay-Shorre's red, and a number of others glowed in shades in between. Dotted among them all were worlds he didn't recognize, picked out in violet.

“Those are the independents,” Garrick said.

“I didn't realize there were so many.” Cara stepped in past Ben to get a closer look. “That's quite a network.”

“Plentiful, but not close,” Garrick said. “In the past it's suited us that Crossways is off the beaten track with only one jump gate, which we control. A lot of the independents have picked their locations carefully, far enough away from a jump gate that transit is going to take anything from four to twelve weeks. Many of them are happy to trade with us,
but we have a logistics problem. Did you enjoy your coffee this morning?”

“Mmm, lovely,” Cara said.

“Very kind of you to send it, thank you.” Ben tried not to look at Cara as he sidestepped the question smoothly.

“From here.” Mother Ramona pushed her arm into the hologram and brushed her finger across a violet world in the Perseus Arm of the galaxy. “Blue Mountain, the ultimate coffee-producing planet in the Tegabo system. Settled by a breakaway bunch from Drogan's World. Their nearest gate is fifteen weeks out from the planet.”

“And while coffee is not an essential . . .” Garrick said. “Well, not to me at any rate.” He took a sidelong glance at Mother Ramona and gave a twitch of a smile. “Cereals would take eleven weeks' transit from Prairie, bulk protein powders five weeks from Massukos, even supposing they have the surplus to help us. If they don't, then the next nearest producer of any size is Keynes, which is nine weeks from its nearest gate.”

Ben stared at the hologram. “The megacorps don't have quite the monopoly on fast transit that they think they have,” he said. “But it would certainly help if we had a few more jumpships. That would solve a lot of transit problems.”

“You said ‘we,'” Mother Ramona said.

“Huh?”

“You said ‘if
we
had a few more jumpships.' We, not you. Does that mean that you're with us?”

Ben blinked twice. “I guess it does. I can't speak for everyone. Some of the psi-techs want to leave and find somewhere quiet to settle down, but over two hundred are staying.” He glanced sideways at Cara, but her face was expressionless. He wished he knew where her head was.

“The scruffy engineer woman!” Mother Ramona snapped her fingers several times, pressed her lips together and screwed up her eyes. “What was her name? Kept busting through security to rant about retrofitting jump drives.”

“Kennedy,” Garrick said.

“Dido Kennedy, that was it. Didn't you give her a few hundred creds and tell her to go away and work on it?”

“Seemed to be the best way to get rid of her.” Garrick shrugged.

Ben jumped at the news. “Someone's working on retrofitting jump drives?”

“Don't get excited, Benjamin,” Garrick said. “It could all have been hot air.”

“Worth checking out, though.”

“On your own head.” Garrick shrugged. “You'll find her in Red One. Woman is mad as a bag of snakes.”

“And it's not a very nice neighborhood,” Mother Ramona added. “Take backup.”

“You think there will be assassins?”

“In Red One they could all be assassins if you look like a victim. Nothing personal, but half the folks down there are looking for a business opportunity, and that could come from anyone who looks as if they have something worth stealing. Even the underclass has an underclass.”

“Noted. It's worth investigating, though. Jumpships are the way forward. I've used some of the independent gates,” Ben turned down the corners of his mouth. “Some are old but robust. Others are held together with string and a prayer.”

“I don't think there's one person on this station who can fly a jumpship, Benjamin,” Garrick said. “Or at least, no one who's owned up to it. Just you and Miss Marling so far. Jumpships are important, but so are pilots to fly them. If we can retrofit, buy, or even steal jumpships to bring in supplies, we're still going to need pilots and Navigators who've got what it takes. Can you train them for us?”

“Damned if I know.” Ben shrugged. “Gen's a Psi-3 Navigator and she can do it, but Kitty Keely just doesn't have the knack. If I knew what gave Navigators the ability to fly a jumpship free-form, rather than transiting via the gates, I'd be closer to knowing whether I could train them.”

“But you'll try,” Mother Ramona asked.

“If it doesn't take up too much time. We still need to find those missing settlers. Crowder is the obvious starting point. We have to get to him on Chenon somehow, since he's not at home to telepathic callers.”

“Don't throw yourself away on something you can't win,” Garrick said. “The settlers may be long gone.”

“I made a promise.”

“I know, I know.” Garrick held up both hands, palms outward. “You always keep your promises. I have it on good
authority.” He exchanged a knowing look with Mother Ramona. “My fiancée is your biggest advocate.”

“You want something else,” Cara said.

Cara had always told Ben that her Empathy, her ability to read people's feelings, was intermittent and unreliable, but this time she seemed to have hit the spot.

Garrick nodded. “You have information that could damage the Trust and Alphacorp.”

“Yes.” Cara moved to stand closer. Ben could feel the warmth of her. “A download from Ari van Blaiden's handpad.”

“We don't know the extent of it, yet,” Ben said. “There's a lot of data and we've hardly begun to look.”

“Will you share it?” Garrick asked. When neither of them answered straightaway he continued. “The megacorps can't stand that Crossways fought for its independence and won. They've always been worried that others would follow suit. Alphacorp has a spurious claim to ownership because it bought out the Larssen Corporation, which first put the station out here. We've always known that one day they might try to enforce that claim.”