Engaging the Enemy (27 page)

“Er…not at all,” Ky said, floundering for the moment. The woman carried a bulky case.

“Don't worry; I'm not eager to take offense,” Leary went on. “I'm not here to make trouble, just prevent it. So far we have no local complaints against you at all, but because of the way in which you obtained this ship, we are required to take all precautions to be sure of your identity.”

“I understand,” Ky said.

“I'm glad,” Leary said, smiling. Her smile involved dimples in her perfect cheeks. She glanced around at the bridge crew. Ky could see for herself that her looks had affected the men—except Rafe, whose expression of advanced disdain might be a cover for the same reaction. “Let me reassure you all,” Leary said. “I will take no notice of what you say among yourselves; our rules on courtesy do not apply here unless you deliberately insult me.”

“So…I can call him a terminally stupid idiot”—Rafe nodded at Lee—“and you won't object?”

“Not at all,” Leary said. “Does he?”

Lee grinned. “From Rafe, that's a compliment,” he said. “I don't mind.”

“I will consider it an education, but will refrain from participation,” Leary said. “Captain, as my primary duty is to see that neither you nor the ship departs, I will begin by sealing the bridge controls related to departure. If you would point out the relevant boards, please.”

“Here.” Lee moved aside, pointing to the controls that retracted umbilicals, sealed ports and hatches, and brought the insystem drive to readiness.

From her case, Leary took raised plastic covers that she fitted over those controls, being careful to cover only those Lee pointed out, and sealed the edges with bright orange tape. “This tape will turn green if it is lifted,” she said. “It will not reseal. Tampering with official seals is an offense under our regulations, and will result in severe penalties. If for any reason you feel it necessary to gain access to these controls, you must have authorization from me or the stationmaster. A directional electromagnetic pulse device has been attached to your ship; removing more than four centimeters of tape will cause it to activate, and permanent damage to your control circuits may result. It may also cause temporary damage to persons on the bridge at that time. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Lee said. The monitor glanced around, waiting until everyone, including Ky, had agreed that they understood.

“If you have other crew who come onto the bridge, you must instruct them.”

Ky nodded her understanding. The station com circuit bleeped again; she turned to the screen.

“Captain Vatta, the judicar has authorized use of a tracking device in your case. May I speak to Monitor Leary?”

“Of course,” Ky said. Leary came forward.

“Monitor Leary, when you have secured the ship, you will please accompany Captain Vatta to a security station where she will be fitted with a tracking device.”

“Bridge controls have been sealed, Stationmaster. Will it be necessary to place a guard on dockside?”

“I think not, Monitor. When Captain Vatta has been fitted with the device, be sure she understands all the restrictions, and then you need not accompany her further.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Captain Vatta, the judicar granted this alteration of the original order only because of the time involved until Furman arrives and your need to conduct legitimate business. I trust you will appreciate the courtesy and not abuse it.”

“By no means, Stationmaster,” Ky said. “I am grateful for the consideration shown, and intend to be offship only in the necessary course of business.”

H
aving the tracking device fitted took only a few minutes, and the technician treated Ky with perfect courtesy. Ky restrained herself from any of the witty remarks that occurred to her; she suspected that Cascadian bureaucracy would not take kindly to that kind of wit. Afterward, Monitor Leary handed her a hardcopy list of the establishments she was forbidden to enter.

“And now you are free to go, and I will not trouble you further,” Leary said, smiling.

“Thank you,” Ky said, adhering to the cultural demand for perfect courtesy.

A few hours later, she was back on the ship when she got the call informing her that there was no official source of Vatta genetic material on the station or in the system. The Cascadian Bureau of Investigation agent explained that no Vatta family member had ever been required to give one; no question of identity had arisen before.

“It's most inconvenient,” the agent said. “We do have basic bioscan data, fingerprints and retinal scans and so on, but that's only good for determining if someone matches a single known individual identity. That's collected from captains on arrival, as you know, and we have data from Josephine Vatta, as well as several others. Ergash Vatta, Melisande Vatta, Bromlan, Asil. But you aren't claiming to be any of those, and we had no reason to request a sample for genetic identity.”

“So…what do you plan to do?”

“First we will inquire more of Captain Furman, who is already known to us as a legitimate Vatta employee. Do you deny this?”

“No, of course not. Assuming he's not an imposter, this is the man under whom I trained. He should know me, and identify me, correctly.”

“We do have bioscan data on him, so when he arrives we can determine instantly if he is the same individual with whom we have been dealing. Do you have any identifying data?”

Ky queried her implant. In his personnel file she had both his bioscan and genetic pattern, as well as visual images; she offered to transmit those.

“Nothing external?”

“No. But since we hold opposing opinions, is there any reason for you to doubt the validity of my implant data if it confirms his identity?”

“Well…no. All right. Please transmit visual image first—full-face and profile if you have it—and then the bioscan data. We may not need the genetic data.”

“Just a moment.” Ky had not called on the skullphone, which she still found awkward to use, and now moved the files she wanted to send, plugged in, and sent them via ship com.

“Thank you,” the agent said. “The visual matches but I'll send the bioscan to our records department.”

“Once he's docked,” Ky said, “you might ask him whether he has any bioscan data on me. He might have, since my father asked Furman to go to Sabine on my behalf.”

The agent's brows rose. “You don't seem at all concerned that such data might implicate you.”

“Implicate me how?” Ky asked. “I am Kylara Vatta, and I know that, and any real identity check will prove it. If the ansibles weren't down, you could contact Slotter Key for all the details.”

“But they aren't working,” the agent said. “According to Captain Furman, the real Kylara Vatta was on a very different ship, the…er…
Gary Tobai…
”

“Yes, I explained that,” Ky said. “Are you sure that ship hasn't shown up in this system yet? I was expecting Stella to follow on directly, and she should be here by now.”

“I'm quite sure,” the agent said. “I will inform you if—when—such an event occurs.”

“Thank you,” Ky said, warned by his tone. “I didn't mean to impugn your watchfulness, it's just that I'm worried about her. I thought she'd be here by day before yesterday.”

Stella stayed two extra days in Sallyon, doing her best to soothe the ruffled feelings of its administrators. “We are traders,” she kept saying to one after another unhappy official. “Yes, Ky is a bit impetuous, but Vatta Transport is what it has always been, commercial and not military.”

“In these dangerous times, we simply cannot have private individuals raising a military force…” This was the fourth official to call her in for a lecture. Stella held on to her temper with an effort.

“I quite understand. As you may have noticed, I'm not doing any such thing. I have traded ordinary cargoes—” The designer toilets had brought an excellent price here, as had the custom fabrics.

“But you are going to follow her, are you not? Your listed next destination is Cascadia; that's where she went. That suggests to us that you are in league.”

She was getting very tired of this suspicion.
I'm not like Ky at all,
she wanted to scream at them. In truth, she did not want to follow Ky. If Ky had gone rogue, as she suspected, she could not help Vatta by playing along. Besides, she could pick up little here that anyone in the Moscoe Confederation would want. Still, more than she wanted away from Ky, she wanted to get Ky into a small room and shake some sense into her.

“I have only this one small ship,” she said. “And as you pointed out, these are dangerous times. I hope to persuade my cousin that her duty is to protect me, and other Vatta ships, perhaps by escorting us in convoy.”

“We still find it suspicious—”

“You would find anything I did suspicious,” Stella said, her temper finally fraying. “I have met all your restrictions; I have conducted only normal trade activities. You simply want to believe I am part of some vast conspiracy. Let me turn that around. How am I supposed to know that your hostility to an interstellar space force is not part of collusion with these pirates who have taken over Bissonet?”

The man turned pale. “How dare you—?” he began.

Stella stood up. “I could ask the same question. Perhaps you cannot grasp that family members may disagree, even vehemently. Ky and I are cousins, not even sisters, and certainly not twins. We have been at each other's throats more often than not since childhood. We are working together now only because of the peril that stalks our family. You met her; you have now met me. Can you really say we are alike?”

“My apologies, Captain Vatta,” the man said. “To look at, to talk to, you have been nothing like your cousin. You are beautiful; she is—”

“Plain as a post,” Stella said, in the tone of a beauty who has scant patience with the plain. She did not sit down again, but she stood less braced. “Always has been. Let's be honest here, gentlesir. Children in a family aren't all alike. I was the pretty one of the family—no credit to me; I was born this way. My sister Jo was the smart one; my brothers were the strong ones. Ky's mother kept talking to my mother about how to dress her up, make more of her, but no matter what, she was not going to look like me. And she minded, of course. Anyone would. She liked to think I was nothing but a pretty face.”

“So she always hated you?” the man asked. Stella felt a stab of guilt at this—she had described a stereotypical jealous woman, and as far as she knew Ky had never cared enough to envy her—but she ignored it and went on.

“I wouldn't say hate,” Stella said. “But we were rivals, of a sort, until she abandoned the competition.” Again, that tickle of guilt. “She made herself different from me—rough where I am smooth, so to say. It comes naturally to me to look for a way to avoid problems, to cooperate; it comes naturally to her to attack problems head-on, to argue. This doesn't mean she's always wrong. But if it's possible to put someone's back up, Ky will do it.”

“I see.” He cocked his head. “So…you don't agree with her about this Bissonet business?”

“I don't know exactly what she thinks,” Stella said, “because I haven't had a chance to talk to her. The invasion scares me; I saw what happened to my family back home. If this is the same enemy who attacked Vatta, they must be stopped or we're all in peril. But Ky as commander of a vast interstellar military force…that's ridiculous.”

He relaxed visibly. “And you would tell her so?”

“I would,” Stella said. “If I ever catch up I intend to talk some sense into her. As her closest living relative, an older cousin, I think she'll listen to me, even given our past friction.” She hoped she was right. She had the uneasy feeling that Ky was past listening to sense from anyone; that she was living out some adolescent fantasy of power and vengeance, perhaps intoxicated by something on Osman's ship or simply the possession of a ship configured for war. “Vatta needs her,” Stella went on. “We need all our family members, and we need them all working for the family, to rebuild our business.”

After that, the station authorities gave her no more difficulties; she sold off the rest of their cargo, and refilled the ship with goods Orem thought might sell on Cascadia. “Nothing likely to make the profit we did in Rosvirein and here,” he said. “But we should cover expenses nicely.” When the cargo had been loaded, Stella didn't push for a priority departure. She was already well behind Ky, and it would do Ky no harm to worry some. Maybe, if she worried, she would start to realize her responsibility to the family instead of daydreaming about a space navy.

The days in FTL flight passed uneventfully. Between sessions in which she moved from division to division to learn more about ship operations, Stella planned one speech after another, finding flaws in each that Ky would surely exploit. It was infuriating. Anyone with a gram of sense could see that trying to raise an interstellar force was a job for governments or powerful, experienced, military leaders, not a young woman who hadn't even finished her education. But the more she thought about Ky's objections and how to counter them, the more she saw that the basic idea—having a real interstellar force that could control if not eliminate piracy and prevent attacks on systems—was a good one.

Both Quincy and Orem agreed when she brought them into the discussion.

“The only choices I see—other than just letting the pirates take over, which we all agree isn't good—is that merchants form an armed league to fight them off or governments cooperate to create exactly that kind of interstellar force,” Orem said. “The system governments never wanted merchanters to create a force like that; they were afraid that we'd become a menace—controlling supply, able to attack from space. They weren't any too happy about ISC having its own armed force.”

“That may be,” Stella said, “but that doesn't mean Ky's the one to do it. She's younger than I am; she didn't even finish at the Academy.”

“Ky's smart,” Quincy said. “No, she didn't graduate, but she had only a few months to go—she'd learned most of what they had to teach. And I've seen her in action.”

“So have I,” Stella said. “But even so, she's a Vatta. We need to rebuild Vatta; that's what she said she was going to do. We need every ship and every family member to stay focused on that as the top priority. It's one thing to say that this kind of force is needed, and even to suggest what components might be in it. But to take a Vatta ship and try to do it herself is…is irresponsible at best.”

“Maybe,” Orem said. “I haven't met her, of course; what I know I've learned from you, from Quincy and other members of the crew who were aboard with her. But rebuilding Vatta will take more than having ships to haul goods. It will take securing the spaceways, making them safe for trade again. If she can do that—if she can influence others to do that—that's an important contribution to Vatta's recovery.”

“I agree,” Quincy said. “And I don't see it as disloyalty to Vatta; I think she cares as much about Vatta as you do. She sees beyond Vatta, though, to the society in which Vatta must function.”

“I suppose,” Stella said. “I still think she's not the right person to organize such a force.”

“You're still annoyed with her for leaving you behind,” Quincy said, with a knowing expression.

“I'm still angry about that,” Stella said. “All right, I understand her reasoning at Garth-Lindheimer. What if they didn't adjudicate the ship to Vatta? We needed another ship. But Rosvirein I simply do not understand. You know the mess we jumped into there—if it hadn't been for Balthazar's expertise, we might all have been killed. And she left the moment trouble started, just bolted away; others stayed behind, and she could have. What kind of military commander is that? What kind of care for us?”

“Stella, I've told you—” Quincy began.

“I know what you've told me. I still think she could have stayed in dock, or found a way to meet us somehow. You just don't want to see her as anything but your marvelous Ky.” Instantly she was ashamed of herself; she sounded like the jealous one now.

Quincy shrugged. “Either you'll understand someday, or you won't. I have work to do. Excuse me, Captain.” And with a nod to Orem, she withdrew.