Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (76 page)

The four of us spent a giddy two stans at dinner. Ms. Maloney seemed relaxed for the first time since I had met her. Something about fighting back and winning did good things for her. I had never realized just how tightly strung she was, how closed off, and I kicked myself for it.

When the waiter came around with the dessert card, we all just groaned at him. He smiled.

“Didn’t leave enough room for a sweetie?” he chided us with a grin.

I was full almost to the point of discomfort and the extra glass of wine didn’t help. We had spent a blissful two full stans of laughing, eating, and enjoying the company. When I thumbed the tab, I added a generous tip, and ushered my small harem out of the restaurant and onto the promenade.

Ms. Arellone took the lead, as she was wont to do. She still saw herself as our bodyguard even though none of us still operated as if we needed one. Nobody in his right mind takes on a pack of four spacers. Ms. Maloney and Greta walked arm-in-arm with their heads together giggling over something that I assumed I would learn about soon enough, given the occasional grins and glances that they both gave me. I tried not to worry too much about it, although I harbored more than a little curiosity as I ambled along in the rear.

The promenade was sparsely populated in the middle evening hours. It wasn’t late enough to be fashionable, and we made up the trailing edge of the early crowd. Maybe that’s why I spotted him moving up behind us, not running but walking with a purposeful stride as if he had somewhere to go.

At first I didn’t recognize him. He was just another spacer in a gray shipsuit wearing a tyvek painter’s coverall. He walked up beside me, on the side closest to the bulkhead, which made me look at him more closely, perhaps. His black, spacer cropped hair looked wrong somehow but before I could register it, I felt a sharp burn in my side and looked down to see a gaping wound sliced just under my rib cage and blood already beginning to soak the fabric.

I gasped from the combined pain and surprise. Greta and Ms. Maloney turned to look just he made his move. I saw his right arm begin to extend toward Ms. Maloney’s exposed kidney. By then, she had turned enough to see the blood soaking my side, and dodged away from the figure coming up fast behind her. Greta had seen what I had, and her eyes opened wide in shock as she recognized the face.

What followed was less a smooth flow of time as much as a series of flashes—frames in some horror show. Sound didn’t register, as each frame took no time. The entire series unfolded in silence.

Flash—Greta’s face twisted in shock and surprise as she pulled Christine Maloney away from the approaching blade.

Flash—Stacy Arellone’s head turned to look back over her shoulder as she reached for her own weapons.

Flash—A second tyvek suited figure stepped from a doorway ahead, blade already in hand, already driving upward toward Stacy’s chest.

Flash—Christine Maloney fell to the deck dodging the thrust from behind, her momentum pulling Greta over on top of her.

Flash—My vision blurred as the man’s flat, ceramic blade flashed forward so fast it was barely recognizable, and buried itself just under Greta’s left shoulder-blade as she fell over Christine Maloney.

Flash—The rictus of anger on Stacy Arellone’s face as she engaged her own attacker, arcs of silver steel in each hand.

Flash—His forward momentum forced our attacker to step over the tangle of limbs on the deck, and he slammed into Arellone’s exposed back, his second knife carving, his attack throwing her bodily into the bulkhead even as her first attacker stepped back from the fight, streaks of red slashed diagonally across his torso.

Time became fluid and linear again, but the shock and blood loss drew me down to land in the puddles of red on the deck. As my head bounced on the decking, sound crashed around me. Shouts echoed down the promenade. I had one final vision of irritation flashing across our attacker’s face even as his blade reached to cut the life from his surprised accomplice.

As the darkness edged out my vision, I watched our attacker coldly assessing the situation while the sound of my own heart gushed in my ears. He considered our party, lying sprawled and tangled on the deck, only Christine Maloney uninjured. He glanced up once as the alarm spread behind and around us. His lips pressed together in a line of irritation as his mental calculus reached a solution.

I felt the vibrations of running feet where my face lay against the deck, and I watched as Percival Herring turned, walked away down the promenade, and disappeared into the stairwell. Through the din, through the pounding in my ears, and even as the darkness closed my vision, I heard the latch click as the door swung closed behind him.

Chapter Seventy-Two
Greenfields Orbital:
2373-July-3

When the autodoc cracked my consciousness, I woke feeling quite rested as if after a particularly good night’s sleep. A shell of satisfied well-being surrounded me, and I could feel a smile edging the corners of my mouth. The drugs did a very good job.

“Hello, Captain.” A smocked figure beside the capsule drew my attention. Her face held a practiced calm even as her eyes assessed what her instrumentation must have already told her.

“Hi.” The drugs kept me floating even as the memories drifted up, and tried to break into my head.

She smiled and nodded. “You’re going to be fine, but we need to put you back under for a bit.”

Before I could laugh in her face, the darkness closed on me.

When I woke again, I found myself. No drugs held me warmly. The autodoc had no tubes or probes stuck into me or pressed onto my skin. The feeling might have been one of rested well-being except for the fear and uncertainty that flushed through me, sending the steady beat of the cardio monitor into double time.

“Steady, Skipper.” Ms. Arellone’s voice came from the left, and my head turned to see her haunted eyes. Christine Maloney stood just behind her. Between the two of them, Ms. Maloney looked the worse. Black and red circles ringed her eyes.

Before I could speak the medico drew my attention to the other side. “Captain?”

I turned to look at her as she craned her head around, and leaned a bit over the capsule to gaze into my eyes.

“Welcome back, Captain. We’re going to decant you in a few ticks here, but the authorities would like a word with you, if you’re up to it?”

She made it sound like the possibility might be optional. “Of course.” My voice sounded flat and stale to me.

“Thanks. We’ll be right outside, and the autodoc will call me if you have any trouble.” The medico gathered my crew with her eyes, and they stepped out of the alcove even as a jump-suited TIC agent pulled up a rolling stool and settled beside the pod.

“Hello, Captain. I’m field agent Aaron Harkness.”

“Field Agent.” I acknowledged his presence and title even as I steeled myself for what must follow.

“I’d like to ask you some questions and record your responses, Captain. About the attack?” His mouth made a movement that approximated a smile. “Would that be alright?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Thank you, Captain. Can you tell me your name?”

“Ishmael Horatio Wang.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I assume I am still on Greenfields Orbital, but no, I have no direct knowledge of where I am.”

He looked at me quizzically. “Tell me what you remember about your attack.”

I walked him through the raw and painful memories. I described the frames as well as I could remember even as I knew that time, shock, and drugs had eroded them—robbed them of their clarity and softened their pain.

When I finished he held up his tablet for me to see. “Do you recognize this man?”

“That’s Percival Herring. He was one of my deck crew.”

“Is that the man who attacked you?”

“Yes. His hair is different. Black, not red.”

Agent Harkness nodded. “Thank you, Captain.” He pulled the tablet back, and flicked it once before holding it up again. “How about this man?”

“That’s Chief Bailey. Engineering First Officer Montague Bailey. I fired him back on Diurnia.”

“What else do you know about him, Captain?”

“He’s a bodyguard. Used to work for DST guarding Christine Maloney.”

“Used to...?”

“She fired him, too.”

He nodded and, changing the view once more, held up a photo of a man stretched out on a steel table. He wore the familiar tyvek coverall. I could clearly see the slashes across his torso. “How about this one?”

“That looks like the second guy. The one who stepped out of the doorway and engaged Ms. Arellone.”

He nodded and changed the photo once more, this time to a close up of the man on the slab. It was the picture of a clean-shaven older man wearing a spacer’s cropped hair, his eyes were closed and his skin had a pale lifeless color. “How about now?”

He looked familiar. There was something about his nose and the shape of the brow line. At first I didn’t see it. The features of his face relaxed in a way that sleep could never accomplish. I squinted, trying to figure out what it was about him that seemed so familiar, and then it snapped into focus. “That’s Chief Bailey. He shaved.”

Agent Harkness nodded again. “Thank you, Captain.” He put his tablet away. “Did those two know each other?”

“Yes. They both worked for me aboard the
Iris
for a time. Chief Bailey was my engineer and Mr. Herring as able spacer.”

“Why did you fire Chief Bailey?”

“Incompetence. I needed to rely on him to perform his duties, and I couldn’t.”

“Anything else?”

I shook my head. “Not at the time. As we were cleaning out his compartment we found a tablet with a lot of newsie digitals on it. Images that he’d apparently sold to the gossip columnists.”

“Really? Do you still have the tablet?”

I shook my head again. “No, he came back and collected it.”

He cocked his head slightly. “You let him have it back?”

I shrugged. “It was his.”

“What about the digitals?”

“I erased them.”

His mouth twitched to a near smile. “Do you know who he sold the photos to?”

“No,” I said, “but if you check with Ms. Arellone and Ms. Maloney, they can probably show you the gossip columns where we found them.”

He nodded. “Did either of these men have regular contacts anywhere? Friends? Relatives?”

“Not that I know of.” Even as I said it, I remembered, and he must have seen the flash on my face because he nodded for me to continue.

“There was a group of people on Ten Volt that we found Herring hanging around with. We had a problem with newsies there. A photo appeared with a story that could only have come from somebody in the crew. We thought somebody was leaking information, but Mr. Herring convinced us that he was the victim of some unscrupulous newsies who plied him with booze and picked his brain. Bets and Ana are the only two names I remember.”

“Thank you, Captain. Do you remember anything about them? Anything that would identify them?”

I sighed and tried to picture them, but I couldn’t even remember who had been the taller. “I might recognize them again if I saw them, but no. I couldn’t really describe them with any accuracy or confidence. It was months ago.”

“Thank you, Captain.” He clicked his tablet. “The recording is now off.” He looked at me. “Is there anything you care to tell me, now that it’s not official?”

I shrugged. “No, that’s all I know.”

“Anything you suspect?”

“I suspect that Ames Jarvis is behind this somehow. I believe that Ms. Maloney was the target.”

“Why do you think that, Captain?”

I explained the situation surrounding Ms. Maloney and DST and Ames Jarvis as best I could in a few sentences. “I’m not privy to all the inner workings, Agent Harkness. He stands to make a lot of money, and gain control of a major company, if she fails to complete her stanyer.”

“Yet, Ms. Maloney was the only one not injured in the attack.” He looked at me levelly. “How do you explain that?”

“My engineer got in the way.” Somehow I managed to keep it level, keep it even, keep from screaming. The monitors over my head gave away my lie, and the medico came in with a concerned frown for Agent Harkness.

He took the hint and stood. “Thank you, Captain. TIC has an office here if you think of anything else.”

“You’re welcome to search his personal effects on the
Iris
, Agent Harkness.”

He gave a faint smile. “Thanks, Captain, but we already did that. Your Ms. Maloney was quite cooperative.” He tapped the side of the autodoc with an index finger. “We’ll get him, Captain.” He nodded to me, and left before the medico had to get pushy.

The monitors above my head began to sound quite raucous, and the medico leaned down to look at my eyes. “I’d prefer not to shoot any more into you, Captain...”

“If you’d kill the audibles and give me a few minutes?” I said, fighting to regain a regular breathing pattern, willing my heart rate to slow.

She nodded sympathetically and placed a package of tissues within easy reach on the side of the capsule. “Take your time,” she said and left, pulling the drapes closed behind her.