Temporary Duty (44 page)

«Yes,» the pilot responded with a nod, and began carefully rotating the freight hauler to the new heading. When she thought it was right she nodded again and pushed the
andli
forward. The Hornet lagged a bit, then caught up with no problems.

It had been proposed that a UHF radio from the damaged Hornet be unshipped and pressed into service, but unfortunately it wasn’t a simple radio. Components were scattered around the airframe, and the wiring wasn’t simple; it could and would be used later, but right now there wasn’t time.

The only solution available was a relay. Ms. Briggs was detailed to keep her Hornet alongside the freight carrier, relaying information from the UHF to her earbug. For a while it had looked like another officer would end up doing the Grallt end of the earbug segment, but they didn’t know the language, and putting another person in the loop risked Whisper Game errors, so Peters ended up with the job. Todd was fluent enough to handle it, which would have let them put another ship on duty, but that would have meant cutting their search capability to the extent of another Hornet for comm relay.

"Salvage One, come left to three six seven, nadir zero two,"
Ms. Briggs suggested. The Hornet pilot had come up with the call sign on her own; all Peters knew about it was that she thought it was amusing. He passed the correction to the pilot, who furrowed her brow and made micrometric adjustments.

Peters didn’t know the pilot, a
zerkre
in four-ways called Vredig, but she seemed a nice enough person, if businesslike. He had added a touch of his own: the earbug issued to
Llapaaloapalla
‘s bridge for airsuit practice had never been returned, and he’d begged it from Dhuvenig and passed it to Vredig. That left him free to move around supervising.

"Good enough, Salvage One,"
the Hornet pilot advised cheerfully.
"We’ll do more accurate adjustments when we get closer."

"Thanks, Hornet 210, we’re standing by." Ms. Briggs acknowledged that with a tongue-cluck in lieu of the microphone click the earbugs couldn’t do, and Peters turned to get the working party organized.

External handling equipment, ha. He’d visualized something like robotic arms or "tractor beams"; the reality was lines with big hooks on the ends, chains, and a half-dozen
zerkre
with big muscles. The truly surprising thing was that the system seemed to work. They’d been at it for two
llor
now, and had averaged a little under one recovery per
ande
, net profit eight
zifthkakik
to date.

And twenty bodies.

The Grallt all thought Peters was nuts for his insistence on recovering bodies, but he’d kept at it until they went along. He wasn’t doing it out of sentiment. Recovering the bodies gave him a chance to look for paperwork, identifying marks, and anything else that might help them identify their attackers.

Dhuvenig was right: they were Grallt, all but two of them "males", all wearing
kathir
suits in checkerboard patterns, red instead of the blue
Llapaaloapalla
‘s crew wore. So far the gleanings were minimal: a few scraps of plastic with scrawls on them, ID plates from the ships, pocket trash. Peters wished for dog tags, but personal ID was another thing nobody seemed to have thought of.

"Salvage One, I make it two targets on approximately the same vector,"
Ms. Briggs advised.
"Alter heading zero zero five mark zero eight zenith for intercept on the nearest one."
Multiple targets were the rule rather than the exception. Vredig had told him the
zifthkakik
tended to seek one another when not under control, not quickly but consistently. It meant that wreckage on more or less the same base course tended to group together.

"Wilco, 210." The pilot made the adjustments when Peters passed them on, then pointed out the "windshield". Sure enough, a pair of sparks were distinguishable by their motion against the starfield. "Hornet 210, we have a visual."

"Roger, Salvage One, understood you have eyeballs on the targets. Advise Tomcat 104 has acquired another one, bearing one seven six mark seven three zenith our present heading."

"Understood, 210. One thing at a time, we need to get to work. Salvage One out." Vredig was slowing and getting them into position.

"Roger, Salvage One. Hornet 210 out and standing by."
This time Peters returned the tongue-cluck.

* * *

The little ship was like the others had been, vaguely airplane-looking, distantly related to the
dli
but smaller. A wing was broken off, as was the vertical stabilizer and part of the fuselage where it had been attached; laser holes marred the remaining structure, and one of the cabin windows was missing, the frame distorted. They’d seen something like that on all of the ones they’d recovered. After the surprise return the human pilots had kept shooting until pieces broke off, and it looked like the pirates hadn’t given up for real until something took out one or more of the people.

Vredig opened the aft door and looked over her shoulder, twitching the
andli
until they were stationary with respect to the pirate ship and perhaps ten meters away. One of the Grallt workers, a big black-haired fellow with a heavy "mustache", jumped over with one of the hooks on the end of a line belayed to a padeye inside the freight hauler, and from there on it was a routine they’d established in two
llor
of practice. It took about two
tle
for them to have the craft’s
zifthkakik
tied down in the compartment, lengthwise as Vredig insisted for some reason, and two bodies in plastic bags ditto.

The Engineering Officer was right about something else, too. Nine
zifthkakik
in as many ships, all in good condition; twenty-one crew members in the ships, all dead. Their
kathir
suits felt thin and a little stiff, and the buckles came right off when Peters tugged at the catches. He’d been expecting decompression effects, or at least the burst capillaries he’d gotten when he’d tried removing a glove in vacuum, but the deceased just looked like dead people. He didn’t like handling dead people, but he’d done it before. Hell, he’d done it as a teenager in West Virginia. There were worse things.

He went quickly through the control cabin, finding little or nothing, and shook his head. Probably the fragment of the mother ship that had separated during the battle would yield a lot more information, but the Grallt flatly refused to investigate it. The human pilots had given it a once-over, but there were no identifying marks on the outside, and they had no way of getting inside to look for more. Oh, they did, and it pissed Peters off just thinking about it, but none of the officers had any training at all in
kathir
suit maneuvering, so he hadn’t even suggested that the Tomcat RIOs get out and get close.

The second pirate ship went like the first one had, a little quicker now that they were into the swing of it. The second
zifthkakik
went next to the first; the two crewmen were secured next to their fellows, RIP; Ms. Briggs gave them the steer to the next one, Vredig set a course they could refine later, and Peters gritted his teeth and started searching the bodies. Nothing, as usual. Oh, change in the pockets and that kind of thing, but nothing remotely useful.

Tomcat 104 was loitering by the next target, and with its
zifthkakik
active Vredig had no trouble getting there. Pushing buttons on the control panel picked one of the multiple ships to go to, and after that the white-cross instruments guided the way. She let Peters do part of it, grinning as she took a break, but took over the
andli
for the close matching. That was fine. It was fun, and he was learning, but he had no illusions about their relative skill levels.

More of the same, with one exception: a pattern of red-and-white rings around the forward fuselage like bumblebee stripes. Lou (!) hooked on and the others swarmed over to attack the engine mounts with crowbars and saws while Peters wormed his way into the operators’ cabin to look around. Three crew this time, not unusual, but the
kathir
suit on the one in the right seat had four cuts. Maybe the command ship?

Peters attacked the roof of the compartment with the tool he’d been issued, a thing like a pruning saw that went through the thin aluminum (?) structure of the ship with little effort if he could find a way to brace. The bodies were stiff with rigor, but he managed to work them out, bundling them together with light cord and pushing off to the freight hauler. Closer investigation could wait; he dumped them and swam back to check out the rest of the ship.

Jackpot, maybe; a folder of the plastic "papers" the Grallt used was stuck in a slot next to the command seat. He set it aside and searched as thoroughly as he could given the time constraints, finding nothing but the usual trash. The workers got the
zifthkakik
tied down and the bodies secured, and Ms. Briggs had another target for them. Peters wondered how long they’d keep it up. Eleven
zifthkakik
, twelve if the next one was recoverable, which they all had been so far.

* * *

«Sixteen zifthkakik,» said Preligotis with vast satisfaction. The First of
Llapaaloapalla
had come down himself to look over their haul, Heelinig and Deenerin in tow, with a couple of two-colored apprentices dancing attendance. Peters noted with interest that Prethuvenigis hadn’t shown up, nor had any of the rest of the trader group except Dreelig, who was trailing after Commander Bolton, seeming abashed. That suggested something that Preligotis confirmed: «Ours, too, not trade goods we have to pay for! This is wonderful.»

Dreelig translated. Bolton’s face was a study in conflicting emotions: cupidity, satisfaction, suspicion, and apprehension warring. "Wonderful," he agreed, and looked up at the first, wanting to ask but unsure of how to go about it.

Peters could have told him–just ask, dammit!–but he knew better than to speak up. He faded a little further into the crowd kibitzing the action as Dreelig translated the words, then asked something on his own, too soft for Peters to make it out.

Preligotis nodded, still smiling. «Yes, we must apportion them fairly. I suggest this: We divide them into three parts, with the odd one in the last set. The first group becomes the property of the
zerkre
of
Llapaaloapalla
. The second part goes to the humans, for effective defense of the ship.»

Bolton smiled tentatively when he got that. "And the others?"

«You were able to find them, we were able to bring them in. The last six should be divided three each to us and to humans, as an equitable division of the effort of salvaging them.»

"Even split, eh? Yes, that seems fair." Bolton’s eyes were shining with triumph. "These look the same as the ones mounted in the planes."

«Yes, they are the standard size for small ships.» Deenerin smiled. «My personal suggestion is that you exchange them to the traders for the ones you have. It would reduce your debt.»

"These are the same as the ones mounted in the planes, yes," Dreelig made that. He seemed to be about to stop there, but his eyes wandered over the crowd of onlookers, finally stopping at Peters, then looking quickly away before rendering the rest of it: "The ones in the planes are only on loan," he said reluctantly. "These are yours to keep."

Bolton was staring suspiciously at Dreelig; at the final admission he nodded shortly, keeping the eye contact until the Grallt looked away.

Preligotis hadn’t missed the byplay, but he just smiled and shook his head. «Would you like us to store them for you?» he asked. «If they are not properly stowed they can interfere with the working of the ship. We have a safe place.»

"If you’ll let us know how it’s done so as to be safe, we’d prefer to keep them in our area," Bolton suggested.

«Yes, that’s natural,» Preligotis ruled. «I’ll send Dhuvenig down to explain.»

"Then we’ll do it that way," Bolton decided. "Is there any restriction on where in the ship they go?"

«They should be kept close to the centerline,» Deenerin put in.

"You see any problems, Master Chief?" Bolton asked Joshua.

"No, sir. If they need to be kept close to centerline, I suggest one of the shops in hangar bay four, sir."

Bolton regarded the objects. "I’d really prefer to keep ‘em in the storerooms under our quarters, but if they need to be close to centerline that’s probably a good place." He looked up at the Master Chief. "They will be guarded," he decreed.

Joshua ducked his head. "Yes, sir." He had probably already thought of that; his mind seemed to work that way. White web belts and pistols, no doubt. "I’ll get a working party on it right away, sir."

"Very well, Master Chief." Bolton looked Preligotis over. "Dreelig, does the captain understand a handshake?"

"I can explain it." When Bolton nodded, Dreelig told the first: «The humans signify sealing a bargain by clasping right hands. Commander Bolton would like to perform this ritual.»

Preligotis smiled. «I’ve seen stranger customs. Certainly.» He held out his right hand; Bolton clasped it, a little awkwardly because the captain didn’t really understand, and they held on for a few moments before breaking contact. «I believe we’re done here,» the first remarked.

«Yes. A good day’s work, and well worth the delay,» Deenerin remarked. The Grallt party nodded at the humans, turned, and left in their usual style.

«I’m not sure the traders will agree that the delay was worthwhile,» Heelinig remarked as they walked away.

They were too far away for Peters to hear Preligotis’s response to that, but the rest of the Grallt all laughed, and it didn’t sound like deference to the CO’s humor. Bolton and the other officers were still standing there, looking nonplussed and a bit irritated, not accustomed to people simply walking off when the conversation was over. Peters shook his head and turned to walk away himself. The watch bill had been posted, and he had forward bay door lookout for–surprise surprise–fifth
ande
of their five-
ande
day. He’d need a nap first.