The Crystal Variation (104 page)

“But see, your dad, he was from old stock, too. Not ship-folk, not ‘til later. They was kinda roamers—archaeologists, philosophers, librarians . . . Had strange ideas, some of ‘em. Figured us Terrans had been around a longer time than we got the history for, that Terra—what they call the homeworld—is maybe the third or fourth Terra we’ve called home in sequence. Some other—”

“Paitor . . .” Grig’s voice was low and warning. Jethri froze on his stool; he’d never heard long, easy-going Grig so much as sharp, never mind out-’n-out menacing.

“Your turn then,” Paitor said, after a pause. He lifted his cup.

“My turn,” Grig said, and sighed. He leaned forward on the bunk, looking hard into Jethri’s face.

* * *

“YOU KNOW I
was your father’s co-pilot. We were cousins, yeah, but more than that in someways, ‘cause we had the same mentor when we was growing up, and we both got involved in what Paitor calls useless politicking and we thought was more than that. A lot more than that. Now thing is, your mam, and her-side of the cousins, like the Golds—they’re Loopers. Know what that is?”

Jethri nodded. “I know what it is. But I don’t like to hear the captain—”

Grig held up a hand, fingers wagging in the hand-talk equivalent of “pipe down.”

“Tell me what it is before you get riled.”

My last night on ship and I draw a history quiz
, Jethri thought, irritated. He had a sip of Smooth to take the edge of his temper, and looked back to Grig.

“Loopers is backwards. Don’t want to come out to the bigger ports, only want to deal with smaller planets, and places where they don’t have to deal with regs or with . . .”

Grig flicked a couple fingers— “stop,” that was.

“Part right and part wrong. See, Loopers comes from an article in the Combine charter which was writ awhile back and got pretty popular—probably have five copies of in the records on-board here if you know where to look. The idea came from the fact that most ship-folk believe in following a loop of travel—pretty often it’s a closed loop. And some Looper families, they’ve been on ship for a hundred Standards, maybe, and everybody onboard knows that month seventeen of the trip means they’re putting into so-and-so port to pick up fresh ‘runion concentrate.

“Fact is, ‘way back when this was all first worked out, the idea was that
every
route would be a Loop, with some Loops intersecting others, for transshipping and such.

“Now, I think you know, and I think I know, and I think Paitor knows, that’s nonsense. This closed system stuff only works so long—and as long—as the economy of most of the ports in the Loop’re expanding. Everybody does their bit, nobody introduces no major changes—then your Loop’s stable and everybody profits. Now, though, just speaking of changes, we got Liadens, who got no interest in
our
expanding system—they got their own systems and routes to care about. Then you got some of the planets putting their own ships into the mix without knowing history, nor caring. So now you got instability and running a Loop ain’t such a good notion no more. You got the trading families losing out to the planets, and the Combine—well, buying up all them shares and corporations cost money, which means we pay more taxes and fees, not less. ‘Cause the Combine, see, it can’t let the ships go altogether, though we’re getting troublesome; it needs to keep a certain control, exercise a certain authority, and bleed us ‘til we—”

Next to Jethri, Paitor coughed. Grig jerked to halt and rubbed a hand over his head.

“Right,” he said. “Sorry.” He sipped, and sighed lightly.

“So, where was I? Trade theory, eh? Say f’rinstance that you, Jethri Ship-Owner, want to live off the smaller ports and set yourself up a pretty good Loop. Sooner or later, the good business is going to shift, and your Loop’ll be worth less to the ship. You end up like
Gold Digger
, runnin’ stones from place to place and maybe something odd on the side to make weight.

“What Arin saw was that the contract runs was the money runs. You go hub-to-hub, you don’t ship empty; if conditions change—you can adapt; you ain’t tied to the Loop.

“Arin had a good eye for basic contracts, and the ones he fixed up for the
Market
are just now needing adjustment. That’s why this is a great time for the overhaul—your mam’s on course, there. And you—you’re in a spot to be big news. ‘prentice trader on a Liaden ship? Studying under a
master trader
? You not only got a shot to own a ship, boy. Unless I read her wrong, that master trader is seeing you as—kind of like a commissioner ‘tween Liaden interests and Terran.”

Jethri blinked. “I don’t—”

Grig glanced at Paitor, then back to Jethri.

“Let it go then,” he said. “Learn your lessons, do good—for yourself and for your name.” He moved a hand, apologetic-like. “There’s one more thing, and then we can finish up this nice stuff and let you get some sleep.” He took a breath, nodded to himself.

“
There are secrets in all families
. That’s a phrase. You meet someone else who believes, who knows, they’ll get that phrase to you. You don’t know nothing but there’s a secret, and that’s all you have to know, now. But put that in your backbrain—
there are secrets in all families
. It might serve you; it might not. Course you’re charting, who knows?”

Jethri was frowning in earnest now, his cup empty and his thought process just a little slow with the Smooth.

“But—what does it mean? What happens if somebody—”

Grig held up his hand. “You’ll know what’ll happen if it ever does. What it means . . . It means that there’s some stuff, here and there around the galaxy left over from the time of the Old War—the big war, like Khat tells about in stories. It means that your lucky fractin, there, that’s not a game piece, no matter how many rules for playing with ‘em we all seen—it’s a Fractional Mosaic Memory Module—and nobody exactly knows what they’re for.” He looked at Paitor. “Though Arin thought he had an idea.”

Paitor grunted. “Arin had ideas. Nothin’ truer said.”

Grig ran his hand over his head and produced a grin. “Paitor ain’t a believer,” he said to Jethri, and sat back, looking thoughtful.

“Listen,” he said, “‘cause I’ll tell you this once, and it might sound like ol’ Grig, he’s gone a little space-wise. But just listen, and remember—be aware, that’s all. Paitor don’t want to hear this again—didn’t want to hear it the first time, I’m bettin’—but him and me—we agreed you need a place to work from; information that Iza don’t want you to have.” He paused.

“These fractins, now—they’re Old Tech. Really old tech. Way we figured it, they was old tech when the big war started. And the thing is—we can’t duplicate them.”

Jethri stared, and it did occur to him that maybe Grig had started his drinking before the Blusharie. The big war—the Old War—well, there’d been one, that much was sure; most of the Befores you’d come up with, they was pieces from the war—or from what folks called the war, but could’ve been some other event. Jethri’d read arguments for and against had there been or had there not been a war, as part of history studies. And the idea of a tech that old that couldn’t be duplicated today. . .

“What kind of tech?” he asked Grig. “And why can’t we copy it?”

“Good questions, both, and I’d be a happier man if I had an answer for either. What I can tell you is—if that fractin of yours is one of the real ones—one of the old ones—it’s got a tiny bit of timonium in there. You can find that from the outside because of the neutrinos—and all the real ones ever scanned had its own bit of timonium. Something else you find is that there’s structure inside—they ain’t just poured plastic or something. Try to do a close scan, though, maybe get a looksee at the shape of that structure, and what happens?
Zap!
Fried fractin. The timonium picks up the energy and gives off a couple million neutrinos and some beta and gamma rays—and there’s nothing left but slagged clay. Try to peel it? You can’t; same deal.”

Jethri took of sip of his dwindling drink, trying to get his mind around the idea that there was tech hundreds of Standards old that couldn’t be cracked and duplicated.

“As I say,” Grig said, soft-like, “Paitor ain’t a believer. What him, and Iza and a whole lot of other folks who’re perfectly sane, like maybe I’m not on the subject, nor Arin neither—what they think is that the Old War wasn’t nearly as big as others of us believe. They don’t believe that war was fought with fractins, and about fractins. Arin thought that; and he had studies—records of archeological digs, old docs—to back him. He could map out where fractins was found, where the big caches were, show how they related to other Before caches—and when the finds started to favor the counterfeits over the real thing.” He sighed.

“So, see, this just ain’t our family secret. Some of the earlier studies—they went missing. Stolen. Arin said some people got worried about what would happen if Loopers and ship owners got interested in Befores as more than a sometime high-profit oddity. If they started looking for Old Tech, and figured out how to make ‘em work.

“Arin didn’t necessarily think we should make these fractins work—but he thought we should know what they did—and how. In case of need. Then, he got an analysis—”

Grig sipped, and sat for a long couple heartbeats, staring down into his cup.

“You know what half-life is, right?” He asked, looking up.

Jethri rolled his eyes, and Paitor laughed. Grig sighed.

“Right. Given the half-life of that timonium, Arin figured them for about eighteen hundred Standards old. Won’t be long—say ten Standards, for some of the earlier ones; maybe a hundred for the latest ones—before the timonium’s too weak to power—whatever it powers. Might be they’ll just go inert, and anybody’s who’s interested can just take one, or five, or five hundred apart and take a peek inside.

“Arin, now. Arin figured fractins was maybe memory—warship, library, and computer, all rolled into one, including guidance and plans. That’s what Arin thought. And it’s what he wanted you to know. Iza and the Golds and all them other sane folks, they think they don’t need to know. They say, only a fool borrows trouble, when there’s so much around that’s free. Me? I think you ought to know what your father thought, and I think you ought to keep your eyes and your mind open. I don’t know that you particularly need to talk to any Liadens about it—but you’ll make that call, if and when you have to.”

He looked deep into his cup, lifted it and drained what was left.

“That it?” Paitor asked, quietly

Grig nodded. “It’ll do.”

“Right you are, then.” He held out a hand; Grig passed him the bottle, and he refilled the cups, one by one.

He stood, and Grig did, and after a moment, Jethri did. All three raised their cups high.

“To your success, your honor, and your duty, Free Hand!” His kin said, loud enough to set the walls to thrumming. And Jethri squared his shoulders, and blinked back the sudden tears—and they talked of easier things until the cups were empty again.

“MUD,” JETHRI MUTTERED,
as his blade scraped across the hatch. Lower lip caught between his teeth, he had another go with the wrench-set, and was at last rewarded with an odd fluttering hiss, that sent him skipping back a startled half-step.

Pressure differential
, he thought, laughing at himself.

The sound of squeezing air faded and the cover plate popped away when he probed it with the blade point.

Stuffed into the cavity was some paper, likely to stop the plate from rattling the way Khat’s did whenever they were accelerating, and he pulled it out, ready to crumple and toss it—and checked, frowning down at the paper itself.

Yellow and gritty—it was print-out from the comm-printer the captain didn’t use any more. She’d always called it Arin’s printer, like she didn’t want anything to do with it, anyway, ‘cause she didn’t like to deal with nothing ciphered. Curiously, he separated the edges and opened the paper. There was his birth date, a series of random letters and numbers that likely weren’t random at all if you knew what you was looking at and—

. . . WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD like an emergency beacon might send out.

WildeToad
? Jethri knew his ship histories, but he would’ve known this one, anyway, being as Khat told a perfect hair-raiser about
Toad’s
last ride.
WildeToad
had gone missing years ago, and none of the mainline Wildes had been seen since. Story was, they’d gone to ground, which didn’t make no sense, them having been spacers since before there was space, as the sayin’ went.

Jethri squinted at the paper.

Mismatch, there’s a mismatch, going down

WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

We’re breaking clay. Check frequency

WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

Thirty hours. Warn away Euphoria

WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

Racks bare, breaking clay

WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

Lake bed ahead. We’re arming. Stay out.

L.O.S. TRANSMISSION ENDS

Lake bed
, he thought. And,
gone to ground
. Spacer humor, maybe; it had that feel. And it got him in the stomach, that he held in his hand the last record of a dying ship. Why had his father used such a thing to shim the plate in his door? Bad luck . . . He swallowed, read the page again, frowning after nonsense phrases.

Breaking clay? Racks bare? This was no common ship-send, he thought, the grainy yellow paper crackling against his fingers. Arin’s printer. The message had come into Arin’s printer. Coded, then—but—

A chime sounded, the four notes of “visitor aboard.” Jethri jumped, cussed, and jammed the paper and the nameplate into his duffle, resealed the hatch as quick as he could, and took off down the hall at a run.

IT WAS A SMALL
group at the main lock: Khat, Iza, and Uncle Paitor to witness his farewell. Master ven’Deelin’s assistant, Pen Rel, stood more at his ease than seemed likely for a man alone on a stranger ship, his smooth, pretty face empty of anything like joy, irritation, or boredom. His eyes showed alert, though, and it was him who caught Jethri first, and bowed, very slightly.