The Crystal Variation (25 page)

“I’m at your service, Pilot,” he said, and gave her a smile. It was an attractive smile, as she’d noticed before. Which was too bad, really.

“If the pilots have no duties for me,” Dulsey piped up. “I will prepare a meal.”

The words were on the tip of Cantra’s tongue—
Don’t bother; ration sticks’ll be fine
. Second thoughts dissolved them, though, and she inclined her head a fraction.

“A meal would be welcome,” she said formally. “Thank you, Dulsey.”

“You are welcome, Pilot Cantra,” the Batcher said softly. “I am pleased to be of service.”

Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

On port

Barbit

THREE-AND-A-HALF CANS
were full of the Lightest cargo
Dancer
had carried since—well, ever, if Cantra’s understanding of her pedigree was correct. Not that Garen had ever actually come out and said she’d killed a
sheriekas
agent and took their ship for her own. Garen hadn’t said much as a general thing, and when she did, more’n half of it didn’t make sense. The bits that did make sense, though, had outlined a history that would have broken stronger minds than hers by the time she came to work as a courier for the Institute.

Come with me, now, baby. You gotta get clear, get clear, hear me? Pliny’s gone and struck a teacher. Now, I said! You think I’m gonna let you die twice?

Cantra shook her head. The memories were getting worrisome, popping up on their own like maybe there was some urgent lesson embedded in the past that she was too stupid to learn. She had a serious case of the soft-brains, that was what, though she’d never heard it cited among the faults of her line. On the other hand, there’d been Pliny.

She’d have given a handful of flan to know how Rint dea’Sord had uncovered his info—and another handful to learn how Dulsey had gained her own and independent judgement of the situation.

All Garen’s care. All those years. And the directors must have been sure she’d died in the edlin, along with the rest of her line. If they’d thought for an instant there were any survivors—

She took a hard breath and forcefully banished that run of thinking.
Life ain’t dangerous enough, you got to think up bogies to scare yourself with?

Deliberately, she focused on the here-and-trade, doing a mental inventory of the filled cans. Jela’d shown himself to be good about not grabbing extra room for “his” part, though she certainly didn’t begrudge him his space—especially when he had such a knack for the felicitous buy. They’d hit five worlds so far, slowly trading their way from In-Rim to the Far Edge, specifically not attracting attention, according to Jela, and they’d come in to more than one port with exactly what was in high demand.

Two of those lucky buys had been hers, if she wanted to be truthful—and if she wanted to continue the theme, she was finding the trade—the honest trade—interesting. She was even getting used to wearing the leathers of a respectable trader on-port, rather than pilot’s ‘skins.

Almost
, she thought,
I could go legit
.

Don’t want to get too high-profile, baby,
Garen whispered from the past.
Don’t want to cast a shadow on the directors’ scans. . . .

Right.

So, the trade, for now. Despite they had a good mix, there was still an empty quarter-can with her name on it. She could take a random odd lot, but there was still some time to play with and she wanted to do better than random, if she could.

Trouble was, nothing on offer in the main hall had called out for her to buy.

Shrugging her shoulders to throw off some of the tension of unwanted memories, she moved out of the main hall, heading toward what was the most boring part of any trade hall—the day-broker room. Odd how that was, ‘cause on almost any vid feed of market action the image most shown was this: A couple rows of tiny booths, tenants wearing terminal-specs or half-masks, with four or five keyboards and three microphones in front of them. Day-brokers. Made an honest gambler look sane and saintly, and a dishonest gambler look smart.

Day-brokers bought and sold at speed all day long, breaking lots, building lots, mixing cargo in and out. They were willing to sell down to handfuls, or discounted stuff that needed delivery two shifts before a ship could possibly get there.

Some of them were desperate, most made a living. A few were unspeakably rich—or would be, if they survived long enough to enjoy their earnings. Day-traders didn’t often quit, though—it appeared that those who took to the trade at all found it addictive. What the attraction was, Cantra had never been able to figure.

They stuffed themselves into booths barely wider than their seats, with risers overhead or behind proclaiming names or specialities or preferences; some even had small bowls of trust-me smoke, or gave away candy, or free-look vids for the senses, just stop and say hello . . .

Hard to know what might be found, hard to figure which booth to call the start. Some of the brokers were pay-box pretty, some just plain sloppy. Some looked liked what they were: Rich and bored and bored by getting richer—

And then there were the ones who paid attention to passersby, so the room was near as noisy as a livestock market.

“Pilot, what can we . . .”

“If you have three cans empty I can . . .”

“Only sixteen cubes and you ought to triple your money . . .”

“Go ahead, pass by! Pass up cash, pass by . . .”

“Sector fifteen or sixteen, I’ll pay you, quick trans-ship . . .”

“Guaranteed to . . .”

She slowed, ran the sounds back through her head and turned. The skinny, bearded, bejeweled man smiled and repeated the magic words, “Guarantee, Trader? We can . . .”

She hand-signed him off, watching the hope fade on his face even as his hands jumped between keyboards, and he muttered into a mike tangled in his beard—

“That’s a sell to you, and theft it is. Forty percent . . .”

Cantra drifted back a couple paces, glanced up for an ID—which was an overhead banner with a blue light flashing first around a circle, then through, then back around.

Interesting design.

“I can pay you before lift,” the broker was saying to a couple of traders who had come up and paused, maybe also lured by the promise of a “guarantee.”

“Credits,” the broker crooned, “gems, fuel rights . . .”

He wore a head-ring with a short visor, and she guessed he was reading info from that even as he appeared fully interested in the traders before him.

Interesting design, that.

The elder of the two traders said something Cantra couldn’t pick out of the general ruckus. The day-broker whipped out a card and handed it over extravagantly. Ah, a fumble there—too many cards. The younger trader had his hand out, though, and neatly caught the extra as it fluttered away. He returned it; the other card disappeared into big hands. A nod, smiles all around, and the traders moved on, the broker carefully tucking the extra card away . . .

The day-broker looked at her now, even as he mumbled into his mike, “Live, seventeen, drop orders five-five and five-six, pay the penalty and get it off my dock.”

“Now, Trader,” he said pleasantly. “A profit before you start interest you? I have goods that need moving. I’ll pay you up-front to load, and you’ll get a delivery bonus from the consignee as well. I have . . .” He paused, squinting slightly as he apparently read the info off his visor—

“Double can loads transhipping to most Inward sectors, I have three one-can loads needing to transit the Arm, I have fifteen half-can loads going regionally including some transships, I have three half-can loads going Inward, one going to the Mid-Rim. I have one-quarter can transshipping to Borgen, I have . . .”

“Pay up-front can always sound good,” she admitted, while trying to place the man, his accent, or his type. It wasn’t that he looked familiar, but that he didn’t look familiar at all.

“Indeed, it can. Are you a rep for another, or do your own trades?”

“Indy,” she nodded, “with a partial can needs filling. You got a hardcopy list of what-and-where I can peer at so I . . .”

“The trades move so quickly—but, I hardly need tell you, do I?—there is no hardcopy list, but if you can merely give me an idea of your direction I’m sure we can . . .”

A flash of something odd went across the man’s face, his voice stumbled, and she felt rather than saw Jela at her side.

“Pardon, Broker,” he said, over loud even in this loud place, “I’m afraid the trader’s attention is needed elsewhere immediately.”

She turned, sudden, and felt the pressure of Jela’s knee on her leg. While not offensive of itself, the sheer audacity of it surprised her, as did the near fawning line of nonsense that came out of his mouth.

“Trader, I swear, this isn’t just jitters this time. There’s a problem, and you’re needed! Quickly, before—”

Her gut tightened, thinking it might be real and there was active danger to her ship—but there was Dulsey on-board and watching, and the talkie in her belt hadn’t beeped. And Jela looked serious, damn him. Which meant nothing at all.

“Broker,” she called, holding out hand, “your card? As soon as I—”

“
Now
, Trader!” Jela cried, and she caught the quick flutter of fingers at belt level, read
touch not jettison flee
just before he dared to take her arm . . .

“I return!” she called to the broker, over Jela’s continued babble. “Trader, I’m sorry. Broker, my pardons. Trader . . .” and followed his insistent tug.

JELA’S BACK WAS
not
what Cantra wanted to see right now, nor did she intend to watch him walk in those damned tight leathers he preferred for his dock-side rambles. Since she wasn’t going to run to catch him, the best thing she could do was try to cut him off when they turned the corner—

But that quick he spun about, fingers fluttering low like he thought someone might have a microphone or a camera pointed in their direction.

Next right quick time. Left and left. Safe corner door
.

She snapped a two-finger assent and he took off again like there was an emergency at the end of the walk.

They made the door right quick at the pace he set, and then out into the wide common hall that acted like a street in this section of port, and she did have to stretch her legs a bit to keep up. How he made it look easy to move quite so fast without drawing attention to himself was—

He signaled that he was slowing, and she caught up to walk at his side.

“I was about to finish settling the cargo for that last quarter-can,” she said, letting it sound as irritated as she felt. “This better be a quick answer . . .”

“Is. That’s a really bad place to be getting involved with.”

“What, you think picking up an extra bit of cash is going to hurt us? You must have more credit than I know about.”

Jela looked her full in the face as he strode on, and the look was so full of genuine concern that it shocked her.

“What I can tell you is, best analysis, that man’s operation runs at a loss, and he’s been running it for the better part of a long-term lease. It’s a loss,” he added quietly, “that would keep you in wine and boys for the rest of your life.”

She thought about that through the next six steps, then brought her hand up, fingers forming
repeat
?

Jela sighed and slowed his pace again.

“About what I can say is he’s on a really quiet watch list. Looks like he must be selling IDs, shipping info out to—somewhere. Part of the reason there’s no hardcopy is that he’ll send something wherever it is you say you’re going. There’s a pattern—ships he deals with have some problems. Some pilots or traders end up in legal hassles a port or two down link. Some have cargo problems. Some . . . just don’t show up.”

“Legal hassles?” She frowned. “What could he do—”

“Forges contracts. Fakes tape. Fakes DNA seals—or breaks them . . .”

Cantra played the day-broker’s actions over in her head. He’d looked straight—nothing had smelled wrong to her, with her highly developed nose for trouble. And those two traders who—

“Damn.” She shot a glance at Jela. “Breaks DNA seals? How, do you know?”

He finger-waggled something that might have been
captain’s knowledge
, and gave a short and barely audible laugh before waving his hands meaninglessly, and chanting lightly, “Lore of the troop, Pilot. Lore of the troop.”

She harumphed at that, then had to do a quick half-step to get back onto his pace.

“So, why’re we in a hurry?”

“Can’t tell if he sent a runner after us or not, yet.”

“Runner? For what? And if he’s so bad, why’s he still in business?”

“Second son of the second spouse of the ruling house.”

He almost sang it—she wondered if this was another one of his seemingly endless store of song-bits.

“For real?” she asked.

“Close enough for our purposes. I expect the locals think he’s spying for them.”

“If he is, he’s good and I hope they pay him what he’s worth. Look, I didn’t sign nothing, but I saw him stash a card a trader handled . . .”

“Right. Doesn’t take much if you’re not careful. But, I think all we need to do is act like you solved the problem your idiot junior couldn’t, and then got busy. So, let’s get busy. Buy you a drink?”

Some days, she wondered what Jela’s head was stuffed with. Other days, she was pretty certain it was ore.

“What about that quarter-can that needs filling?” she asked him. “Besides, the last time we ate together in public, we had a bit of trouble.”

“Nope. We had a good meal, and nice wine. I still think about that.”

She shot him a glance, but he was busily scanning the storefronts they were passing, so she didn’t know how she should take that. Hard to figure him, anyway.

She glanced over at him again, and saw his face brighten like he’d spotted a treasure.

He looked at her, grinning. “Really—are you up for a big helping of brew and a quiet lift-off in the morning? If worse comes to worse, that pod ought to be able to suck in some air . . .”

That was a point she hadn’t considered, and it was true. The next step out was a station where they could probably sell excess air, and they could run up the pressure in the can pretty good without hurting a thing.