Trade Secret (eARC) (33 page)

Grig laughed then. "So, what I see is that little blue stripe on afterburner and I asked my driver to lose the orange stripe. She'd seen me signal to Khat and laughed, and took a suicide turn at the next corner, and another--I shoulda had a brew!"

Khat shrugged. "Didn't do all that much good, I guess, because when I got out here the field customs crew were out, checking every single cab in line, in single file. I came in first--but my driver told me she saw Grig's cab down the queue, and while I paid her off there he was, but in front of him came this bel'Mora and the apprentice, with bel'Mora jumping out and yelling that I'd insulted their
melant'i
and sullied their name.

"That's where the taxi drove between them and me. And their driver tried to push her out of the way, and then Grig's driver . . . got him out and got out of the cab herself, I guess . . .

"And that's when the other Liaden showed up finally and he tried to wade in . . ."

Grig tried to say something but Iza held her hand up.

"Traffic violations. Inciting to violate public propriety. Evading building security." She threw the sheaf of hardcopy on the desk, shaking her head. "I admit it ain't assaulting an officer of the law, but the pair of you better never talk to me about worldside decorum again, if you get my drift? You better never talk to me too hard about keeping the ship's name clean."

Paitor broke in then, "Iza, you know the port's seen worse than this. Only a mark on the record, and we're not even--"

"Look, brother, did we see it or not? It wasn't until the proctors were standing 'bout right beside them that they really started throwing punches. And it isn't date night at the bar stuff. I mean look at this one!" Here she reached into the pile and pulled out a fluttery white sheet.

"Impersonation of an inebriate!" She waved her hands about, "Whoever heard of impersonation of a drunk?"

Paitor held up his hands then. "So far, that's what we have for our investment at the station, sister. Every violation they saw had to be answered. They were all dropped as far as they could. May I?"

Iza handed the paper over and he gathered the rest from the desk.

"Here, it is noted, our first time on port, unfamiliar with local custom; here it is reduced to six days' restraint reduced to cash fine; here it is--"

Iza waved him silent.

"So we got a break. A very expensive break. But what made you try to deck the guy, Khat, with the proctor right there?"

Khat looked to Grig, which Iza didn't miss. She didn't miss the direct line hand-signal, either.

Khat nodded at both of them.

"Needed to do something before he said something in Terran--he wasn't doing a good job with Trade, but I needed to interrupt, just in case. But we gotta be sure to tell Dyk and I guess the youngers, too, so they'll be wary."

Iza shook her head.

"So what he do? Call you a looper?"

Khat grimaced and gathered some breath in case she'd need to shout over Iza. When Iza just made a face, Khat went on.

"He threatened me. He threatened all of us, and the ship too. First he said we'd better be willing to deal with him or a go-between--actually that
you
better be willing to deal better than Grig and me--because even he was willing to share the rumors that were going round, the rumors that might get us banned from one end of the galaxy to the other. And he told me it wasn't even a tight rumor, so if he started, people could check up on the rumor and we'd be in trouble because some Terrans are saying the same thing about
Gobelyn'
s
Market,
"

"What's he saying? If he's talking about Old Tech, I can let anyone come on board and search, right? Right, Grig?"

"I already promised Seeli I don't have any Old Tech, Iza, and I told you I don't. So unless you got something left over from Arin yourself--I bet Paitor don't!--there's no Old Tech here. I'm not happy, I'll tell you, that you had to ask me."

"Stand down, Grig!" Khat realized she'd said it, and had everyone's attention.

"Look--he said something in Liaden, and then he said it in Trade. He was getting louder, like he was going call it to the proctor. He said 'Clone,' dammit, he's going to call us all clones!"

Grig snorted, but it didn't override Iza's strained laughter.

"Clones, is it? Gonna get us locked out of ports 'cause we're all clones? Well we don't need to worry about that 'cause I got that problem outta here. And Grig, the way I figure, didn't give Seeli a clone, and ain't none of us is going to be matches. They can gene test me all they want."

Khat made a noise like a spit.

"I'm doing my best to get us thrown out, Iza. I expect to be captain on this ship one day and I don't want to have clone tests over my head all my life!"

*

The throwing-out part of Khat's plan worked well enough, with
Therinfel'
s crew already shuttled out to their orbiting ship before the
Market
's final judgments were paid. The
Market'
s lift out was a vicious polar trajectory meant to fit them between ordinary traffic in a direct-to-Jump injection pattern that would have been fine if they were going to Liad but else wasn't a good solution for any of the destinations a working family ship of dedicated Terran loopers was likely to go. Grig cajoled Iza for a dispensation, getting Cris to sit backup to Khat on the lift, seeing that they were pressing the envelope on Travit's cradle's comfort levels and he had the medical certificates no one else had.

Khat reported in and as PIC did the lift itself, with Cris effectively Second Board while Iza kept busy with the problem of turning the polar orbit into a transfer orbit to a decent Jump point. That meant Cris and Khat side-monitored Seeli's ongoing readouts of Travit's condition as well as her ongoing and voluble discussion of Grig's lamentable lack of contrition for putting Travit, the ship, Dyk, Khat, Cris, "the kids," Grig, herself, and Iza--listed in that order of importance--into a collection of dangers ranging from targeted gunsights to polar auroral radiation belts to meteor collisions and G-stress, not to mention long-term flagging as malcontents and the likelihood that lunch would be late, too.

About the time ground control made Iza cuss when it ordered, "
Gobelyn's Market
, your orbit is confirmed, please maintain," they began to hear a good bit of local chatter, with Cris tuning through and pulling out a thread to highlight --a ship on nearly their own heading, closing enough to rendezvous if they wished.

"Vernon," Control said, "talk to
Gobelyn'
s
Market
before you make any sudden delta-vee out there, you're almost in a yellow approach zone!"

Iza glanced up from her calculations. "Had a triple cousin born on
Vernor
when I was tie-down, if I remember right. Talk to them . . ."

"
Gobelyn'
s
Market
, Khat Gobelyn at PIC," she said. "Might be cousins
Vernon
--who has what for a grandma?"

There was a pause then, and a laugh, "Think the cousins done married off-ship a half-dozen Standards ago, Pilot Khat, but thanks for asking on this, I'm Pilot One Geo Frenkl. I'm gonna have to get my landing figures final real quick. Pilot Khat, your cousin Tanny is off to
Grayspinner
. Elsewise I'm up to first recent, and Chi Frenkl's running second. Got news for me?"

"Pilot Geo, hi there, ship news here . . ."

Khat paused, looked toward Iza, who was studying her boards as hard as she might, head tilted just enough away that it was clear this conversation didn't have anything to do with her . . . "News here is that Grig Tomas and Seeli Gobelyn got themselves a boy named Travit Tomas, 'bout two months back and are settled; and also that Jethri Gobelyn's got himself a new ride, spun off to be a trader on
Elthoria
not two Standards gone."

There was a pause and a, "I got the Grig Tomas news clear, but can you repeat that berth on that cousin Jethri?"

Khat looked to Iza again, who still held head down at computation.

"Yah, Geo, that's Jethri--he went free-crew when we put the
Market
in for a major refit. He was that wandering age, you know, and he's got himself sub-trader on
Elthoria
--they did adoption as I hear it."

A pause longer than speed of light might be blamed for, and almost too long for chatter.

"Heck, that's news, I'd say. Only that's not
Elf Lord,
out of Caratunk, but
Elthoria
, out of Liad, is that correct?"

"Liad, that's the one, Geo."

"Pilot Khat, we'll pass this on to
Grayspinner
and around, if that's good."

"News is news," Khat said amiably, seeing Iza still staring elsewhere, "and thanks."

"Got you, and got your news too, Pilot Khat. If you got fuel and time, we can do a scan--we haven't had a shipside visual for a couple trips."

Khat held, seeing Cris pulling up the radar image of near space. Iza tapped the light indicating
seat empty
and leveraged herself to standing.

"I'm off to pull snacks. If
Vernon
needs pictures, you'll clear it with Control--my figures show us up to a two-hour link-up if she needs us to do a roundabout. Just give me hold-warning before you pull any power if they need something sooner."

Half looking at the floor and the other half more at Cris than Khat, she moved toward the hatch. In the doorway Iza turned and looked hard at Khat.

"Khat, you did good. New is news, and he's your cousin by name, so we'll give him his due. You got it right though--Seeli and Grig first, if we're asked, and Jethri next. We'll not bad-talk the kid--it'd make more talk than not. And good, for not mentioning Arin. Anyone nosy enough will ask, or they'll ask around."

With that she was gone, in time for Control to beg Khat for attention.

*

Control was a little abashed to be moving the
Market
into look-see, but the courtesy was for
Vernon
and the
Market
was closest to rendezvous by several shifts. Iza, back on the bridge, was all smiles on her call on the timing being within seconds.

For her part,
Vernon
was polite. Khat admired that and it made their time arranging the rendezvous go easier, in particular the part where Khat was working out exactly who was rolling first, since it was
Vernon
's call. It wouldn't do to have a reaction jet test spin that ship into the
Market.
. . .

Khat looked to Iza as they closed--and all Iza said was "You're doing good there, so just go on, but I bet Seeli'd appreciate it if you kept them a bit more in the circuit on this."

Khat nodded, did an all-call to the ship on the upcoming movements, and plugged the video feeds into all available screens as well, getting thanks from all over for the challenge.

"We'll run all the sensors and a lot of eyes over you--tell me you're all stable!"

Iza turned up the meteor shielding and lowered the gravity, advising in quiet tones as they finally closed, while Cris and
Vernon
's second in command did ranging calibrations and shared visuals. The left of the main screen showed
Vernon approaching,
the right side showing the
Market
, and the scan's color-coding of the mini dust-and-gas cloud explain why they could actually hear occasional pinging scrapes of ancient comet or shattered meteor almost anywhere in this system.

Vernon,
in sight, turned out to be a light-haul ship smaller than the
Market
, and likely built in the system's local yard out of leftover parts--not pretty, and without an easy clue as to a maker. The markings were austere at best, but the visual symmetry was not quite right for a long-haul vessel.

"That's a good plan, there, Cris," Iza said quietly. "Can we get that across all the vids--you want as many eyes on this as you can. Grig?"

"Here, Iza," Grig replied.

"You take reports from the rest of the ship and send them up here if we need them. It'll keep us sharper up here if--" Iza said.

"Yes, Iza . . ."

"Thanks, Pilot, I didn't think--" Khat said.

"You're doing good, Khat. I just been doing this longer and have some tricks to pass on yet," replied Iza.

Khat laughed quietly, flipped a switch, and pointed to the open sound link while she signed
plan moving forward.

"We're starting to record in sixty seconds. My plan is to do four slow passes and you can tell me then what you need us to get closer to, if anything. Confirm?"

"On your mark, Pilot Khat, thanks!"

*

The ship had worked hard. Most obvious was the scored line on the underside of
Vernon'
s semi-airfoiled shape. Khat cringed--if that was a scrape, the little ship had been out of service for some fixes.

While the main vids were focusing there, Cris continued to mutter to
Vernon
's second, every so often agreeing or not on some other point, with
Vernon
identifying dings by date or past pilot, or both.

Zam and Mel must have split their time between the feeds--Grig reported their observations in brief, condensed lumps. They'd managed to get a stereo effect and an estimated mass on the ship, just for fun. He even reported, "Zam and Mel suggest a more fashionable font and color for the
Market
nameplate and numbers, and I promised to pass that on," and later, "Zam thinks the shipyard left some graffiti behind!"

"Hey,
Vernon
, " Khat eventually said to her counterpart, "I'm not seeing much from our side. Looks like all your rear and ventral reaction jets are clear. As close as we can get, I'd trust that you don't have bends in that old dinged section. My radar's not showing any holes you're not supposed to have, I think, and we're not seeing any signs of outgassing. Beyond that--"

"Pilot Khat, I'm seeing the same pictures you are. Let me poll the crew . . . we can likely call it good both ways."

While that was going on, Cris and Grig were on another channel, and Khat could hear Cris saying "Zam's got a good eye you know. Maybe a rescan . . . At close power?"

Khat looked in Cris's direction, about to ask what the discussion was about when Pilot Thuy came back on the link.