Engaging the Enemy (24 page)

She smiled pleasantly at the dour-faced officials who interviewed her. “I'm really only interested in resupply and trade,” she said, for the fourth or fifth time. “I'm sorry my cousin upset you, but as you can see this is an unarmed cargo ship, and a very small, slow one at that. My focus is on restoring Vatta's reputation as a common carrier, not on some plan to rid the universe of pirates.” She let a hint of humor creep into her voice, the older relative about a wilder youngling.

“Do you think she's dangerous?” one of them asked.

A hard question; Stella wished she knew the answer. “Not to anyone not allied with the pirates,” she said finally. “I don't know if she told you about the attacks on our family?”

“Yes,” the man said. “But we weren't sure we believed her.”

“It's true,” Stella said. “Her parents were killed; my father was killed. Both of us lost siblings and many other relatives. Vatta ships were attacked in other ports; in Allray, for instance, we lost an entire ship and crew but for one boy who was offship on an errand. I have been attacked myself, and our ship and personnel were attacked at Lastway. I'm sure if she had a chance, she would harm those who did this.”

“So she said. But she claimed she had a letter of marque from her government—”

“She did. I saw it myself. I don't know anything about letters of marque—you will understand that my duty in the business, until now, was onplanet, not shipboard.”

“And yet she left you in command of your ship—”

“As an emergency measure, and with very experienced crew, yes.” Stella was not going to help blacken Ky's name, even if she had her own concerns about that. “I hired a licensed master at the next port, of course, along with additional crew.”

They stared at her and she smiled back. Finally one of them shook his head. “Well. I find it hard to believe that you are involved in her conspiracy building, but should you find yourself in her company anytime soon, inform her that neither she nor her ship is welcome in this system until further notice. You may trade, but we prefer that your crew not go onstation, and all trades must be approved by our security staff. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Stella said. It would be a bother, but not impossible.

“You may attend the Captains' Guild, but you will be accompanied, when offship, by one of our personnel.”

“I'm delighted,” Stella said. “In case someone is still out to get Vatta family members, I would want an escort in any case, and an official one should be much more effective.”

From their expressions they had not expected her response. What
had
Ky actually done or said? Stella felt a twinge of resentment again. It wasn't fair that she had to clean up Ky's messes.

When Stella checked in at the Captains' Guild, she felt the intense interest of everyone from the clerk at the desk to the other captains chatting in a corner of the lobby, one of whom immediately broke off and headed for the bar. She was used to being stared at, and she had dressed to accentuate her looks, but she was sure it was more than her beauty drawing attention this time. Her police escort nudged her. “Remember, no talk about alliances or conspiracies.”

“I know,” Stella said, forcing her voice to serenity. “And if someone else brings it up, I'll cut them off.”

“See that you do,” the escort said sourly. She was a stocky short woman with a broad, blunt face; Stella knew from the moment they met that the woman recognized and resented Stella's tall, elegant, blond beauty and was not about to admit it, even to herself. She'd been the target of that kind of resentment all her life.

Now a tall gray-haired man came out of the bar and approached her. “Captain Vatta?”

“Yes,” Stella said.

“Pleased to meet you; I'm Rogier Sanlin, Porodin Shipping. My ship's the
Curry Town.
”

Stella checked her implant. Porodin Shipping was a four-system firm, running one circuit route with eight ships. A minor competitor when Vatta had been strong.

“Nice to meet you, Captain Sanlin,” Stella said. He had eyed her the way most men eyed her, but was being polite about it. “What can I do for you?”

He glanced briefly at her escort. “Don't worry, they've told us all what not to talk to you about, and I wouldn't anyway. Porodin is pure shipping, no interest in anything else. I was wondering if you had cargo to transship to one of our destinations, or if you had cargo we might be interested in.”

“I might,” Stella said. “Let's talk.” It took only minutes to establish that he might buy her custom textiles, but only if she would accept cargo space in trade.

“With the financial ansibles still down so many places, money's tight,” Sanlin said.

It was only the first of several such conversations; Stella quickly caught on to the intricacies of trading cargo-space futures, and by lunchtime she was already eight hundred credits up in hard money.

“Aunt Grace always did say I was born to print money,” Stella said to her police escort, “but I think she meant marry it.” The woman glowered.

Stella ran her sales cube through a reader so her escort could check it for clandestine merchandise; the woman seemed annoyed that she found nothing to complain about.

It was almost time for lunch, and she considered annoying her escort by having lunch in the Captains' Guild dining hall, but that felt too much like something Ky would do. Still, she was tired of the ship galley. Her crew seemed unperturbed by having to stay aboard, but they were all professional spacers. She wasn't. She looked at her escort.

“Can you suggest a good place for lunch?”

“You can eat here,” the woman said. “But I come with you.”

“Of course,” Stella said. “But here it's likely that other captains will approach me; I didn't want to concern you.”

“It doesn't bother me. I would just stop you.”

Stella just managed not to roll her eyes. She went to the registration desk instead and spoke to the clerk. “I've been stuck on a very small ship for a very long time,” she said. “I'd like to find a place for lunch that has good food, where I won't be bothered with business for at least an hour. Can you suggest something?”

“Melandra,” he said. “You'll need a reservation. One?” Then a glance at her escort. “Two?”

“Two,” Stella said. She smiled; he made the call and then gave her directions.

“It's very expensive,” her escort said as they came back out into the concourse.

“I'm sure,” Stella said. “Places that protect you from interruption usually are. Do you mind?”

“No,” the woman said. “I've never been there. I hear they have all natural foods, no vat-grown.”

Melandra, when they reached it, had a simple gray door with the name in gold script. Stella paused. “Stella Vatta,” she said. The door opened on a carpeted hall, the walls gray pin-striped with burgundy, then closed behind them when both were through, shutting off the bustle of the concourse. Somewhere, a mellow stringed instrument was playing.

“This way please,” a pleasant voice said from near the floor. Stella looked down. A knee-high artibod, its body metallic burgundy, blinked emerald eyes at them. It moved ahead of them down the corridor, turned left, and led the way into what looked like a rustic bower in a fruit orchard on a day somewhere between spring and summer. A single table, draped in white, stood between padded benches under a trellis supporting a grapevine. A white-flowered tree grew against one wall; one thick with shiny red fruit grew beside it. A light breeze moved its leaves; the air smelled of roses and grass and earth. “Be seated please,” the artibod said. Stella slid onto one bench, her escort onto the other. She felt beneath her the bench reshape itself to her body; a back extension extruded to support her back in perfect comfort. Her escort looked startled, but said nothing.

“The season is programmable,” the artibod said. “Controls are on the table; the menu will appear there shortly. Would the ladies prefer artibod or human service?”

“Artibod,” Stella said, just as her escort said “Human.” They looked at each other; the escort shrugged. “Artibod,” Stella said again.

“Command the table when you are ready to order,” the artibod said, and rolled away.

“I had no idea,” her escort said. “There's really just one table?”

“In this alcove, anyway,” Stella said. “I'm sure they have others.” She looked at the table controls. They were, indeed, on a setting between spring and summer; the temperature was cool in the shade, warm in the artificial sunlight. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes.” The woman looked around again. Stella relaxed into her seat, which adjusted to the shift in weight. “You can't bribe me, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“Taking me to a fancy place like this. It won't work, if you're trying to bribe me to let you talk conspiracy to the other captains.”

“I don't want to talk conspiracy to other captains,” Stella said. “I just want a nice lunch, uninterrupted, so other captains can't say things to me that you will object to.” Her escort looked puzzled. “What would you think,” Stella went on, “if one of them had come up and started asking questions about what Ky's doing?”

“I—would tell you to stop.”

“Even though I hadn't started the conversation. Yes. So I wanted to have a peaceful lunch, where I wouldn't be bothered with that kind of thing. This is a nice place. What are you going to eat?”

The menu, now visible on the tablecloth, included both standard fare and exotics, with explanations available at a touch. Stella chose roast chicken with vegetables, a green salad. Her escort scowled at the menu. “They don't have just plain sandwiches.”

“They may, if we ask,” Stella said. “Any particular kind?”

“I usually eat at a kiosk on B; fried soy cubes and onions in a flatbread wrap.”

“Ah. I'd guess the Pocket Grill is the closest to that. I'm having chicken.”

“It's more expensive.”

“It's on my account; don't worry about it.”

“I—I would like the chicken, too.”

Stella nodded and entered the order. Another artibod rolled up with the drinks she had ordered, and in a few minutes came back with their meals, rising to table level to roll them off onto the table. They ate in silence at first. Stella waited to see if the food would have any softening effect. When she suggested dessert, her escort said, “You aren't like your cousin.”

“Excuse me? I'm having the torte—what are you having?”

“What's a torte?”

Stella explained, then entered the order and went back to the previous topic. “What do you mean, I'm not like my cousin? I mean, I know I don't look like her.”

“It's more than that.” The woman leaned forward. “She's trouble, that one.”

“Really? What did she do?”

“She's part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government,” the woman said. “She was trying to get all these traders to join her.”

“Overthrow the government? Surely not…is that what she said?”

“That's what my supervisor told me. She argued with the stationmaster, very loudly. They told her to go away and not come back.”

“Do you know exactly what she said?” Stella asked. “Because I know she wanted to rebuild Vatta—”

“She didn't talk about Vatta,” the woman said. “She talked about war.”

Quincy met her at the main hatch. “What happened?” she asked. “You look furious.”

“I'm not sure I want to talk about it yet,” Stella said. “The good news is that we have a buyer for the textiles we bought. The bad news is that Ky has gone out of her mind.”

“Mmm.” Quincy glanced around. “Perhaps in your cabin?”

“Right.” Stella led the way, trying not to glower at the crewmembers she met. When they were in her cabin, hatch closed, Quincy sat on the bunk while Stella paced the four steps back and forth. “Ky,” she said finally, “is an idiot. All right, I know she's brave and I know she's not actually stupid, but…she's now alienated two different systems, at least, and for all I know she's busy making us more enemies where she is now. I don't know how she thinks making people angry is going to help our family recover—”

“What are they angry about here?” Quincy asked.

“She has this harebrained idea that all the Slotter Key privateers, and anyone else they can get to join them, should form a united fleet to fight the…I don't even know who.” Stella sat down in her desk chair and ran her hands through her hair. “Whoever it was that attacked the Bissonet System, I suppose,” she said. “Apparently she is convinced that they're all connected, the attacks on Vatta, the nonfunctioning ansibles, the increased pirate activity, and now this system attack…and yes, I know, she was talking like that before, but she had her head straight on priorities: Vatta first. Now—I don't think she has the slightest concern for Vatta's reputation. We are not a military organization. We transport and we trade. I don't know what she thinks she can accomplish; it's not like she has any actual experience. That Mackensee officer, Johannson, was right: she's a very loose cannon, and we're the ones who will suffer for it.”

She felt better for saying it. Across the small cabin, Quincy nodded. “She does get wound up about what she wants to do. I worried about her myself. But her record's good. It's not everyone who could've gotten us out of that mess with Osman.”

“It's not everyone who would've gotten us
into
that mess with Osman,” Stella said. “All we had to do was follow the advice of the professionals we hired and go on our way.” Maybe this time Quincy would understand the point she'd tried to make more than once.

“And Osman would still be out there plotting against us,” Quincy said. “That wouldn't be good.”