Engaging the Enemy (28 page)

Stella sighed. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I hate to upset Quincy. I do take your points, Balthazar, but I'm not going to agree that Ky is the right one for that job…not yet, anyway.”

“I'm certainly not going to interfere in a dispute between my employer and her relatives,” he said with a wry grin. “I hope when we get to Cascadia that she is still there and you can reach an agreement.”

Gary Tobai
dropped back into normal space right on target; Stella had gained confidence in her experienced crew, but this was always a tense moment for her. She didn't really like space travel; she'd be glad when she could settle down again on Slotter Key and stay there. That thought reminded her of Aunt Grace. She'd better have a good report for Aunt Grace if she hoped to live happily ever after.

As soon as scans cleared, Captain Orem called her forward. “Ma'am, there are two Vatta registry ships in system.
Fair Kaleen,
which we expected, and
Katrine Lamont.
Do you know anything about that one?”

Stella queried her implant.
Katrine Lamont,
transferred to this route after the Sabine affair—
why?
she wondered—captained by Josiah Furman. Excellent record until the Sabine affair…what had he done? Had he been involved with Ky in some way? Crossed her? Was she going strange even back then?

“It's one of our larger ships,” she told Orem. “Captain Furman should be listed—”

“J. Furman, yes, ma'am.”

“He's listed on this route, so that's fine. I'm glad to see another Vatta ship whole and on its proper route; it gives us something to work with.” And it gave her someone certainly sane to talk with, as well. Furman, she now remembered, had been the captain on Ky's apprentice voyage. Ky had thought he was difficult, but she herself had been difficult at thirteen; her animosity to Furman was surely no more than adolescent pique. Such an exemplary captain was surely levelheaded enough to be fair with his employer's daughter. If Ky had complained about him again at Sabine, that said more about her than about him. Perhaps he would be an ally, someone to add weight to her own words. Ky wouldn't like it, but she'd have to listen.

Moscoe Confederation's system ansibles were working, so she debated whether to call Ky or Furman first. Family won out. Before she sicced Furman on Ky, she should at least find out if Ky had come to her senses. Besides, the ship wasn't synchronized to local time yet. According to the information transmitted by the local system, they were more than a shift off.

Ky's skullphone pinged an alarm, then transmitted the automatic message:
Gary Tobai
's beacon had been recognized. She let out a sigh of relief and sent a quick thanks for notification. Stella had hired experienced crew, yes, but too many things could go wrong and she had dreaded losing her nearest relative. She wanted to place an immediate call, but Stella would have things to do. She'd be talking to Traffic Control, to the various official entities. Later would be soon enough, though she wished
Gary Tobai
had a faster insystem drive.

Another call waited when she got back to the ship. “It would help in the adjudication if Monitor Leary observed your initial contact with your cousin,” the agent said.

“Why?” Ky asked.

“For evidence,” he said. “If your cousin recognizes you as her cousin. That is not sufficient, but it is suggestive.”

“She might call anytime,” Ky said. “Did you want Monitor Leary to come back aboard?”

“With your kind permission,” he said.

Ky agreed, feigning a good grace she did not feel, and managed to smile politely at Leary when she came aboard. Shifts passed. Finally a call came in.

“I'm glad to hear from you,” Ky said. “I was beginning to worry.” No need to say she'd been worrying for days.

“We're all fine,” Stella said. “And you?”

“There's a problem,” Ky said. “The other Vatta ship in system,
Katrine Lamont
—”

“Yes, with Captain Furman. You don't like him, do you?”

“That's not the problem, Stella,” Ky said. “He's claiming I'm an imposter.”

“What?” It was clear from Stella's expression that this was not what she had expected to hear.

“You heard me. He thinks I'm—you will not believe this—Osman's daughter pretending to be Kylara Vatta.”

“That's—that's ridiculous.” Stella's eyes narrowed. “Whatever gave him that idea?”

“He thinks Kylara's dead, he says, killed in the attacks on Vatta. He thinks Osman's up to something and has put in a ringer. That's what he's telling the stationmaster, anyway. And with the Slotter Key ansible and those in between still down, I can't prove differently.”

“Has he seen you? Surely he knows you.”

“He does, which is why I don't understand it. He hasn't seen me face-to-face, but he's seen current visuals and he still insists I'm a look-alike imposter. It's strange…no matter what he thinks of me personally, surely he knows who I am.”

“He should,” Stella said. She sounded tentative, as if she were really thinking about something else.

“Crown & Spears has a genetic sample from Jo; they compared it to mine before giving me access to the corporate accounts—”

Stella's voice sharpened. “What have you done with the corporate accounts?”

“Nothing, really. I needed to pay docking fees on arrival is all. I've put it back, from a delivery payment. We had a load of medical stuff.”

“You were carrying real cargo?”

“Of course I am, Stella. What did you think?”

Stella didn't quite meet her eyes. “I…was beginning to wonder.”

“Wonder? About what?”

“The people at Sallyon were really upset, Ky, about your plan to form some kind of space navy—”

“The people at Sallyon are idiots,” Ky said. “They're more worried about upsetting the pirates than protecting themselves and their trade.” Surely Stella understood that. It was obvious enough. “Either system governments are going to have to get together and fund a real interstellar force, or we merchanters are, or we just give up and let the pirates take over system after system and run the universe. I'm not happy with that thought. They killed our parents.”

“It's a job for governments,” Stella said. “Not us. We have enough to do just putting Vatta back together, if we can.”

This was not an argument Ky wanted to have at a distance; she needed to see Stella face-to-face. “I'm glad you're here, Stella. How long before you reach the station?”

“Sixteen days, Balthazar says.”

“Balthazar?”

“Balthazar Orem, the shipmaster I hired back at Garth-Lindheimer. You may remember you left me stranded there, just like you did at Rosvirein and Sallyon…” Stella's beautiful face hardened; Ky realized that Stella was still angry. She had always been able to hold a grudge until it died of old age.

“Not because I wished to,” she said. “I'm glad you found a reliable capt—shipmaster.”

“I was very lucky on that account,” Stella said. “And he agrees with me that merchants have no business trying to set up a military force—” That wasn't exactly what Orem had said, but never mind.

“You talked to him about my plans?” Ky said, with the slightest emphasis on
my.
“When you knew them only by hearsay?”

“Considering the reputation you were leaving behind yourself, it seemed entirely prudent,” Stella said. “I had no idea what I'd find when—if—we finally caught up with you.”

Ky choked back the first three things she wanted to say. So Stella was back to confiding in a man, and willing to confide in the handiest, even if he was a new hire. How handsome was this shipmaster, anyway? She'd assumed that Stella was over all that headlong romantic stuff, but now she saw the ill-fated first love, the spendthrift careless husband, Rafe, and this shipmaster as points on a very straight line indicating that Stella hadn't changed at all.

“I look forward to your arrival,” she said instead. “Then maybe we can clear up this identity problem and have a nice long chat about Vatta business.” Without, she was determined, the intrusion of Stella's new love interest. “If you'll excuse me—”

“I'll call again tomorrow,” Stella said. “I'm not going to wait sixteen days to talk to you. Who know what you'll get up to in sixteen days? You might run off again.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Ky said. “The ship's locked down until the identity issue's settled.”

“Good,” Stella said. “Then I see no reason to hurry to solve it. If you are stuck there, you'll have to listen to reason.”

The contact blanked. Ky stared at the screen, puzzled and annoyed both. Stella was angry with her; that much was clear. She understood a little of that; she had left Stella to trail behind through several systems. If she'd been in Stella's place, she'd have been annoyed, too. But surely Stella could understand that it had not been intentional. Stella was acting as if she, Ky, had turned into some kind of monster, even an enemy of Vatta, when all she'd done was try to make things safer.

Sighing, she swung her command chair around and met the monitor's gaze. Leary's neutral expression could not conceal the interest in her eyes.

“She recognized you,” Leary said.

“Yes,” Ky said. “That was Stella, as I'm sure you noticed.”

“Your cousin, I believe?” the monitor said.

“Yes. My father's brother's youngest daughter. Only living daughter now. It's her older sister's genetic material that Crown & Spears has on file.”

“She doesn't look anything like you,” the monitor said.

“No,” Ky agreed. “She's the beauty of our generation; she takes after her mother's family more, and even there she's remarkable. The Stamarkos family have more blondes, but her mother is dark—darker than Stella, anyway. One of her brothers had light hair. Some of her Stamarkos cousins are blond. I used to wish I could look like her; my mother was always telling me to watch how Stella dressed, how Stella stood and sat.”

The monitor cocked her head. “You really do seem to know her.”

“I should. We spent a lot of time together as children. She's a few years older, but not that much.”

“You were in school together?”

“No. My uncle's main residence was on the mainland, near the Stamarkos family's; my father preferred to live on Corleigh—an island.”

“Then—”

“We were together on family vacations and outings,” Ky said. “Alternately on the mainland and on the island. She knew our house as well as I did; I knew their house. I even knew the gardener who—” She stopped abruptly. It wasn't this woman's business that Stella had become “idiot Stella” with that gardener. She became aware that Rafe and Hugh, as well as other bridge crew, were listening.

“The gardener who—” the monitor prompted.

Ky shrugged. “Old family stuff. The point is, we were in and out of each other's homes as children and young people. Stella and I were sometimes rivals—she always won—and sometimes allies, especially when we'd have mock wars in the orchards between her father's house and the Stamarkos house.” The memory made her grin; this story couldn't hurt Stella's reputation. “Stella was always so perfect and her mother was a stickler for neatness. One time the Stamarkos boys challenged us and we spent three days building a fort on our side of the orchard while they did the same on theirs. Then we had to capture their flag, and they had to capture ours.”

“How old were you?” Leary asked.

Ky thought back. “I must've been ten or so. Stella would've been twelve, thirteen, something like that. Usually she took along a change of clothes and washed her face in the canal before going home, but this time—” She broke off, chuckling.

“You can't stop there,” Rafe said. “Are you telling me the immaculate Stella got mussed?”

Ky glared at him for interrupting. “She always got mussed; she just cleaned up before showing up in front of her mother. This time we carried the fight into the part of the orchard that hadn't been picked—which was forbidden. We just forgot; we were all throwing clods and overripe fruit off the ground, a running battle. Well, suddenly we were in among the pickers, and one of her brothers bumped into a ladder and a picker almost fell. The orchard foreman was furious and chased us out, all the way back to the house. There was Stella, her hair in strings and full of dirt and fruit pulp, her clothes spattered with purple, red, yellow. Just like the rest of us, but it was Stella, after all. I thought Aunt Helen was going to explode. Uncle Stav just laughed, but then he made us all apologize to the foreman. The Stamarkos cousins were sent home and I heard later they were put on house arrest for two days. We were, too, and put to work as well. Within ten days, they had a new fence around the orchards and we had to walk a half mile to get to the Stamarkos cousins and play in open fields.”

“If indeed you are the Kylara Vatta of her childhood, and she the Stella Vatta of yours, she should remember that story, don't you think?” Leary asked.

“Yes,” Ky said. She knew Stella remembered it, but there were differences. Stella had blamed her, Ky, for urging her to play in the orchard even though she was really too old for such games. Ky had known better; even then, at twelve or thirteen, Stella liked to sneak off and try to meet one of the pickers she had a crush on. Ky had been torn between a desire to defend herself from Stella's accusation by telling all she knew, and the promise she'd given Stella to keep her secrets. She had resented Stella's unfair accusation then, flinging back at her the little bracelet Stella had given her at the start of vacation and storming off to an attic to sulk. It had worried her later: if she had told Aunt Helen then about Stella's flirtations, would that have prevented the far more serious affair with the gardener?