Shooting the Rift - eARC (35 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

In which many matters are resolved.

Of course it wasn’t quite as clear cut as that. We had an inordinate amount of velocity to kill when we got to Freedom, which took some tricky maneuvering around the planet and both its moons to dissipate, to the eloquently expressed displeasure of the local traffic control. Fortunately, Clio’s message had preceded us, and the flotilla of League Navy vessels awaiting our arrival had to sit on their hands and watch us dock at the Guildhall without interfering, however much they may have wished to blow us out of the sky.

At least the docking bay was reassuringly familiar, though smaller than any I’d seen so far, with only six cradles set into the station arm, three each on the floor and ceiling; although, like the one I’d embarked from on Skyhaven, which of them was which depended entirely on where you happened to be standing at the time.

To everyone’s surprise, our welcoming committee of half a dozen Guilders included Rennau, who was waiting outside the hatch for us to disembark, and promptly embarrassed Clio by enveloping her in a hug as soon as our boots hit the deck plates.

“What were you thinking?” He demanded as they broke apart. “You could have been killed!”

“But I wasn’t.” She was fizzing with excitement. “I got a contract, Dad. Two, actually. And I need to get to the riftcom right away.”

“What for?” Rennau’s attention switched suddenly to me, becoming a glare that would have reduced me to a scorch mark on the floor if my ability to be intimidated hadn't been pretty much burned out by the events of the last few hours. “What's he got you mixed up in this time?”

“He’s got some intelligence to sell to the Commonwealth. Worth a fortune. And the fee’s all mine.” She hesitated. “Enough to pay John off, and get you the
Sleepy Jean
back.”

“If it’s the plan to invade Rockhall with Q ships, you’re a bit late.” Remington appeared from behind a couple of men who looked like stevedores, if you ignored the pistols holstered at their hips, and the woman they were escorting, who was middle aged, quite striking, and looked vaguely familiar.Her clothing was as utilitarian as most Guilders favored, but seemed of noticeably higher quality. Given her obvious status I merely clenched my fists at the sight of my former captain, and fought down the urge to deck him on the spot. There’d be plenty of time for that later. “Your aunt contracted me to find out what the Leaguers were up to before we left Avalon, and I reported back to her as soon as we docked.”

“You set me up.” Despite my best efforts to fight it down, the anger was swelling inside me, growing exponentially as it became clear just how comprehensively I’d been played. “The pair of you.”

“Not really.” He shook his head. “She didn’t tell me she’d recruited you, but I suspected it. I wasn’t really sure until you gave me that file you’d filched, though. Then I just did whatever was necessary to fulfill the contract.” He smiled, in what he probably thought was an ingratiating manner. “You’ll get a good percentage. You were the one who found the information for me, after all.”

“So you were the spy the Leaguers were looking for all along,” I said, my voice tight.

“Sort of. I knew I needed to get on to Kincora to find out what the League was up to, so I made it look as if Ellie was a Commonwealth asset, knowing they’d impound all the ships she’d been dealing with. I was pretty sure you’d be able to ferret out whatever they were hiding once we were there, and I was right.”

“And as soon as I did, you cut me loose and hung me out to dry,” I said bitterly.

“You had Clio to look after you.” He nodded to the woman he’d arrived with. “And I knew the Grand Mistress would grant your appeal if she was the one to present it.”

“Not entirely true,” the woman said dryly, “but I’d certainly have listened.” She smiled at Clio, stepped forward, and embraced her with even more enthusiasm than Rennau had done. “Hello, sweetie.”

Clio returned the hug, with equal warmth, and an even wider smile. “Hi, mom.”

“So all you had to do was sit tight for a while,” Remington concluded, with an admiring glance at the ship behind us. “and everything would have been fine. I never expected you to be quite so . . . enterprising.”

“I’m full of surprises,” I said.

After that, of course my appeal was just a formality. Clio’s mom rescinded the cancellation of my apprenticeship without even bothering to convene a formal hearing, and smiled at me across the polished wooden table of the conference room she’d requisitioned to interview me in. Beyond the wide viewport behind her, Freedom rotated, looking uncannily like Avalon, if someone had dropped it and scrambled the continents a bit.

“I imagine you’ll want to consider your future,” she said, relaxing back into her chair now the formal part of our talk had been concluded. “Captain Remington’s more than willing to have you back in his crew, but I’m not entirely sure you’d be so happy with that.”

“Neither am I,” I said, forcing down the flare of resentment before it could seep into my voice. I'd certainly never feel able to trust him again, however many assurances he gave. “But will he even have one now? If Mik’s paying off his debt with the money I gave to Clio, he’ll get the ship back, won’t he?”

“He would.” She nodded. “But we’ve been talking since he arrived. There’s a job going here, in the Guildhall, and we’d like to see a bit more of each other. At least until one of us gets itchy feet again. So John gets to keep the
Stacked Deck
for a while, with the Rennau family as equal partners.”

“At least you’ll have Clio to keep an eye on him,” I said sourly.

“Ah, yes, Clio. I think she’s rather hoping for a berth on your ship, to be honest.”

“My ship?” I frowned in perplexity. “I haven’t found a skipper to take me on yet.”

“The
Simon Says
.” The grand mistress looked at me, with a hint of amusement. “You contracted Clio as a privateer to steal it for you. Under Guild rules, that makes you the owner, unless you want to sell it on, or back to the League. And you still owe her a third of its market value, by the way.”

I sat still for a moment, gazing at the planet below, and the starfield it was embedded in, speckled with the moving motes of distant ships. Astonishingly, this simply hadn’t occurred to me before; I’d been thinking of the vessel we’d stolen simply as a means of escape, without a thought of what to do with it afterwards.

“That’s an interesting thought,” I said. “We could run cargoes . . .”

“You could do a lot more than that,” Clio’s mom said. “She’s armed, don’t forget. There’ll be plenty of work for a privateer when the League and Commonwealth start shooting at one other.”

“That’s true,” I said, heavily. The Commonwealth would be certain to react to the information I’d found by moving a task force into the Rockhall system ahead of the League infiltrators, and the diplomatic wrangling would end in accusations of bad faith on both sides, followed shortly by a bloodbath. Accusations which would be perfectly justified, unfortunately. Unless, of course they both needed to save face. . . .

“You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that,” Wymes greeted me, as he stepped through the airlock from an external docking port, and glanced round at the reception area the Guild maintained for visitors it needed to do business with, but preferred to keep at arm’s length. Comfortable chairs surrounded islands of coffee tables, marooned in the middle of a carpet the deep purple color of the upper atmosphere, and I waved a perfunctory greeting from the nearest.

“Coffee?” I asked, as a serving drone deposited a tray containing two cups, a steaming pot, and a plate of cookies in front of me, before buzzing away to take an order from the far side of the room, where Clio and the Freebooters were huddled in earnest consultation.

“Why not?” Wymes dropped into the seat opposite me, pretending to ignore the faint sound of flatulence emitted by the deforming upholstery. He waited while I poured, and handed him a cup. “What do you want?”

“Strangely enough,” I said, “I wanted to talk to someone on your side I trust.” He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, just sipping his coffee. “You want to do what’s best for the League, and in this case so do I.”

“Pardon my skepticism,” Wymes said, “but you’re a Commonwealth agent. Which inclines me to doubt that.”

“I’m a Guilder,” I said, indicating the patch on my jacket, both of which were new. “I wouldn’t be here, otherwise. And I’ve a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. I have proof that the Commonwealth’s been planning a preemptive strike on Rockhall, just like you were.” Which was stretching what I’d deduced of Mother’s brief a little, but not all that much. “Show them you know, and you’ve both got a chance to save face, stand down, and go back to the negotiating table. Otherwise you’ll both lose a lot of ships and people. Am I making sense?”

To my relief, Wymes nodded. “And this proof would be . . .”

I held up a memory cache, like the one Mallow had slipped into my pocket at our first meeting on Numarkut, into which I’d loaded a copy of the file Tinkie and I had found in the node at home. “Movement orders for a Commonwealth warship. My mother’s, in fact. To Sodallagain.” He reached out reflexively, and I twitched it away. “So let’s talk about the price.”

For the first time I saw a smile of genuine amusement on Wymes’s face.

“It seems I owe you an apology,” he said, taking a cookie from my plate, and chewing with what seemed like genuine relish. “You’re clearly a Guilder to the bone.”

My business at last concluded, probably on less advantageous terms than Clio would have managed, but satisfactory nevertheless, I wandered over to join her. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“I want to hear this from you,” Ertica said with a scowl, before she had a chance to reply. “She says the two of you own the ship we stole.”

“Technically, under Guild rules, Clio owns a third of it,” I said. “The rest’s mine. For the moment.”

“And you want to cut us in too.”

“It seems fair,” I said. “We’d never have got away without you.” I turned to Clio. “You’ve explained the proposition?”

She nodded tightly. “Till I’m blue in the face.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked. “We need a crew, you need a ship. And you’ll have a third share between you, to divide up however you want.” How Ertica wanted, anyway; I was fairly sure the division wouldn’t exactly be equal. “And you’ll have the Guild behind you as well. That’s got to be worth something.”

“That seems to be the sticking point,” Clio said.

“I’m not going to be anyone’s apprentice at my age,” Ertica said. “Least of all a child.” She glared at Clio, as if mortally offended.

“That’s just a technicality,” I explained. “I’m her apprentice too, at least on paper.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Ertica said.

“We can pay you off instead, if you prefer,” I offered. Wymes had promised me enough for that, and we hadn’t even started taking bids on the list of compromised cargo brokers yet.

“Well, I’m in,” Rollo said, unexpectedly. “I’ve missed being on a ship with guns. Big guns are fun.”

Baines was nodding too. “A chance to join the Guild’s a huge opportunity, Carolyn. We won’t get another.”

“I suppose not,” she admitted grudgingly. “Or another chance at a share in a ship.” She sighed. “All right. But I’m not taking orders from her. Unless I agree with them.”

“The same goes for me,” Clio said, “but otherwise you’re the skipper.” She signaled to a loitering drone, which promptly dropped to the table, and deposited five glasses she must have ordered earlier in front of us. She lifted one in salute, which we all echoed a moment later after picking up our own. “A toast then. To the
Simon Says
, and all who sail in her.”

The former Freebooters drained their glasses in unison. “The Simon Says.”

“We’re changing the name,” I said.

END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Those without whom, etc . . .

Novels, alas, don’t spring straight from the mind of the author to the shelves of Barnes and Noble (or Waterstone’s, if you live on this side of the Atlantic.) The intermediate process involves a lot of hard work, and occasional profanity.

Fortunately, most of us get help and encouragement from a variety of sources. In this case I’d particularly like to thank David Drake, for first suggesting I’d be a good fit for the Baen list; Toni Weisskopf for listening, and inviting me to pitch something; Kelly Marshall, my agent, for contractual I dotting and T crossing; Duncan Lunan and others on the Milford email list for help with the diagram on page xx, any technical errors in which are entirely due to my own scientific illiteracy; John Lambshead, for much invaluable advice on being English and writing for Americans, which turned out to involve a lot more than simply omitting the occasional vowel; and, most importantly of all, Judith, for remaining married to a writer for so long in spite of the obvious drawbacks.