The Burning Crown (Stone Blade Book 4) (15 page)

"So how does all that help us?"

"Immensely!! Plus-plus! Lanniver Industries traced the components to a single contractor here on Faircoast. It encompasses multisystem subcontractors, all domiciled here. All we have to do is trace them and drill down until we find what we need."

"Pyronic," said Thompson, totally without conviction, "Nothing hard about that."

"It's easier now," she countered, "Bet me ten standing we
don't
find a relationship between the faulty components and one or more Houses here! We just need to find out which House is where and who stands to benefit from it. These Houses may not like each other but with this kind of profit at stake they will all join hands in a nanosecond. They may squabble over who does what and who gets how much, but none of them will jeopardize the contract itself."

"Except that someone did exactly that," said Thompson, "Why don't we just bring in a corps of Guild Arbiters and auditors?"

"Later," she said, "Once we have a solid target for them."

***

Micah ground his teeth and applied careful vector correction. He and Outremin sat on the bridge with Micah behind the controls. Wygnan Amal, the astrogator and main pilot, locked the nav unit and went to his cabin for some overdue rest.

The instruments gave Micah all the information he needed except the name of the system in which the small boat now drifted. All he knew for certain was that the system had a dim red star, no planets within midrange scanner distance and a massive asteroid belt through which they now traveled.

After they dropped out of linkspace Outremin sent a coded message over the comm, and now Micah had an intermittent wire to follow. Every two minutes brought ten seconds of signal, which made for a nerve-twitching journey. At first Micah thought to check the nav unit but Amal locked and isolated it. With Outremin present Micah dared not try to unlock it or activate it. Amal locked and powered down the long-range sensors, the boat had no sophisticated survey gear and the star had no LINC beacon Micah could detect. Still, neither Outremin nor Amal appeared troubled over any of this so Micah assumed they'd made the trip many times. It still frustrated him that he had no way of pinpointing its astrographic location!

"You're wondering where we are, Stone." Outremin made that a question. Micah suspected telepathy.

"No sir. Not particularly."

"Ahh, don't lie to me, Stone. You're very concerned about it now."

"That I am, sir. There's no LINC beacon and I don't want to be here for the rest of my life."

Outremin laughed heartily at this.

"Not to worry, Stone. This location is very well surveyed and documented. Master Amal will be well able to bring us back to Fallstar. He is, after all, just as much the master of his craft as you are yours. Will you admit the least curiosity as to where exactly we're headed?"

"Not as long as I have a wire, sir. I would like a solid one, though!"

At this Outremin merely smiled. Their course led closer and closer to a giant asteroid, so Micah assumed it their eventual destination. His final, short wire confirmed it. When he vectored close enough he saw a giant cave, well-illuminated and beckoning them toward it.

Micah guided his ship into the asteroid, carefully not scraping the hull during the process. He did have clearance to spare, though not a lot, so he ran a quick mental calculation as to the maximum ship size it could accommodate comfortably. Before long the rocky, irregular cave smoothed out into a large landing bay. Two other ships sat docked but they had no markings and no transponder signals. Most interesting! GC wired him toward a smaller dock and soon he had the small vessel locked into place. A boarding tube snaked out and attached itself to their airlock and Outremin stood and stretched.

"Come, Stone. The facilities here are limited but much more comfortable than the ship's cabins."

As Micah and the others traversed the tube and into the station proper, Micah observed critically but not obviously. The installation felt like a megafac, an asteroid-based or free-floating self-contained factory designed to process asteroids for common metals and minerals, but something told Micah this particular station did more than that. As they walked he noticed several guards noticing them. Deep-pitched machine noise, more felt than heard, permeated the place. Whenever he touched a guide-rail or wall he felt a faint vibration. The air also had a slight scent of sealant, lubricant and machinery. Whenever Micah walked through a pressure-door he felt a slight change in ambient temperature and moisture. Their path finally ended in a small suite of rooms. Small, but almost luxurious by starship standards.

Amal and Zaba headed for their billet gratefully and with a minimal bow to Outremin. Micah thought to take the other but Outremin shook his head and motioned him to follow. They walked past a gaudily-painted door bearing the sign 'Recreation Room' and through another leading to a conference room. The opposite wall held another door. When Outremin sat at the head of the table, Micah dropped into a relaxed attention beside the door.

"Sit, Stone," said Outremin with some amusement, "We shall be here a while." He waved his arm casually. "What do you think of our small station?"

"It's vulnerable, sir," said Micah instantly, "There are plenty of P-doors and segments but I didn't see any structural reinforcement or armoring. It wouldn't take too many shots from a cruiser spinal to pierce the rock buffering and I don't even want to think about a fifty-nail swarm hitting."

"So. You think us defenseless?"

Micah noted the other three men when they entered but, per Outremin's example, paid them no heed.

"Who is this, Outremin?" The man Micah named Speaker strode into the room to face him.

"A treasure," replied Outremin, "A treasure for House Varl and a bane for our enemies, Signor Kenjai, and one you'd do well not to upset."

"He is strange," said Kenjai, "I do not like strange."

The man spoke with a vaguely familiar clipped accent that Micah didn't recognize. Yet.

"Duly noted," said Outremin with apparent boredom, "You may go, Stone. If you go to the rec room do not kill anyone. In fact, do not kill anyone here."

"Yes sir."

Micah walked past Kenjai as though he didn't exist, which visibly infuriated him. Micah wanted desperately to stay but Outremin made the dismissal clear.

***

Though Micah ached to explore the installation he headed to the rec room instead. Kenjai's accent still nagged him but he simply couldn't recall it. The location of the system also troubled him. If he could identify Kenjai that might give a hint to the location and if he identified the location it might give information on Kenjai. Micah mentally grumbled some profanity and concentrated on what he could observe.

The rec room was smaller than it seemed. Careful lighting and strategically-placed mirrors made it feel larger, as did the furniture and its placement. Micah tried to identify some of the plants around the room but they gave no clues either.

A bar stretched the length of one wall. Several men sat there, drinking and exchanging friendly words with the barkeep. The room itself was about a quarter filled so Micah ordered chog and nibblers and turned his attention to the other patrons.

Though the men and women sat in cliques of two to four, Micah separated them into two overall groups immediately. The first sat relaxed as they ate, drank and chatted. From what Micah overheard they all came from the Crown worlds. He classified them as ordinary workers, the ones who ran the machinery that ran the installation.

The second group might as well have worn uniforms, so loudly did their behavior shout 'military' to Micah! They sat at ease but far from relaxed. They kept careful observation of everything around them and sat with a posture of readiness. Soldiers, thought Micah, and soldiers not completely certain of their environment. He turned his attention to his food and observed more carefully.

After a few minutes Micah ordered another chog and a meal to accompany it. When it arrived he took it to an isolated table near one with four of the soldiers. After they observed and dismissed him he concentrated on hearing what he could. He didn't know what they discussed but they all spoke with Kenjai's accent.

***

Karr and Blue sat in silence and stared at the chart they'd just completed.

"Rather different, for truth," said Blue finally.

"Indeed. If we assume the rumors of censure are true, then who stands to profit the most?"

"Varl, of course." Blue lit a 'stick and sipped cold chog. "Binkor-Sud and its allies aren't in direct line but they will certainly take advantage of the situation. Likewise Snughblak and its friends."

"Binkor-Sud will only be there for the gain," said Karr, "That makes them allies of convenience at best."

"Truth," replied Blue, "but allies still. Question: from whence come the profits? Varl's reward is, as always, destruction of Brightcrown but the others will want tangible returns."

Karr jacked into the net, applied serious encryption and authenticated with his House credentials. At his request Blue did likewise. Between them they had access to data well beyond ordinary levels.

"These figures are conjectural," said Karr absently, "and based on what House Edders knows for certain happened. We also have the Brightcrown data and I'll rate that as actual, too."

"That plus what we can actually track," said Blue, "Given McReely agents, it's going to be frosted close to perfect."

Karr grinned at this. No one slipped much data concerning trade past House McReely!

"Bloody," said Karr, "This won't be quick."

"But well worth the time," replied Blue, "Let's concentrate only on shipments to, from or through Faircoast and see what accumulates and where."

While that ran, Blue examined the data from Varl, with specific attention to suspected or verified sewer-swishes. Karr, on a low-probability tangent, concentrated on Fallstar Lines and several other companies owing large debts to Binkor-Sud. Before long, Blue detected the beginnings of a pattern.

"I have disparities," she said, "Look at these incidents. Calculated value for the items versus actual value. Depreciating the standard rates for loss-recovery plus value added for salvage sales still doesn't sum up."

Karr took a moment to refocus his brain and checked her work.

"That is ruddy strange," he said, "They should be turning more than a token profit and they're not. Flames. That's barely enough to justify the paperwork!"

"I concur. Profit is the point of sewer-swishing," she said, "But apparently it isn't."

Karr checked the tax and tariff reports.

"You're right, m'lady. I'm not finding any tax advantage here. But didn't we already assume they're not after the tax cheat?"

"We did, but we also assumed some profit advantage. This is solid confirmation that they're not evading tax or tariff, which emphasizes the second assumption."

"Slib," said Karr, "Let's reset to zero. The loss-recovery process loses value for the 'loss' party, which they should use as a tax write-off. That is the point of legal loss-recovery but these stapes aren't doing that. Even when they do, they don't make much profit by it. Can we track the parties purchasing the merchandise?"

"Done that, dear one. In most cases the goods written off are purchased at a deep discount by one of the loser's allied Houses. That's the 'recovery' part of the equation. Again, they're not taking advantage of the tax credits for losing or recovering it. Not enough to show any significant profit." Blue wrinkled her face. "Anything on Fallstar etc?"

"Exactly what we suspected, m'lady. Almost sixty-four percent of the swishes involve at least one party with heavy debt to Binkor-Sud or one of its allies."

Blue smiled suddenly, then she smiled wider.

"I have a thought, Sir Knight! Let us isolate exactly those incidents. Postulate, just for the moment, that the rest are simple accidents. Check those correlations."

While Blue did so, Karr ran the same criteria against companies not perilously in debt, to Binkor-Sud or otherwise.

"Heh!" Karr finished first. "There it is. That's the pattern! These numbers fit the loss-recovery model at nine-nine-nine out to four sigmas!"

"And these absolutely do not." Blue put her numbers up against Karr's. "That's solid proof of it! Now that we have it, what exactly do we have?"

Karr's face fell as he thought. "For truth? Not much more than when we started. Burnit!"

"Phase down, Sir Many-Titles. Help me check the merchandise they wrote off."

Just over thirty minutes later Blue admitted defeat.

"Hell's frost! Nothing there. Nothing over a milli off the beam. Feces!"

"It's there, m'lady, we simply haven't found it yet. I know it. I can smell it!"

Karr's terminal beeped. The long-running correlates finally finished. After a cursory examination he archived the data and shook his head. Squelch.

Chapter 8. Crime Behind Crime

Thompson sat and smiled and tried mightily not to fidget or to look guilty. He and Kidwell sat in the office of one W. Irving Podwell, CEO and co-founder of Lithigrove Contractors, Ltd., RRC. Of the three Crown companies holding a contract with Lanniver, Lithigrove was the largest. It was also the source of all the defective parts from the Star Crown worlds.

"Thank you again for agreeing to meet us," said Kidwell.

"A pleasure, Signora Kittley," said Podwell, "We here at Lithigrove are always interested in increasing our business. Who did you say you represented again?"

Kidwell smiled. "My investors do wish to remain anonymous, sirra. As of now their alliance is very sensitive. Surely you understand that."

Podwell nodded. "Surely I do, my lady. Did you say someone recommended us?"

"Yes, Master Podwell." Kidwell let her eyes flick briefly to a Lanniver Industries placard. "One of our partners has close professional contacts with a very prominent League corporation."

"I understand," said Podwell, "So how may I help you?"

Thompson didn't know how Kidwell managed to swing an appointment. Nor did he know of any investor or alliance of them. She spoke exactly as though she represented a very large company, even Thompson believed that, and had he not known better he'd have sworn her genuine. She made the transformation somewhere between exiting their hover and entering the building. She gave him instructions to keep his mini-holocaster focused on Podwell, not an easy task with the thing concealed in his case. He suspected she assigned him that to keep him busy after his steadfast refusal to allow her to meet Podwell alone. He regretted that now!