The Burning Crown (Stone Blade Book 4) (16 page)

"... so you see," continued Podwell, "even though Lanniver is by far our largest customer we are most willing to accept other contracts. We cannot have a conflict of interest, of course, but certainly any such can be handled... appropriately. In fact more than one of our own Great Houses purchase equipment from us and that includes the Great House of Varl. That is quite the accomplishment!"

"I... see," said Kidwell.

"Ahh. Please allow me to explain, then." Podwell's smile turned just a milli smug. "You must understand, Signora Kittley, we of the Star Crown worlds are governed by our Houses Great and Noble. The House most closely associated with Lithigrove is the Great and Noble House of Brightcrown and they and the Great House of Varl are, shall we say, not on the friendliest of terms. But since we are also associated with many other Greater and Lesser Houses, Lithigrove can operate with absolute neutrality toward them all and with equal protection by each.

"Think of things this way. Are you familiar with the Unity of Triumph? Yes? Excellent! Although the Unity does not, as a rule, like to trade beyond themselves, once a Unity trader gives his word he will stand by it and sacrifice anything he must in order to keep it. Even if he gives it to a sworn blood-enemy unknowingly he will keep it.

"Although we here at Lithigrove are not so xenophobic or antisocial," grinned Podwell, "We still pride ourselves on the standards we set."

Kidwell smiled at this. "I notice you are Guild certified." She pointed to a certificate on the wall. "Is that true of your subcontractors as well?"

"No, m'lady. Some of our subsidiaries are Guild certified but not all. But, as you noted, Lithigrove itself is and we insist on meeting or exceeding those standards with all of our merchandise."

"Of course," said Kidwell, "I was merely curious. Our partners have had dealings with the Guild and without it. They are impressed with the standards but not the... occasional cost. Since we are dealing with a large sum of money certain... considerations... must be met. The Guild does, after all, deal with corruption quite severely. We want to ensure that matters are handled... properly. To my thinking, and that of my superior, it is best to... work out such details... from the very beginning."

"I understand." Podwell's smile turned oily. "All of our subsidiaries have offices here. I mean in this building. Perhaps you would like to meet them? That way you can reassure your partners of their... ethics and integrity."

"That would be wonderful," she smiled, "Most... satisfactory."

As they left Podwell's office, Thompson had no problem reading her satisfaction with that.

***

"What now, most pleasant of personalities," asked Thompson.

The two of them sat on a shaded patio outside an expensive motel at which they now had a room. A room, a garble on the table and, apparently, not a care in the universe. Almost every Lithigrove subcontractor took ten to twenty minutes to talk to Kidwell. She stayed with her story but changed her manner slightly each time. All of them showed interest in expanding their business to include her fictitious company but by Thompson they hadn't discovered anything more than good business sense.

"We wait for the seeds I planted to take root and grow," she said simply.

"Seeds?"

"Seeds, my dear. By now at least seven subcontractors plus Podwell himself are burning up LINC time to check out our company."

"Flames! We'll be arrested!"

"Blather."

"Truth! Vera, you said we were advance scouts or negotiators for some fictitious company with considerable financial resources and willingness to spend them! A company interested in doing business with them. If that isn't fraud, criminal misconduct and several other illegal things, I don't know what is!"

Kidwell took a moment to enjoy his agitation.

"For truth, Cap'n John, I would have to agree with you if in fact I did say we were any such. Technically speaking, though, it's not against any law to
imply
that we're scouting out business partners and that's all I did. Plus I didn't really give them much to trace, now did I?"

Thompson stared at her, stunned at this.

"No, but they're well-connected here! At least one of those stapes will have the resources to find out anything they want. If nothing else they'll arrest us for wasting their time!"

"But why waste their time on it," asked Kidwell, "If we're no more than that."

Thompson's face twitched as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Kidwell watched as he tried to find an argument.

"Slib," she finally said, "What if I said we were representatives of a company? Not one of interstellar magnitude but one with the potential to become so. One whose ground-floor partners would be poised to make several fortunes once the company surged."

Thompson rubbed his eyes, then his temples. He sighed and drained his tea, obviously wanting something stronger.

"Are we?"

"We are," she replied, "Technically speaking I am but I can explain you as a personal assistant."

He sighed hard. "Explain, please."

"Hrm. Not long ago an... associate... of mine opened a small business. His primary interest was a commodity other than profit but he still managed to make plenty of that. Its existence is useful in more than one way so he's continuing it. It's under hired management so he doesn't have to run it personally and, since he is a citizen of the League, it is registered. Since I was... involved... with the situation that caused its existence I'm a partner in it. So are Micah and Charlie. So, you see, we do represent an actual company."

"Rmph. What is it you're not telling me?"

"How about 'You look really dashing when you're concerned.' Will that work?"

"Not even on League Day. Are you saying it's just a trip through a parking orbit for you to start new companies for arbitrary reasons, just because it's convenient?"

She grinned. "John, trust me on this. It was convenient, no blather, but primarily as a source of information. It's set up as a paper-trading company and we have... access... to enough paper to keep it running. It's a perfectly legitimate business operating under perfectly legal conditions. It's domiciled within the League but has three offices outside it."

"Flames! That's potentially worse. Four locations? They'll laugh us all the way to jail!"

"No blather, they won't. Once they discover the locations they'll be slavering for us."

Thompson shook his head and ordered more tea.

***

"Varl!"

Blue jumped when Karr said it, then looked at him in annoyance.

"It has to be Varl, Lacy." Karr powered up his terminal but didn't enter anything. "I know it may seem like tunnel vision but that's the only thing that fits."

"It is tunnel vision, Piotr, no question there. But... That doesn't automatically make it wrong. There are too many things pointing to it being right. No blather there. We just don't know what they are. Yet."

"But what if we are wrong?"

"We're not," said Blue emphatically, "We are not wrong, Sir Knight-of-Many-Titles! We simply haven't found the right places to look. That or we're looking at the right things the wrong way." She called up some data on her terminal. "For truth, what if all this sewer-swishing is nothing more than that? Consider it." Blue fell silent as she did just that. Then inspiration crawled across her face. "We know Varl is always looking to bring Brightcrown down. Every person - every child! - in Crown space knows that. Varl doesn't even bother trying to hide it. But... But! They know that if they try something then we, or someone like us, will be looking for it!"

Karr nodded as her thought took hold of him.

"Now," she continued, "if you don't want something found, how do you hide it? Especially if it's something blatantly illegal that breaks every Crown law imaginable. How would you hide something like that?"

"Behind something else illegal," said Karr with dawning realization. He took her hand and kissed it in a most formal and proper fashion.

"Exactly, m'dear," she said, squeezing his hand before he let go, "Give the lookers something to find! Make it obvious, but not too obvious. Make it illegal, but not too much so. Illegal enough to bring a fine or some minor embarrassment, but so minor that anyone trying to make a Moot indictment of it will be laughed off the planet!"

"Indeed so! You, my lady, are as brilliant as you are beautiful."

"So where does that leave us now?"

Karr winked. "Back at the start yet again, but with a treasure of knowledge on what not to find!"

***

Worthington listened raptly as Karr, with occasional words from Blue, explained their findings.

"That's a bally rough theory, Sir Karr," he said, "You'll have hades' own time proving it. If it can be proved. As yet you've no idea on the massive crimes being hidden."

"Aye, Sir Allan," said Karr, "That is why we brought this to you."

"Halm's beard, my boy," said Worthington, "I've no idea how I can assist you!"

"By watching and collecting data, Sir Allan," supplied Blue, "I've asked some friends of mine to keep an eye out for things amiss, but the more eyes the better. Most especially when those eyes have an official capacity through which such occurrences must pass. Mind you, we're not asking you to break oath or law."

"Banish the thought, my lady," smiled Worthington, "My feelings opinions are totally my own and should I choose to share them, that is no one's concern but mine. Of course I shall inform you of any suspicious activities, but if my eyes see something McReely's miss I'll feast both of you for a week! Not to worry, dear lady. My eyes, such as they are, are at your command."

Blue bowed and smiled.

"Sir Allan," said Karr, "What finally happened to that shipment Fallstar lost?"

"We have it," said Worthington. He printed something from his terminal and handed Karr the hardcopy. "House Brightcrown paid the loss. Standard rates, all forms filed, taxes and fees paid properly. Signed and sealed by all parties involved. They'll not be swishing our sewers with this! I personally voided the manifest and saw it removed from their inventory. Our House office there gave fair median price and had the recovered goods transferred properly."

"Will you be selling it soon," asked Blue, interest piquing her voice.

"I do not know, my lady. Because of my position as a port official I cannot, without conflict of interest, ethically participate in the sale. That is an impropriety certain other Houses would do well to observe!"

"Can you put a hold on it," she asked, "Not officially, but through your House."

"Of course. May I ask why?"

Blue shrugged. "I don't exactly know, Sir Allan. We've mostly decided their sewer-swishing has no deeper purpose, but that shipment is something solid that we have. Moreover, it's something we have that they did not want us to have. If loss of value during the hold is an issue I'll have my House..."

"Nonsense, dear lady," exclaimed Worthington, "I'll see to it personally. House Brightcrown will keep it secure and we'll not sell a jot of it until you deem it appropriate!"

***

"Give me your thoughts," said Blue, "See if they match mine."

"Tourmalin," said Karr instantly, "We should check to see if our virus is still intact."

To his chagrin she guided the hover to the closest Chugbarn's.

"It is. We lost the primary bait site but the others are intact."

Karr sipped his tea as he said this. Then he wiped his hands, prepared his warez and meshed his terminal with Blue's.

"So, m'lady. What shall we query first?"

Karr wove his probe carefully through Tourmalin Shipping Interstellar's cryptobase. He copied everything he found, with Blue providing a solid backup. They'd break the data as they could since it provided a potential key to any company with which Tourmalin did business. Once Karr worked his way past that he queried the company's loss-recoveries. The sheer number of them bogged his terminal but Blue stepped in quickly to pull off some of the load.

"Flames," she swore, "How do they show a profit with all of that?"

Once his terminal cleared, Karr checked for security. He found plenty, but none active, nor did the tunnel from the bait site show anything unusual. Next he queried information concerning Fallstar Lines. He kept the date range recent so the resulting squirt, while massive, came nowhere close to slowing his terminal.

"Try BinSu and Imix," suggested Blue.

Again the connection lagged but not excessively so. Amazingly, Tourmalin had an impressive number of files associated with Brightcrown and McReely; files separated from the regular commercial transactions. Karr slirped that carefully: such data might well represent a trap placed there for burners associated with those Houses. He very carefully did not investigate or alter the data; that would come later.

"I have spurious pings," said Blue softly.

"I'm on it. Launching codefug and snap-trace. Is the big one ready?"

"Loaded and coded. Just give the word."

"Not yet," he said, "Let's see what they try first."

Whoever tried to probe Karr's bait site fired a tendril-touch blindly into the codefog. Clever enough but it would take time to work. Karr placed a mirror-backlash between the fog and his presence. Karr's snap-trace locked tight and the intruder's tunnel started morphing.

"Go," said Karr, "I think the stape's external but I'm not sure."

Blue launched her carefully-prepared thorn snatch: a query massive enough to bog down even the fastest smesh. She actually received a lot of data before Tourmalin's security reacted. Slowly. Karr relaunched his twice-recursed codefog and Tourmalin's automatic dogz and probes hit it hard. That alongside the remnants of the other intruder's tendrils and the still-executing queries slowed Tourmalin's warez considerably.

Knowing he'd soon lose his first bounce site, Karr trapped it with fractal flames. The intruder arrived just before Tourmalin and the space instantly hashed into mathematically-complex gibberish. Even though he had the key the active fractal structures slowed Karr, never mind what his opponents now faced! The snap-trace, forgotten but still active, reached the end of the stranger's tunnel. It deployed and anchored hard, squirting Karr everything it could before the burner jacked out.