The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) (34 page)

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
allum
shuffled away from the rocky outcropping. Despite millennia of undersea mining
operations, the suits were still the same clunky designs, and he had to move
away from the rocks in an awkward hopping motion. The faster he moved, the more
the energy shielding hazed around his head and it always scared the hell out of
him.

If the shield ever failed, he probably wouldn’t even have
time to notice it as the pressure would increase a thousand fold, killing him
with instant mercy. The thought was a comfort that gave him cold sweats in the
night.

He came to a stop next to a co-worker just as a light thump
punched at his suit and his shield hazed again. They both looked back at the
tumbling rocks until  a chime sounded in their helmets. Cal looked at the
communication display projected on the shield to his right before waving the
other man over.

They grabbed each other’s arms and leaned forward, touching
their shields, forcing them together until an opening appeared between their
faces with a gentle hiss of air from the slight difference in pressure between
the two. They forced the two shields together until the electromagnetic plates
at the front of their neck collars made contact, locking them together.

The old hands called it
face time
and they usually
did it to impress the rookie suit drivers. It was a good way to talk when the
regular comms were down and Cal’s rock fall, triggered by a small sampling
charge, had just buried the last functional repeater in the entire grid.

“Should be able to talk until shift change,” Belfric
muttered, looking up at the bright line where the two head shields intersected,
mild concern obvious on his face. “Hells, we probably won’t have a new repeater
out this way for months, knowing the company.”

Belfric was nervous about having to face time and Cal
grinned with approval. “Let’s hurry up anyway, Bel,” he urged. “A smart
operator is one who doesn’t like unnecessary risk.” He glanced meaningfully up
at the glowing energy seam. “Don’t want to get my pay docked for a crushed
suit…”

Bel laughed despite his fears. It was one of the great
things about C’Al, as everyone here knew him, he had a way of sharing their
fears that made his people feel braver. Sure, Belfric was worried about
glitching his shield during the risky face time meeting but C’Al was scared
too. If the Tauhentan could find it in himself to overcome the crushing menace,
so could Bel.

“So my guy did a cleanup of D’Nei’s locker as soon as his marker
expired,” Bel began. “Couple of contraband weapons, some lagweed – no surprise
there – and a collection of rather surprising and embarrassing videos featuring
your recently deceased planetman and one very well-placed company official.”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Male or female?”

“Female.” Belfric’s gaze narrowed. “You look surprised,
C’Al. He didn’t compromise her on orders?”

A shake of the head. “No. Son of a clone was making up his
own ops and exposing us all to risk in the process. You still have the video?”

“It’s in a planter down on the one-twenty-eight promenade.”

“Destroy it. I can’t imagine a more dangerous enemy than one
with nothing to lose.”

A slight nod, as though hearing exactly what he’d expected
to hear. “There’s one more thing,” Bel added. “A box – spicewood.”

“So she gave him an expensive gift.” Cal shrugged. “She
probably thought she was pulling the strings, giving him credits and trinkets
to keep him coming back.”

“I don’t give two turds what she might have thought,” Bel
said mildly. “I want to know where the wood came from, it was fresher than
anything I’ve ever laid hands on.”

“You handled D’Nei’s property?” Cal was alarmed. Everything
should have been disposed of quickly and quietly, not passed around like a
damned show and tell session.

“You’re not hearing me, C’Al.” Bel was unperturbed by his
leader’s obvious disapproval. “
Fresh
spicewood. Maybe folks see that
kind of thing in a rich city like Xo’Khov where the plantations send what
little they manage to grow, but here? Fresh spicewood being given away to
someone like D’Nei in return for
services
on a middle-of-nowhere ball of
water like Chaco Benthic?”

“So what does that mean to us, Bel?” Even after a century and
a half pretending to be a Tauhentan, he still sometimes missed what was obvious
to the locals and he wasn’t sure what Belfric was getting at.

“We’ve been seeing fresh spicewood artifacts over the last
few months.” Belfric chewed at the inside of his lip as he spoke, indicating
that he was thinking the problem through. He looked up at Cal. “There has to be
a source of the stuff nearby. Only way to explain it getting smuggled down
here.”

“Smuggling wood?” Cal frowned. “What makes you think it’s
not just being brought down openly?”

“Anyone that has a source is incredibly protective of it. If
it was declared on the tether manifest, the company goons would find out and
wring the secret out of whoever brought it.” Bel nodded to himself. “Chances
are, the poor vitro wouldn’t survive the questioning, either, so the company
would just step in and take over the trade.” He touched a finger to the side of
his nose. “Remember Qel’Kun,” he intoned solemnly.

A blank look.

“Gods! Don’t they teach any Imperial history on Tauhento?”

“I had
other
interests when I was younger.” Cal
raised a lewd eyebrow.

A snort. “So did I, but I still had to pass my scans to
finish school.” Bel shook his head. “Qel’Kun was one of the first traders to
deal in spicewood, back in the imperial days. Some say he was the one who found
the world where it originally comes from and one of the emperors – one of the
guys from near the end, when travel began to collapse – decided he’d get the
secret out of the poor bastard. Poor Qel died on the interview table and took
his secret with him.”

“Now I remember,” Cal feigned a dawning recollection. “Hence
the famous joke about tight-fisted Ufangians. It started with Qel’Kun
preferring to die rather than yield his secret.”

 Now it was Bel’s turn to look confused.

“Well,” Cal admitted, “you wouldn’t have learned it in a pod
session. There was this Ufangian, see, and he was walking along the beach near
Xo’Khov when he got too close to a scuttler. Before he knows it, the cursed
thing nips three fingers off his right hand.”

Bel was grinning. He loved a good joke and Cal was glad his
own Scottish heritage had exposed him to dozens of ‘cheap’ jokes. It was a
simple enough matter to convert the story and add another layer of realism to
his cover.

“Well the poor guy is screaming his head off and a patrolman
and an off-duty paramedic are both within earshot so they come running. They
make a quick search but the fingers are already gone – the scuttler’s dragged
them down under the sand for a quick snack.

“
Not to worry
, the paramedic says.
We’ve had to
find Ufangian fingers before.
He fishes around in his pocket and comes out
with an Iron Emperor, the smallest coin they had back then, and drops it on the
sand. Sure enough, up out of the sand come the Ufangian’s fingers to wrap
themselves around the coin!”

“Hah!” Bel’s breath was ripe with the kelp rolls he’d had
for his breakfast. “That one from Tauhento?”

“Not sure,” Cal replied, pretending to give it some thought.
“I told it to a Tauhentan once and he’d never heard of it.” No sense in giving
Bel anything that could be confirmed as wrong. “Anyway, I’ll have someone look
into the wood. Might be worth our time.”

“Speaking of time,” Belfric cut in with a glance up at the
energy seam above them, “we’d better get back to work or the auditors will be
all over us at shift end.”

“No arguments there,” Cal spared a glance up as well. No
harm in letting your people know you had fears too. A man with no fear is a man
likely to get a lot of folks killed. “See you at the place on seventy eight
after work.” It was the ninth day of the week, so the dinner was also a catch
up session with Cal’s other cell leaders.

“Not that place that serves Bulian Khat?” Bel shuddered.
“You know I hate that translucent crap!”

“Ah, the sacrifices we make,” Cal intoned melodramatically
as he shut off the magnetic plate on his collar and pushed away.

He wasn’t entirely happy about digging into D’Nei’s
background. They’d managed to sever their connection cleanly. Any inquiries would
run the risk of discovery. He wondered whether he should have the incriminating
recordings picked up as leverage with D’Nei’s former paramour but he dismissed
it almost immediately. She may not even have been the source of the box and the
whole idea had disaster written all over it.

Bel had said there were other spicewood articles showing up
in the city. Their search didn’t have to jump off from D’Nei’s box. They simply
had to find another item to be curious about. That was safe enough.

And it was well worth the minimal risk. Spicewood was
incredibly valuable. A decent source was definitely worth passing on to the
Alliance.

He grinned to himself as he reached the runabout unit that
came with his prospecting designation. He knew just the right guy to find out
who was bringing in the wood.

Planet 3428

R
ick
sighed as he looked down at the capacitors on the quartermaster’s counter. It
was nothing new, but sometimes old insults stung the worst. His ancestor,
Commander Alexander Heywood, elected not to join the mutiny but he couldn’t be
left behind to die with the fleet because he was the chief engineer. He’d been
forced to come along and now his descendants were the victims of those who’d
re-written history.

All mention of mutiny had been scrubbed from the pod data.
Only the memories that justified leaving the fleet were kept. The vaccinations
that were supposed to save the Humans of the fleet were actually causing the
plague itself. The official line from fleet command, insisting that those who
survived would be in the majority and that they would then go on to live for
centuries was nothing more than a pack of lies.

Or so the data in the pods would have you believe. Rick was
an electrical engineer, like all Heywoods since Alexander, and he knew how the
data was structured. The memories implanted by the pods weren’t stored as
sounds and visual memories, they were just simple data points. Almost like a
text narrative, with the recipient overlaying their own interpretation, filling
in the details.

Someone with the right knowledge could easily alter those
memories, but they couldn’t stop the Heywoods and other families like them from
passing on their own version of events orally. Rick had always been taught that
the vaccinations were killing a small percentage of the recipients. That the
survivors did, in fact, live for centuries and that the crew of the Guadalcanal
had mutinied.

Rick had once asked his father why the original crew had
bothered to change the data when they must have known how hard it would be to
kill the truth. His father had sat quiet for a few moments, looking at his son.
“Because they could,” he finally told Rick, “and because a palatable lie is
easier to believe than an ugly truth. All you need is an excuse, and the
altered records are all the excuse folks need to believe.”

As Rick looked at Ted, the pimple faced teen who’d dropped
the capacitors on the counter instead of just handing them over, he wasn’t the
least surprised to find himself fantasizing about beating the smug smile of the
little bastard’s pimply face. It was simple little insults like this that
pushed Rick’s buttons.

The little jerk would have handed the parts to some of
Rick’s staff, they were descended from those who ‘kept the faith’ with their
fellow crewmen, but he ostentatiously refused to risk contact with the second
engineer.

It was getting harder to hide his reactions and he hated
giving them the satisfaction. Still, he could feel his right hand balling into
a fist when it should have just reached out for the parts. It started to draw
back, as though tired of its owner’s hesitation and wanting to do some damage.

A hand clapped down on his right shoulder. “Morning Rick.”

He could feel the tension drain from his body. Barry
fletcher had been a good friend for as long as Rick could remember and he was
one of the few non-pariah crewmen who treated him with respect regardless of
who was watching. Saying he was non-pariah was an understatement. He was a
direct descendant of Will Fletcher, the man who’d led the mutiny. On 3428, that
was as well born as you could get.

“Are these part of my order?” Barry grabbed the handful of
capacitors and pretended to examine them.

“No,” Ted waved a hand at Rick. “They’re for engineering.”

“Ahh.” Barry held his hand in front of Rick, dropping the
parts into his hand, before turning back to the young quartermasters mate. “My
sister asked about you.”

“Really?” Ted’s eyebrows raised a quarter inch. It was no
secret that he was obsessed with Nell.

“Hmmm? What?” Barry frowned at the young man. “Oh, Good Lord
no! I was talking to Rick.” He grinned at his friend. “She thinks she’s being
discreet, but she’s as subtle as a good kick in the head. Take my advice,
Ricky, and steer clear of her, she’s bad news.”

He turned back to Ted, ignoring the red blush on the young
man’s face. “Ted, where’re the parts for the fire control relays? You knew I
was coming by this morning.”

Ted’s embarrassment channeled itself into anger. “Why are
you wasting parts on non-essential systems? Your post is just a hereditary title.”

“I’m a fire control officer, Teddy.” Barry’s voice lost it’s
humorous notes and a dark edge crept in. “Every generation has maintained the
systems against the day that we might need them. Now that we have regular
contact with smugglers, it may only be a matter of time before we have to fire
those weapons. I don’t plan on being the one who broke the faith and doomed us
all.”

Ted deflated. “I’ll see what I can find,” he muttered
petulantly.

“Those parts we got in trade for wood actually work with our
systems,” Barry continued, ignoring Ted’s attitude. “I’m gonna need a lot
more.”

“The relays?” Ted asked in dismay. “They take a lot more
space in our lockup.”

“Yeah, well you won’t be hoarding them.” Barry waved a dismissive
hand. “I’ll need forty two hundred relays on the next trade.” He held up a
warning hand to stop the young man’s incredulous response. “And we need a life
support unit for every twenty relays. Put it on the list and I’ll tell uncle
Sam why we need them.”

Without even waiting for an answer, he pulled Rick around
and led him back out into the main corridor. “Let’s get some air.”

They climbed seven decks in silence. The ventral escape
hatch in this section of the ship was left open on a permanent basis, closed
only during routine maintenance checks. Three hatches from among the thirty two
that dotted the ventral surface had failed over the years and each had been
laboriously closed by hand and welded shut.

The two emerged under the thatched canopy that kept the rain
from finding it’s way inside. By unspoken mutual consent, they walked to the
forward edge and sat, their feet dangling over the three hundred foot drop. A
work party approached the massive, open hangar door from the front, looking
like a small troop of ants.

“You were about to do something rash back there, weren’t
you?” Barry said quietly.

“I think I was about to beat the hell out of that kid.” Rick
was surprised at how good it felt to say.

A sigh. “Ted can’t help being stupid. It’s how he was
raised.”

“It’s how everyone was raised.”

Barry looked over at him. “Everyone?” He raised a dramatic
eyebrow.

“You’re all right, but even you don’t want me around your
sister.”

Barry shrugged. “I think you can do better.”

“What’ve you got against Nell?”

“I don’t like the way she treats my best friend.” Barry’s
answer sounded like something that had been rattling around in his head for a
long time. “She ever acknowledge your existence in public?”

“I’m more interested in what happens when we’re not in public.”
Rick couldn’t help but grin.

Barry punched him in the arm, hard. “Shut the hell up! I
don’t want to hear about that!” He looked genuinely aggrieved. “What if I was
hooking up with
your
sister?”

“It’d be weird…”

“See?”

“Well, she’s more than twenty years older than you,” Rick
said, “and I always figured she had better taste than that…” He rolled with the
next punch. He’d known it was coming even before mentioning his exploits with
Nell and he’d allowed the first one to strike hard because a good friend had to
accept the consequences of talking about his buddy’s sister. One was enough
though, because Barry could hit pretty hard.

He limited his abilities around Barry because he had a good
five or six second lead over him and Barry knew it. They conducted their
conversations the old fashioned way, no subconscious questions, and it had
actually led to a stronger bond between the two.

It was almost certainly what had led to the unusual
friendship between the two young men. They came from the opposite extremes of
their community’s social strata but Barry had always treated Rick with respect.

Now, however, he seemed serious about his sister.

“Rick, even if Nell was knocked up, my dad would deny it was
yours and marry her off to someone before the day is out. There’s no way in
hell he’d let you be his son in law.”

Rick knew his friend was right, but that didn’t make it any
easier to take. Nell was never going to see him as more than a diversion, but
his own options were slim. The essential staff who had to be forced into
joining the mutiny were a small minority and, after five generations, their
descendants were pretty much all cousins.

They managed to marry into the neutrals from time to time,
but even that avenue was rare. Neutrals mostly traced their ancestry back to
exchange officers or students from the fleets combat shuttle program. Several
hundred of them had been dragged along when the
Guadalcanal
had left the
fleet and they were pretty much free to mix with whoever they pleased.

Still, most neutrals would rather not marry someone like
Rick and have to give up status. Status was what determined the kind of
quarters you would get, what food you could claim, and what opportunities your
children would have to chose from.

And he just couldn’t get Nell out of his head, especially
when she displayed such aggressive interest in him when they were out hunting.
He thought briefly about heading down to his quarters to find his bow, but the
weight of the capacitors were a constant reminder that he had work to do.

Probably for the best, work usually cleared his head.