Curse of the Iris (15 page)

9
WATER AND ORE

I
t was a far happier crew that brought the
Shadow Comet
into her familiar docking cradle above Callisto nine days later. Tycho and Yana stood beside the port airlock belowdecks, mustering out the retainers and crewers as they boarded ferries for the journey down to Port Town, Callisto's largest settlement. Duffels and chests hoisted on their tattooed shoulders, the Comets boasted about what they'd do on shore leave, showed off treats and trinkets for sweethearts and children, and traded congratulations on a cruise that had shaken off murmurings of ill luck to prove profitable in the end.

Without exception, every one of the Comets offered Tycho a deep bow, a crunching handshake, or an exuberant whack on the shoulder, praising Master Tycho for capturing the prize that would let them swagger through Port Town like conquering heroes, full of currency chips and tall tales.

Tycho rubbed his shoulder and winced as the last ferry pulled away and silence settled over the
Comet
's lower deck. The crewers' enthusiasm had left his shoulder bruised.

Yana closed her mediapad with a snap. “All hands accounted for, so I'm afraid there's no one left to drool over you and your good fortune,
Master
Tycho.”

The ship had been right where DeWise had said it would be—a Tamias-class freighter called the
Portia
, bound for Earth's outpost on Hygeia with a month's worth of supplies in her hold. The
Portia
's captain had meekly surrendered the moment the
Comet
displayed Jovian colors. He'd presented his papers without complaint and given the prize crew not a peep of trouble during the journey to Ganymede, where condemnation hearings had taken less than an hour. It wasn't the biggest payday the Comets had ever had, but it might have been the easiest.

Yana was apparently thinking the same thing, because she suddenly socked Tycho in his tender shoulder.

“Ow!” he gasped, giving his sister a wounded look as he retreated. “What did you do that for?”

“Because it annoys me how lucky you are. Who loses an adapter and finds a ship?”

“I didn't find a ship—I found a mediapad. It just happened to belong to someone who worked for a shipping line.”

“
And
it just happened to be unlocked
and
open to the freighter's flight plan,” Yana moaned. “I'm surprised you didn't get a reward for returning the mediapad, too.”

“Like I told Grigsby, serves them right for being cheapskates! If they'd given me a few livres for giving back their mediapad, maybe I wouldn't have taken their freighter!”

“Ugh, not that stupid line again. From now on, every time you say it I'm punching you.”

Tycho had come up with the tale of the misplaced mediapad after his meeting with DeWise, practicing his story as the ferry carried him back to the
Comet
. He'd felt his knees shaking while Diocletia questioned him, but his mother had thought his nervousness was excitement, not fear—and, he suspected, she'd been too eager for a bit of good news to ask questions.

He was still embarrassed by the secret he was now forced to keep, but every time he repeated the story it felt a little easier, as if he was beginning to believe it himself. Besides, he'd told himself while staring at the ceiling in his cabin, he hadn't done anything Yana or Carlo wouldn't have done if DeWise had contacted one of them instead.

That was true, wasn't it?

Callisto was tidally locked to Jupiter, with one side of the moon always pointed at the gas giant. Because Jupiter's magnetosphere blasted Callisto's exposed surface with radiation, Callisto's colonists had settled on the far side, using the moon as a shield.

The Hashoones' home, Darklands, had been a mine shaft during the days of Gregorius Hashoone, who'd left Earth with his family more than four centuries earlier. Minerals and frozen gases had made him wealthy, saving his family from a life in the crowded mining camps that grew into settlements such as Port Town. But Darklands's ore had only lasted a century, leading Gregorius's great-grandson Lodovico to arm his ore boats with converted laser drills and convince the mine's employees to try new careers as space pirates.

A ramp corkscrewed down along the outer wall of Darklands's main shaft, connecting equipment lockers that had been converted into bedrooms. Iron and rock slabs sealed the ancient mine tunnels where, rumor had it, old robotic drills still sat abandoned in darkness. At the bottom of the thirty-meter shaft, a comfortable living room and simple kitchen surrounded humming filtration equipment and a giant steel water tank, linked by pipes to the deep ocean of water and ammonia that lay nearly two hundred kilometers below Callisto's icy crust.

Tycho could hear voices echoing up the shaft as he descended the ramp for the family meeting called by Aunt Carina. As he walked, he let the fingers of one hand trail absently along the bumps and ridges of the rock wall.

It was an old habit. As a boy, Tycho had been certain there were diamonds in the rock and had chipped stubbornly away at the wall with a little hammer he'd found in one of Darklands's many storerooms. And he and Yana had raced scooters down the ramp, pursued by horrified governesses and cheered on by convalescing pirates pressed into service as babysitters. The winner had claimed the captain's chair—or at least Gershom Hashoone's ancient armchair—while the loser had insisted that the winner had cheated.

Now Darklands's only inhabitants were Carina Hashoone and Parsons, the homestead's dignified majordomo. And Tycho found his feelings had changed, too. Darklands no longer represented normal life, but an interruption of it. Now, staying here meant nights of tossing and turning without ship's bells to clang every half hour, and days of missing the thrum of engines beneath his feet. Darklands meant family meetings and quarreling over simulator time and waiting to hear he could go back to space, which was where he now belonged.

Tycho nodded at Mavry, Carina, and Yana as he pulled a chair up to the dining area's big table. Made of actual wood from Earth, it had been a prized Hashoone possession for centuries, seized by an ancestor in some long-forgotten pirate raid.

Carina lifted her gaze from her mediapad. Like her younger sister, Diocletia, she had long limbs, dark eyes, and a glare that had backed down pirates twice her size. But Carina lacked Diocletia's deep tan, and her short hair was now mostly gray.

“Our shares from the condemnation of the
Portia
just came through,” Carina said as Carlo approached the table, followed by Diocletia. “Congratulations, Tycho, on a fine piece of work.”

Yana wrinkled her nose but added her voice to the chorus of praise.

“Arrr, hoped them Earthfolk would show a little backbone, meself,” said Huff, emerging from the kitchen with a mug in his metal hand. “Nothin' settles a jumpy crew like the smell of blaster fire.”

“A full wallet helps,” Diocletia said. “I've smelled enough blaster fire for a lifetime, thank you. Any day that's peaceful and profitable is fine with me.”

Huff waved that away with an irritable flip of his forearm cannon, nearly clipping Parsons, who had followed him out of the kitchen with a teapot and cups on a tray. The majordomo pivoted smoothly and noiselessly out of danger, one gray eyebrow arching momentarily, then began to serve the tea as Huff settled his bulk into his chair, unaware of the near-disaster he'd caused.

Carina smiled at Parsons and warmed her hands around the teacup.

“Now then, the day's agenda,” she said. “The first item will be an update on our civilian businesses. Our cousins will be arriving in a few minutes to brief us.”

Tycho suppressed a groan—such conversations made a deep-space watch seem exciting.

Carina, unfortunately, heard his protest.

“Since Tycho can barely contain his enthusiasm, we'll let him lead the lunchtime question-and-answer session,” she said.

This time, Tycho didn't bother hiding his groan.

“Next item. There's a Defense Force meeting at Ganymede tomorrow, so after lunch we'll discuss what the Securitat has told us about pirates at work in the asteroid corridors and around Saturn.”

“Did you tell them what happened at Saturn
and
at P/2?” Yana asked.

Diocletia generally let Carina do most of the talking when the Hashoones were on Callisto—the sisters seemed to have an unspoken understanding that Darklands was Carina's domain, while the
Comet
was Diocletia's. But Diocletia spoke up now, dark eyes fixed on her daughter.

“Saturn yes, P/2 no,” Diocletia said. “The fewer people you invite on a treasure hunt, the better.”

Yana colored faintly but nodded.

“Finally, I'll want to hear what you've discovered about the
Iris
cache, and we'll discuss how to proceed,” Carina said.

“Good,” Yana said. “Because we're running out of time.”

Parsons appeared from the kitchen and stood waiting by the head of the table. Carina motioned for him to speak.

“Ulric Hashoone and his party have arrived,” he said.

Tycho heard the newcomers' voices as they made their way down the corkscrew ramp, while Huff got a few muttered comments about cursed civilian business out of his system.

There were six visitors in all. Ulric, Huff's younger brother, ran Callisto's Water Authority, which also employed his wife, Anja, and Josiah Hashoone, who Tycho seemed to recall was a son of Johannes Hashoone's brother. Angus Hashoone was another cousin—he was an executive at Callisto Minerals, as were his son, Philemon, and his daughter, Farris Swaim.

“I know you all have privateerin' business to attend to, so let's get right into the particulars,” growled Ulric from above his mediapad. He had Huff's blazing eyes and thick build, and the olive skin of all the Hashoones, but his gray hair and beard were neat and trimmed.

Tycho, remembering he'd have to ask questions later, hurriedly reached for his own pad and began tapping out notes. But despite his best efforts, he found his mind wandering—and looking around the table, he saw he wasn't alone. Yana looked dazed and Carlo's eyelids were drooping, while Huff was asleep, mouth open and pointed at the ceiling of Darklands far over their heads. Mavry was examining his fingernails, while Diocletia was looking down at her mediapad—which Tycho would have bet his shore allowance wasn't displaying Water Authority earnings reports. Only Carina seemed to be following the discussion.

Huff woke with a snort when Parsons brought more tea and pastries, and the discussion turned briefly to privateering, with Ulric congratulating Tycho for his role in taking the
Portia
as a prize. Tycho mumbled his thanks, looking away from Yana so he didn't have to see his sister's scowl—only to find Josiah Hashoone regarding him with hard eyes and a downturned mouth.

Josiah caught Tycho's look of surprise and hurriedly bent over his cup of tea. But after that, Tycho noticed little things he hadn't registered before. White-haired Angus was merry and at ease, methodically devouring a startling number of scones and petits fours, and both Anja and Farris smiled as they discussed their business and how it worked. But the other three cousins said little, and now Tycho saw that Ulric glared at Huff whenever he spoke; Philemon drummed his fingers irritably when questioned; and a look of distaste crept across Josiah's lean, dark features when any of the Hashoones serving aboard the
Comet
spoke.

Ulric and Josiah had been middies with Huff, and both they and Philemon had served briefly on the
Comet
's quarterdeck after Huff became captain. But then, one by one, they had been shunted aside. Ulric and Josiah had been sent dirtside when Carina and Diocletia became middies, while Philemon had served until after 624 Hektor, leaving the ship when Diocletia took over the helm.

Clearly, life dirtside had been comfortable and profitable for them. But their resentment was equally plain. They had lived aboard the
Shadow Comet
, just like Tycho and his siblings did, and dreamed of issuing orders from the captain's chair. But those dreams had been dashed, and that life was gone. Now home was the ice and rock of Callisto, space travel meant a berth aboard a commercial liner, and every few months they had to take a grav-sled to Darklands and talk about water and minerals while their privateer cousins looked bored or fell asleep.

Tycho sneaked a look at Yana and Carlo. All three of them imagined succeeding their mother as captain, and none of them had thought about what would happen if they failed. But failure was what awaited two of them.

Over lunch Tycho managed to come up with questions that he thought were neither painfully stupid nor insulting, and the Hashoones exchanged farewells with their cousins while Parsons cleared away the dishes.

After lunch, Carina summoned them back to the table.

“Arrr, now that we know Callisto still has rocks and water, maybe we can get back to discussin' the real family business,” Huff said.

“Interesting way to put it, Dad,” Carina said. “But very well. At Saturn you saw firsthand that dangerous things are happening in the asteroid belt and the outer solar system.”

Carina pushed her mediapad into the center of the table and activated its projector. A map of the solar system sprang into being above the table, shimmering in the space between the Hashoones. A flurry of red dots blinked in the outer asteroid belt, with a scattering around Jupiter and Saturn and several more around Uranus and Neptune.

“Diocletia and Mavry, you heard some of this on Ceres, but I've learned more since then. About four months ago the Securitat began monitoring reports of well-organized attacks on Jovian shipping. The first ones were reported by prospectors returning to Jupiter from Uranus—there were five in one month, which means there were more that were never reported. Suspicions initially fell on Earth's intelligence services, but all of the ships seized were taken to Saturn.”