Microsoft Word - Blind_Space-Marie_Sexton.doc (5 page)

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from those sources. Planets like Rosen, with a vast underground source of the gas, were rare and valuable, for as long as their supply lasted.

"Helium," he confirmed. "For all intents and purposes, it's been our
only
export for the last hundred and fifty years. We mined it. We traded it. We had the option of shipping it ourselves and charging a higher fee, or selling it for less to men who would ship it for us and then turn a profit for themselves in resale. We controlled the labor and the resource, and therefore we could contract for it to the extent the market allowed."

"A monopoly," I said.

He laughed bitterly. "Hardly. Rosen isn't the only planet to have it, you know." That was true, of course.

Rosen was known for having an abundance of it, but so were half a dozen other planets. "It wasn't a monopoly. But it was a free market. Or something close to it. The thing is, we survived. Sure, some people had more and some had less, but overall, our economy was strong. It was healthy." I heard him pouring more wine. "Then your
Empire
came along. They annexed us and declared the mines were now their property, not ours. They're gracious enough to allow us to keep working them." His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "They pay us a pittance. Of course, they've done the same to most of the planets with any worthwhile

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amount of the gas. Now
they
have that monopoly you were talking about. They take as much of the helium as they want and sell the rest—at a far higher profit than we ever did, I might add."

His words may all have been true, but I wasn't sure it changed anything. "So that gives you the right to steal Cerubian wine from others?"

"I don't know. Does it?"

"No."

"We try not to target small, independent shippers.

We try to concentrate on Regency supply lines."

"And what about the rest of your crimes?" I asked.

"Murder? Kidnapping? Rape?"

"We're not murderers, or rapists," he said, and for the first time, I detected real anger in his voice. "Some pirates, maybe. But our crew has never killed anyone, and our captives are never mistreated."

"And kidnapping?" I asked. "You can't tell me you never practice that."

"Obviously we do," he said. "Ransom tends to yield a very high profit."

"Higher even than stealing?"

"We actually do some legitimate shipping, you

know."

"And some illegitimate shipping, as well."

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"You assume we board everybody and take

everything by force—"

"Don't you?"

He sighed. "Some of it? Yes. We also have some female crew members who are rather adept at convincing unwary captains into divulging their lock codes."

"It's still thievery."

"Yes. And no. You might be surprised how many

people are in on it, Captain Kelley. There are a lot of men conscripted by the Empire and her Regencies to ship goods through the blind space, and most are paid barely enough to cover their fuel costs. Those men will gladly open their airlocks to us. We pay to take the goods off of their hands, and they run home to the quadrants and cry 'pirates!' to their employers. Half the time, the people they took it from are in for a cut, too. Meanwhile, we make a tiny profit by selling the goods—not to your greedy empire, but to others who need them."

"Such philanthropists," I said dryly. "You make it sound like such a good deed. Why don't you give it all away, if your heart is so pure?"

He swore. It was a word in a language I didn't

know, but it was clearly an obscenity. I heard the beep of the comm. "Pierce," he said, "Captain Kelley is ready to go back to his men."

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He grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me to my

feet, turning me toward the door.

"I don't agree with your theft, so you're sending me home without any dinner?" I asked. I couldn't help but gloat that I'd finally pissed him off on some level.

"You've managed to take the fun out of trying to seduce you."

I tried to tell myself I wasn't disappointed. I wanted him to leave me alone.

Didn't I?

"We have to make a living, Captain Kelley," he said.

"Stealing is the best you can do?"

"We don't make the rules. Your Empire gobbles up every commodity of value and doles it out in little chunks to the highest bidders. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out: ongoing demand plus limited supply equals an increase in price."

"And somebody may as well cash in on it?" I said, just as Pierce pounded on the door.

He sighed heavily. "Who do you hear complaining?

The planets in the void who we sell to? No! The ship captains who take a cut of the profit? No! The only people complaining are your damn Regents, but only because we're taking back what they think they've stolen with

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absolute impunity from everybody else."

"Spin pretty stories all you want," I said. "You're still nothing more than petty thieves."

The door swished open and he shoved me roughly

through it. I only stayed on my feet because I ran into Pierce.

"Goodbye, Captain Kelley," Valero said. "Enjoy your stay in the medical bay."

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Valero didn't summon me the next day, and I ate

dried meat and drank cheap ale with my men. I told myself I was relieved. After all, wasn't that what I wanted? To be left alone? He was a criminal. The less attention I received from him, the better.

That's what I wanted to believe, at any rate.

But as the moments with my crew lumbered by, my

self-delusion began to wear thin. My men were a burden.

Isolation and boredom made them restless and cranky.

They bickered over the cots, the showers, and the ale.

Because I was their captain, they turned to me to resolve every petty argument. I hated them for it.

I found myself thinking a great deal about what

Valero had told me. I couldn't help but wonder how much of it was true. The second day after my argument with him, I found Captain Jerald sitting alone on one of the cots.

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked him as I sat down next to him.

"Got nothing better to do," he said.

"Have you ever done business with pirates?"

He didn't answer for a long time. "Are you accusing me of something?" he asked at last, his voice cold and sharp with anger.

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"No!" The question surprised me so much, he had to be able to tell that my answer was genuine. I'd been so busy thinking about what Valero had said, I hadn't stopped to think about how my question might sound to Jerald. "I'm just wondering if that's how it works. That's all."

Again, he didn't answer right away. "Sometimes it is," he said. I was relieved that the anger was gone was from his voice. "Sometimes that's the only way."

"Breaking the law is the only way?"

He sighed. "First of all, I'm telling you here and now that I ain't the one who gave our lock code to the pirates. I want that understood. But there's a reason I don't often take jobs shipping between the quadrants. Life out here in the blind space ain't civilized. This is no-man's land."

"And you think that justifies thievery?"

"Think about it, Captain. Most of the men out here are trying to make a living by shipping goods between quadrants. They move the stuff through the blind space, but they get no share of it."

"So they steal it?"

"Who's stealing from who, Captain Kelley?"

"The pirates—"

"I ain't even talking about the pirates yet."

"You mean the shippers?"

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"I mean the damn Empire and her Regencies. They tie up all the resources. They set the market value. They control the supply. And if anybody dares protest, they send in their militia to make sure everybody comes around to their way of thinking. The thing is, a government can tie up a resource. They can tell people that it's limited, or it's forbidden. They can even make it illegal. But what they
can't
do is actually change the
demand.
And as long as demand exists, so does the market."

It was practically identical to what Valero had said.

"Low supply plus high demand equals higher price."

"Exactly. It's only natural that somebody will try to take advantage of that situation, and by definition, that person'll be an outlaw."

"So you think the pirates have a right to what they take?"

He snorted. "A
right
? Fuck no! But the damn Regencies sure don't have a right to it, either. They may claim they do, but that don't make it true."

"But the pirates—"

"Look, kid," he said, interrupting me. "There's pirates, and there's
pirates
. If you knew the things I've heard, you'd curl up in that cot and cry like a lost lamb.

Men slaughtered. Women and children sold into slavery. I met one woman who saw her husband and son shot right in

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front of her. The crew took turns with her, doing things to her you wouldn't do to a whore. She was actually
relieved
, at the time, 'cause they only raped her and not her daughter.

Turns out only reason they left the girl alone is 'cause virgins bring more on the slave market. They left that woman bleeding, lying on the cold bodies of her menfolk, and she never saw her daughter again."

My stomach turned at the thought. "That's awful."

"Don't think that's an isolated incident either, Captain Kelley. Every year, ships turn up in salvage with their airlocks blown and every man, woman, and child on board missing and never heard from again."

"Why don't we hear about it?"

"Because the damn Regency don't care, that's why.

Sure, each Regency takes care of her own quadrant, but nobody gives a fuck what happens in the blind space in between. The Empire has plenty of men. They could send shiploads of soldiers out here to fight the pirates—get rid of the vermin and protect their citizens at the same time—but the only thing they use their military for is to expand their own power."

Or to guard the spoiled sons of Regents.
But I didn't say it loud.

"They don't care what happens out here," Jerald said. "All they care about is that they get their goods, and

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they pay as little for them as possible."

I thought about his words for a minute. "But you're saying there are different kinds of pirates."

"Exactly. They ain't all bloodthirsty savages, thank the gods. Some are just honest men, trying to make a living."

"Like these?"

"Fuck if I know," he said. "Guess we'll find out. But the one thing you can mostly count on is that pirates work specific shipping lanes in the blind space. They respect each other's territory."

Realization finally began to dawn. "So you're

saying a smart captain will pick the devil he knows over one he doesn't?"

"Better to cut a deal with a group you can trust than lose your ship and your life to a group you can't."

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It was another two days before Pierce came to me

with the news that his captain wanted to see me again. I'd had a great deal of time to think.

First and foremost, I thought about the things Jerald had told me. I had no way of knowing what was true and what wasn't. On one hand, I found it hard to believe such barbarism could go on without people talking about it. On the other hand, I had to admit I was not an educated man. I lived in a cocoon. I had never gone to any kind of trouble to find out what was going on in the universe. I followed orders. It was that simple. I liked it that way.

What it came down to was whether or not I trusted

Jerald. I didn't really want to believe him, but what reason did he have to lie?

I also found myself wondering who had given the

pirates our lock code. It could have been any of my men, and yet, it seemed unlikely. The ones with decent futures in the militia wouldn't have risked it, and the ones without futures weren't that smart.

Most of them believed Jerald was the traitor. I could see why they automatically pointed at him, but I had my doubts. First of all, I hadn't heard any deception in his voice when he'd proclaimed his innocence. Second, if he'd been

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in on the kidnapping, why was he still stuck in the medical bay with the rest of us?

Which brought me to the one person who
wasn't
in the medical bay: Rikard.

I thought back to the night of the capture. Flashguns could blind a man even if his eyes were closed. The only ways to protect one's vision were to wear mirrored shades, as the pirates had done, or to be heavily blindfolded, as Rikard had been. Which meant he might be the only

prisoner on board who still had his sight. Rikard had also been fully dressed, even though it had been late. I hadn't seen him fully dressed the entire time we'd been on board, until that night.

Could he really be so low?