The Road of Danger-ARC (26 page)

To confirm his suspicion, Daniel said, “Tommines is a regular on this run, then?”

“I should say so!” Lindstrom said. “Why, he must have made it a dozen times! He’d have retired long since, I guess, but he gambles on dog races and he’s got no bloody luck.”

“Tommy gambles on anything,” Hargate said; he shook his head. “I’ve seen him bet on which rain-drop was going to run down the window of the bar first—and give odds if nobody’d take him on at evens. But a good skipper.”

“Not a prayer,” Lindstrom repeated sadly as the gunboats continued to near. Flecks of static across the RF spectrum indicated that they were beginning to fire with plasma cannon. If they were equipped with the 5-centimeter popguns which were all their frames and scantlings could bear, they still weren’t within range—even to prevent their target from inserting.

The commander of the Alliance patrol must have recognized the
Ella
and made his plans based on information from her previous runs. Most captains let their computers handle liftoffs and landings; the machine didn’t make mistakes and it corrected faster than most humans could if something went wrong—a thruster failed, or an antenna broke its lashings under acceleration and swung violently.

But computers always provided the same solution to the same question. The gunboats could hang well out from the planet and, when the
Ella
lifted, insert on a course they had refined for a week or more, and then extract close enough to their target to trap her.

Unless the Alliance captains were extremely good, they had still been lucky to pinch the
Ella
so closely, but some captains
were
very good. All spacers knew how much luck their trade involved.

Daniel checked both his calculations. There were risks involved, but he took a risk every time he rolled out of his bunk.

He grinned. Actually, he’d clouted himself a good one on the temple with the stanchion when he slid
into
his bunk the other day. It had stopped bleeding, but the lump was still there.

“Inserting in five seconds,” Daniel said.

What?/Why?/Roger
… He ignored the last and similar acceptances as surely as he did the protests from Lindstrom and from Edmonson, who fancied himself as an astrogator. Edmonson could just about push Execute after the console had calculated a course.…

“Inserting!” Daniel said. His guts flip-flopped, but because he hadn’t lighted the High Drive after extracting, the process was as painless as it could be.

Safely back in the Matrix, he turned to face his companions. He smiled and said, “I thought we’d give Tommines and his crew a helping hand. And maybe—”

His smile spread.

“—we’ll remind whoever’s commanding those gunboats that it’s not just the Fleet that teaches its officers to maneuver.”

Hogg grinned with pride. He knew even less than the spacers did of Daniel’s plans, but he knew the young master was about to stick it to the other fellow.

Lindstrom and the crewmen looked blank—or blankly horrified, in the case of West. Still smiling, Daniel rotated his seat to face the display again. Three process clocks were counting down, but the PPI was blank: the
Savoy
was her own separate universe here in the Matrix.

There were solid reasons why Daniel should not do what he was about to. The best were that he might fail—unlikely—or that some critical piece of the
Savoy
might break and leave them at the gunboats’ mercy. Beyond those material dangers was the fact that even if successful, he would be marking the
Savoy
and himself for special attention from the Alliance forces.

Some—Adele, for one—might even have added that such boastful behavior was beneath a noble of Cinnabar.

Others were entitled to their opinions. He was Captain Daniel Leary, RCN, and he saw nothing wrong with grinding an opponent’s face in the dirt when he saw the chance.

“Extracting!” he called to his companions, and he pressed Execute.

***

Halta City on Cremona

“Your Ladyship?” Vesey called over the crackles, hisses and pings which filled the boarding hold. Adele turned to see the slim blond woman emerging from the companionway, looking concerned.

An instant later, the main hatch undogged in a clanging chorus which overwhelmed any attempt at speech. The hold was the corvette’s largest empty volume; echoes from its steel surfaces multiplied sounds a thousandfold.

The ramp began to squeal down on the thrust of hydraulic rams, allowing steam and ions to curl into the hold. The bite made Osorio close his eyes and sneeze, though the spacers—Adele included—took the familiar unpleasantness without reaction.

“Captain?” Adele said. She didn’t really expect Vesey to be able to hear her, but she cocked an eyebrow toward the younger woman to show that she had heard.
What in heaven’s name is Vesey coming to me here for?

Adele glanced at Master Osorio out of the corner of her eye, but he was too lost in the misery of the moment to be interested in what the Principal was doing. She nodded toward Vesey and moved to the back of the compartment, through the spacers who would be her escort.

Adele didn’t care for commo helmets, but under ordinary circumstances she would have been wearing one now. They were short-range, but when their signal was piggybacked onto the local communications net—as Adele regularly arranged every time the
Sissie
made landfall—they could cover as much of the planet as the system itself did.

It was acceptable—necessary, in fact—for Principal Hrynko to be eccentric. It would send the wrong signal if she were technically proficient, however; that might cause the Cremonans, or at least the more sophisticated elements of Cremonan society, to take precautions which wouldn’t occur to them while dealing with a blustering, arrogant noblewoman from a third-class planet.

Mind, “third class” was more complimentary than any term Adele would use for Cremona, but the locals probably didn’t see it that way. Proving how benighted they were.

“Your Ladyship!” Vesey said. Her lips were almost touching Adele’s right ear, but she had to shout regardless. “Since the
Savoy
wasn’t in harbor, I asked Lieutenant Cory to check local records of her. It doesn’t, that is, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem, but I’m afraid there’s no evidence that she or a vessel that could be her has landed in the past five days.”

Adele turned to Vesey and forced a smile. “Thank you, captain,” she said, enunciating clearly but not trying to bellow over the ambient noise. “I’m sure that the appropriate parties are dealing with the situation in their usual able fashion.”

Vesey was covering a tragic expression with professional calm. If Osorio hadn’t been present, Adele would have patted her hand—as a bit of theater for the younger woman rather than anything Adele herself found natural.

As soon as
The
House of Hrynko
reached orbit above Cremona, Adele had entered port records and the records of all the major trading houses in Halta City. Cazelet—and a moment later, Cory—had informed her that the
Savoy
wasn’t among the hundred-plus ships in Halta Harbor nor in any of the outlying anchorages scattered across Cremona.

The yacht’s sensors were set to automatically search for starships on the surface of any planet they orbited. The information was not infrequently useful; and besides, it was always Adele’s goal to have more data rather than less.

Vesey didn’t know that. She had always been an excellent astrogator and had improved her shiphandling to a high degree of skill under Daniel’s tutelage, but she had no more concept of what an information specialist really
did
than Daniel himself.

Daniel, however, assumed that Adele knew or could quickly learn everything. That wasn’t precisely true, but it was actually a better default option than Vesey’s subconscious belief that the only data Adele had were those things which Adele had explicitly stated she knew.

It didn’t matter that Vesey had gone out of her way to provide Adele with unnecessary information. It did matter that she’d tried to help Adele and that she had come down to the entry hold in person to take the sting out of what she knew was bad news.

Adele compromised between a coldly professional response and the pat—or even hug, though she never could have brought herself to hug another person in public—by adding, “I understand your concern, Captain Vesey, but I have trained myself to examine probabilities. In this case, the probabilities—based on the considerable information about the personnel that we’ve both amassed over the years—are overwhelmingly in favor of a good result.”

The boarding ramp clanged against its cradle on the yacht’s starboard outrigger. Woetjans shouted, “Hup!” and led a team of riggers to roll out the pontoon-supported gangway which would reach the rest of the way across the slip.

The dock had a floating extender, but now at high tide it had risen level with the concrete spine where a small aircar waited. Idling fans spun swirls from the steam which the
Hrynko
’s thrusters had boiled up from the harbor.

Adele joined Osorio as he recovered himself enough to turn and wonder what had happened to his hostess. She said, “Where is the transportation you promised?”

“There on the quay,” the Cremonan said. He started down the ramp at a quickstep; arriving back on his home planet seemed to have revived his mincing arrogance. “Come, don’t you see the car?”

“That little toy?” said Adele. “I have an escort of twenty, my man. My position demands it.”

“Not here in Halta City,” Osorio said, too brusquely to have picked up on Adele’s tone. “This is merely a business transaction, you agreeing terms with me and my friends. It is better that you be alone. We don’t want to call attention to your presence, you see. We have rivals.”

They reached the car, which was tiny. Instead of cushions, the back seat was cast out of the same thermoplastic as the body; the vehicle hadn’t been luxurious when new, and it was by now at least twenty years old. Adele restrained her reflex of bringing out her data unit to identify the car precisely.

It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. But then, nothing really mattered against the certainty of the Heat Death of the Universe.

Adele smiled faintly. Most people would not find that thought as reassuring as she did, so it was probably a good thing that she didn’t volunteer it often.

“This is not acceptable,” she said dismissively to Osorio. “Bring proper vehicles for my escort and myself, or—”

She turned her palms upright as though scattering trash on the wind.

“—I will take myself off. To Sunbright, perhaps, to consult with the Governor there. Blaskett is his name, is it not?”

Osorio and opened his mouth to shout what would probably have been an order couched in insulting terms. His glare melted as the full import of what Adele had said struck him. Enlightenment came just in time to prevent the Cremonan from making an uncomfortable mistake.

Barnes and Dasi were in charge of Principal Hrynko’s escort. The very least Osorio could have expected was a punch in the belly with the tip of a truncheon. There was a better chance that the riggers—either could have managed it alone, but they were used to working in concert—would have tossed him into the slip.

“Blaskett is a beast and a criminal, your Ladyship,” Osorio said, looking downward rather than meeting Adele’s eyes. “You would not be treated well by him and his, whatever they might say at first.”

In context the statement was self-serving, but Adele knew it was basically true. “You will arrange for proper transportation to my meeting, then?” she said coldly.

“Please, your Ladyship,” Osorio said. “Too public an appearance will really cause the wrong kind of attention. We Cremonans are civilized, but it is true that there are gangs here in Halta City who could be hired by unscrupulous opponents. For your own sake, please—you come with me alone to meet my fellows. The car will truly not hold more than you and me.”

And the driver
, Adele thought. She turned her head slightly and said, “Tovera, can you drive this car?”

“Certainly,” Tovera said. “But if it stays in ground effect, it’ll carry four. Master Osorio is a cute little butterball, so I don’t mind sharing the back with him.”

Grinning, she pinched the Cremonan’s waistline. He yelped and jumped back, but that may have been outrage rather than pain.

Osorio looked toward the aircar, then back at Adele. The driver was watching the proceedings with obvious amusement. Now he volunteered in a Pleasaunce accent, “Room’s maybe a problem, but the weight of all you three isn’t. I can hug the ground if you like, but it’s quicker if we fly.”

Grinning, he added, “Besides, it’s nigh three weeks since the last good rain, so the streets are filling up with garbage.
I
don’t need to be down in it.”

Osorio started to speak but paused; started again but looked at first Adele, then Tovera. He had probably been wondering if he could ask Adele to get in the cramped back seat with her servant because she would fit better than his rotund form.

At last he sighed and said, “All right, all right, let’s get going. We’ll fly and I’ll squeeze into the back with your secretary, if she must come.”

“She must,” Tovera said. “Cheer up, cutie. It might be more fun than you think.”

She giggled.

“Ma’am?” said Woetjans as Adele stepped into the passenger compartment of the vehicle. The bosun wasn’t a member of the intended escort, but she’d reached the quay to lash down the boarding bridge ahead of Adele and her companions.

“Yes?” said Adele.

“Look,” said the bosun, “if you figure it’s all right for you to go off with just Tovera, then I guess it is. But you know all you gotta do is holler and we’ll come for you. Right through the heart of this city, and burn it down behind us if that’s what it takes.”

“Thank you, Mistress Woetjans,” Adele said calmly. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, but if it were—”

She gave Osorio a smile, of sorts.

“—there’s no one I would rather trust with the business than you and your shipmates.”