Deals were being cut. The dock safety office had made one visit to be sure the party was orderly: the establishment had exceeded occupancy limits, but nobody wanted to deal with currently good-humored ship’s officers.
Deals not only regarding the Alliance treaty. There were deals being done for route-timing, two and three ships agreeing what they’d carry and when, to assure better prices for their goods. There were a couple of younger officers casting looks at each other that said they might end up sleeping-over.
JR thought by now he’d talked to every individual in the room, and rehearsed his information and answered questions multiple times for each. He’d gone light on the wine. He’d eaten bar crackers that lay like lead in his stomach and taken to soft drinks as the only remedy for the crackers.
He’d wondered about the Old Man’s stamina and now he was questioning his own, granted that the Old Man had drunk only coffee and that the Old Man had been sitting down throughout. Madison had joined him, and that table of mostly white-haired seniors had gotten into heavy debate at this late hour.
He was numb. Just numb. Maybe it was because he hadn’t paced himself, and the old men of the ship knew better, and had known what they were setting up, and had deliberately let this turn into the crush of bodies and hours-long party it had begun to be.
Nobody had gotten rowdily drunk, nobody had been a fool. These were the heads of spacer Families, given a chance to get the lowdown on Finity ’s business… that had been the lure to bring them; then to vent their frustrations with international politics with internationals in their midst; and finally to cut specific deals. These people were high on adrenaline and high-stakes trade. And the fact that Finity had supplied a little of the captain’s stock to the event, in the merchanter way of hospitality, was a finesse, as Rose’s captain had said, that they never got out of the standoffish stationmaster of Esperance.
Oser-Hayes buying a bottle and drinking with merchanter captains? Not damn likely, in JR’s opinion, having met the man. It was a new enough experience for the captain of Boreale , who, however, was not a stupid man. Captain Jacques, as he became known about the room, was a novelty, one of the faceless Unioners given a human face, a handsome, youngish senior captain with the ramrod bearing of Union military very evident about him, but willing to lift a glass and grin ear to ear in a shocking good humor.
It was possible to like the man, and his secondary captains… only three of Boreale’s captains present. The unhappy fourth languished on duty, a rule that couldn’t be breached.
The captain of Rose grew so friendly as to slap the captain of Boreale on the shoulder, and that immaculate uniform took a dose of whiskey, all in good humor.
A regular human being, JR heard someone say—before the pocket-com went off.
He went to the hall by the restrooms, which had a little quiet.
“This is JR.”
“ Lyra here. Jeremy’s missing. ”
“Where’s Fletcher?”
“ Fletcher was asleep. He’s gone after Jeremy, if he hasn’t come looking for you —”
“He hasn’t. Keep this off the airwaves.” Any station could monitor pocket-com traffic. This administration was hostile. And the report should have gone up the chain to Bucklin, before it came to him, but Lyra had been on her own for hours, with a piece of information and a problem and long past time it should have gone to a senior officer. He didn’t fault her on that.
“Call the ship.”
“ I have called the ship. They said —”
“A courier’s coming to you. Stay put. Sign off.” If she weren’t where she was supposed to be she would have said so; and he didn’t want details and addresses going to potential eavesdroppers. He went out to the bar and snagged Bucklin. “Get Wayne if you can do it on your way to the door. Get to Lyra at the Xanadu. Get her info and move on it stat-stat-stat. Run! ”
“What’s—” Bucklin began to ask.
“ Fletcher !” he said, and went looking for another Finity captain.
Fletcher ran, heart pounding, dodged around the sparse foot traffic of the end of alterday, just before maindawn, the time when the docks were slowest and most quiet. He’d run all the way from the two hundreds. The kid had gotten past security—and so had he, just advised Lyra he was going to try to catch the kid short of his goal and left Linda and Vince on orders to go explain to Lyra or any senior they could knock out of bed.
Arnason Imports. The sign wasn’t neon. It was painted, in the way of the better shops, at its end of the nook position next shops far gaudier. He ran across deck plates washed in neon green and red from a souvenir shop, dodged a drunk window-shopper, and walked the last distance, trying to get his breathing under control.
He’d say the kid had ducked curfew and the captain was looking.
That was why he’d run. He’d shake the kid till his teeth rattled when he got him out of there.
The inconspicuous sign in the window posted hours as Mainday & Alterday Service.
The smaller one said: Back in an Hour… with no indication how long ago that hour had started.
He tried the latch.
Knocked on the double window… quad-layered plastic that could withstand space itself, if the dock should decompress.
The kid had gotten here. There was trouble, and the kid had found it. He was sure of it. He wasn’t quite to panic. But he hit the window hard enough to bruise his fist.
Hit it again.
It wasn’t discreet. It wasn’t, probably, smart. He didn’t think he should have done that. But he’d flung down the challenge in a fit of temper, and if he walked off now, they might have Jeremy, and a notion that questions were about to come down on them.
If they were in there, the they who were dealing in stolen goods, he’d become a problem to them vastly exceeding the problem a kid posed.
And if the alterday man was still there, that man knew Jeremy’s face, knew Jeremy’s business, and knew his face as part of the same sticky problem.
He was in it. He couldn’t let them keep that door shut. He couldn’t walk off. He could just hope that Lyra got JR or somebody. Fast.
He hit the window again, hard enough he thought he might have broken his hand.
The door opened. He was facing a man he didn’t know. “Come inside,” the man said, seizing his arm, and pulled. A hard object came against his ribs. He was facing the man he’d met last night, two others—and Jeremy.
That was a weapon up against his side. He didn’t know what, and didn’t complicate his situation by moving. Jeremy kicked a man to get free, and the man hit him.
“My captain knows where we are,” Fletcher said, caught in a time-slowed moment in which he had not the least idea what to do, but his priorities were clear: not to get himself or Jeremy shot or taken elsewhere. “They’re on their way. Now what?”
“Son of a bitch!” The man from their first meeting was livid. And scared. “They’ve got to have a warrant…”
“Not our captain,” Jeremy said in his higher voice. “You’re in deep trouble.”
The man slapped Jeremy—far too hard. Dockside years of bullies schooled Fletcher to keep absolutely still. Jeremy wasn’t dead. Bleeding, yes. They stood in a shop full of oddments, shelves, specimens, and three guys in a serious lot of trouble with two prisoners and an artifact they didn’t want—and with a whole network involved, Fletcher would just about bet.